Go Into The Story

Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 391st installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other…

Advice to a former student

“Do it. Or don’t do it. But you know. You know.”

Screenwriting Advice From The Past: Character On The Screen [Part 4]

“Character development means a change in character taking place during the story… Any change of character during the story is legitimate…

Daily Dialogue theme next week: Journalist

Join the Daily Dialogue crew: 4,020 consecutive days and counting.

Interview (Video): Scott Beck and Bryan Woods

The Season 9 episode of the PBS series “On Story” with the originators, co-writers, and producers of the smash hit movie A Quiet Place.

Daily Dialogue — May 18, 2019

“Excuse me, lady, but that upon which you sit is mine.”

Reader Question: How to approach writing a story with multiple main characters?

Exploring three keys to writing multilinear screenplays.

Go Into The Story Interview: Scott Derrickson

My interview with the co-writer and director of the hit Marvel movie Doctor Strange as well as horror movies The Exorcism of Emily Rose and…

Go Into The Story Resource: Movie Script Scene-By-Scene Breakdowns

Go Into The Story followers are contributing breakdowns of contemporary screenplays to an ongoing script analysis series.

The Power of Conflict in Storytelling

We have all heard the old saying, “You can’t have drama without conflict.” Yet the power of conflict in storytelling extends beyond merely…

Writing and the Creative Life: Mind Wandering

“What no [spouse] of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he’s staring out of the window.”

Daily Dialogue — May 17, 2019

“Sam… It’s nice to meet you.”

Happy Birthday, Go Into The Story!

Launched on May 16, 2008, here we are 4,018 consecutive days of blogging later… but what does it all mean?

Video: How They Wrote ‘Breaking Bad’

A 12-minute video delves into the creative process behind the hit TV series.

Agency Campaign Update: Issues Affecting Screenwriters

Update from Writers’ Guild of America West Board Members John August and Michele Mulroney about the WGA — ATA dispute.

Writing as a Protagonist’s journey

Most stories involve a Protagonist going on a journey. Whether it’s physical, spiritual, geographical, symbolic or all of the above, a…

The Business of Screenwriting: Who do I have to **** to get off this project?

This may be a Hollywood urban legend. I first came across it back in the late 80s with the specific name of a screenwriter about a specific…

Daily Dialogue — May 16, 2019

Annie: See, okay. Not drunk. I told you so. Rhodes: So you’re just a terrible sober driver.

“Inception”: Carl Jung’s Wet Dream

Either Christopher Nolan has studied Carl Jung or he tapped into the collective unconscious big time with his movie Inception.

Hollywood Screenwriter Attempts To Write A Scene in 7 Minutes

Emily Carmichael (Pacific Rim: Uprising, Jurassic World 3) featured in this fun and instructive 26-minute video.

Go Into The Story Resource: So-Called Screenwriting ‘Rules’

A comprehensive series on the most significant of the supposed screenwriting ‘rules,’ hopefully to put things into proper perspective…

Go Into The Story Interview: Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay

My interview with the screenwriters behind the movies Ride Along, The Invitation, and Destroyer.

Script To Screen: “Se7en”

The final moments of the climactic scene in the movie Se7en (1995), written by Andrew Kevin Walker, one of the most powerful cinematic…

Daily Dialogue — May 15, 2019

Kathy: You keep away from me! Just because you’re a big movie star, wild parties, swimming pools, you expect every girl to fall in a dead…

The Power of Structured Procrastination

“The beauty of the structured procrastination method is that it recognizes the extreme challenge in changing that pro-tomorrow vein, and…