Advice — expert series

You've dotted all your "i's," you've crossed all your "t's," you've read every book on how to pitch your script in person, by mail, and online. Yet there it continues to sit. Unsold. Unwanted. Unloved. Maybe the problem isn't that it's an unsalable story. Maybe it's that you're trying to force it into a venue that's just not the right fit. In my capacity as a script consultant, a staggering majority of the plots I've read are encumbered by the writers' lack of awareness between what makes a commercial film and what would make a much better Something Else. Suggesting...

Films that last often have a mythic quality. Like great children's stories, we consume these films as we do ageless fables. Unlike lesser stories, the lessons learned in these films carry a universal authority that seems to transcend man.Biblical stories naturally achieve this mythic stature by virtue of the role played by a larger spiritual authority. Children's fables often have magic sorcerers or speaking animals. Films like Star Wars or ET achieve this predominantly through story content and character creation. Putting characters in contact with other worlds or assigning aliens as mentors introduces the idea of a spiritual wisdom greater...

The work of the amateur screenwriter is often characterized by the Unnecessary. Dialogue and description are often overdone, scenes tend to be overwritten, acts are bloated, and so on. You may have entire scenes that are unnecessary, perhaps even a whole act that isn't needed. For that matter, your entire script may be unnecessary. Don't laugh. It may sound funny, but if you've ever worked as a reader in the film industry, you know it's no joke. It is generally acknowledged that 95% of all scripts written are just godawful (readers say it's 98%), and a huge part of that...

Visual metaphors are the secret language of great stories. In this article, I will discuss what they are and the source of their power. Great stories and dreams are among the more important visual metaphors. They are symbolic languages. And their expression in great stories is intimately linked to the source of our creativity. When we work with creative processes, the creative decisions we make are governed by positive and negative intuitive feelings. That's how we know what works - by how we feel about our ideas. Well, what's behind those feelings? Where do those feelings come from? I call...

In every story plot and movie plot, the protagonist (and for that matter, all of the major characters) has at least one long-term goal in the story, and one small goal or more in every scene. Goals give definition to the overall story that unfolds moment-by-moment in scene. Long-Term Goals Every story begins with a protagonist who wants something. Creating this want or long-term goal for the protagonist presents a particular challenge for many writers, but nonetheless is an important issue to address. The long-term goal sets up the forward movement of the story. This is the front story and...