Screenwriting 101 — Angelo Pizzo

“A few ideas important to me. Before writing Fade In:

A. I should be able to verbally tell the story I’m about to write in two-minute, five-minute, ten-minute versions. My primary goal is to get an audience swept along in the story. I read the listeners’ face and body language…if they don’t really want to know what happens next, I find another story.

B. I need to know generally where I’m going with my story, but give myself the room for discovery along the way (but am always specifically clear about my destination — the end).

C. I make sure to identify the central idea or theme of the piece and think of it as the aortic vein — that from which all flows.

D. I cannot write a story that doesn’t have a personal emotional resonance and a locus where the screen story and my own story meet.

E. I aspire for a balance between the universal and the unique — the most successful films exist on familiar landscapes (genres), but make you feel like you’ve never been there before.

F. Movies are short for moving pictures…I try to tell the story with character behavior and action. If I wanted to dramatize a story through dialogue, I would write a play.

G. Once started, I never look back — the ever-present rewrite critic perched on my shoulder is the biggest obstacle in getting to those magic words Fade Out.

H. The ratio of the time I talk or read about writing to the time I actually write is about 1:1000.”

 — from the book “Why We Write”

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