Reader Question: How to raise the stakes in the plot? One suggestion: Focus on and elevate the Protagonist’s psychological stakes.
Writing Goals: 2019 [Part 1] — Looking Back 10 part series for writers to consider what we did in 2018 and will do in 2019.
On Writing Most of my friends who are novelists have told me that they never know the end of their novels when they start writing them; they find it…
Daily Dialogue — December 3, 2018 Reggie Dunlop: I am personally placing a hundred-dollar bounty on the head of Tim McCracken. He’s the head coach and chief punk on that…
Update: 2018 Award Season Screenplay Downloads — 1 New Script, 8 Total It’s that time of year again when studios and production companies make available PDFs of movie scripts for award season.
Go Into The Story Interview: Jeff Portnoy My in-depth interview with the Bellevue Productions literary manager.
Interview (Video): Alfonso Cuaron At the 2018 Toronto Film Festival, a post-screening Q&A with the writer-director of the movie Roma.
Saturday Hot Links Time for the 369th installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other…
Go Into The Story Interview (Part 5): Jeff Portnoy An extensive conversation with the Bellevue Productions literary manager.
Daily Dialogue theme next week: Coach Join the Daily Dialogue crew: 3,852 consecutive days and counting.
Janine, if you haven’t written a screenplay before, I would recommend you write the novel. Good luck with the writing!
Congratulations, Minhal Baig! Her debut feature film Hala to world premiere in dramatic competition at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival!
Go Into The Story Interview (Part 4): Jeff Portnoy An extensive conversation with the Bellevue Productions literary manager.
How They Write A Script: David Lynch “If you want to make a feature film, you get ideas for 70 scenes. Put them on 3-by-5 cards. As soon as you have 70, you have a feature…
Writing and the Creative Life: Why Your Brain Loves Good Storytelling (Part 1) The Harvard Business Review had an interesting article with a series of links I thought would make for a good sets of posts in the Writing…
“Aristotle”: A poem This poem by Billy Collins conveys how three-act structure can take a story… anywhere.
“Movies don’t owe anybody a living” The original quote is about music, but it pertains to all entertainment.
How They Write A Script: Alvin Sargent “I think too many people are too organized; they’ve got it all worked out, instead of hearing their characters first. Get the goop out…
The Business of Screenwriting: Sometimes you’re just going to get it wrong In which I got it completely and utterly wrong about a movie project which went on to win six Oscars.
![Writing Goals: 2019 [Part 1] — Looking Back](https://storage.ghost.io/c/8f/29/8f29b0a7-49e5-431c-a9bb-3ade9c0a785e/content/images/size/w600/2026/08/1__C43R3010XB9Z1ET4stslg.png)
