Go Into The Story: The Screenwriting Blog of the Black List
Welcome to Go Into The Story: The Screenwriting Blog of the Black List!
For some perspective, consider this: It all started with this post on May 16, 2008. Back then I had no idea what to expect. Along the way I met you: The GITS community. Then I crossed paths with Franklin Leonard, currently Vice President of Creative Affairs at Overbrook Entertainment and creator of The Black List.
Here is what Franklin has to say about Go Into The Story:
“I’ve been a fan of Scott’s blog for a long time. The quality and quantity of his output in this realm is unmatched anywhere else online. Add to that the tone with which he writes — educational, entertaining, and encouraging without being blissfully ignorant of the long odds against most aspiring screenwriters — and you get a blogger wholly consistent with the Black List’s ethos. We’re incredibly excited about this new relationship and look forward to seeing even more of his readers’ work on future Black Lists.”
Here’s what I have to say about The Black List:
“The Black List is one of the most cutting edge and influential brands in the movie business, one I have followed with great interest since its inception in 2005. At their core, the Black List and Go Into The Story are about the same thing: Promoting talented screenwriters, great screenplays, and deft screenwriting. That synergy was obvious from the very first conversation I had with Franklin which is a big reason why I am thrilled for this next chapter — Go Into The Story: The Screenwriting Blog of the Black List.”
In addition, Franklin has invited Xander Bennett, host of the site Screenwriting Tips… You Hack and author of an upcoming book of the same title to be an additional presence on the Black List site providing a much needed perspective — that of script reader, Hollywood’s threshold guardians. I was an early promoter of Xander’s Tumblr site — you can read my first post about the site here dated June 24, 2009, just weeks after he opened his virtual doors — and am happy to have Xander as an associate.
Together we hope to create an online resource for screenwriters that is unparalleled in terms of its value to readers on a daily basis.
As with every change, there will be some bumps along the way. This is an iterative process, a fancy way of saying the site is a work-in-progress. For example, if you scroll down the page, you will see on the right-hand side the Friends column. Right now there is only one link. Since we’re making this move, I figured it would be a good time to do a dead link check, so I’ll be updating those in the upcoming weeks.
If you run into any issues related to the transition, please email me [you can now find a link to do that in the upper left-hand column].
The entire Black List site is going through a redesign which will include GITS so you can expect more changes within the next month. But there’s one thing that won’t change: Me. In case you haven’t gotten the message, let me say this one more time:
Be assured it will still be Go Into The Story. I will still be managing the blog. I have complete 100% editorial control and in fact have been encouraged to keep doing what I’ve been doing here for 40 months. Posting multiple items per day, the usual suspects: Daily Dialogue, On Writing, Screenwriting 101, From Script To Screen, The Business of Hollywood, Great Characters, Reader Questions, Interviews, Saturday Hot Links, and all the rest you have come to expect when you visit the site.
All of that will stay the same.
Actually with this partnership, it should get better: Greater credibility in Hollywood, more access to industry insiders, a larger public platform to promote screenwriters and screenwriting, and more interviews with professionals in the movie and TV business, all with an eye toward providing GITS readers with quality information and insight to help you develop as a writer, craft better scripts, and make good movies.
Or as GITS reader debbiemoon aptly summarized what to expect: “The same, but better — and more.”
Precisely!
So as with all stories, we begin with FADE IN. I look forward to seeing what transpires in the months and years ahead. As always I thank each of you for your support and look forward to hearing your feedback and suggestions.
Now let’s go write some great stories!
For those of you who may have missed posts from last week about this transition, here are those links:
Franklin Leonard, The Black List, Go Into The Story and Synergy
Go Into The Story / The Black List: What It Means
Go Into The Story / The Black List: Your Questions
UPDATE: Some folks have notified me some of the links under Lists are not working. This is an issue that did not come up during beta tests, so clearly computer gremlins are out to get me once again! We are working on it. Thanks for your patience.
UPDATE #2: Here is Franklin Leonard’s full statement on today’s news:
It’s with great pride and excitement that the Black List announces our partnership with Scott Myers, who today becomes a member of the Black List family and whose blog Go Into the Story becomes the screenwriting blog of the Black List. You’ll be able to read him here and at http://gointothestory.blcklst.com.
We’ve been fans of Go Into the Story for a while now. The quality and quantity of his output in this realm is unmatched anywhere else online. Add to that the tone with which he writes — educational, entertaining, and encouraging without being blissfully ignorant of the long odds against most aspiring screenwriters — and you get a blogger wholly consistent with the Black List’s ethos.
Scott’s posts are as wide ranging and entertaining as they are informative. His prodigious output over the last forty months totals over 7000 posts including screenwriter interviews, annual spec market analyses, the daily dialogue, a definitive list of clichéd movie dialogue, reader Q&As, in-depth discussions of various aspects of the craft of screenwriting, and an exhaustive scouring of the web for esoterica likely to be of interest to movie fans and screenwriters, aspiring and experienced alike. That archive — all of it — is available now here at the Black List blog, specifically here.
When he’s not blogging (and you’ll see that it’s just not possible that there’s all that much time when he’s not), Scott is a professor of screenwriting at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He is also the co-founder of Screenwriting Master Class and author of the films K-9, Alaska, and Trojan War. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America, West, and a graduate of the University of Virgina and Yale Divinity School.
Needless to say, we are incredibly excited about this new relationship and look forward to seeing even more of his readers’ scripts on future Black Lists.
To read Franklin’s statement about Xander Bennett, go here.
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