Advice — jeffrey alan schechter
My Story Can Beat Up Your Story: The Missing Chapter
Posted by Jeffrey Alan Schechter on
How embarrassing is it for a writer to forget to write a chapter of his or her own book? Especially, a book about…uh…writing?Back when my book on story structure, My Story Can Beat Up Your Story!, was in the planning stage I knew that I wanted to accomplish two things: first, I wanted to clearly detail the understanding of story structure that I had developed and field tested over the last twenty years of being a professional writer and second, I wanted to NOT write a book of screenwriting tricks. The last words I wanted to see in my book...
Action vs. Dialogue
Posted by Jeffrey Alan Schechter on
Question: The first five pages of my script contain a lot more movement than speech. Because of this, it's exceeding the one-page-per minute rule. It just seems to take me more pages to describe action than it does for dialogue. Is this a common problem? Do readers take this into account? Can you give me a bit of advice to either put my mind at ease or teach my to overcome this? G.K. Brothers, KS Jeffrey Schechter responds: Don't get too hung up on the one page per minute rule. While you're right that description can sometimes read slower (or...
How Much Description is Too Much?
Posted by Jeffrey Alan Schechter on
Our reader Sara asks: As a new writer trying to get a handle on what is SEEN ONLY, I find getting my character's feelings and objectives across ... challenging. How much latitude can be taken in such descriptions? What about adjectives and adverbs? I realize one shouldn't use 'Kelly's playful entrance floods him with a long-forgotten sense of whimsy. The other board members do not approve.' -- But what about, 'Kelly impishly skips to her chair. The stuffed shirts around the shiny mahogany conference table glare disapprovingly, except Brian, who smiles in awe.' -- or should it simply be, 'Kelly...