Landyn Parker's Screenwriting School

Famous Quotes About Hollywood

2012-02-14T14:04:00.000-08:00

You can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, place it in the navel of a fruit fly and still have room enough for three caraway seeds and a producer's heart.
~ Fred Allen

Hollywood is a place where people from Iowa mistake each other for a star.
~ Fred Allen

Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the time I don't have any fun at all.
~ Woody Allen

The people are unreal. The flowers are unreal; they don't smell. The fruit is unreal; it doesn't taste of anything. The whole place is a glaring, gaudy, nightmarish set, built up in the desert.
~ Ethel Barrymore

Scriptwriting is the toughest part of the whole racket, the least understood and the least noticed.
~Frank Capra

Hollywood is a world with all the personality of a paper cup.
~ Raymond Chandler

I don't believe that the public knows what it wants; this is the conclusion that I have drawn from my career.
~ Charlie Chaplin

Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long shot.
~ Charlie Chaplin

A film is a petrified fountain of thought.
~ Jean Cocteau

You can't do it that way, you'll spoil the anticlimax."
~ Michael Curtis, film director, to a writer rewriting a scene.

We movie stars all end up by ourselves. Who knows? Maybe we want to.
~ Bette Davis

Living in Hollywood is like living in a lit cigar butt.
~ Phyllis Diller

My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whisky.
~ William Faulkner

I am free of prejudice. I hate everyone equally.
~ W.C. Fields

You can't find any true closeness in Hollywood, because everybody does the fake closeness so well.
~ Carrie Fisher

That's the trouble with directors. Always biting the hand that lays the golden egg.
~ Samuel Goldwyn

Too caustic? To hell with the cost. If it's a good picture, we'll make it.
~ Samuel Goldwyn

A wide screen just makes a bad film twice as bad.
~ Samuel Goldwyn

They scowled at dialogue, shuddered at jokes, and wrestled with a script until they had shaken out of it all the verbal glitter and bright plotting. Thus they were able to bring to the screen evidence only of their own 'genius.'
~Ben Hecht on working with some directors

I have a perfect cure for a sore throat - cut it.
~ Alfred Hitchcock

A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it.
~Alfred Hitchcock

They have followed their usual procedure and handed my treatment over to several other people to make a screenplay out of it. By the time they are ready to shoot it may have been through 20 pairs of hands. What will be left? One shudders to think. Meanwhile, they have paid me a lot of money.
~ Aldous Huxley

They told me to fix my teeth, change my nose, even get out of the business. But I stayed, and learned and didn't give up.
~ Lauren Hutton

If I make a good movie they say I'm a British director and if I make what they think is a bad one, they say I'm Irish!
~ Neil Jordan

The words `Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,' which I saw on an Italian movie poster, are perhaps the briefest statement imaginable on the basic appeal of movies.
~Pauline Kael

The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people, they think it's their fault.
~ Henry Kissinger

Every time I look at you I get a fierce desire to be lonesome.
~ Oscar Levant

If we have to kiss Hollywood good-bye, it may be with one of those tender, old-fashioned, seven-second kisses as exchanged between two people of the opposite sex with all their clothes on.
~ Anita Loos

Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. Don't let this get around.
~Herman Mankiewicz telling Ben Hecht about Hollywood

I'm no actor. And I have sixty-four pictures to prove it.
~ Victor Mature

No, Groucho is not my real name. I am breaking it in for a friend.
~ Groucho Marx

A trip through a sewer in a glass-bottomed boat.
~ Wilson Mizner's infamous description of Hollywood

Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser.
~ Paul Newman

Hollywood money isn't money. It's congealed snow, melts in your hand and there you are.
~ Dorothy Parker

You call this a script? Give me a couple of $5,000-a-week writers and I'll write it myself.
~ Joe Pasternak, producer

A dreary industrial town controlled by hoodlums of enormous wealth, the ethical sense of a pack of jackals, and taste so degraded that it befouled everything to touch it.
~ S.J. Perelman

I'll do anything for money - even associate with my agent.
~ Vincent Price

Movies have just become a kind of hallucination. An excuse to hallucinate, like drugs. Movies are a dream world. Eat popcorn and dream.
~ Sam Shephard

Novelty is always welcome but talking pictures are just a fad.
~ Irving Thalberg

Just learn your lines and don't bump into the furniture.
~ Spencer Tracy

Having the critics praise you is like having the hangman say you've got a pretty neck.
~ Eli Wallach

MGM bores me when I see them, but I don't see them much. They have been a help in getting me introductions to morticians, who are the only people worth knowing.
~Evelyn Waugh

When you get the personality, you don't need the nudity.
~ Mae West

The director is the most overrated artist in the world. He is the only artist who, with no talent whatsoever, can be a success for 50 years without his lack of talent ever being discovered.
~Orson Welles

"The trouble with a movie is that it's old before it's released. It's no accident that it comes in a can."
~ Orson Welles

"Everybody denies I am a genius but nobody ever called me one!"
~ Orson Welles

If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you.
~ Billy Wilder

Keep it out of focus - I want to win the foreign picture award.
~ Billy Wilder to his cinematographer shooting 'Sunset Boulevard'

They shot too many pictures and not enough actors.
~ Walter Winchell

If you want art, don't mess about with movies. Buy a Picasso.
~ Michael Winner

I did a picture in England one winter and it was so cold I almost got married.
~ Shelley Winters

Write and Sell the Hot Script

2012-02-14T12:55:00.000-08:00

If you're looking for a straightforward, practical, no-nonsense guide to scriptwriting that will hold your hand right the way through the process, read on! The Raindance Writers' Lab guides you through the tools that enable you to execute a strong treatment for a feature and be well on the way to the first draft of your script. Written by the creator of the Raindance Film Festival himself, Elliot Grove uses a hands-on approach to screenwriting based on his many years of experience teaching the subject for Raindance training. He uses step-by-step processes illustrated with diagrams and charts to lend a visual structure to the teaching. Techniques are related to real-life examples throughout, from low budget to blockbuster films. The Companion Website contains interviews with British writers and directors as well as a handy series of legal contracts, video clips and writing exercises. In this brand new 2nd edition, Grove expands on his story structure theory, as well as how to write for the internet and short films. The website also contains sample scripts and legal contracts, a writing exercise illustrated with a video clip, a folder full of useful hyperlinks for research, and a demo version of Final Draft screenwriting software.

Learn more and read reviews here

Screenwriting For Microbudget Film

2012-01-17T16:34:00.000-08:00

Microbudget Filmmaking Screenwriting Lesson from these guys

New Screenwriting Books for 2012

2012-01-17T15:52:00.000-08:00

Find these books in Canada

Pro Tips For Script Writing

2012-01-16T16:31:00.000-08:00

From AgencyPost:

The famous saying "Everyone's a writer" isn't always accurate, especially when it comes to creating a production-ready motion media script. When drafting narration for video, it's important to employ a few key points to help create a script that is informative, concise and appropriate for the piece.

Screenwriting Seminars You Can Do At Home

2012-01-15T12:21:00.000-08:00

Find more like this here

Writing Screen Dialogue: More than just talk...

2011-10-16T09:53:00.000-07:00

There aren't a great many books specifically for writing movie or television dialogue, though there are a number of great books about writing dialogue for fiction that are also useful to any writer but here are a few geared to screenwriters to get you started:

Written with the screenwriter in mind, this book offers techniques, the dialogue devices, in sprucing up and spicing up dialogue. There are 67 dialogue devices, all of which are illustrated by examples.

Preview this book and read reviews here

Great dialogue attracts great actors. It grabs the attention of eminent directors. It impresses smart producers. It enthralls an audience. In twenty lessons, Talk the Talk gives screenwriters and playwrights a complete tool kit for mastering the art of dialogue. To complement the lessons, the Talk the Talk includes more than eighty dialogue-writing exercises. There are exercises for beginner, intermediate and advanced writers; discussion and feedback questions to guide classrooms, workshops and writers' groups; rewrite exercises to sharpen dialogue scenes; solo exercises to repeat as a regular writer's work-out; and script analysis exercises which examine how key concepts play out in existing scripts. By using this book to master dialogue writing, authors can breathe life into their characters and create scripts which stand out from the crowd.

Preview this book and see reader reviews here

Learn more and read reviews of Television Dramatic Dialogue: A Sociolinguistic Study (Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics)

Learn more and read reviews here

Great Dialogue - Software: Contains a database of thousands of samples of the best dialogue from movies, TV, novels and plays, and they are all available at the click of a button. Just type in the subject matter of your scene and click "Find." Most of these samples have a detailed analysis to instruct you how the dialogue was constructed, the technique used, and why it works.

Short extract from an interview between Charlie Brooker and Tony Jordan (Hustle, Life on Mars) for the Screenwipe program on writing dialogue.

Overhearing Film Dialogue - Uncovers the essential contributions dialogue makes to a film's development and impact using narrative and drama theory to analyze the functions that dialogue typically serves in a film.

Word into Pictures: Dialogue and Description - DVD Workshop teaches text and subtext, conveying emotion of the character and the situation they're in, research, rewriting dialogue, character profiling and specificity of vision.

Writing Dialogue - Perfect for both novice writers and more experienced writers who have simply never specifically studied dialogue.

Writing Dialogue for Scripts - Conversation, naturalistic and stylized dialogue, pace and variation, scripted narration, comic dialogue and presentation.

More General Dialogue Books For Writers:

Dialogue - Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Effective Dialogue. Learn how to create dialogue that sizzles, with tips on creating dialogue for specific genres, bringing characters to life with revealing dialogue, identifying
and fixing common dialogue problems.

Resources For Writing Great Dialogue

2011-10-16T09:52:00.000-07:00

Write Great Fiction - Dialogue

Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Effective Dialogue. Learn how to
create dialogue that sizzles, with tips on creating dialogue for specific
genres, bringing characters to life with revealing dialogue, identifying
and fixing common dialogue problems.

