Advice — advice

George Clooney, Ben Stiller, Jon Favreau; just a few of Hollywood’s actor-writer-director multi-hyphenates whose careers offer the lesson that to prosper in show business, not to mention fully express your creative vision, it helps to be a “triple threat,” “wear three hats,” “pull triple duty,” call it what you will. For writers, even if the “actor” and “director” part of the equation doesn’t interest you, the importance of being a multi-hyphenate more than helps, it’s essential. For no one is this truer than for comedy writers. Choose what best fits you. Maybe, storyteller-TV writer-tweeter. Or, screenwriter-blogger-standup. Or, novelist-playwright-cartoonist-essayist. But to...

One of the major Achilles’ heels for film producers and directors is the distribution game. Once you’ve made your movie, what do you do? How do you play the game? What strategies do you employ? Is there even a strategy? Well, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is there are indeed strategies to use and employ. The bad news is that most filmmakers don’t know what they are, and flounder around trying to figure them out. What’s even worse is too many filmmakers throwing in the towel and just dumping their film online, hoping it “hits” somehow....

The Monster story is one of the favorite types of Myth Archetype: the main character goes through an Outer Story, and that Outer Story symbolizes an Inner Story of emotional change.  Monster stories have been popular for centuries. Initially, a monster of some kind menaces the hero and the community. In Beowulf, the village is threatened by Grendel. In the first James Bond movie, Dr. No, the world is threatened by a monstrous supervillain. The monster can be an extraterrestrial monster, as in Alien, a monstrous animal, as in Jaws, a monstrous human, like Glenn Close’s character in Fatal Attraction,...

Reading a great mystery novel is a lot like horseback riding. Sometimes, you’re cautiously slow-walking on unfamiliar turf. Other times, you’re head-bobbling-wobbling trotting. Then there are those times when you’re whooshing along on a take-your-breath-away gallop. This variety of pace is one of the key elements contributing to the thrill and excitement of the ride. Another is fear. (What if I fall off the damn horse?)In keeping with this metaphor, mystery writing then becomes somewhat like laying out a course for the rider. The author must include an assortment of terrains to make the ride interesting and somewhat challenging. There...

Understanding the internal side of your story conveys to your audience the depth that is felt emotionally and spiritually. Two authors, Jennifer Grisanti and Kim Hudson, offer insight into how to write the internal story into your screenplays and give them this compelling quality.In Story Line: Finding Gold in your Life Story, Jennifer describes the internal components of story and why tapping into what you have felt deeply about in your life is the best place to write from. There are so many things including your theme, stakes and the internal part of your goal that comes alive when you...