Featured
Ask the Coach: How can you build a plot around your characters?
Today’s “Ask the Coach” questions come from Patricia:
“A lot of the educational material available to screenwriters today assumes that most writers start with plot, and then flesh out their characters. For a lot of us, this isn’t the case. I often start with my characters, and structure my story from there. I think this method leads to a richer story–but the structuring... Read More
Coaching
How to take a writing retreat
I’VE WRITTEN SIX FEATURE-LENGTH SCREENPLAYS. Five of those I wrote a page or two at a time while going to work or school. (Or playing disc golf, as was the case with one script.) Slow and steady wins the race. MY FAVORITE WRITING EXPERIENCE, HOWEVER, IS THE EXCEPTION… When I first moved to LA, I [...]
Training
How to save weeks (or months) of rewriting on your screenplay
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHAVE WEEKS OFF THE TIME IT TAKES TO WRITE YOUR SCRIPT? What if I said you could even save months of work? And you could make your screenplay better while writing it faster? Too good to be true? Nope. The fact is most aspiring writers waste TONS of time on [...]
Spitballing
Spitballing SUPER 8
SUPER 8 is a wonderful reminder that comic books aren’t the only source for great stories, even great summer movies. As many reviewers have said, I’m not sure the two parts of this movie completely fit together… There’s the touching human story about a sensitive boy (and his alienated father) who must come to grips [...]
Announcements
DIE HARD — Full Script Analysis
FACT: ONE OF THE BEST WAYS TO LEARN SCREENWRITING IS TO ANALYZE SCRIPTS. Not casually reading lots and lots of scripts. I’m talking about doing a DEEP analysis of a script. Picking it apart layer by layer and really scrutinizing each piece. Then reassembling it and trying to make it better. This isn’t quick. This [...]