Writing Dialogue

Perfect for both novice writers and more experienced writers who have
simply never specifically studied dialogue.

Scene of the Crime: A Writer's Guide to Crime-Scene Investigations

2011-06-28T08:27:00.000-07:00

Can you trace a criminal's blood-type from one of his cigar stubs? Will measuring the length of a stride also paint an accurate picture of height and weight? Is it possible to identify a thief by his ear print? The evidence found at the scene of a crime -- from latent fingerprints to bloodstains -- is the lifeblood of your mystery novel or detective story. This book provides accurate, up-to-date details (including drawings!) of criminal investigations and police work not easily accessible to the layperson. And because technical terms are decoded, you have a rich resource for dialogue. Visit the scene of a crime in the footsteps of seasoned investigators to find out: Who arrives first? What are police looking for -- and how? How long will the investigation take and what happens to the crime scene once the investigation is over? Even the most innocent item can speak volumes to a laboratory technician or forensic pathologist. So you'll follow the evidence to the crime lab where you'll see what can and cannot be determined -- and how evidence is identified, handled, and analyzed. The recent popularity of real-life crime shows on TV has made readers more savvy than ever. This book will help you keep them guessing about what will happen next -- not wondering why all the evidence doesn't add up.

Learn more about this book here

Screen & Stage Marketing Secrets

2011-06-28T08:25:00.000-07:00

The ultimate marketing manual for screenwriters and playwrights who need to sell their scripts. Break down the firewalls to get your script read by those who have the power to buy. Learn the inside secrets to insure your script obtains recognition from the crowd, receive good coverage and move on up the development ladder leading to a sale. No other screenplay book describes exactly how to perform professional submissions to agents, producers and production companies. Here you will learn how to clean up your script to eliminate those dangerous elements Story Analyst see and toss the script aside with a rejection slip. Learn the inside secrets of breaking down the protective firewalls to get your scripts read by those who have the power to buy. You will learn how to obtain an agent and how to submit your scripts to production companies without an agent and be taken seriously. Don't let the firewalls stop you from selling your script.

Learn more and read reviews here

The Beginner's Guide To Screenwriting From Suite 101

2011-06-28T07:45:00.000-07:00

The Beginners' Guide to Screenwriting: Introduction to Writing Scripts for Films and in How to Get Started

© Rachel Wills - May 30, 2009

Making the decision to write one's first screenplay is a big step, but how does the screenwriter make a start? Read the full article here

How Story Structure and Storytelling Work Together

2011-03-27T09:27:00.000-07:00

From Storymind:

Story structure in the cold logistic mechanism built from the interrelationships among dramatic elements. Storytelling is the passionite expression of human truths and emotions built from manner in which a story is related. Together they from the complete exerience that draws your readers or audience into your story.

The Dramatic Writer's Companion

2011-03-27T09:26:00.000-07:00

The Dramatic Writer's Companion: Tools to Develop Characters, Cause Scenes, and Build Stories is a comprehensive collection of in-depth writing exercises for playwrights and screenwriters that offers:

More than sixty of the author's workshop-tested exercises for playwrights and screenwriters

An underlying focus on character as the root of scene and story

A unique, nonlinear format that allows the writer to use exercises in any order and as often as needed to meet individual writing goals

A special troubleshooting section that addresses common script problems

A glossary of key terms

Examples drawn from well-known plays and films, including both contemporary and classical masterworks

Having spent decades working with dramatists to refine and expand their existing plays and screenplays, Author Will Dunne effortlessly blends condensed dramatic theory with specific action steps—over sixty workshop-tested exercises that can be adapted to virtually any individual writing process and dramatic script. Dunne’s in-depth method is both instinctual and intellectual, allowing writers to discover new actions for their characters and new directions for their stories.

Learn more and read reviews here

About the Author:

Will Dunne is currently a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists, where he develops plays and teaches workshops. He also has led over fifteen hundred workshops through his San Francisco program, served as a dramaturg at the O’Neill, and twice attended the Australian National Playwrights Conference as guest instructor. His plays, which include How I Became an Interesting Person and Hotel Desperado, have been presented in Russia, Australia, and Croatia as well as in the U.S.

The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier: How to Solve the Mysteries of Weak Writing

2011-03-27T09:24:00.000-07:00

In The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier, editor Bonnie Trenga presents the ten lessons writers need to know to improve their informative, persuasive, and creative work. This guide:

* Covers the big picture of what comprises poor writing, rather than focusing on the picky details that rarely concern most writers and editors

* Introduces each lesson in an entertaining mystery format to help readers better grasp what they're learning

* Shares fast-and-easy lessons that can be learned in ten minutes and practiced in thirty

Perfect for creative writers, editors, business writers, tech writers, and students, this book will help any reader create stronger writing.

About the Author

Bonnie Trenga is a professional copy editor and proofreader, and the author of Off-the-Wall Skits with Phrasal Verbs.

Learn more and read reviews ofThe Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier: How to Solve the Mysteries of Weak Writing

Writing Content For Kindle

2011-03-23T14:07:00.000-07:00

Not sure whether writing content for Kindle is much of a money maker but every little bit helps and better to earn by writing than by some other degrading method. You can find some tips here

Once you've created some content for Kindle you can cross promote it on your blog, Twitter and FaceBook.

While I still prefer reading the old fashioned way, from a book, I'm seriously thinking of getting a Kindle myself for a road trip I'm planning so I don't have to pack a bunch of books to take along.

The question is once I get the thing will I be able to figure out how to use it? Or will it end up in the junk heal with that blasted Apple Newton I bought years ago? Damnable thing never did learn to interpret my handwriting correctly.

Tehcnology. Bah humbug!

Get Free Writing Advice From AllExperts.com

2011-03-20T09:46:00.000-07:00

AllExperts.com is an online Q & A service where you can post questions and get free advice on your writing project. Check it out here

Writing Horror: It's a Scream!

2011-03-20T09:41:00.000-07:00

"Horror isn't just a genre of stories but an outlook on life," Matthew Warner writes in his foreword to Horror Isn't a 4-Letter Word: Essays on Writing & Appreciating the Genre. In this collection of articles published between 2002 and 2007, the author of The Organ Donor, Death Sentences: Tales of Punishment & Revenge, and Eyes Everywhere challenges us to look beyond the stereotypes associated with a much-maligned type of fiction. Horror empowers us to cope with our fears by teaching us about them, he says, either overtly or through symbolism. It's not just about blood and guts.

The book consists mostly of editorials written for the Horror World website, plus selected articles from venues such as Hellnotes Newsletter. Warner runs the gamut in subject matter--everything from ghost hunting, to gory holiday decorations, to effective writing techniques--in his meditations about horrific things, whether they be fictional or real.

Contents include some of his most controversial columns: "My Summer with a Book Doctor: An internship at Edit Ink, a Notorious Scam Operation," "Message Versus Medium: The Agenda of Left Behind," "Addictive Plotting as Taught by Buffy the Vampire Slayer," and "Obscenity v. The First Amendment: Why the Prosecution of X-rated Films Affects Books."

About the Author
Matthew Warner is author of The Organ Donor and Death Sentences: Tales of Punishment and Revenge and Eyes Everywhere. He writes a popular web column, "Author's Notes," for Horror World, and has written short stories for Dark Discoveries, Cemetery Dance, and several anthologies. In addition to his frequent speaking engagements at schools and libraries, he enjoys playing the piano, downhill skiing, and martial arts. He lives in Virginia with his wife, the illustrator Deena Warner, and three cats.

Learn more and read reviews of Horror Isn't a 4-Letter Word

Writers Workshop of Horror is a collection of articles and interviews on the craft of writing horror with some of the biggest names in the horror and dark fiction genres. The book focuses solely on honing the craft of writing horror. It includes solid advice, from professionals of every publishing level, on how to improve one’s writing skills.

Table of Contents:

* Elizabeth Massie – Once Upon a Scary Time: Creating Effective Beginnings
* Michael Laimo – Middles: The Meat of the Matter
* J.G. Gonzalez – The Grand Finale
* Gary A. Braunbeck – Connecting the DOTS
* Tim Waggoner – And Horror the Soul of the Plot
* Scott Nicholson – What’s The Point and Who’s On First: Character POV
* Thomas F. Monteleone – We don’t get too many strangers around here… Or: Using Dialogue to Tell Your Story
* G. Cameron Fuller – A Claustrophobic Locked in an Isolated Room: The Power of Setting and Description in Horror Fiction
* Rick Hautala – The Hardest Three: Tone, Style, and Voice
* Michael A. Arnzen – Stripping Away the Mask: Scene and Structure in Horror Fiction
* Jonathan Maberry – Fight And Action Scenes In Horror
* Tom Piccirilli – Exploring Personal Themes
* Mort Castle – New Fiction Blend: History, Fantasy, Horror
* Jeff Strand – Adding Humor to Your Horror
* Joe R. Lansdale – Cross Reading
* Brian Keene – Time, and How to Make It
* Deborah LeBlanc – A Face by Any Other Name
* Ramsey Campbell – The Height of Fear
* Michael Knost – The Aha! Moment
* Jason Sizemore – Be a Conformist: A Guide to Manuscript Formatting
* Lisa Morton – CUT! Or, Why Writing Horror Screenplays is REALLY Scary
* Gary Frank – It’s All About the Series: An Interview with F. Paul Wilson
* Tim Deal – It’s All About the Work: An Interview with Tom Piccirilli
* Michael Knost – It’s All About the Craft: An Interview with Ramsey Campbell
* Lucy A. Snyder – It’s All Part of the Fun: An Interview with Clive Barker
* Jack M. Haringa – The Agnotology of Horror; Or: Lies the Internet Told You
* Robert N. Lee – How Stephen King’s Writing Advice Broke My Heart and Smashed My Dreams
* Brian Yount – Top Ten Things an Editor/Publisher Hates To See

Learn more and read reviews here

The masters of horror have united to teach you the secrets of success in the scariest genre of all!

