Reader Question: Do characters “own” a scene? Ownership is less important than underlying conflict between characters.
The Business of Screenwriting: Everything You Wanted to Know About Specs Part 20: The value of a spec script… if it does sell…
Movie Story Types: Biopic “Adapting a real person’s life into a movie story is one of the trickiest writing jobs around. The wealth of historical anecdotes and…
Analysis: Annual Black Lists (2013–2021) A Go Into The Story deep dive into every annual Black List since 2013.
Writing and the Creative Life: Make More Writing Time by Organizing Work Time Five tips to work smarter and create more time for your writing life.
Great Scene: “Almost Famous” Sometimes it’s a great idea to put your story’s characters together in a situation that ‘rattles their cages’ — and that’s certainly what…
“Earn this.” When it comes to a scene where a character makes a critical choice, it’s imperative that you — as the writer — have earned that moment.
The Commuting Writer If your commute to work is a half-hour or longer, there is every reason in the world you should use that time on your writing projects.
Screenwriting 101: Amy Tofte “I came from a day-job world as a writer and I know that there are a lot of people out there where they’re trying to write when they can. I…
Page One: “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” (2019) Written by Joe Talbot & Rob Richert, story by Jimmie Fails & Joe Talbot
A Character-Driven Approach to Plot My annual series of one-week online classes offering a comprehensive take on screenwriting theory begins Monday, September 6th with Core I…
Reflections of the 2021 Black List New Zealand Feature Writer’s Lab Participants Writers who participated in this year’s inaugural Black List New Zealand Feature Writer’s Lab reflect on their experience.
Movie Story Type: Contained Thriller In Hollywood movie circles, there are genres like Horror or Science Fiction, cross genres like Action-Thriller or Drama-Comedy, and…
On Writing “You can only write regularly if you’re willing to write badly. Accept bad writing as a way of priming the pump, a warm-up exercise that…
Sundays with Stephen King’s “On Writing” A series featuring reflections on writing from the famed author’s memoir.
The Theology of Cinema: Faith “Faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than as a possession. It is on-again-off-again rather than…
Ending a Sequence with a Question An effective way to drive the narrative forward by piquing the script reader’s curiosity: What’s going to happen next?
