from : All Freelance Writing 16th November 2009

by Jennifer Mattem with Xandy Sussan

If you're new to All Freelance Writing it's a site well worth visiting and subcribing to : All Freelance Writing

Today in our "Getting Started" series, screenwriter / television writer Xandy Sussan stops by to talk to us about screenwriting. Whether you’re looking for a way to freelance in fiction or you simply want to pursue a screenplay or teleplay as a creative side project, there are some things you sh...

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The Essence of Character by Linda Cowgill

Just like real people, characters are defined by their actions more than their words. Linda Seger gives you three rules that will help your characters become more human.

Great movies constantly replay in our imaginations, on the same bill with other memories, fantasies, and dreams. How do they get there? What makes us include them in that highest of personal repertories? Unlike other memories, we haven't directly experienced "the plot" of the mo...

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"TwelvePoint.com" describes itself as "Insider knowledge and networking for screenwriters" and it delivers exactly what it says on the box.

I recommend any aspiring screenwriter to join this community - and to subscribe to the online magazine if possible. After exploring the site with a view to writing this blog post and adding TwelvePoint.com to the links page, I spent some time exploring the site and was excited and impressed by what I saw there - I am now a member.

TwelvePoint.com can speak...

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The Reel Truth: Everything You Didn't Know You Need to Know About Making an Independent Film

Website : The Reel Truth

Twitter : Reed Martin (The Reel Truth)

Facebook : The Reel Truth - become a fan  - I am ....


Editorial Reviews :

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These tips can also be found on Script Angel and are based on excerpts from John Yorke in for his excellent 'Advanced Story Course'

 Story

1. Get your hooks in early – the first 10 pages are the most important. If the person reading the script is bored, so will an audience be watching it and they’ll switch channels!

2. Have a narrative thread running right through, it doesn’t need to be continually taught but it mustn’t break or the audience will drift away. Create a sense of forw...

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This article appeared in the June 2009 print edition of The Irish Times

by Paul Shrader, screenplay writer : "Mishima", "Taxi Driver", "Cat People", "Affliction"

Movies, television shows, cartoons, streaming video, YouTube clips. We’re swimming in storylines, suffering from ‘narrative exhaustion’. Can traditional cinema keep up ?

SCREENWRITERS love to complain. They are disrespected by producers, deemed dispensable by directors, not duly credited by critics, treated like employees by act...

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“Proofing Your Script” – Written by Derek Ladd –  Editor, Proof Edge


KEEPING IT CLEAN : Terminating Terrible Typos – The Importance of Proofing


I watched an interesting film a while back called ‘The Prestige’ with Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman. You may have seen it. A few months later I read the script (courtesy of DailyScipt). There are more typos in that one screenplay than in all the screenplays I’ve edited combined. Do yourself a favor and read this script. Hopefully it wi...
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A Technique-Based Approach to Screenwriting  : by David S Freeman who opens his bag of tricks to reveal some of the techniques the best screenwriters keep up close at hand.

We know that painters have techniques for their craft, such as mixing colors and utilizing perspective. And actors have all sorts of techniques for "getting into character."

But what about screenwriters? Can they also have a palette of techniques they can employ?

By a "writing technique" I mean:

1. It can be identi...

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How to Plug the Holes in Your Script - veteran script doctor Michael Ray Brown runs down a few questions to ask yourself before you send that script out into the world.

Writers often ask me what I look for in a script. I have only one rule: the script must capture my interest and keep me wanting to see what happens next. But how do you do this?

• Do you load up your script with action?
• Do you keep trying to shock or surprise your audience?
• Do you create a "Whammo Chart" like Joel Silve...

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As screenwriters we are are often told to layer our scripts with subtext, reversals, etc. This is important because it adds ‘depth’ to the characters and the plot bringing thee story alive on the page and screen. Yet layering is a technique which often eludes even the best screenwriters.

This post focusses on creating character depth via reflection techniques because these ‘techniques’ often create layering without much effort on the screenwriter’s part. A screenwriter who masters...

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There's more to successful drama writing than just stringing together vaguely related sequences.

We understand the world through stories. An encounter with a moody bus driver that we tell a friend about, a fairy tale we read to children at bedtime, Tolstoy's epic historical novel War and Peace are all these are narratives, stories that explain some part of our world to ourselves. They help us to define the struggles of a daily travel, the unseen forces facing a child, and the reality of living...

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Re-read your screenplay and ask yourself these questions :

1. Are the parts castable? Does the film have roles that stars will want to play?

2. Action and humor should emanate from the characters, and not just thrown in for the sake of a laugh. Comedy which violates the integrity of the characters or oversteps the reality-world of the film may get a laugh, but it will ultimately unravel the picture. Don't break the fourth wall, no matter how tempting.

3. Audiences want to see characters who car...
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Re-read you screenplay and ask yourself these questions :

1. Is it properly formatted?

2. Proper spelling and punctuation. Sentence fragments okay.

3. Is there a discernible three-act structure?

4. Are all scenes needed? No scenes off the spine, they will die on screen.

5. Screenplay descriptions should direct the reader's mind's eye, not the director's camera.

6. Begin the screenplay as far into the story as possible.

7. Begin a scene as late as possible, end it as early as possible. A screenpla...

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Re-read you screenplay and ask these questions : -

1. Imagine the trailer. Is the concept marketable?

2. Is the premise naturally intriguing -- or just average, demanding perfect execution?

3. Who is the target audience? Would your parents go see it?

4. Does your story deal with the most important events in the lives of your characters?

5. If you're writing about a fantasy-come-true, turn it quickly into a nightmare-that-won't-end.

6. Does the screenplay create questions: will he find out the truth...

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More and more producers are seeking genre-specific screenplays, like a horror with no comedic relief or perhaps an action or action/adventure that doesn’t try to be a suspense thriller.

Roughly seven out of ten scripts submitted to the Extreme Screenwriting Competition in 2008 listed the wrong genre!

If the readers starts out thinking that they're reading a "Suspense Thriller" and then realize that it’s a "Crime Drama" or if the screenwriter indicated that the genre is "RomCom", but the sc...

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Often the hardest thing is to get started. What you need to do is to STOP PROCRASTINATING - just get a few sheets of paper and a pencil. Don't waste time setting up nice little files on your computer - then going for a break 'while you think' .... Don't get caught up in what you great opening scene is going to be - or how to construct your 'hook'. Realistically, they are waaaaaaaaay down the line.

If you've got an idea for a story - and you believe in it. You truly think that it will make a go...

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For the Euroscript Screen Story Competition 2009 you have two pages to sell your script. To help you, here is a quick checklist. There are no rigid rules, so you don’t need to follow this slavishly, you won’t penalise you if you don’t, it’s simply a life-raft if you’re drowning . . .

You can use this checklist even if you don't enter this particular competition.

CHARACTER

Is there a clear central character? (Or, if it’s an ensemble piece, is it clear which characters form part...

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