Advice > Best Writing Advice from Writing Experts
Soak up knowledge as writing experts divulge insider secrets and tips to help screenwriters, playwrights and filmmakers everywhere with expert writing advice needed to help hone the craft of writing. Whether it be novel writing advice, writer interviews, screenwriting advice articles, or general screenwriting help that is desired, these writing experts are focused on helping writers everywhere further their skills in every facet of writing.
Ideas for Breaking through Writer's Block
A phone conversation with Linda Seger on the subject of Writer's Block ~~ 'What happens with a lot of people is that they stay within their safety zone, always doing things where they're safe and secure. So I say go and do something where you don...
Read more... | Published: 12/31/01 | by Linda Seger
Selling Secrets of the Selling Trade - Proven Advertising Techniques Can Make Your Queries & Loglines Stand Out From The Pack
You've slaved over every syllable to make it memorable. Your manuscript spills over with high ideas, scathing wit and a dash of drama that would send even the coldest executive producer groping for a box of Kleenex. Yet, for the life of you, you ...
Read more... | Published: 12/31/01 | by American Writers & Artists Institute
Another P.O.V.
Veteran actress K Callan has authored several great reference books for actors, directors and others who need a foot (or a good agent) to open the door to the biz. Here, she recaps her advice for screenwriters answering some of the most immediate ...
Read more... | Published: 12/31/01 | by K Callan
Focusing on the Use of Symbols in Film: Why 'American Beauty' Works
There are many ways symbols that can be used in a movie. Today I will examine one of them. Alan Ball, the screenwriter of 'American Beauty,' makes riveting use of the color red throughout the film. The first time we see Annette Bening, she's cutt...
Read more... | Published: 12/31/01 | by David Freeman
Pacing in Writing Techniques You Need to Know
Pacing, as it applies to fiction, could be described as the manipulation of time. Though pacing is often overlooked and misunderstood by beginning writers, it is one of the key craft elements a writer must master to produce good fiction. Best-sell...
Read more... | Published: 12/31/01 | by Gerry Visco
Writing Blockbuster Love Story Movies
Everyone loves a love story. But this apparently simple tale may be the most difficult form to write well, for a number of reasons. First, love is the only genre where you need not one, but two equally well-defined main characters. You know how ha...
Read more... | Published: 12/31/01 | by John Truby
How to Prepare Your Stage Play Script for the Theater Market
What a high: you've typed 'end of play' and that full-length stage play you've labored on for the last eighteen months is finally finished. Time to send it out to Broadway producers and get that rave in the New York Times you've always dreamed of....
Read more... | Published: 12/31/01 | by Jonathan Dorf
How To Get An Agent the Right Way
You're a hot writer! Already you can see your name on the front page of Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. But to make the magic work, you need an agent. Or rather, you think you do. Like a savvy cat who'll only agree to come to you when cream ...
Read more... | Published: 12/31/01 | by Marisa D'Vari
Do You Really Want to Become a Screenwriter?
Almost every writer and every serious film fan at one time or another has considered writing a screenplay and how to become a screenwriter. Lured by the power of the big (or small) screen, and by stories of all the fame, success, awards and big, b...
Read more... | Published: 12/31/01 | by Michael Hauge
The Ins and Outs of TV Series Writer Deals
The television business has undergone a dramatic change in recent years. In the past, studios would lavishly spend millions of dollars on long-term development deals with TV writers referred to as 'overall deals' in the hope that during the two to...
Read more... | Published: 12/31/01 | by Dina Appleton
How to Become a Screenwriter: 6 Essential Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters
Did you know that million-dollar, A-list scribe RON BASS works an average of 14 hours a day, seven days a week? Or that ERIC ROTH likes to wake up in the middle of the night, write for a few hours, take a nap, start again in the morning and contin...
Read more... | Published: 12/31/01 | by Karl Iglesias
Romantic Comedy Writing Secrets
If creating a successful romantic comedy really was as easy as plugging a couple of stars into a standard boy-meets-girl, boy-loses- girl, boy-gets-girl structure, the market would be glutted with genuinely funny romantic comedies. But can you rem...
Read more... | Published: 12/31/01 | by William 'Bill' Mernit
Watching Lord of the Rings - Again
Sometimes I like to see a movie twice; once to watch the movie, and once to watch the audience. You can learn a lot from watching the audience, how involved they are, how restless, how they breathe, when they lean over to talk to each other, when ...
Read more... | Published: 12/31/01 | by Christopher Vogler
La Grande Illusion - A Reflection by Syd Field
'La Grande Illusion' -- Jean Renoir's classic 1937 film revisited by author and teacher Syd Field partially excerpted from his new book 'Going to the Movies' My journey in film really began in the spring of 1960 at the University of California at...
Read more... | Published: 11/10/01 | by Syd Field
The New Spec Style
There has been a lot of talk lately about the new spec formatting style. Throughout the 1990s, there has been a movement toward 'lean and clean' screenwriting: Shorter screenplays, shorter paragraphs, shorter speeches, more white space and the omi...
Read more... | Published: 06/16/01 | by David Trottier
Real People, Real Characters: The WHO of Memoir
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....
Read more... | Published: 03/02/01 | by Michelle Richmond
A Little Confession is Good for the Soul: An Interview with Writer/Director Stefan Schaefer
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Read more... | by John Gaspard
Of Sorcerers, Apprentices and Screenwriters
2004: On the TV show The Apprentice 16 young entrepreneurial types compete to be the apprentice to Donald Trump. It's a truly coveted position because it means learning from a master. For those who don't succeed, their fate is summed up in two w...
Read more... | by D.B. Gilles
Coming Apart at the Themes
Even when a story has memorable characters, a riveting plot and a fully developed genre, it may still be coming apart at the themes. Theme is perhaps the most powerful, yet least understood element of story structure. It is powerful because theme...
Keeping a Writer's Journal
Writers write. A journal is way to do that, without knowing where you are going with the writing, to unload thoughts, obsessions, insights and observations, and sometimes to imitate other writers, seeing how your perceptions might come across in t...
10 Power Principles to Screenwriting Success
Bring your screenwriting up to the power level with these 10 quick-reference tips from author/screenwriter/script consultant Derek Rydall. 1. DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE EVERY DAY Write something every day - whether it's your project or an assignmen...
Read more... | by Derek Rydall
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