Advice — expert series

Bring your screenwriting up to the power level with these 10 quick-reference tips from author/screenwriter/script consultant Derek Rydall. 1. DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE EVERY DAY Write something every day - whether it's your project or an assignment. If you find yourself stuck just staring at a blank screen, try staring at a great script instead -- and try to figure out how it's put together. It might inspire you to get your own writing done. The point here is to keep exercising and refining your craft, building your knowledge, and keeping the momentum - all of which will give you a...

Writers write. A journal is way to do that, without knowing where you are going with the writing, to unload thoughts, obsessions, insights and observations, and sometimes to imitate other writers, seeing how your perceptions might come across in the voice and sentence structures of those you admire. Sometimes you can imagine your writing addressed to others with whom you feel a resonance or are angry. Sometimes you are in gathering mode, storing images and ideas, facts and details, sometimes remembering dreams or merely playing with words. Whatever the reasons for taking to the pages or computer files of a...

See that kid over there? The one with the video camera. She's trying to tell you something. That kid is in the process of shooting her first short over the next three days with the help of a handful of classmates and a useful book or two. What is she telling you about? The changing nature of media and the role of the writer? The new digital tools that are now so widely available? The future? This kid and others like her are certainly up to something. Writers should take note. When the barrier to filmmaking began to lower with...

I was at a screening of Cinderella Man when it happened. In an early scene in that film, Russell Crowe, who portrays '30s prizefighter Jim Braddock, gives his daughter his only slice of bologna. "I had a dream last night where I ate a big steak," he explains to the little girl. "I'm stuffed. Can you help me out?" We are in the middle of the Depression. The little girl is starving. And Russell shows he is man enough to forego his own breakfast for the sake of his child. It's a touching moment; many in the theater are tearing...

Before a film or television script can fulfill its destiny in front of cameras and on screens around the world, it must first succeed as a piece of literature, a document that captivates the reader before it delights the viewer. Since film and television are collaborative media, the first job of a script is to attract collaborators: producers, agents, executives, directors, actors. These readers are a script's primary audience. How to captivate them? A fresh story driven by compelling characters doesn't hurt. But neither does a style of screenwriting that gets itself out of the way and allows the story...