Advice — expert series

Linda Seger is a popular consultant and lecturer who travels throughout the world speaking to new and established filmmakers on creative ways to make a screenplay great. In this segment of an in-depth interview she gave to Writers Store staffers, Seger discusses the creative process, what it means to her and exercises for writers to use to expand their own creativity. As a script consultant Linda Seger has worked with more than 2000 scripts, from 'The Neverending Story II' to 'Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.' She is the author of two bestsellers, 'Making A Good Writer Great'...

Did you know that million-dollar, A-list scribe RON BASS works an average of 14 hours a day, seven days a week? Or that ERIC ROTH likes to wake up in the middle of the night, write for a few hours, take a nap, start again in the morning and continue in the evening?Highly successful screenwriters are the most disciplined people I know. They make the time to write, face the blank page, produce a consistent amount of pages every day and deliver high quality scripts on deadline.But rather than listing all their common habits (you can read about 101 of...

'Heck, we'll just write them, and let the directors worry about visualization!' More often than not, and consciously or not, this seems to be the mindset of most writers based on the many hundreds of screenplays that have crossed my desk at all levels of proficiency. Sorry folks, it's called 'motion pictures.' This does not just mean writing movement, or pacing or action...it means you better write VISUALLY, and when and if you do, it is my professional belief that not only will you succeed in communicating the scripted visualization of your story and achieve that all-too-rare experience of your...

The entertainment dimensions are the pleasant sensations the audience feels when they experience your story. The most important of these feelings are those associated with the actions of the genre structures. When you isolate the plots and subplots of your story, you isolate actions that are directly linked to specific feelings that are associated with romance, mystery, adventure or some other particular activity. Among the more desirable feelings associated with these genres are laughter and tears, love and hate, passion, excitement, suspense, fear and joy. Laughter and tears need no explanation. Love and hate means getting your audience deeply involved...

In this article, we will explore the lesser-known ANTI-hero's journey and the uncharted dark side of the passage—the place where the dark forces live and hatch their nefarious schemes. In real life, it's people like Hitler, Jack the Ripper and Saddam Hussein who personify these dark forces. In story, it's great villains like Voldemort, Hannibal Lecter, Darth Vader and Satan that embody the dark side. Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, Jodie Foster in 'The Silence of the Lambs' and Sigourney Weaver in 'Alien' are heroes. Their actions are motivated and influenced by a higher nature. Macbeth, Scarlett O'Hara and Michael...