Screenwriting From Iowa

“Read, read, read. Read everything–trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the masters Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write.”
William Faulkner


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One of my all-time favorite quotes about screenwriting comes from Richard Walter at UCLA; “Planes that land safely do not make the headlines and nobody goes to the theater, or switches on the tube, to view a movie entitled The Village of the Happy Nice People.” When things are normal there is no conflict, and [...]

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It’s commonly agreed upon that the first 10 pages of your script are the most important. Script readers are savvy enough to judge in those first ten pages if the story, the characters, the set-up, and the writing keep their interest.  But Wesley Rowe makes the case that your spec script will probably be sold [...]

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Producer/writer/director launched her career back in 1980 by co-writing Private Benjamin for which she won the WGA Award for Best Comedy Writing and earned her an Oscar nomination. She went on to write the hits scripts and produce film such as Baby Boom and Father of the Bride before turning her hand to directing What [...]

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“I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.” Pearl S. Buck
Related post: Screenwriter’s Work Ethic


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“A writer’s job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as memories.”          John Irving


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Carolyn wrote in the comments yesterday about Whip It, “I can’t wait to see this film.” The problem is the film opened last weekend and these days that opening weekend is extremely important for a film to become a financial success. The filmmakers and studios were depending on the Carolyn’s out there to show up and [...]

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Ellen Page can skate. Really skate. Roller derby-style to boot. That alone makes Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut Whip It worth seeing. But wait, there’s more….
Most people know Page for her Juno role, but the 22-year-old Oscar nominated actress from Nova Scotia already has a decade old career having been in over 25 films and TV [...]

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I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am women
I Am Women
Written by Helen Reddy & Ray Burton
“I couldn’t find any songs that said what I thought being a woman was about. I thought about all these strong women in my family who had gotten through the Depression and world wars and drunken, abusive husbands. [...]

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Screenwriting quote #104 was from legendary writer Robert Benton (Places of the Heart) who grew up in Texas and has had a tremendous Oscar-winning Hollywood career. Today we’ll look at another writer from Texas who is just starting her career as her first film (Whip It!) was released yesterday. I’ll write more about it tomorrow [...]

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