In On Writing Horror, Second Edition, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Harlan Ellison, David Morrell, Jack Ketchum, and many others tell you everything you need to know to successfully write and publish horror novels and short stories.

Edited by the Horror Writers Association (HWA), a worldwide organization of writers and publishing professionals dedicated to promoting dark literature, On Writing Horror includes exclusive information and guidance from 58 of the biggest names in horror writing to give you the inspiration you need to start scaring and exciting readers and editors. You'll discover comprehensive instruction such as:

• The art of crafting visceral violence, from Jack Ketchum
• Why horror classics like Dracula, The Exorcist, and Hell House are as scary as ever, from Robert Weinberg
• Tips for avoiding one of the biggest death knells in horror writing--predicable clichés--from Ramsey Campbell
• How to use character and setting to stretch the limits of credibility, from Mort Castle

With On Writing Horror, you can unlock the mystery surrounding classic horror traditions, revel in the art and craft of writing horror, and find out exactly where the genre is going next. Learn from the best, and you could be the next best-selling author keeping readers up all night long.

Learn more and read reviews of On Writing Horror: A Handbook by the Horror Writers Association

More Like This:

Writing Horror
Writing Horror (Self-Counsel Writing)
How to Write Horror Fiction (Genre Writing Series)
How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction
Writing Horror Fiction (Writing (A & C Black Ltd.))
Writing Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: How to Create Successful Work for Publication (Successful Writing)
Dark Thoughts: On Writing : Advice and Commentary from Fifty Masters of Fear and Suspense
Share a Scare: Writing Your Own Scary Story (Writer's Toolbox)
The Philosophy of Horror: Or, Paradoxes of the Heart
Writing Horror: A Writing Show Interview
Genre Works: The Screenwriters Guide to Horror
Writing Horror and the Body: The Fiction of Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Anne Rice (Contributions to the Study of Popular Culture)

Lia Scott Price Writing Tips

2011-03-20T09:35:00.000-07:00

TV and Feature Film Screenwriter Dennis Klein Gives His Best Advice to Aspiring Screenwriters

2011-03-20T09:32:00.000-07:00

What's In A First Draft? Book Writing Tips From Robin Rice

2011-03-20T09:28:00.000-07:00

Robin Rice, author of The Mayden Chronicles at http://www.MaydenChronicles.com, offers her take on what needs to be in a first draft of a chapter in a novel, and what can be left for later.

Novelist's Boot Camp: 101 Ways to Take Your Book From Boring to Bestseller

2011-03-20T09:15:00.000-07:00

In Novelist’s Boot Camp, author Todd A. Stone, a former assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, draws on his experience as novelist, writing instructor, and military officer to help get you and your writing into tip-top shape.

This boot-camp-in-a-book includes 101 carefully crafted drills designed to show you how to:

• Identify and develop story ideas with laser-like perception
• Create realistic "alpha" characters who can take charge of any scene
• Know what motivates your protagonist’s enemy so that you can amp up the conflict
• Outline your story to avoid sneak attacks from flawed plot twists
• Dodge the land mines of bad writing like Deadly Modifier Buildup (DMBU)
• Triage your scenes to ensure a thorough and precise revision process

Plus, there’s a twelve-week boot camp battle plan that you can use to stay the course and finish your novel.

Novelist’s Boot Camp provides you with all the ammunition you need to approach your work with dedication, confidence, and skill. Now, report for duty and start writing that bestseller!

About the Author:

The author of acclaimed military technothriller, Kriegspeil, Todd A. Stone has more than 30 years experience teaching creative writing at institutions, including West Point. He is also a member of the Author's Guild and Mystery Writers of America. Todd lives in Naperville, Illinois.

Learn more and see reader reviews of Novelist's Boot Camp: 101 Ways to Take Your Book From Boring to Bestsell

Barry Morrow Interview

2011-03-20T09:12:00.000-07:00

Advice to Beginning Screenwriters: Part 9 of a 9 part interview with Barry Morrow, the Oscar and Emmy winning screenwriter. Interviewer Stephen Jennings and Guest Barry Morrow offer insight to beginning screenwriters how to develop their skills as a screenwriter and get started in the industry.

How To Write A Screenplay: Foreshadowing

2011-03-15T16:36:00.000-07:00

6 ways to foreshadow story events in a movie script.

Book Writing Basics : How to Become a Better Writer

2011-03-15T16:35:00.000-07:00

Book Writing Basics : Tips for Beginning Writers

2011-03-15T16:34:00.000-07:00

Syd Field's "Screenplay"

2011-03-15T07:35:00.000-07:00

The minute you mention you're interested in screenwriting someone or other will tell you to read Syd Field's books. Most writers have at least one of them in their library.

More on this legendary screenwriting guru from Wikipdedia:

Syd Field is an American writer who has become one of the most popular screenwriting gurus in the movie industry. Field has written several books on the subject of screenwriting, and occasionally holds workshops that help aspiring screenwriters to produce the kinds of screenplays that will sell in Hollywood. Field's ideas about what makes a good script have become very influential on Hollywood film producers, who have increasingly used his ideas on structure as a guideline to a proposed screenplay's potential. Field wrote and produced the short-lived television series Men in Crisis from 1964–1965.

Field's most important contribution has been his articulation of the ideal "three act structure". In this structure, a film must begin with about half an hour of 'setup' information before the protagonist experiences a 'turning point' that gives him or her a goal that must be achieved. Approximately half the movie's running time must then be taken up with the protagonist's struggle to achieve his or her goal: this is the 'Confrontation' period. Field also refers, sometimes, to the 'Midpoint', a more subtle turning point that should happen in the middle (approximately at page 60 of a written screenplay) of the Confrontation, which is often an apparently devastating reversal of the protagonist's fortune. The final quarter of the film depicts a climactic struggle by the protagonist to finally achieve (or not achieve) his or her goal and the aftermath of this struggle.

In 1999 the German media scientist, movie maker and game developer Dr. Michael Bhatty expanded the Field-paradigm in the media science thesis (Interaktives Story Telling, 1999) for narrative role-playing and computer games, combining it with Christopher Vogler's Hero's Journey and defining the chaos paradigm.

In addition to his occasional workshops, Syd Field currently teaches screenwriting at the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California

Field is also included in the screenwriting software program Final Draft under the section "Ask the Expert" which gives help on writing screenplays.

In Jan 2007, Field began a series of interview webcasts with screenwriters called Screenplay Series with Syd Field. The project will attempt to give a voice to the generally silent, creative force behind today's films - the screenwriters. The series will focus on writers and films whose work is current, relevant and challenging. Interviews will cover a broad range of topics surrounding a particular film & the specific writer's career.

Published books:

The Screenwriter's Workbook (Revised Edition)
The Screenwriter's Problem Solver: How to Recognize, Identify, and Define Screenwriting Problems
Four Screenplays: Studies in the American Screenplay
Selling a Screenplay: The Screenwriter's Guide to Hollywood
The Definitive Guide to Screenwriting
Going to the Movies: A Personal Journey Through Four Decades of Modern Film
Syd Field's Screenwriting Workshop Win/Mac [DVD]

My Story Can Beat Up Your Story: Ten Ways to Toughen Up Your Screenplay from Opening Hook to Knockout Punch

2011-03-14T07:47:00.000-07:00

Hot off the presses, My Story Can Beat Up Your Story: Ten Ways to Toughen Up Your Screenplay from Opening Hook to Knockout Punch is a new release from Michael Wiese Productions, one of the top indie publishers of new books on screenwriting and filmmaking. This new book has a title and cover image designed to catch your attention like other popular screenwriting books such as "Save The Cat."

This book almost seems like it was written by Charlie Sheen with cheeky chapter headings like:

"My Hero's a Winner. Your Hero's a Wiener!"

"My Hero Fights. Your Hero Bites!"

"Your Bad Guy Punches Like My Sister!"

"I Can Pitch, You Throw Like A Girl!"

Author Jeff Schechter has worked in film and television and teaches the popular TotallyWrite 3-Hour Screenwriting Crash Course. Here's his official bio:

Jeffrey Alan Schechter was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, which explains his endearing personality. After moving to Los Angeles and not wanting to starve, he quickly established himself as a versatile writer, able to work in all genres from action films to family comedies, from pre-school to adult drama, from live action to animation. His writing has earned him nominations for two Emmy awards, a Writers Guild of America award, a Writer’s Guild of Canada award, and a BAFTA award. Over the years Jeff has worked with dozens of studios and networks including Warner Bros, Universal Pictures, ABC, NBC, The Discovery Channel, Nickelodeon, The Hallmark Channel, the BBC, VH1 Films, RHI, and The Walt Disney Company.

Get a preview or check out reader reviews of My Story Can Beat Up Your Story: Ten Ways to Toughen Up Your Screenplay from Opening Hook to Knockout Punch

Is It A Cliché To Have An Intern Who's Verbally Abusive

2011-03-12T15:06:00.000-08:00

If I were starring in a reality show it would be most entertaining. As it is, I have to check all my future take-out for random snot injections.

Building Screenwriting Confidence - Logan and Noah Miller

2011-03-11T15:58:00.000-08:00

Filmmakers Logan and Noah Miller reflect on the transformation from "self-doubt" to confidence in their screenwriting abilities. "We know that if we start it, we can complete it," they say.

Patricia Highsmith: In Her Own Words

2011-03-11T15:56:00.000-08:00

From Wikipedia:

Patricia Highsmith (January 19, 1921 - February 4, 1995) was best known for her psychological thrillers, which have led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Strangers on a Train has been adapted for the screen three times, notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951. In addition to her acclaimed series about murderer Tom Ripley, she wrote many short stories, often macabre, satirical or tinged with black humor.

