Screenwriting 101: Stephen J. Cannell

“I just loved it. When I was writing stuff that I liked, it just felt so good. I would read it over and think, ‘God this is really good — I really did this.’ And then sometimes I would write stuff that wasn’t very good — I’m very tough on my material — and I would read it again and say, ‘God, I missed this — it’s just horrible.’ And I would try to figure out how to fix it and not to make the mistake again. I was self-taught, but I also was using a lot of rules that I developed myself for plotting and for character construction. When I’d come across something that was valid, I would make sure that I never forgot it. It just was for me such an exciting thing, and still, I do it strictly for fun.”

— Stephen J. Cannell