Songwriters On Songwriting: Leonard Cohen “I am a working stiff. It takes me months and months of full employment to break the code of the song. To find out if there can be a song…
Daily Dialogue —October 31, 2018 “There are few who’d deny, at what I do I am the best For my talents are renowned far and wide When it comes to surprises in the moonlit…
Test your story concept If your goal is to traffic in mainstream, commercial movies, I cannot overstate the importance of your spec script’s story concept. As I…
Tweetstorm: Mike Sweeney on Not Writing to Imagined Stats, Metrics, and Trends Last night, screenwriter Mike Sweeney went on a Twitter rant worthy of our attention. Mike tweets of which he knows: He co-wrote (along…
Songwriters On Songwriting: Fiona Apple I wrote my first song when I was 14 years old. Over the years, I’ve composed hundreds of songs. It was that interest — music — that led me…
Screenwriting 101: Arash Amel “Craft is discipline. I’m a professional. This is my job. You have a lot of hungry agents to feed and a lot of attorneys to feed. The way…
Daily Dialogue — October 30, 2018 Johnny: They’re coming to get you, Barbara! Barbara: Stop it! You’re ignorant! Johnny: They’re coming for you, Barbara! Barbara: Stop it…
Songwriters On Songwriting: Bob Dylan I wrote my first song when I was 14 years old. Over the years, I’ve composed hundreds of songs. It was that interest — music — that led me…
Tweetstorm: Zack Stentz on Rewriting Strategies Zack Stentz has carved out a 15 year career both as a screenwriter and TV writer-producer. His writing credits include the movies Agent…
On Writing “Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money.”
Daily Dialogue — October 29, 2018 “Mommy got sick. And it happened just like that. There’s nothing anyone could do. It isn’t fair. There’s no reason. If we start asking why…
Great Scene: “It Happened One Night” A classic scene from the 1934 comedy which is one of three movies to win all the Big Five Oscars: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor…
Interview (Video): Lucy Alibar A 50 minute conversation with the screenwriter of Beasts of the Southern Wild.
Daily Dialogue — October 28, 2018 Dick Hallorann: Do you know how I knew your name was ‘Doc’? You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? I can remember when I was a little…
Spec Script Deal: Untitled Lennon & Ono Project Universal acquires untitled John Lennon and Yoko Ono biopic project written by Anthony McCarten. From Deadline:
Daily Dialogue theme next week: Cemetery Join the Daily Dialogue crew: 3,817 consecutive days and counting.
Interview (Video): Mary Coleman A 50-minute conversation with the Senior Development Executive at Pixar Animation Studios.
Daily Dialogue — October 27, 2018 “The first soap was made from heroes’ ashes, like the first monkey shot into space. Without pain, without sacrifice, we would have…
Reader Question: When is the best time to reveal a character’s backstory? Key character revelations. When? Where? How?
Update: 2018 Award Season Screenplay Downloads — 3 New Scripts, 9 Total! It’s that time of year again when studios and production companies make available PDFs of movie scripts for award season.
Writing Mantra: On the other hand… One of the best ways for writers to combat the dreaded Voices Of Negativity.
Writing and the Creative Life: What to do when you feel out of touch with your creative energy When a creative spark seems so very far, far… FAR… away…
