Advice — expert series

What makes an Academy Award-nominated script? As I wrote my newest book on three Academy Award-nominated films - Sideways, Shakespeare in Love, and Crash - I wondered if it would be possible to find patterns that seemed to be true for most of these films. I wondered if it would it be possible for a writer to analyze the patterns we see in Academy Award-nominated films, in order to learn to write up to the level of a great script. As I looked at the many films nominated over the past twenty years, I began to see some patterns that...

It's been more than two years since the last Writing in Restaurants, and in that time I've come across many new writing-friendly venues. Today, I'll be serving a five-course meal of writing tips as I introduce you to some of my latest favorites. Unless otherwise noted, these aren't plug-in or wireless venues, but they're wonderful places to stoke your creativity nonetheless. Square One Dining, Los Angeles, California Get your writing day started right with what may be the best breakfast in town at this outpost in Silverlake. They open at 8:00 AM and close at 3:30 PM, serve breakfast all...

In my previous articles, The Essence of Story, Beyond Theme: Story's New Unified Field, and The Metaphor is King, I pointed out that all great stories have the same underlying, universal structure - namely, there is a threat, either agent or perpetrator, that creates a problem that brings about a change to a state of misfortune and is the main source of resistance that opposes the action when someone tries to solve the problem and restore a state of good fortune. In stories that end tragically, it's the reverse - the story starts in a state of good fortune and...

Most writers end up writing at least twice as many scenes as needed to produce a compelling story. One skill that defines a good writer is the ability to know which scenes to keep and which ones to kill off. As a plot consultant, I developed two visual plot tools to help writers select those scenes that best advance the story and then make those chosen few truly great. The Plot Planner approaches plot from the overall story level and The Scene Tracker breaks down plot at the scene level. Both of these tools support writing plot as a layering...

When I founded the Mona Schreiber Prize for Humorous Fiction and Nonfiction in 2000, I did it to honor my mother, who wrote articles for magazines and newspapers, and taught writing in San Mateo County in Northern California. When I formulated the rules for entering the contest, I thought I would never have a problem with any entries. Writers would simply read the rules, in Writers Market, on the website or elsewhere, and that would be that. What planet was I living on? Based on my administrating the MSP, and judging other prose, screenwriting and playwriting contests, here is a...