Advice — advice

For a new screenwriter, the only way to tear down the Hollywood barriers is to burn them down with your passion. Your passion for the story and for the characters who drive it. Without Passion, your script is no more than a tinker toy network of rules and regulations, plot points and pinwheels, bare architectural bones which no one wants to see, or make. My agent one time told me to hurry up to his office; he had the next great idea for a novel and I was going to write it. He sat me down and told me that...

To read Part I of this Series, click here. To read Part II of this Series, click here. In the first two parts of this series I began an examination of the true source of unity in a great story and how that unity can be achieved. I introduced you to eight of the elements that can influence that unity and add significantly to the clarity, meaning, and power of your work. The unifying forces we examined so far are: (1) The Value Being Pursued, which are the cherished values like justice, health, wealth and freedom that we pursue in...

Each year hundreds of screenplays become feature films. And each year thousands of teleplays become television episodes. Opportunity-wise, televisions's got feature films beat. TV's got the heat. The magic. The glitz. All that's missing is you. How do you change that? Well, first you've got to dedicate yourself to the Game. Accept the fact that TV is a personal business. It's about YOU first and your talent and ability second. Your next step is to adopt the "career" mindset. In television almost no one hits the jackpot with one script. In television we make a reputation for ourselves, amass credits...

"Only connect the prose and the passion,and both will be exalted." - E. M. ForsterEmotions are the lifeblood of characters and of stories. Without emotional characters, you are just writing events, but you're not drawing your audience into your story. To be a successful writer, you want to create emotional characters so your audience will become emotionally involved with them. It's important for readers and viewers to become completely engrossed in the emotional world of your characters.As a script consultant and writers' psychotherapist, I've analyzed thousands of scripts during the past 20 years where so much attention has been given...

Lynn, a Writer/Producer from Palm Springs, CA Asks: In your book REEL PEOPLE you talk a lot about characters that seem to be quite disturbed. Can the theories of personality types apply to characters that are just quirky or eccentric rather than mentally ill? And are there specific personality types that are just plain funny? Dr. Howard Gluss Responds: Yes, Lynn, it is very valuable to note that the human psyche has many facets and a writer may not always be creating psychopathological characters. Not every movie has a knife-wielding mass murderer or egomaniac tyrant. As with most things in...