TO WRITE FOR CINEMA, MULTI-TASK Everything in a well-constructed cinema script carries out two, three or even more tasks. There’s no room for slackers on a movie screenplay page. A single line of dialogue may…
Good visual writing puts pictures in the head of the reader without them realising you’re doing it. Here are 8 ways of doing exactly that.
To create living, interesting characters, you need to draw on your experience of life, and add to it. Or to put it another way, bring us your unique take on people. Here are 8 ways…
9 ways to get your subtext muscle working for readable, rich dialogue
Here’s a very nice blog post about what to do if you suddenly lose faith in what you’re writing
Here’s a psychological tool to help with focusing your writer’s mind – dealing with issues such as procrastination and self-sabotage, and staying creative.
Do you find it difficult to structure a treatmentso that it grips the reader as strongly as the full script? Join the club. I don’t think any writer enjoys distilling their exquisitely crafted scripts down…
OK, let’s face it, it can be tough writing a good treatment, cramming all the important events in a 99-120 page screenplay into a fraction of that length. But the point of a treatment is…
Despite what most writers think, most scripts fail to sell not because they are too different, but because they are not different enough. Many writers, including advanced writers, believe that their cinema or TV script…
I’m a great believer in resolutions – New Year and otherwise. Even if they only last a few days as a rule, then at least that’s a few days that I’ve worked differently, gone to…
If you want to write for film or TV, then treatments, outlines, synopses (the terms are interchangeable in the industry) are something you have to get good at. And to write good treatments there are…
Last Monday I talked about finishing. So after you’ve finished – what do you do next? Do you push on straight to your next project, or what? I once invited psychologist Andrea Perry to come…
There must be something in the air: I’m in the mood for finishing things. I just finished writing a novel after a mammoth three years – and just finished the latest Euroscript Screen-PLAY Summer School…
There are a thousand myths about flashbacks in scripts. Some people say you shouldn’t ever write them. Some people say you must – that fractured narrative is the only way forward in screenwriting (or should…
Sad departure of Ray Bradbury. He who should always be revered, not least for standing up for the value of books and writing. Read about his advice to a young would-be writer – A man…
This may sound strange, but did you know that writing a good scene may not be right for your script – sometimes only a bad scene will do. This week I reached a climactic point…
Writing a good, compelling, readable treatment is tough. It’s difficult enough to write a script – but then to boil the whole thing down from 90+ pages to one or two…! However it’s a crucial…
A very quick post, linking to an excellent article by my good friend Chris Jones – indie film-maker and one of the genius’ behind the London Screenwriters’ Festival. It’s a very practical, not to say…