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Character Arc Taking the principle further yet: The finest writing not only reveals true character, but arcs or changes that inner nature, for better or worse, over the course of the telling. In The Verdict, protagonist Frank Galvin first appears as a Boston attorney, dressed in a three-piece suit and looking like Paul Newman... unfairly handsome. David Mamet's screenplay then peels back this characterization to reveal a corrupt, bankrupt, self-destructive, irretrievable drunk who hasn't won a case for years. Divorce and disgrace have broken his spirit. We see him searching obituaries for people who have died in automobile or industrial...

Reader response has been overwhelming on this article series - impatiently awaiting our second installment. We're glad to present today: Part Two Equally well known as the Hero is the Villain. And just as the Hero is actually made up of several distinct qualities, so is the Villain. In fact, for every quality the Hero possesses, the Villain embodies a counterpart. And, of course, just as there is a difference between being heroic and being a Hero type in a story, so too is there a difference between being villainous and being a classic dramatic Villain. In real life, we...

Part One Introduction Perhaps the best-known character type is the Hero. But if you ask a thousand different writers to define a Hero, you'll get a thousand different answers. That's because the term has been used so indiscriminately it has become a catch-all to describe the central character around which a story revolves. What's more, the word Hero has been used interchangeably with Protagonist, Main Character, Central Character and even Good Guy. As convenient as that may be, it muddies the true nature of the Hero, and makes it a useless moniker - a four letter word - full of...

This sound familiar? You take a thankless job to pay bills for six months while you write the next great screenplay. Ten years and 20 jobs later, that great script still eludes you. Thinking about giving up? Marc Norman was. Fortunately, he decided to rededicate himself to learn the craft and write one last script. The result was Shakespeare in Love and Norman's reward was an Oscar. As a means of offering encouragement to others wondering if they should continue writing, Norman agreed to share his story. Norman received a Masters degree in English at UC Berkeley. As a film...

WGA REGISTRATION vs. COPYRIGHT REGISTRATION For screenwriters who use the latest version of Final Draft ® to help write their script, one nifty feature is the ability to register the screenplay with the WGA-West Intellectual Property Online Registry with the touch of a button. Many (if not most) screenwriters register all of their scripts with the WGA Registry, and, believing that they have done all that is necessary to protect their script, they neglect to register the script with the U.S. Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. Imagine their surprise when someone steals their screenplay and they learn for...