Melinda, I’m going to offer a somewhat different take on the characters. Attractor: Toby’s family. He engages in robbery FOR them. He wants to break the chain of relative poverty they have experienced for…
My favorite scene is the ending, the confrontation between Toby and Marcus. “I’ve been poor my whole life, like a disease passing from generation to generation. But not my boys, not anymore.”
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 16 This is the eighth year in a row I’ve run this series in April.
Interview (Written:) Walter Hill Conversation with writer-director of controversial “The Assignment”.
Daily Dialogue theme next week: Lying Join the Daily Dialogue crew: 3,257 consecutive days and counting.
Script Analysis: “Hell or High Water” — Part 6: Takeaways Read the script for the acclaimed indie crime drama and discuss this week.
Saturday Hot Links Time for the 285th installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other…
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 15 This is the eighth year in a row I’ve run this series in April. Each day, I’ll give you some tips on how to come up with stories.
Daily Dialogue — April 15, 2017 Neal: You know everything is not an anecdote. You have to discriminate. You choose things that are funny or mildly amusing or interesting…
Songwriters on Songwriting 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…
Script Analysis: “Hell or High Water” — Part 5: Dialogue Read the script for the acclaimed indie crime drama and discuss this week.
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 14 This is the eighth year in a row I’ve run this series in April. Last week I provided a daily explanation about why you should make it a…
Writing and the Creative Life: Why Your Brain Loves Good Storytelling (Part 1) The Harvard Business Review had an interesting article recently with a series of links I thought would make for a good sets of posts in the…
Daily Dialogue — April 14, 2017 “I’m trying this new thing where I don’t talk about people behind their backs.”
Writing and the Creative Life: Why Your Brain Loves Good Storytelling (Part 1) The Harvard Business Review had an interesting article recently with a series of links I thought would make for a good sets of posts in the…
Reader Question: How important is a logline in a query letter? You may have already tackled this somewhere, but what are some tips for effective and engaging query letters/emails. Besides of course a…
Script Analysis: “Hell or High Water” — Part 4: Theme Read the script for the acclaimed indie crime drama and discuss this week.
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 13 This is the eighth year in a row I’ve run this series in April. Last week I provided a daily explanation about why you should make it a…
The Business of Screenwriting: The Birth, Life and Death of a Movie (Part 1) It’s 1997. My writing partner and I are seated in a screening room on the Paramount lot. We are there with a handful of studio execs…
Daily Dialogue — April 13, 2017 Ines looks out of the window. She waits a little too long before she turns around. The doorbell rings again.
