Advice — advice

Question: What’s the best advice you can give writers to help them develop their own unique voice and style?John Truby: Voice and style are among the most misunderstood of all elements in storytelling. Voice and style aren’t simply a unique way of talking and writing. Voice and style come from content. Successful content comes from having an original story idea that is structurally well told. And this combination is extremely rare.This question is really about the writing process. Telling your story with a unique voice and style comes near the end of the process. The beginning of the process has...

Aspiring comedy writers spend years grinding away as P.A.s, pounding out spec script after spec script and dreaming of TV’s holy grail: a staff writing job. Then finally, they get the job! On staff of a prime time TV show. And something happens. They do the craziest, boneheaded things. One can only wonder… What are they thinking? Do they want to get fired? Is it too much pressure? Are they looking for a way out before anyone discovers they’re a fraud? Here’s 10 surefire ways to "Make a Big Impression in the Writers Room and Lose That Plum TV Writing...

You’ve been practicing your pitch for weeks: You’ve established a unique protagonist, given him a something he wants with a passion and even better, you’ve created a compelling antagonist. You’ve practiced making eye contact. You know this story backwards and forwards. You are ready to face anyone across the desk.As soon as you open your mouth one of the executives asks if you’re married to it being aliens. They tell you they’ve had twelve pitches this week about aliens. They want to do westerns. Have you got a western? Or she picks up her cell phone and makes an appointment...

David JanollariHead of Programming, MTVDavid Janollari grew up in Rhode Island. He was a popular guy who had a lot of friends. He went to Boston College for two years then transferred to NYU film school. He turned his sights on Hollywood, and a few of his loyal friends went along for the ride. David owes a lot to these friends, especially Rachel, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler, Monica, and Ross. Do we need to play this out any further or have you figured out by now that Mr. Janollari had a hand in creating the hit show, M*A*S*H? Kidding, he was...

Screenwriters do not write movies.Screenwriters write scripts. And scripts are not movies.Movie audiences are people sitting in a theater, or at home, having a visual experience complete with actors, music, directing, editing and perhaps digital effects. The audience for a script is a reader. And all they have is the written word.When I was starting out, I was told a script is a blueprint for a movie so you should never write anything that can’t directly be seen on the screen. Nor should you indicate how a line should be read because it will insult the actor playing the part....