In 1942, Highsmith graduated from Barnard College, where she studied English composition, playwriting and the short story. Living in New York City and Mexico between 1942 and 1948, she wrote for comic book publishers, turning out two stories a day for $55-a-week paychecks. With Nedor/Standard/Pines (1942-43), she wrote Sgt. Bill King stories and contributed to Black Terror. For Real Fact, Real Heroes and True Comics, she wrote comic book profiles of Einstein, Galileo, Barney Ross, Edward Rickenbacker, Oliver Cromwell, Sir Isaac Newton, David Livingstone and others. In 1943-45 she wrote for Fawcett Publications, scripting for such Fawcett Comics characters as the Golden Arrow, Spy Smasher, Captain Midnight, Crisco and Jasper. She wrote for Western Comics in 1945-47. When she later wrote The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955), one of the title character's first scam victims is comic book artist Frederick Reddington, a parting gesture directed at the earlier career she had abandoned: "Tom had a hunch about Reddington. He was a comic-book artist. He probably didn't know whether he was coming or going."

The protagonists in many of Highsmith's novels are either morally compromised by circumstance or actively flouting the law. Many of her antiheroes, often emotionally unstable young men, commit murder in fits of passion, or simply to extricate themselves from a bad situation. They are just as likely to escape justice as to receive it. The works of Franz Kafka and Fyodor Dostoevsky played a significant part in her own novels.

Her recurring character Tom Ripley — an amoral, sexually ambiguous con artist and erstwhile murderer — was featured in a total of five novels, popularly known as the Ripliad, written between 1955 and 1991. He was introduced in The Talented Mr. Ripley. After a January 9, 1956 TV adaptation on Studio One, it was filmed by René Clément as Plein Soleil (1960, aka Purple Noon and Blazing Sun) with Alain Delon, whom Highsmith praised as the ideal Ripley. The novel was adapted under its original title as the 1999 film directed by Anthony Minghella, starring Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law and Cate Blanchett.

A later Ripley novel, Ripley's Game, was filmed by Wim Wenders as The American Friend (1977). Under its original title, it was filmed again in 2002, directed by Liliana Cavani with John Malkovich in the title role. Ripley Under Ground (2005), starring Barry Pepper as Ripley, was shown at the 2005 AFI Film Festival but has not had a general release.

In addition to her many novels, Highsmith also wrote a writing guide called Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction. Amid discussions about growing ideas, story development, plotting, first and second drafts, and revisions are anecdotes from Highsmith's own career, she admits to editing with crayons (doing so "gives one the proper cavalier attitude"), napping on the job (it helps solve problems), and having written one "really dull" book.

Cops 'n Writers

2011-03-11T15:53:00.000-08:00

Cops 'n Writers is a consulting service for writers who wish to incorporate law enforcement elements into their writings. They also offer an excellent list of writing resources through their links.

Find their website here

Another interesting resource is The American Police Novel: A History by English Professor LeRoy Panek, an award-winning author of several books about crime fiction. This book traces the emergence of the police officer as hero and the police novel as a significant popular genre, from the cameo appearances of police in detective novels of the 1930s and 1940s through the serial killer and forensic novels of the 1990s.

More books by LeRoy Panek:

Interview with Novelist Thomas Perry

2011-03-10T12:29:00.000-08:00

Edgar-award winning novelist Thomas Perry just returned to his bestselling Jane Whitefield series with his novel, Runner --after leaving the series behind for nine years.

GalleyCat caught up with Perry at New York's Mysterious Bookshop. In this interview, the novelist discusses the current state of the mystery-writing world and the difficulties of returning to the Whitefield series.

This legendary author has published 14 novels and written scripts with his wife for television shows like Simon and Simon , Star Trek: the Next Generation , and 21 Jump Street.

The Future Of Publishing Or Signs Of The Apocalypse? Stephen King's UR

2011-03-10T06:35:00.000-08:00

If you've just bought a reading tablet beware...

Learn more and read reviews of UR
More from Stephen King here

Bringing The Funny: Writing Sitcoms

2011-03-09T13:35:00.000-08:00

Situation comedy is a very specific type of program with its own rules and structures. Three of America's most experienced sitcom writers and producers provide an in-depth course in the theory and practice of comedy writing, various aspects of situation comedy and provide valuable insights into the writing and production process. Featuring, producer/creator Norma Safford Vela (Roseanne, Designing Women) writer and lecturer John Vorhaus (The Wonder Years, Married With Children) and writer/producer Russ Woody (Murphy Brown, Slap Maxwell) explore every aspect of the sitcom craft. Along the way they provide a detailed guide to successful collaboration with agents, producers and the networks.

Writing Television Sitcoms is the ultimate all-in-one guide to writing a funny script, pitching a new show, and launching a successful career. As digital technology reshapes the television industry, this new and expanded edition explains how today's writers can get ahead of the curve. Features include:

• A complete description of premise-driven comedy, a proven method for "writing funny from the ground up"
• Numerous examples from new and classic shows
• Advice from top writer-producers
• A thorough look at how sitcom story models are changing
• Complete script layout guidelines for all three formats
• Tips on how new-media developments can help you break into the business

Learn more and read reviews here

At the core of this Hollywood how-to guide is the concept of The Eight Characters of Comedy, the eight specific character archetypes used in sitcoms dating back to the advent of TV. Every actor can find a sitcom niche by identifying with one of these eight characters. Using past and current actors and sitcom personalities, Sedita describes in detail where these characters come from and how actors can play them truthfully. * who is normally cast as The Logical Smart One’ * why do we love The Lovable Loser’ * why is The Neurotic such a fun character to play’ In addition, readers learn how to break down a comedy script, how to identify different types of jokes, how to deliver them with comedic precision, sitcom auditioning techniques, and how to market themselves.

About the Author
Scott Sedita has years of experience in both New York and Los Angeles as an actor, agent, writer, casting director, and acting coach at his Scott Sedita Acting Studio. He has appeared on numerous shows, including Starting Over, Faking It and Helmets Off, and is resident acting coach on Fight For Fame.

Learn more and read reviews here

Everyone loves - and hates - sitcom. On TV it's the goldmine genre, the one watched by millions. There's a special place in our hearts for Fawlty, Frasier, Blackadder and Brent. An absurd predicament, witty banter, a group of hilariously dysfunctional people: it all seems so easy. But is it? If you've ever said 'I can do better than that', then this is the book for you. How to be a Sitcom Writer will encourage, test and pull you through the comedy boot camp that is writing narrative-led character comedy for radio/TV.

About the Author: Marc Blake has been working in comedy since 1986, starting out as a fledgling stand-up at the notorious Tunnel Palladium in Greenwich. Since then he has performed over 2000 gigs nationwide.

Learn more and read reviews here

With twenty years in the business--as a writer, programming executive, and university instructor--Evan Smith knows what it takes to get from spec script to sitcom success. Here he offers the first published description of Premise-Driven Comedy, the writing method he has developed and popularized; tips from writer-producers who have worked on series from Frasier to The Cosby Show to Roseanne; a complete story outline from the series Home Improvement; explicit advice on how the business works and how to get an agent; and script layout guidelines for all three sitcom formats. Clear, comprehensive, and cutting-edge, this is the true insider's guide to becoming a sitcom writer.

Learn more and read reviews of Writing Television Sitcoms.

More on writing sitcoms here

Derek Haas Talks About "Columbus"

2011-03-09T13:19:00.000-08:00

During an appearance at The Mysterious Bookshop in New York, screenwriter and novelist Derek Haas discussed and read from his new crime thriller.

Interview with Author Archer Mayor

2011-03-09T13:13:00.000-08:00

Mystery novelist Archer Mayor comments on seeing his work become an audio drama pilot of "Open Season," adapted from the novel by Archer Mayor. Recorded on location in South Portland, Maine, featured in the Wall Street Journal!

Interview With Alan Jacobson

2011-03-09T13:09:00.000-08:00

Bestselling author Alan Jacobson talks about writing novels, discusses the creative process, and offers advice for aspiring authors hoping to get published.

Self Proclaimed "Hollywood Animal" Joe Eszterhas - On Screenwriting

2011-03-08T13:45:00.000-08:00

Screenwriter and author Joe Eszterhas discusses the writing process, and offers some advice for aspiring screenwriters.

Sundance screenwriters on writing for independent film

2011-03-08T06:23:00.000-08:00

Naming Your Characters

2011-03-08T06:22:00.000-08:00

Author Katherine Center talks about why you can't give every character in a story a cool name.

More on writing characters:

Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

2011-03-08T06:17:00.000-08:00

Mignon Fogarty, a.k.a. Grammar Girl, is determined to wipe out bad grammar—but she’s also determined to make the process as painless as possible. A couple of years ago, she created a weekly podcast to tackle some of the most common mistakes people make while communicating. The podcasts have now been downloaded more than twenty million times, and Mignon has dispensed grammar tips on Oprah and appeared on the pages of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today.

Written with the wit, warmth, and accessibility that the podcasts are known for, Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing covers the grammar rules and word-choice guidelines that can confound even the best writers. From “between vs. among” and “although vs. while” to comma splices and misplaced modifiers, Mignon offers memory tricks and clear explanations that will help readers recall and apply those troublesome grammar rules. Chock-full of tips on style, business writing, and effective e-mailing, Grammar Girl’s print debut deserves a spot on every communicator’s desk.

Learn more and read reviews here

Stephen King: The Master Story Teller - BBC Interview

2011-03-07T15:18:00.000-08:00

More on Stephen King including quotes and video clips here

Indy Mogul: How To Write an FX Screenplay or Script

2011-03-07T15:14:00.000-08:00

You can build fake limbs, make your friends look like zombies, and even green screen yourself on the moon!! But can you write a movie that involves all of these effects?

