Advice — expert series

With a good Action script you can write your own ticket. But Action is the most deceptively challenging genre in Hollywood. What may seem simple and straightforward on the movie screen actually requires careful planning and extremely creative solutions from the screenwriter. Action films are deceptive in a number of ways. Many people think Action movies lack character, plot and theme, but they're mistaken. The best Action films have deep stories, complex characters and a profound effect on the audience. The challenge for the writer is to create compelling characters, surprising plots, and important themes within the limiting structure of...

Writers dream deep with eyes open. We dream about stories, characters and themes - about villains, heroes, ladies and dragons. But mostly we dream about writing. We dream about having written, about the process of writing, about the feeling we get when we've written well. We dream about communicating what we deeply feel to friends and strangers. We dream about touching someone with our words; about changing lives; about affecting the world in a deep and meaningful way. We dream about sharing secrets, about healing wounds, about providing insights and about solving problems. We dream about moving people with hearts...

Your new play is finally ready for submission. ("New play" means your targets are theatre companies and contests - save publishers for plays with a production history.) Of course, too many writers think their scripts are finished when they're not, but that's another story. We're sticking to the story that begins, "your play is finally ready for submission." But now what? Submitting scripts is time-consuming, the costs add up, and the odds are against you. A major theatre may have one new play slot a year, and if Sam Shepard or Paula Vogel has a new play, no matter how...

For many writers, working with a collaborator is great. Instead of sitting in a room, alone, staring at the wall, waiting for inspiration to strike, now there are two of you, together, sitting in a room, discussing last night's episode of The Daily Show waiting for inspiration to strike. However, as any writer who has worked with a partner knows, a collaboration is like a marriage, and like a marriage, issues of money, control, separation and custody should be discussed and agreed to in advance. In essence, the writers needs a prenup (a collaboration agreement) in order to ensure that...

We all know how incredibly hard it is to get a screenplay produced. We have all heard talk about all the great scripts out there that never got made. And that might be true. But why is it true? If you have a professionally crafted screenplay, one with obvious commercial potential, which has never been produced, the real problem might be that someone got discouraged and dropped the ball. After your work is of a professional quality, perseverance is the key to success. It doesn't really make sense to ever be discouraged or deflected by criticism, rejection or a slammed...