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a screenwriter’s notebook part 2
I’ve been in darkest New York for the past two weeks, toiling on an unfamiliar computer with unreliable and recalcitrant internet service, hence my lack of posting. Now that I am back in Santa Monica,...
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Screenwriting 101 — The Act Break
greyenigma asks: “I’m often confused about just where act breaks occur. Reviews often mention them as if they’re obvious, but they aren’t to me. Do you know of a good primer that would help me...
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Screenwriting 101: all writing is rewriting
Many readers have written in to tell me that they would like to write and have plenty of ideas but can’t seem to complete any of them. They say they have all these little scraps of paper with notes...
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Screenwriting 101: The Protagonist
They ask me to come to Hollywood to work on an animated movie about ants. It is 1995. I’ve written screenplays before, I am not a neophyte, but I this is the big leagues and I have to be smart. I’m in...
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Screenwriting 101: the Outline
So you have a cool idea for a movie. Congratulations! Now all you have to do is figure out how to turn that idea into a screenplay. What a lot of people do once they have a cool idea for a movie is...
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Screenwriting 101 — The Treatment
Okay. So: *You have a cool idea for a movie*You know who the protagonist is and what the protagonist wants and who is in the protagonist’s way*You’ve sketched out a basic act structure*You’ve expanded...
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Harold Pinter
I interrupt the holiday festivities to note the passing of Harold Pinter. To "serious playwrights" of my generation, Pinter was second only to Beckett in terms of being a must-read. Back when I was...
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The State of the Art
On the one hand, it’s nice to know that I’m not crazy. On the other hand, man, I hate being right. There was a panel discussion at the WGA Theater, where a couple of screenwriters, a couple of...
View ArticleMamet master class
points out to me the following article: "David Mamet’s Master Class Memo to the Writers of The Unit." The memo is a good distillation of Mamet’s altogether straightforward thoughts on the nature of...
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Elmore Leonard’s rules
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