More on FX:

How screenwriters can generate their own publicity

2011-03-07T09:41:00.000-08:00

How does the Hollywood PR machine really work? Should you hire a publicist or not? How can writers make sure they are part of the story? These questions and more were discussed at the latest edition of Publicity 101, a panel presented by the Writers Guild Foundation and the WGAW Publicity and Marketing Committee.

Moderated by former journalist/screenwriter Andrea King, the panel included screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg (Twilight, Dexter), entertainment publicist Howard Bragman and journalists Claude Brodesser-Akner (Ad Age, NPR) and Jay Fernandez (Hollywood Reporter), all sharing their insights, advice, and experience to help writers raise their industry profile to boost their careers. These are some excerpts from the panel.

More on marketing your screenplay here

Put Your Blog On Kindle?

2011-03-07T06:46:00.000-08:00

Yes you can, if you are so inclined, and you can find out how here

We'll give it a pass. Probably NSFW enough for the Kindle crowd.

Storyist 2: MacWorld Review

2011-03-07T06:38:00.000-08:00

From Wikipedia:

Storyist is a creative writing application for Mac OS X. Tailored for novelists and screenwriters, it provides a word processor, a cork board with support for index cards and photos, an outliner, and a project manager.

Features

Word Processing

* Support for headers, footers, style sheets, 2-up editing, and mirrored pages.
* Automatic manuscript and screenplay formatting.
* Text Inspector for quick editing of formatting, style, and page settings.
* Support for comments, bookmarks, and Wiki links.
* Automator Action-based text plugins that extend application functionality.
* Full-screen editing mode.

Story Development

* Cork board with support for photos and index cards.
* Collage view to visualize the relationships between story elements.
* Color-coding outliner.
* Customizable plot, character, and setting sheets.

Project Management

* Project view to keep all project-related writing organized and accessible.
* Import and export support for popular file formats, including RTF, .doc, .docx, HTML, and Final Draft.
* Automator workflow support to handle routine import and export tasks like smart quote conversion and style replacement.
* Export ePub-formatted eBooks.

Read the MacWorld review here

Learn more and read user reviews of Storyist 2

Getting Support for Your Writing

2011-03-07T06:29:00.000-08:00

Jurgen Wolff has written episodes for many of TV's most popular and enduring sitcoms, including Family Ties and The Love Boat. He has worked as a comedy consultant for Columbia/Tri-Star TV. A founder of The Hollywood Scriptwriter and the author of several books, he has won international prizes for his work in film and has been a script doctor for major motion pictures. He conducts writing workshops the world over. His books include: Your Writing Coach, Successful Scriptwriting, Successful Sitcom Writing: How To Write And Sell For TV's Hottest Format and Top Secrets: Screenwriting

More from Jurgen Wolff here

On Screenwriting by Geoffrey Zimmerman

2011-03-07T06:24:00.000-08:00

Screenwriter and author of the romance adventure novel Love Never Dies, Geoffrey Zimmerman tells what it's like to write screenplays.

More on screenwriting here

Writing & Publishing Tips : Parts of a Novel

2011-03-06T13:42:00.000-08:00

Writing columns vs writing novel

2011-03-06T13:41:00.000-08:00

What's On MY iPod: One Of My Favourite Musical Scoundrels

2011-03-06T12:04:00.000-08:00

And of course there's a parental advisory but me Mum gave it to me for Christmas so I guess it's okay.

Building The Perfect Scoundrel

2011-03-06T11:33:00.000-08:00

There's nothing more satisfying than constructing the perfect scoundrel for your story. Scoundrels personify the battle between good and evil. You take an inherently dark or troubled character and curse them with a conscience, burden them with just enough goodness to make them fun to watch. Scoundrels are rarely stupid people. Their smarts get them into trouble. Sometimes they are battling demons from their past. Sometimes they are just borderline sociopaths with no back story or tragic history to explain their actions. However, despite their deeply flawed or tortured personalities, scoundrels can usually be coaxed to do good and as an audience we secretly enjoy their naughty antics even as we cheer them on to redemption.

Some notable movie scoundrels:

Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean

The Cat in the Hat, Dr. Seuss

Arthur (Dudley Moore)

Alfie (Micheal Caine)

Jake Blues (John Belushi)

Lisbeth Salander, Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

The Writer's Handbook 2011: The Complete Guide for all Writers, Publishers, Editors, Agents and Broadcasters

2011-03-06T08:32:00.000-08:00

From the Publisher:

Completely revised and updated for 2011, this acclaimed companion provides you with the most comprehensive information on the writing industry. From pinpointing contacts in a wide range of publishing houses and literary agencies to information on writing courses in your area; from screenwriting, TV, radio and newspapers to local literary festivals and grants, The Writer's Handbook 2011 is a practical and easy-to-use resource for all writers.

It offers invaluable advice and insight from publishing experts, and successful fiction and non-fiction writers. Whether you are an aspiring or established writer, or a publishing professional, this is the book that you should not be without.

New articles this edition includes:
So you want to be an author?
Children's Writing
Great book. Pity about the reviews
Characterization in popular fiction
Poetic visibility and relevance at the end of the noughties
A writer's place in a networked world
Non-Fiction writing
Confessions of a friendly ghost
How to write a bestseller
Settling accounts – Tax and the writer

Includes FREE access to the website: browse the online directory and explore the other useful resources for writers (you will find your unique access code on the sticker on the front of this book, please note that access is for one year from publication date and expires on
30th June 2011 ).

Author Barry Turner, has worked on both sides of publishing, as an editor and marketing director and also as an author. He has been a full time writer for over 30 years and has worked as a journalist and broadcaster in the fields of politics, biography, travel and education. As well as being the author of over 20 books, Barry is the editor of The Statesman's Yearbook and is a regular contributor to The Times as a book reviewer and serializer.

Learn more and read reviews or The Writer's Handbook 2011: The Complete Guide for all Writers, Publishers, Editors, Agents and Broadcasters

Find more career guides here

Writing What You Know

2011-03-06T08:20:00.000-08:00

Interview with "The Greatest" director Shana Feste.

Anderson Tapes - Audio Drama

2011-03-06T08:14:00.000-08:00

Based on the tapes from "The Evil Dead."

Novel Shortcuts: Ten Techniques that Ensure a Great First Draft

2011-03-06T08:11:00.000-08:00

Novel Shortcuts gives you a unique take on “speed depth in fiction writing,” showing you how to write a fast first draft that’s also rich and engrossing (it’s really possible!). With examples from published works and detailed instruction, this helpful guide addresses everything from premise development to scene building to tone and much, much more.

Learn more and read reviews here

About the Author:

Laura Whitcomb is the co-author of Your First Novel (September 2006, Writer's Digest Books) and the award-winning author of the YA novel A Certain Slant of Light (September 2005, Houghton Mifflin). The movie rights have been sold to Warner Brothers. Her next YA novel, The Fetch, will be published by Houghton Mifflin in 2008.. She lives in West Linn, Oregon.

Dan's 2 Minute Screenwriting School

2011-03-06T08:10:00.000-08:00

Interview With William Boyd

2011-03-05T14:36:00.000-08:00

A former television critic for the New Statesman magazine (1981-3), William Boyd is also a scriptwriter who has written twelve scripts for feature film and television productions. His feature films include: Stars and Bars (1988), adapted from his own novel; Mister Johnson (1990); A Good Man in Africa (1994), also adapted from his own novel; Scoop (novel) (1987), adapted from the Evelyn Waugh novel, and Vargas Llosa's Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. He was one of a number of writers who worked on Chaplin, Richard Attenborough's 1993 biopic based partly on the actor's own autobiography. He also wrote and made his debut as a director with the low-budget drama The Trench, set in the first world war just before the Battle of the Somme and first screened in 1999. Man to Man - for which he wrote the script - had its world premiere at the Berlinale in 2005 (the epic tale of an attempt by three Victorian men to prove to the world that they have found evolution's 'missing link').

His television screenwriting credits include: Armadillo (2001), set in London, and following the adventures of insomniac loss-adjustor Lorimer Black, the book was adapted for television as a four-part series screened by the BBC with the screenplay written by the author; Dutch Girls (1985); and Good and Bad at Games (1983), about English public school life. A radio play, the ghost story A Haunting, was first broadcast by BBC Radio 4 in December 2001.

Criminal Minds' showrunner Ed Bernero on what he looks for when hiring a TV staff writer

2011-03-05T14:15:00.000-08:00

Roadkill With A Good Haircut

2011-03-05T10:15:00.000-08:00

Is there really such a thing as career suicide? Is there ever such a thing as "no coming back" from a swan dive into disgrace and obscurity? The other day I was coming back from the hairdresser, looking good, feeling good and suddenly I was nearly run down by a car. And in that instant I thought, "I'm roadkill with a good haircut." Which pretty much sums up the way life works. Today you could be a dirtbag no one wants to know and tomorrow you could be the king of all media. Or you could be a happy person whistling along the road of life and suddenly blammo, you're flattened by an El Camino driven by a tweaked out meth-head.

The bottom line is this, as long as you're breathing there's hope for a comeback.

Three Day Novel Contest

2011-03-05T08:37:00.000-08:00

Can you produce a masterwork of fiction in three short days? The 3-Day Novel Contest is your chance to find out. The contest has run every Labour Day Weekend since 1977 and now attracts writers from all over the world. It has been responsible for dozens of published novels, thousands of first drafts, countless good ideas and even a reality TV series. For more info, visit http://www.3daynovel.com/

Charlie Kaufman on film & why "movies are dead"

2011-03-05T08:34:00.000-08:00

Writing Better Scene Description

2011-03-05T08:32:00.000-08:00

Reading History and Writing Fiction

2011-03-05T08:31:00.000-08:00

Orson Welles: International Man of Mystery

2011-03-05T04:52:00.001-08:00

George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985), better known as Orson Welles, was an Academy Award-winning American film director, writer, actor and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television, and radio. Welles was also an accomplished magician, starring in troop variety spectacles in the war years. Noted for his innovative dramatic productions as well as his distinctive voice and personality, Welles is widely acknowledged as one of the most accomplished dramatic artists of the 20th century. His first two films with RKO, Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons, are widely considered two of the greatest ever made. His other films, including Touch of Evil and Chimes at Midnight, are also considered masterpieces. He is also well-known for a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds which, performed in the style of a news broadcast, reportedly caused widespread panic when listeners thought that a real invasion was in progress.

