8 ways to make your characters come vividly to life
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…
character
Fun writing exercise – use it
Planning the Mental Game for Writing Success workshop in London this weekend made me think how powerful some of the simplest writing exercises can be. Here’s one – do try this at home:
Six Things You Need To Know About Treatments
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…
Losing faith in your work?
Losing faith in your work happens to the best writers – and it can be lethal. The story starts to feel flat. The emotions false. The scenes mechanical. Soon you wonder what you even saw…
Writing successfully in a recession
I’m thinking a good deal about creativity at the moment, as I prepare for the launch of my next novel. In particular I’m aware that these are difficult times to let yourself go and be…
If you want to sell your script, don’t get stuck on the bridge
IS YOUR SCRIPT STUCK ON THE BRIDGE? Back from holiday, I’ve been thinking about a massive underpublicised reason why far too many writers don’t sell. If you’re a writer, then you want to sell your…
Why do we call them Screen – Plays?
Want your script to stand out from the crowd? Want it to be read from cover to cover and passed from hand to hand? It’s time to discover your inner playfulness. Playfulness is not the…
A Clever, Sneaky Way To Hide Exposition
The ability to handle exposition really sorts the professionals from the wannabes, and I’m going to share one of my top exposition techniques with you here.
Write as a Professional
I’m busy planning the Euroscript Professional Screenwriting Mini-Summer School (June 24-26), which is devoted to helping TV and cinema screenwriters develop their skills to a higher professional level – and I’ve been asking myself:
…
Canaletto, Gaugin, Cezanne, Dickens and Screenwriting
I managed to get to three of the biggest exhibitions in town this January – Canaletto, Gaugin, Cezanne – and took time off to read a great novel. It wasn’t easy. There’s always a reason…
Ways to be a Great Writer: #3
Today we have an attribute that I didn’t recognise for a long time. When great artists of all kinds are discussed we usually get a load of blah about originality and spontaneity as if great…
Wave Your Wooden Leg
Here’s a screenwriting tip that will make your life so much easier. And before I get to it, just a word about difficulty. Many screenwriting books seem to want to make screenwriting hard – and…
It’s not just about 10,000 hours!
Michael Gladwell’s book Outliers has made famous the psychological research into what can make you or me an outstanding success and the figure everyone remembers is 10,000 hours. Einstein to Bill Gates, Steve Jobs to…
The Kindest Cut
Here’s a tip that will work for just about every script, novel, short story, short film, movie or TV series.
How to make a drama out of a story
Having a problem writing a drama script? Do you find it’s full of wonderful character development but somehow it just doesn’t come together? Or you like it but your story isn’t getting across to the…
Writing Tip For Creating Rich and Surprising Characters
I’ve got many ways that I use when I’m stuck, some wonderful tools for character development that I’ve picked up over the years. Here’s a very simple method which can have very profound and surprising…
A surprising way to become a Great Writer
What is it that makes a great writer great? What can we learn from them and hope to emulate? OK, it’s that time of year and maybe the heat’s got to me, but I’m starting…