Advice

Hollywood is interested in one thing: a script with blockbuster potential. Why? Because the revenue from films is now global. The typical hit film makes more money from foreign revenue than it does from the U.S. Couple that with the exorbitant cost of making and selling a film and you've got an entertainment community that won't even look at a script unless it has blockbuster written all over it. That's a big problem for most screenwriters. Most writers, if they have any training at all, never learn the techniques for writing hit films. In fact they don't even know such...

Don't be fooled by the notion that no one knows anything. Buyers may not know if a particular script will make over $100 million, but they have a pretty good idea of certain major story characteristics found in most blockbuster scripts. The top professional screenwriters -- the ones who get all the jobs -- know what they are, too. While the vast majority of screenwriters are off pounding out their simple three-act scripts, top screenwriters are using fundamentally different techniques. Three-act structure is designed to give you the same script everyone else is writing. Plus it tells you nothing about...

Our Reader Mark McC from Canyon Country (not too near Hollywood), CA writes: Coming to L.A. has not at all been what I expected. I've tried to follow the experts' advice, like get a job in a production company, but that was impossible. My boring job in property management is not why I left St. Louis. How am I going to morph into a working screenwriter? Richard Walter, Chairman of UCLA's Screenwriting Department, responds: First off, time is what makes up your life - your precious time is limited, so pick and choose wisely. First and foremost, you gotta write...

What a high: you've typed 'end of play' and that full-length stage play you've labored on for the last eighteen months is finally finished. Time to send it out to Broadway producers and get that rave in the New York Times you've always dreamed of. ADD REALITY HERE.Finishing a first draft of a play is great. But it's like building a house. If you tried to sell that 'first draft' house, buyers would wonder why you're selling a house without wiring, plumbing, coverings on the walls ... you get the idea. Ninety-nine percent of the time, you only get one...

The Thriller is one of Hollywood's most popular forms because it combines the criminality and surprise of the detective form with the danger and pressure of horror. A good thriller puts the hero in danger early and never lets up. While the thriller usually involves a main character trying to find a murderer, it has very different story beats than the detective genre. Each beat is geared toward wringing every last ounce of terror from the hero and the audience. Thrillers tend to want to be small. It's like putting your hero in a box and squeezing. One of the...