The 11 Fundamental Questions: A Guide to a Better Screenplay

I don’t often — in fact rarely — promote a book about screenwriting. Two main reasons why: (1) If the author of the book has not had actual boots-on-ground experience as a Hollywood writer, how can I trust they know what they’re talking about, especially since so much of learning the craft is about understanding the way things work in the movie and TV business. (2) Most of them are not very good, how-to guides which focus primarily on structure as plot, paying little heed to character development.

But I’ve agreed to feature this ebook — “The 11 Fundamental Questions: A Guide to a Better Screenplay” — because (1) the book’s author Aaron Mendelsohn is a working Hollywood writer and a member of the Writers’ Guild of America for 20 years, and (2) it’s quite good.

Here is Aaron’s pitch for the book:

The 11 Fundamental Questions is based on a story-breaking method I came up with a decade ago to help me craft and “stress test” my outlines, pitches and scripts. A couple years ago I started teaching my method in classes and seminars around the world, and the response I got — from professional and emerging writers alike — was “you gotta turn this into a book!”

So I did.

Hot off the presses is my first eBook, The 11 Fundamental Questions: A Guide to a Better Screenplay. Breezy, intuitive and grounded in classic storytelling principles, the book lays out my method in eleven simple steps and offers loads of helpful tips and examples (and at 41 illustrated pages it’s a quick read).

The interesting thing — and this is what I shared with Aaron — is that his approach echoes my own. If you follow the blog or have taken my Prep: From Concept to Outline workshop, you know I begin the entire story-crafting process with 7 questions, variations of which appear in Aaron’s book. I think asking questions, particularly about your story’s characters, is the single best way to make your way into and through the prep process… but only if the questions are good ones.

Aaron’s 11 questions are good ones.

The book normally sells for $4.99, but for a limited time Aaron is offering a 20% discount to GITS readers. You can check out the book here.

Website: www.aaronmendelsohn.com.

Twitter: @amendelsohn.