Advice

When it comes time for you to research agents, you may find it difficult to determine whether any given agent is legitimate, effective, or the right one for you. Most authors are so eager to land an agent, that they will rarely stop and take the time to thoroughly evaluate whether an agent is appropriate to begin with. But this process of evaluation is crucial, as it will prevent you from querying the wrong agents, and will prevent you from potentially signing with an agent that is wrong for you. As a literary agent for the last 13 years, I...

Whenever I do interviews or seminars concerning my book, The New Comedy Writing Step by Step, interviewers and writers invariably ask "What's the first thing a person should do if he or she wants to become a comedy writer?" My response is a two-parter and although it's aimed primarily at comedy writing, it applies equally as well to all writing. It might seem that the first part of the response is so obvious that it shouldn't even have to be said. It is: If you want to become a comedy writer, start writing comedy. Yet, it does have to be...

Plot involves at least three primary threads: Dramatic Action, Character Emotional Development, and Thematic Significance. Of these three elements, writers are equally divided between those who begin a project by concentrating on the Dramatic Action and those who begin with Character Emotional Development. Dramatic Action writers tend to thrive on the excitement of what happens in the story. The first draft of a Dramatic Action writer is full of excitement with lots of conflict, tension, and suspense, twists and turns, chases and confrontations, and usually contains little character development. Often, a reader's comment of this first Dramatic Action draft is:...

"The humbling truth is that the film is made in the editing room." -David Mamet introducing the nominations for editing during the 2002 Academy Awards ceremony Editors are often called the last re-writers of the show. Another way to put this is that the editor is the architect of the show. Our blueprint is the script (or outline on a nonfiction show). Our building materials are the footage: long shots, wide shots, medium shots, close ups, over-the shoulders, inserts, raking shots, reverses, master shots, and two-shots. From these we design the show with sound, dialogue, music, and the placement and...

The key question that all screenwriters should ask themselves is: how do I write a script that Hollywood wants to buy? Most writers mistakenly think that success is all about connections and star power. Not so. The real trick to writing a script that will sell is to know and use Hollywood's central marketing strategy. And that can be summed up in one word: genres.Former Universal Pictures chairman Marc Shmuger recently said, "There's no doubt the star system is in transformation. Arguably the two biggest stars in the first half of 2009 were Kevin James (Paul Blart: Mall Cop) and...