In 2002 he was voted as the greatest film director of all time in the British Film Institute's poll of Top Ten Directors.

Selected comments from audience members after the first preview screening of Orson Welles' second film, "The Magnificent Ambersons"

"People like to laff, not be bored to death."

"Picture will not be received by the general audience because they as a whole are too darn ingornat [sic]"

"A horrible distorted dream..."

"This picture is magnificent. The directing, acting, photography, and special effects are the best cinema has yet offered. It is unfortunate that the American public, as represented at this theatre, are unable to appreciate fine art."

"Mr. Welles had better go back to radio, I hope."

Mercury Theatre on the Air
The Films of Orson Welles
Orson Welles Estate

Orson Welles Quotes

More Orson Welles here

Storybase 2.0

2011-03-05T04:52:00.000-08:00

A sure-cure for writer's block, Storybase 2.0 can be used throughout the creative process to spark your imagination. Whether you outline first or jump right in, Storybase 2.0 provides thousands of specific, personalized conflict situations that will help your writing project come alive.

Use Storybase 2.0 to discover new possibilities, points-of-view and points-of-departure from which your story can unfold. Use Storybase 2.0 to discover escalating obstacles for each of your characters.

Use Storybase 2.0 to find those elusive scenes and moments, to heighten conflict and edge throughout the comedy or drama you are writing!

Highlights
Characters include Protagonist, Antagonist, Friend/Lover, Family, and Object (X). Each Conflict is from the point-of-view of Protagonist.
Mindset is an estimate of the Protagonist's mental state. Examples: Angry, Honest, Suspicious
Thrust refers to overall attribute, movement, or story action. Examples: Alliance, Exposure, Separation
Leadins: suggestions for what comes before a given Conflict.
Leadouts: suggestions for what comes after a given Conflict.
Quickly create customized Character Sets that contain the names of your characters
Achieve focused brainstorming by filtering the database with up to three Mindsets and three Thrust/Action values
Easily export or paste the Situations from Storybase 2.0 into your favorite word processor, visual outliner or screenplay formatter.

Learn more and read reviews of Storybase Software for Writers

Good in a Room: How to Sell Yourself (and Your Ideas) and Win Over Any Audience

2011-03-05T04:49:00.000-08:00

Business consultant and former MGM Director of Creative Affairs Stephanie Palmer reveals the techniques used by Hollywood's top writers, producers, and directors to get financing for their projects - and explains how you can apply these techniques to be more successful in your own high-stakes meetings. Because, as Palmer has found, the strategies used to sell yourself and your ideas in Hollywood not only work in other businesses, they often work better.

Whether you are a manager or executive with an innovative proposal, a professional with a hot concept, a salesperson selling to a potential client or investor, or an entrepreneur with a business plan, Good in a Room shows you how to:

Master the five stages of the face-to-face meeting

Avoid the secret dealbreakers of the first ninety seconds

Be confident in high-pressure situations

Present yourself better and more effectively than you ever have before

Whether you want to ask for a raise, grow your client list, launch a new business or find financing for a creative project, you must not only present your ideas in a compelling way - you must also sell yourself, as well. Good in a Room shows you how to construct a winning presentation and deliver the kind of performance that will get your project greenlit, whatever industry you are in.

Learn more and read reviews here

Interview With Nancy Kress

2011-03-03T16:29:00.000-08:00

Nancy Kress is a science fiction writer. She began writing in 1976 but has achieved her greatest notice since the publication of her Hugo and Nebula-winning 1991 novella "Beggars in Spain" which was later expanded into a novel with the same title. In addition to her novels, Kress has written numerous short stories and is a regular columnist for Writer's Digest. She is a regular at Clarion writing workshops and at The Writers Center in Bethesda, Maryland. During the Winter of 2008/09, Nancy Kress is the Picador Guest Professor for Literature at the University of Leipzig's Institute for American Studies in Leipzig, Germany. She tends to write technically realistic stories set in a fairly near future. Her fiction often involves genetic engineering, and, to a lesser degree, artificial intelligence. She loves ballet, and has written stories around it. You can find more interviews with Nancy Kess here.

Following is a short teaser video for Nancy Kress' novel "Dogs," available from Tachyon Publications. Bioterrorism, bloodthirsty family pets and a conspiracy that will take one woman around the world.

Kress is also the authour of two writing guides that deal with character development: Dynamic Characters: How to Create Personalities That Keep Readers Captivated and Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Dynamic Characters and Effective Viewpoints.

Kress has also written a guide on fiction structure called Elements of Writing Fiction - Beginnings, Middles & Ends which offers effective solutions for potential problems at each stage of story writing. Kress helps novice authors write stories with a roaring start and a grand finale. She also helps them hook the editor in the first three paragraphs, make and keep a story's "implicit promise", build drama and credibility by controlling prose, and many other techniques.

More on character development here

The Fine Line Between Being Assertive And Being A Jerk

2011-03-03T14:03:00.000-08:00

Difficult people have an edge on the rest of the herd. If you start out being a jerk, everyone is so amazed whenever you act the least bit nice. If you start out nice and find yourself being walked on, moving over to jerk territory is not so easy. Everyone overreacts. They resist the new jerkier you. It's much better to start off being a jerk in the first place and pull out the nice only on rare occasions.

Writing An Outline: What's More Important, The Journey Or The Destintation?

2011-03-01T15:37:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite writers, Stephen King, claims he does not do outlines. Not only does he not do outlines, he doesn't think much of those who do. I, however, am a reluctant believer in outlining. When I was a callow youth, I thought so much of my skills, I didn't think an outline was necessary. Much like a teenager doesn't think cleaning their room is necessary. Then you grow up and wise up and you realize for most people, certain things are necessary.

There may be a special few who can write anything worth reading without some sort of plan. I suspect even Stephen King outlines a little in his head. I doubt I could write a very satisfying plot without working on a blueprint in advance.

If you find the outline phase of your writing to be a bore, minimize your pain by doing a beat sheet first. Start with random gibberish and slowly organize. Don't sit down to WRITE AN OUTLINE the way some students write essays the night before they are due. Don't make it a miserable experience. Make it a pleasant one. Change the way you feel about the whole process.

A writer friend of mine told me she likes to treat the beginning of her outline like a first date. She buys herself chocolates, lights some candles, puts on soft music and gets out those index cards. She gives herself a time limit. One hour, maybe two and she writes as much as she can, as fast as she can, point form on cards. Like speed dating. Then she goes and soaks in her Jacuzzi with a nice glass of wine. She doesn't read any of it, nor does she try to organize what she's come up with until the next day. Many writers have fun rituals they use to get themselves in the mood, so to speak.

I look at an outline as a flexible guide, more to help eliminate the gibberish and make the basic spine of the story clear. You can always make a detour here and there that will make both the journey and the final destination that much more satisfying and worthwhile.

Remember, if you don't want to make the trip, no one else will either.

It's The 21st Century, Who Outlines On Index Cards Anymore?

2011-02-28T16:47:00.000-08:00

Many writers find high-tech outlining software helpful in their work. Being a Luddite myself, I still like the smell of index cards in the morning. I stick them up on a big bulletin board or I spread them across the floor and march around, arranging them like a 17th century general strategizing with tiny tin armies.

I use mechanical pencils to jot point form on the cards. With multiple story arcs I use different colored cards for each arc. Some software simulates this but it's not quite the same.

There have been some advances in index cards too. Now you can get biodegradeable or recycled index cards. Although, what that says about the quality of my work is questionable.

The point is not HOW you do the work, just that you get it done. Whatever facilitates your enthusiasm is the right way to go.

StoryLogue Preview - Business Edition Q&A

2011-02-27T14:40:00.000-08:00

A preview of a Q&A from the Business Section of StoryLogue in which Robert McKee discusses the use of story in PowerPoint presentations and business.

StoryLogue Preview - Q&A about Multiple Protagonists

2011-02-27T14:05:00.000-08:00

More on Robert McKee here

More books on writing character:

Writing the Character-Centered Screenplay, Updated and Expanded edition

Writing A Great Script Fast: Part 4 Character History

Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Dynamic Characters and Effective Viewpoints (Write Great Fiction)

Creating Character Emotions

Your Writing Coach: From Concept to Character, From Pitch to Publication

Truby's Blockbuster

2011-02-27T04:51:00.000-08:00

No matter how good a writer you are, Truby's Blockbuster software will revolutionize the way you write. John Truby, distinguished screenwriting coach, has integrated a comprehensive story organizer with his renowned Story Structure course (a $200 value). This multi-level creative writing tool brings together hundreds of elements needed for great screenwriting whenever you need it. Remove writer’s block with enhanced brainstorming features to reveal the best path for your characters and plot. And Blockbuster’s Online Help will connect you directly to Truby's Web Site for many more movie examples and story advice.

What's new for version 5.0:

• Has an additional 100 techniques, to give you the largest collection of story tools ever assembled in one place. In your computer.

• Helps you find what is truly original in your story and execute it professionally.

• Connects all the story elements under the surface in a seamless whole.

• 14 major help areas to explain every aspect of the storytelling craft.

• Over 100 story examples on screen and online to solve any story problem you might encounter.

• 8 story shapes to show you how to build the perfect plot for your unique idea.

• Totally redesigned interface that’s quick, productive and easy.

• Horizontal ribbons for fewer clicks to all screens.

• Navigation tree shows every beat in your story in one view.

• Larger screen area so you have more room to work.

