Go Into The Story

Great Scene: “Wonder Woman”

Diana single-handedly takes on the German Army in the breathtaking No Man’s Land scene from the movie Wonder Woman.

Daily Dialogue — October 16, 2019

“Long live the king.”

The Trouble with ‘Character Flaws’

“Characters, at least good ones, are multilayered individuals.”

Reader Question: Is it useful to read a bad script to see what not to do?

Can we learn something from slogging through bad screenplays?

Screenwriting 101: Grace Sherman

“Usually, with the first draft I know what I have to come back to, and what’s not sounding quite right and just needs to be cleaned up, but…

Daily Dialogue — October 15, 2019

“We’re good.”

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…

Writing Dialogue

There are many intangibles about the craft of screenwriting. Much of that derives from the fact that story itself is organic. Stories —…

On Writing

“Write like you’re on deadline, even if nobody is waiting for your work.”

Daily Dialogue — October 14, 2019

“You think water moves fast? You should see ice. It moves like it has a mind. Like it knows it killed the world once and got a taste for…

The Theology of Cinema: Faith

“Faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than as a possession. It is on-again-off-again rather than…

Movie Story Type: Frustration Comedy

With movies, there are Genres. Cross Genres. Sub-Genres. Also Story Types. One of them: Frustration Comedy.

Interview (Video): Bong Joon-ho

Several videos featuring the writer-director of such movies as Snowpiercer, Okja, and the upcoming Parasite.

Daily Dialogue — October 13, 2019

Having a bad day of golfing due to a member of the crowd.

Character Type: Healer

“Educated and intelligent, combined with their calling to make people well, the Healer is generally a character others put their trust in…

Screenwriting Advice From The Past: How To Begin [Part 2]

“Always try to tell the basic facts of the plot in as few scenes and sub titles as possible. The audience is not interested in the life…

Daily Dialogue theme next week: Killing

Join the Daily Dialogue crew: 4,167 consecutive days and counting.

Daily Dialogue — October 12, 2019

Rob: How many strokes? Mike: I don’t know. Eight or Nine. Rob: I’ll give you an eight. Mike: What’d you get? Rob: An eight. Mike: Looks…

Meet the Writer of ‘Gemini Man’ (Who Didn’t Actually Write ‘Gemini Man’)

“Despite having his name in the credits, despite walking the red carpet, Lemke had nothing to do with the movie currently playing…

Songwriters on Songwriting: Tom Petty

The late singer-sonwriter talks about how long he waited to write “The Waiting”.

Writing and the Creative Life: Why Creative People May Feel More Anxiety

I’m even nervous posting this…

Daily Dialogue — October 11, 2019

“Oh, bad luck. You’re in the rough.”

Writing Mantra: Set aside your attachments

“All too often, attachments get in the way of our writing. When you should be inside your story universe, your mind is outside thinking…

Script To Screen: “A Quiet Place”

The horrifying opening incident is a master class in demonstrating how to use individual paragraphs of scene description to individual…

The Business of Screenwriting: Everything You Wanted to Know About Specs [Part 2]

“With multiple seven-figure deals in 1980s and 1990s, spec scripts became sexy and screenwriters hot commodities. During the next two…