Advice — expert series

Everybody in Hollywood knows the top three rules of screenwriting: 1. Write what you know. 2. Films must have a happy ending. 3. Films must have three acts. But few people know what these rules all have in common: They are all wrong. Rule #1: Write What You Know There is no writer alive who has not been advised, "Write what you know." And there are few writers who have not, in the course of following this advice, spent months or years producing a personally cathartic but boringly predictable work. Too often, writers take "write what you know" to mean...

I hate writer's block, and I'm sure you do, too. If you're like most writers you have a file drawer full of stories started but never completed. The ideas were great, or so you thought. They kept you awake far into the night pecking them out. Now, they languish in a drab, beat-up file cabinet - a monolithic grave marker in the dark corner of your office. What happened - those hundred times - brain blocked, locked, and unconsoled? When I wrote The Moral Premise the purpose was not to help rid myself of writer's block. After it was written,...

Having been the director of development for TV/film director Jonathan Kaplan (Unlawful Entry, The Accused, NBC's E.R.), I had the unique and special opportunity to read screenplays, as well as fiction and non-fiction books and articles, to see if there was anything which might interest him as a directorial assignment.Anyway, it's funny (funny-pathetic, not funny-funny) how you can notice certain simple, common failures after reading one or two thousand screenplays.Applicable to drama or comedy, these obvious faults aren't any laughing matter. As a young screenwriter hoping to open doors with a script or your first film based on that script,...

Does your animation script seem a little flat? Be honest. The problem could be that you haven't included enough contrasts in your script. Variety is just as important in a script as it is in a gourmet feast. Characters Build your script around your characters, and contrast each of those personalities as much as possible. List your main characters on a sheet of paper and then jot down the attributes of each underneath. Think of making each trait as different from the traits of the other characters as you can. In a comedy especially those contrasts are what make the...

Think of the rose petals in American Beauty, the bird imagery in Shawshank Redemption or Leon's beloved houseplant in The Professional.These metaphors stay with us long after the movie. Like the sled in Citizen Kane, they work as visual synopses, remembered for their story content and emotional power. Often featured on movie posters, metaphors arrest us, instantly messaging a story idea in a single image.Extended metaphors, those that run alongside a character or plotline, can carry a great deal of the story load. They can enter a scene with stealth or a loud bang. They have an elasticity that allows...