• Galleries for easy-to-make choices of all your story elements.

All this added to the powerful features that have made BLOCKBUSTER the award-winning story creation program!

Highlights
Premise: to assess and develop your ideas for depth, originality, and staying power
Genre: to find the best story form to express your unique plot and characters
Character: to build 3-dimensional qualities into your characters
7 Keys: to give you the nucleus on which your ideal story will be based
22 Steps (tm): to weave an interesting and surprising plot on your 7 Key base
Rewrite: to expose problem areas of your script and how to fix them
Story Coach (tm): to keep you on track with the structure, character, and plot
Reference: 32 Story Examples, 103 Greatest Characters in mythology, archetype, fiction and history, and 23 Greatest Story Techniques to make you an unbeatable writer.

Learn more and read reviews of John Truby Blockbuster (Writing and Screenwriting Software)

Inspirational Quotes

2011-02-26T12:26:00.000-08:00

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: "I am with you kid. Let's go."
~ Maya Angelou

Life is a long lesson in humility.
~ James M. Barrie

Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
~ Ambrose Bierce

Innovators and creators are persons who can to a higher degree than average accept the condition of aloneness. They are more willing to follow their own vision, even when it takes them far from the mainland of the human community. Unexplored places do not frighten them - or not, at any rate, as much as they frighten those around them. This is one of the secrets of their power. That which we call 'genius' has a great deal to do with courage and daring, a great deal to do with nerve.
~ Nathaniel Branden

The secret of health for mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, but to live in the present moment, wisely and earnestly.
~ Buddha

What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday and our present thoughts build our tomorrow. Our life is the creation of our mind.
~ Buddha

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
~ Edmund Burke

I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of old ones.
~ John Cage

I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you don't like?
~ Jean Cocteau

Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.
~ Edward de Bono

The efforts which we make to escape our destiny only serve to lead us into it.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The measure of mental health is the disposition to find good everywhere.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
~ Gandhi

I'm always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I've been.
~ Billie Holiday

Nothing makes me more pessimistic than the obligation not to be pessimistic.
~ Eugéne Ionesco

Surviving means being born over and over.
~ Erica Jong

It's often safer to be in chains than to be free.
~ Franz Kafka

Success didn't spoil me; I've always been insufferable.
~ Fran Lebowitz

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
~ Jack London

Chaos in the midst of chaos isn't funny, but chaos in the midst of order is.
~ Steve Martin

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.
~ Anais Nin

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.
~ George Orwell

There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.
~ Edgar Allan Poe

It is a great advantage to have produced nothing, but you must not abuse it.
~ Anotine de Rivarol, French writer and wit, replying to a merciless critic

I'm not a teacher: only a fellow-traveller of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead -- ahead of myself as well as you.
~ George Bernard Shaw

There's no possibility of being witty without a little ill-nature; the malice of a good thing is the barb that makes it stick.
~ Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Everyone must believe in something. I believe I'll go canoeing.
~ Henry David Thoreau

I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain.
~ Lily Tomlin

The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.
~ Mark Twain

We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.
~ Oscar Wilde

The Thriller: Scripting Seat-Gripping Suspense

2011-02-25T15:08:00.000-08:00

The Thriller: Scripting Seat-Gripping Suspense plumbs nine-score thrillers for recurring features that build nape-prickling, heart-pounding suspense. Fodder for analysis embraces domestic and foreign fare, classic and contemporary, ranging from Ghost, Speed, Seven, Psycho, and The Silence of the Lambs to La Femme Nikita and Yogen [Premonition].

Text eschews a connecting-the-dots, painting-by-numbers approach, in belief that formulas drain the lifeblood of creativity and inevitably spawn a ho-hum product. That said, the eight factors culled from the covered films constitute useful tools in the screenwriter’s arsenal.

Perhaps the best groundwork for a thriller is infiltrating the ATF/FBI/IRA, or a brigade of arms-running mercenaries. Short of that, watching films and reading scripts will work wonders. In that spirit, the book debuts three feature-film scripts for critical scrutiny: mystery thriller “Stateline”; police thriller “Cashing Out”; supernatural thriller “Birthmarks.”

About the Author:

Gregory G. Sarno holds a J.D. degree from U.C. Berkeley. He has written several articles for London-based film journal Script Writer Magazine. Nonfiction books include Contemporizing the Classics: Poe, Shakespeare, Doyle; Threshold: Scripting a Coming-of-Age; Lights! Camera! Action!: Crafting an Action Script; When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again: Three Soldiers, Three Wars.

Learn more and read reviews here

Check out a video seminar on writing thrillers featuring writer Gayle Lynds:

Screenwriting Tips: Find Your Software

2011-02-25T06:40:00.000-08:00

Interview with Martha Grimes

2011-02-25T06:35:00.000-08:00

Martha Grimes discusses the plot of her new Richard Jury mystery THE BLACK CAT from Martha Grimes on Vimeo.

Martha Grimes (born May 2, 1931) is an American author of detective fiction.

She was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to D.W., a city solicitor, and to June, who owned the Mountain Lake Hotel in Western Maryland where Martha and her brother spent much of their childhood. Grimes earned her B.A. and M.A. at the University of Maryland. She has taught at the University of Iowa, Frostburg State University, and Montgomery College.

Grimes is best known for her series of novels featuring Richard Jury, an inspector with Scotland Yard, and his friend Melrose Plant, a British aristocrat who has given up his titles. Each of the Jury mysteries is named after a pub. Her page-turning, character-driven tales fall into the mystery subdivision of "cozies." In 1983, Grimes received the Nero Award for best mystery of the year for The Anodyne Necklace.

The background to Hotel Paradise is drawn on the experiences she enjoyed spending summers at her mother's hotel in Mountain Lake Park, Maryland. One of the characters, Mr Britain, is drawn on Britten Leo Martin, Sr, who then ran Marti's Store which he owned with his father and brother. Martin's Store is accessible by a short walkway from Mountain Lake, the site of the former Hotel, which was torn down in 1967.

She splits her time between homes in Washington, D.C., and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Final Draft 8: Macworld Review

2011-02-25T04:45:00.000-08:00

Read the MacWorld review here

Learn more and read reviews of Final Draft Version 8

find more writing software here

Words of Women

2011-02-25T04:41:00.000-08:00

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host.
But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.
~ Maya Angelou

A word after a word after a word is power.
~ Margaret Atwood

I praise loudly; I blame softly.
~ Catherine the Great

One is not born a woman, one becomes one.
~ Simone De Beauvoir

Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace.
~ Amelia Earhart

The especial genius of women I believe to be electrical in movement, intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency.
~ Margaret Fuller

The choices that women make to survive, or to appear good to others, are often at the expense of [other] women...I would like to see older women ally themselves with young girls to help them resist a world that devalues them.
~ Carol Gilligan

I believe that what a woman resents most is not so much giving herself in pieces as giving herself purposelessly.
~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
~ Dolores Ibarruri

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.
~ Erica Jong

There is plenty of courage among us for the abstract but not for the concrete.
~ Helen Keller

I am too long in the tooth to think you can make demands on life and expect that they will be granted, like waving a magic fairy wand.
~ Annie Lennox

Women are not inherently passive or peaceful. We're not inherently anything but human.
~ Robin Morgan

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
~ Anais Nin

We need love and creative imagination to do constructive work.
~ Paula Ollendorf

Rosiness is not a worse windowpane than gloomy grey when viewing the world.
~ Grace Paley

There will never be a new world order until women are part of it.
~ Alice Paul

We bear the world and we make it...There was never a great man who had not a great mother.
~ Olive Schreiner

For fast-acting relief try slowing down.
~ Lily Tomlin, on stress

Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.
~ Virginia Woolf

I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.
~ Mae West

Writing Better Action

2011-02-25T03:13:00.000-08:00

Interview with Author Scott Phillips

2011-02-24T15:20:00.000-08:00

Screenwriter Scott Phillips imparts film industry wisdom from CM Life on Vimeo.

Scott Phillips is an American writer of crime fiction in the noir tradition. He was born in Wichita, Kansas, and lived for several years in France, working as a translator and photographer; then in California as a screenwriter, co-writing a 1996 straight-to-video thriller called Crosscut.

His first novel, The Ice Harvest, was published in 2000, and won the California Book Award, as well as being nominated for the Edgar Award and Hammett Prize, and shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. A black comic noir thriller set in the low-rent world of sleazy Wichita strip clubs on Christmas Eve 1979, The Ice Harvest was adapted into a film of the same title in 2005. He followed this in 2002 with The Walkaway, a prequel set largely in Wichita during the 1940s. His third novel, Cottonwood, set in Kansas and California during the Western era, was published in 2003.

Interview With Screenwriter Bill Broyles

2011-02-24T15:12:00.000-08:00

Screenwriter Bill Broyles from Texas Monthly Talks on Vimeo.

A decorated Marine veteran, screenwriter William Broyles Jr. was co-writer of Apollo 13, which received the Academy Award® and Writers Guild Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay, and co-wrote the screenplays for Entrapment, Planet of the Apes, and Unfaithful. Broyles was founding editor of the award-winning Texas Monthly magazine, editor-in-chief for California magazine, and editor-in-chief of Newsweek. He has written for numerous magazines, authored the book Brothers in Arms, and was the co-creator of the television series China Beach, which won 12 Emmys®. He lives in Austin, Texas.

Murder and Mayhem: A Doctor Answers Medical and Forensic Questions for Mystery Writers

2011-02-24T14:09:00.000-08:00

In Murder Mayhem, Dr. Doug Lyle culls the best of his popular 'The Doctor is In' QA column for the Mystery Writers of America, in which he answers medical and forensic questions from writers all over the country. Clearly organized into subjects such as 'Weapons of Death,' 'Police the Crime Scene,' 'the Coroner the Crime Lab,' and more, the questions cover a wide range: Do pupils shrink or enlarge with death? Can ingested cocaine kill? How soon do strangu-lation bruises appear? Lively and accessible, this solid reference is bound for every mystery writer's shelf.

