Advice

What's My Genre?

Posted by John Truby on

I've spoken before in this column about the fact that 95% of writers fail in the premise. You may come up with a terrific one-line idea for a movie, but if you don't develop it the right way, the best scene writing in the world won't make a difference. The single most important decision you must make when developing your premise is: what genre should I use? Genre is a particular type of story, like detective, comedy, thriller or action. The reason genre is so important is that the entire entertainment business is based on it. That sounds like a...

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Writing in Restaurants

Posted by Jonathan Dorf on

Some writers do their best work hunched over the computers at their desks. Others work in libraries. Or at the beach. But I like nothing better than writing in a restaurant. While some people are terrified at the prospect of dining alone, for me it's a chance to let someone else do the cooking, serve my food and do the dishes while I relax and inhabit my current play or screenplay. Call me a caveman, but when I write at a restaurant, I don't bring along my laptop. I bring a legal pad and some pens. Here's why: when I...

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Exercises to Nurture the Creative Process

Posted by Linda Seger on

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'...

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How to Become a Screenwriter: 6 Essential Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters

Posted by Karl Iglesias on

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...

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A Screenwriter's Challenge: Visualization

Posted by Guy Magar on

'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...

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