Humanize Your Nemesis We don’t need to sympathize with an Antagonist, but if we empathize with them, that makes for a more compelling character.
The Business of Screenwriting: Everything You Wanted to Know About Specs Part 16: Preemptive Purchase
“What if I’m writing a script, but want to start another one?” Time to stack projects… or is this simply an example of the Shiny Object Syndrome?
Character Archetype “Masks” Any character can don the “mask” of any archetype in any scene or any relationship, but that does not change their primary archetype…
Script To Screen: “12 Monkeys” From the 1995 movie 12 Monkeys, screenplay by David Webb Peoples and Janet Peoples.
How to Do a Scene-By-Scene Breakdown Whether you are analyzing a movie or a screenplay, breaking it down to the granular level of its scenes can reveal much about its story…
Reader Question: How much dialogue versus description in a screenplay? Is there some sort of key to finding a balance in a script?
Great Scene: “Whale Rider” The 2003 movie Whale Rider is a wonderful story, aptly described in this IMDB plot summary:
Screenwriting 101: Michael Arndt “On Tuesday, May 23, 2000, at 4:27 p.m., I sat down to write LMS [Little Miss Sunshine]. I wrote twelve pages the first day, thirty-seven…
Page One: “Sleepless in Seattle” (1993) Screenplay by Nora Ephron and David S. Ward and Jeff Arch, story by Jeff Arch
Happy Birthday, Carl Jung: Screenwriting Guru! Swiss psychotherapist and founder of analytical psychology Carl Jung was born today in 1875. He died in 1961 at the age of 85.
Conflict in Scene-Writing As a screenwriter, it’s important to get in touch with your inner Conflict-O-Meter to ensure your scenes convey compelling drama.
Great Scene: “The Matrix” “You take the blue pill, the story ends… you take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland.”
On Writing “I’ve tried to figure out what good writing is. I know it when I read it in other people’s work or my own. The closest I’ve come is that…
Sundays with Stephen King’s “On Writing” A series featuring reflections on writing from the famed author’s memoir.
Reader Question: How to approach writing a villain Protagonist? Three keys to crafting a Bad Guy who is your story’s Protagonist.
Writer’s Life: Inside and Outside the Story Universe “Sometimes we are inside the story universe, rubbing elbows with our characters, listening to and watching them. Sometimes we step outside…
The Theology of Cinema: Cross “A six-pointed star, a crescent moon, a lotus — the symbols of other religions suggest beauty and light. The symbol of Christianity is an…
Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Characters Not every character is created equal, but how we treat each one is equally important.
Black List writers on the craft: Theme “Every writer has their own life experiences, their own point of view, so the way they see the world often dictates the theme.”
