Go Into The Story

Question from Ursa: I’m a Canadian woman, and a new screenwriter. I am working on my first script, and am wondering about agents. When trying to sell one’s first screenplay, is getting an agent first necessary. Ursa, I can’t speak to the situation with Canadian film and

Sundance 2011 is over and by all accounts this was the most successful one in terms of distribution deals in at least a few years. So what does that mean? Could it be Hollywood studios have decided to open up the purse strings? Do they sense a rebound in the

Warner Bros. buys detective horror spec script “Harker” from screenwriters Lee Shipman & Brian McGreevy. Per Deadline: The script focuses on Jonathan Harker as the Scotland Yard detective who is tracking Dracula, and the script sets up the sleuth as a potential new franchise character.   — —  The writers are hot stuff.

As I watched The King’s Speech recently, I was struck by how many screenwriting lessons could be gleaned from the movie. So I decided this week and next to analyze The King’s Speech and The Social Network, the most likely winners of this year’s Academy Awards for

This month, I’ll be posting an audio interview with a notable screenwriter each day. Today: Simon Beaufoy and Danny Boyle, co-writers of 127 Hours. You can access the Creative Screenwriting podcast here. Comment Archive

A few questions for you: * Are you prone to starting scripts, but not finishing them? * Do you get lost when you are writing your script, then lose faith in it — and yourself? * Have you received feedback that your scripts have thin characters or weak plots? * Do you have a great

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As I watched The King’s Speech recently, I was struck by how many screenwriting lessons could be gleaned from the movie. So I decided this week and next to analyze The King’s Speech and The Social Network, the most likely winners of this year’s Academy Awards for

A new short story from screenwriter Derek Haas’ terrific website Popcorn Fiction: I grew up reading Stephen King, and one of the first books that truly freaked me out was PET SEMATARY. King, Stephen that is, has this way of taking ordinary situations, ordinary relationships, and then terrorizing his characters

This month, I’ll be posting an audio interview with a notable screenwriter each day. Today: Aaron Sorkin who wrote The Social Network. You can access the Creative Screenwriting podcast here. While we’re talking about interviews, don’t forget about these:  Interviews — Video Interviews — Written Probably over 300 interviews

As noted in this post, the Daily Dialogue theme this week is notable phone conversations. We got a good start yesterday, but I’m continuing to solicit suggestions. Please copy/paste dialogue from IMDB Quotes. Any YouTube links, greatly appreciated. Comment Archive

Today is the Super Bowl which can mean only one thing: A bunch of movie trailers make their debut! Per Cinematical: The Big Game is upon us, and with it will come what is perhaps the most anticipated slate of movie trailers we’ve seen in years. The 2011 Super

It’s turned out to be a Star Wars weekend. It started on Friday with R2-D2 as the latest in my series on Great Characters. It continued yesterday with a somewhat controversial review of SWI. And today we round things out with what looks to be an essential documentary

When I was working out the other day, one of my favorite rock songs shuffled into my ears via iTunes: “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” by Jimi Hendrix. Here are the lyrics for the song’s first verse and chorus (as best as I can tell): Well, I stand up next

This month, I’ll be posting an audio interview with a notable screenwriter each day. Today:Joel and Ethan Coen about their version of the movie True Grit from an interview on NPR’s “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross. You can hear it here. An excerpt: GROSS: I love the

A complete list of the WGA Awards last night: SCREEN Original Screenplay: Christopher Nolan, “Inception” Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, “The Social Network” Documentary Screenplay: Charles Ferguson, Chad Beck and Adam Bolt, “Inside Job” TELEVISION Drama Series: “Mad Men,” written by Jonathan Abrahams, Lisa Albert, Keith Huff, Jonathan Igla, Andre Jacquemetton,

Both Lisa and Zeb Eckles came up with this one: Notable movie phone conversations. GooseRats has already chimed in with the opening of Scream — that’s a keeper for this week. Zeb mentioned a scene in All the President’s Men. Heck, phone calls have been used as the central

This month, I’ll be posting an audio interview with a notable screenwriter each day. Today:Joel and Ethan Coen about their version of the movie True Grit from an interview on NPR’s “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross. You can hear it here. An excerpt: GROSS: The main character’

Via THR, an interview with Woody Allen in which he pays tribute to screenwriter-director Ingmar Bergman. Excerpts: Back in the 1960s, the arrival of each new Bergman movie was treated as a major event by the film cognoscenti. But what do you think is Bergman’s status today? The

I’ve talked about how the studios in cutting back their acquisition budgets have changed their approach to the script development process. The following comes from a longtime Hollywood script reader and story analyst. I asked her how important story concept is compared to structure and characters as far as