Advice

One of the wonderful things about writing memoir is that there is so much life material to use when we allow ourselves to fully explore our pasts. Much of that material comes from character. This is beginning to sound easy, isn't it? Not so fast. Because the characters who make up our memoirs are part of our lives, and because we know them so well, it's easy to skimp on characterization as we write our stories. We may expect the reader to find the person interesting because he or she is interesting to us, yet we don't allow the reader...

It's easy to feel intimidated by the thought of writing a screenplay. The rules! The formatting! The binding! Don't let the seemingly endless parade of screenwriting elements scare you away from writing your first script. Since a familiarity with the basics of the craft is half the battle, The Writers Store has provided you with resources, a screenplay example, and overview on how to write a screenplay to help you get up to speed on screenwriting fundamentals. Combine that with the right screenwriting software, books and supplies, and you'll be ready to type FADE IN before you know it.Enter your...

You don't need to go to film school to recognize the key elements of great movies. These same elements are present time and time again in the great movies, and they are worth highlighting: These movies tend to have strong single line - with one overriding problem or goal for the hero - to give the story drive, momentum, and a sense of priorities, or in the extreme, a sense of the first cause. These films occasionally digress from that strong line to allow the film to "breathe." That is, they play with the structure to comment on what is...

Spoiler Alert: DO NOT READ this breakdown if you haven’t seen the film. It is impossible to say anything useful about the writing without discussing the critical plot twists. With the tidal wave of superhero movies coming out of Hollywood, I get very excited when a serious crime story like Gone Girl comes along. Which is also why I was so disappointed when Gone Girl turned out to be a lot less than its hype suggested. This isn’t a bad film or a bad script by novelist Gillian Flynn. But it has serious problems. Some were embedded in the original...

George Clooney, Ben Stiller, Jon Favreau; just a few of Hollywood’s actor-writer-director multi-hyphenates whose careers offer the lesson that to prosper in show business, not to mention fully express your creative vision, it helps to be a “triple threat,” “wear three hats,” “pull triple duty,” call it what you will. For writers, even if the “actor” and “director” part of the equation doesn’t interest you, the importance of being a multi-hyphenate more than helps, it’s essential. For no one is this truer than for comedy writers. Choose what best fits you. Maybe, storyteller-TV writer-tweeter. Or, screenwriter-blogger-standup. Or, novelist-playwright-cartoonist-essayist. But to...