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There’s nothing quite like reading the work of new writers. Ah… fresh meat writing fresher meat. It’s often a mishmash of scenarios that aren’t actual scenes, and lots of scenes that don’t really mean anything to the plot as a whole What we begin to see after a while is that people don’t really know … Read more
How to Develop Your Own Voice as a Screenwriter: Three Techniques It’s commonly said that screenplays with “a voice” are those that get readers’ attention. Now we’re faced with a problem of definitions, what the hell, then, is a screenwriter’s voice? It’s sort of easy to imagine the voice of a novelist, for example, because … Read more
How to Write a Story With a Message for Screenwriters (Without Being Totally Fucking Obnoxious) As screenwriters, it is our place–our job, if you will–to describe the world as we would like to see it. This is a vital practice, because it allows the viewer to imagine a world of possibility beyond the never-hits-bottom shitshow … Read more
How to Write a Hybrid Concept for Screenwriters — With Examples Hybrid Concept is an unholy desecration of Concept that is useful as little more than a marketing tool. So why learn how to write a Hybrid Concept logline? Simple: a Hybrid Concept logline creates a shortcut to emotion by referring to very obvious films—preferably ones … Read more
How to Use AI as a Screenwriter: Three Simple But Effective Methods Introduction AI has proven that it is here to stay.* While it’s busy taking all the entry-level white collar jobs, at least things like screenwriting are safe for the moment. No one is expecting AI to be able to produce a competent screenplay … Read more
What the Hell is a Low Concept Film? Low Concept is a bit of a strange idea. On the surface, it might be difficult to see how Low Concept films would sell at all, at least by the core concept behind them. In fact, these films are only called “Low Concept” insofar as they are … Read more
How to Write a Logline for Your Screenplay: Five Examples — With Exercises! The point of a good logline is to appeal to the reader as quickly as possible. What you’re trying to do is to put enough information into the logline to present the hook of the film and make the reader ask to … Read more
John Yorke’s Five-Act Structure for Screenwriters (Case Study: Fight Club) There are screenwriting books that everyone references, and there are great screenwriting books. There are obviously a lot fewer of the latter, but John Yorke’s Into the Woods is one of them. There’s probably a good reason that Into the Woods gets fewer name-checks than, … Read more
Five Examples of the All is Lost for Screenwriters The protagonist’s progress is destroyed in one key moment. Her goal lies in shambles; the path forward now seems impossible. In Blake Snyder terms, this is known as the All is Lost moment. This doesn’t necessarily mean literal death, although sometimes there is an actual death … Read more
How to Write a Scene (or at least How I Write a Scene) Reader, please note: this is a distillation of my process. Yours might be different. I’d love to learn more about how you write scenes, particularly if it’s markedly different from this. What follows is how I break down scene construction from intention … Read more