About the Author
D. P. Lyle, M.D., writes "The Doctor Is In," a monthly medical and forensic Q&A column for The March of Crime and The Sleuth Sayer, two newsletters for the Mystery Writers of America (Southern California and Southwestern chapters). He has practiced cardiology in Orange County, California, for the past twenty-five years.

Learn more about this book and read reviews here

Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc

2011-02-24T14:04:00.000-08:00

Whether you're a beginning screenwriter or an A-list Academy Award winner, all writers struggle with the same thing: to get to the great script inside.

Step by step, Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc guides you through an extraordinary new process that helps identify your thematic intention - what your story is really about - and teaches you how to turn that intention into the driving force behind all your creative choices. The result is a profound relationship between the movement of the plot and the internal development of character, which is the foundation for the transformational arc. The transformational arc is the deeper line of structure found inside the story. Knowing how to work with the arc enhances your ability to:

* Express your unique point of view
* Give meaning and urgency to the line of action
* Infuse your characters with richness, subtlety, and surprise
* Develop a powerful emotional undercurrent
* Make your stories stand out and get attention

A strong transformational arc is the single most important element that makes the difference between a good screenplay and a great one.

Inside Story delivers what the name implies: it's the real inside scoop on how to write a great screenplay with depth, dimension, and substance. It is a must-have for any serious screenwriter, playwright, or novelist.

About the Author:
Dara Marks is a leading international script consultant who has specialized in the analysis of the modern screenplay for the past two decades. Creative Screenwriting Magazine has consistently rated her one of the top script consultants in the film industry. Her advice has been sought on a wide variety of films and television programs, and her clients range from beginning and apprentice screenwriters to top studio writers and executives.

Learn more and read reviews of Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc

Pauline Rowson Talks About Developing Characters

2011-02-24T13:50:00.000-08:00

"You'll work it out, you're a writer."

2011-02-24T13:37:00.000-08:00

With the news of a planned remake of "Soapdish" we give you one of the best writer roles in film played by Whoopi Goldberg. Robert Downey Jr. as a young producer is almost too real to be funny. Enjoy.

Cyber Crime Fighters: Tales from the Trenches

2011-02-24T06:40:00.000-08:00

Written by leading cyber crime investigators, Cyber Crime Fighters: Tales from the Trenches takes you behind the scenes to reveal the truth behind Internet crime, telling shocking stories that aren’t covered by the media, and showing you exactly how to protect yourself and your children. This is the Internet crime wave as it really looks to law enforcement insiders: the truth about crime on social networks and YouTube, cyber stalking and criminal cyber bullying, online child predators, identity theft, even the latest cell phone crimes. Here are actual cases and actual criminals, presented by investigators who have been recognized by the FBI and the N.H. Department of Justice.

About the Authors

Felicia Donovan is a recognized law enforcement technology and cyber crime expert who spent ten years at a New England police department and received recognition from the FBI on her work related to cases. The author of the popular The Black Widow Agency series, she has been featured in Law Enforcement Technology magazine.

Kristyn Bernier, a detective and 15-year veteran of a New England-based police department, currently specializes in undercover work fighting Internet crimes. As an investigator with the Northern New England Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, she has been honored by the N.H. Department of Justice.

Learn more and read reviews here

Interview With Screenwriter Julian Barry

2011-02-23T18:43:00.000-08:00

Julian Barry is a distinguished American playwright and screenwriter best known for writing the play Lenny, based on the life and writings of cutting-edge comic Lenny Bruce, and the 1974 feature film based on that play and starring Dustin Hoffman. Julian Barry earned an Oscar nomination for his adaptation of his play.

Barry began in movies with the adaptation of Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros (1972), in which Gene Wilder decides not to conform and turns into a pachyderm.

After Lenny, Barry wrote The River, which starred Sissy Spacek and Mel Gibson as stubborn farmers who won't let the bank forelcose on their land.

Barry went back to comedy with Me, Myself and I in which George Segal falls in love with his neighbor (Jobeth Williams), a schizophrenic with mood swings.

Barry's TV work includes the 1991 PBS original drama "A Marriage: Georgia O'Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz" about the relationship between the artist and the photographer.

Many of Barry's works have played London's West End, such as the musical Jean Seberg, which he wrote with Marvin Hamlisch and which chronicled the story of the small-town girl plucked for stardom, chewed up by Hollywood, and who then became a radical leftist. In 1990, he wrote a musical version of Rhinoceros as Born Again, which premiered in Britain with Mandy Patinkin in the leading role. With Don McLean, Barry also wrote the musical American Pie, inspired by McLean's hit song.

Dramatica Unplugged

2011-02-23T18:36:00.000-08:00

Melanie Anne Phillips, co-creator of the Dramatica theory of story and co-designer of the Dramatica software for story development, introduces the story mind.

What Makes Sammy Run?

2011-02-23T18:22:00.000-08:00

Causing a sensation when it was first published in 1941, What Makes Sammy Run? was such a controversial novel that no Hollywood studio dared bring it to the screen. In 1959, NBC presented the definitive adaptation of Budd Schulberg's scathing tale on the anthology series Sunday Showcase. Audiences were enthralled with the amoral hustler Sammy Glick (Larry Blyden) and his meteoric rise from copy boy to the heights of the studio system. Long considered one of television's "lost" treasures, the complete two-part broadcast (directed by Academy Award-winner Delbert Mann and also starring John Forsythe, Barbara Rush and Dina Merrill) has been restored and re-mastered and is now available for the first time ever.

EXCLUSIVE BONUS FEATURES:
-Audio commentary with Dina Merrill and Barbara Rush
-Interview with Budd Schulberg

ALSO INCLUDES: 16-page booklet with written contributions by the Archive of American Television and Jane Klain, Manager of Research Services at the Paley Center for Media

Learn more and get reviews of What Makes Sammy Run?

Mamos Weeds

2011-02-23T18:19:00.000-08:00

"Mamos Weeds," a short film written by acclaimed mystery writer Naomi Hirahara, tells the intriguing story of Mamo Ikeda, a gardener besieged with a destructive weed epidemic and a series of mysteries.

More on Naomi Hirahara here

Interview With Ken Dancyger

2011-02-23T18:18:00.000-08:00

A past chair of Undergraduate studies in the Department of Film and Television at NYU, Ken Dancyger conducts screenwriting forums and workshops in North America, Europe, and Asia and is the author of numerous books on screenwriting, editing, and production.

From Newsroom to Mystery Writer with Kelly Lange

2011-02-22T09:09:00.000-08:00

Kelly Lange is an American journalist, reporter, talk show host, former Tournament of Roses parade co-host, longtime southern California local news anchor, and currently, a best-selling mystery author.

Lange served as Rose Bowl Parade co-host with Michael Landon; was the regular guest host of "Tomorrow with Tom Snyder;" and a regular guest host of NBC's "Today" program. In Southern California, she served as co-anchor for nightly newscasts at KNBC-TV from 1971-1999. She won several Emmy Awards as well as once serving as the award program host. She began writing fiction and mysteries while still a news anchor, partially to relieve insomnia from working on the 11 pm newscast. After a two-year talk show stint with KCBS-TV, she left broadcasting and has since been a full-time mystery novelist. The popular mystery fiction books include The Reporter and Dead File, both about fictional news anchor Maxi Poole, plus Trophy Wife and Gossip.

Gillian Flynn talks about Sharp Objects

2011-02-22T07:06:00.000-08:00

Gillian Flynn is an American author and television critic for Entertainment Weekly. She has so far written one novel, Sharp Objects. Her book has received wide praise, including from authors such as Stephen King. The dark plot revolves around a serial killer in a Missouri town, and the reporter who has returned from Chicago to cover the event. Themes include dysfunctional families, violence and self-harm.

In 2007 the novel was shortlisted for the Mystery Writers of America Edgar for Best First Novel by an American Writer, Crime Writers' Association Duncan Lawrie, CWA New Blood and Ian Fleming Steel Daggers, winning in the last two categories.

Learn more and read reviews here

Anatomy of a Murder Mystery

2011-02-21T12:24:00.000-08:00

Plotting a crime fiction novel using freemind

2011-02-21T09:35:00.000-08:00

Find more crime writing resources here

Red Room Writers Community

2011-02-21T09:15:00.000-08:00

Founded by Huntress writer Ivory Madison, Red Room offers a wealth of tips and tricks from authors and members. Following are just some of the resources available on redroom.com.

Marketing and Promotions
The Literary Industry
Education and MFA Programs
The Literary Community
The Life of a Writer

Check out Red Room here

Blockbuster Plots Scene Tracker Kit

2011-02-21T09:11:00.000-08:00

Blockbuster Plots' Scene Tracker Kit dramatically cuts the time it takes to finish your story. The Scene Tracker Kit includes: 200 page Blockbuster Plots Pure & Simple book for all your writing needs, 107 minute plot workshop DVD, and the Scene Tracker template CD and tutorial. A good scene either advances the action of the story, develops the character, contributes to the theme, provides tension and conflict and/or reflects a change in attitude or circumstances. A great scene does all of these at once. The Scene Tracker Kit includes everything you need to create scenes that are full of conflict, tension and suspense, grounds the reader in place and time, and advances the character emotional development plot line, dramatic action plot line and the thematic significance plot line.

Learn more and read reviews here

Archetypes for Writers: Using the Power of Your Subconscious

2011-02-21T09:07:00.000-08:00

Drawing on her years of training in theater and decades of teaching, Van Bergen unveils the secret of using your own archetypes to find and develop already-existing characters. This approach has little to do with how to "create" characters or plot stories. Rather, is is more about how to find your characters and story archetypes, or even how to have them find you - using specific skills taught in the book.

Learn more and read reviews here