Advice

The dialogue scene you're struggling with? Take the page, crumple it into a paper ball and throw it into the trash can across the room. If you can make the shot, then you instinctively understand everything you need to know in order to write subtext. Making the shot requires an unconscious set of calculations. You can't just throw the paper ball in a straight line. You must take into account all of the other forces that will be acting on the ball as it flies across the room: the pull of gravity, the friction of the air, the breeze from...

Sitting down for intimate conversations with dozens of Hollywood's best writers was a transformative experience. Although I've been a professional screenwriter for many years, most of my work has been in the independent realm, so collecting material for Tales from the Script gave me a crash course in the realities of writing movies at the film industry's top levels.1. Good things come to those who wait ... and wait ... and wait. A recurring theme throughout the interviews in this project is the long (and painful) gap of time that stretches from the moment someone sets out to become a...

Some writers excel at pithy banter. Others create dramatic action. The writers I most admire are the ones who in their own natural style convey a character's emotional personality in scene through active, non-verbal communication with just the right frequency and intensity. I have written extensively about how moviegoers and readers identify with stories through the characters' emotions. When we connect with the characters on an emotional level, the interaction become deep and meaningful. Well-written scenes that include characters' emotions allow the audience to viscerally take part in the story and bond with the characters. In my work as a...

Read part one of this series here. The reason 99% of manuscripts get rejected is, simply, because authors approach the wrong agents to begin with. As writers, we know there is no comparison between a good word and the perfect word. Similarly, there is no comparison between any agent and an appropriate agent. In the previous issue of this ezine, we discussed how to properly evaluate an agent; now it is time to discuss how to track them down. To compile a list of appropriate agents, thorough research is required. Not three hours' worth, but three months' worth. Such information...

Whether you're an established film/ TV writer or an aspiring one, you've heard it - everybody in town has said it - you should write a spec pilot. Didn't used to be that way. Up until about five years ago, it was considered crazy or just plain clueless to write a pilot that wasn't commissioned by a network - nobody would read it, no agent would consider looking at it. (I did it anyway - tell you more about that later)But all that changed in 2004 when Marc Cherry, a veteran TV writer experiencing a downturn in his career (he'd...