Screenwriting From Iowa

“I would say just start writing. You’ve got to write every day. Copy someone that you like if you think that perhaps could become your sound too. I did that with Hemingway, and I thought I was writing just like Hemingway. Then all of a sudden it occurred to me, he didn’t have a sense [...]

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“One of the questions I am always asking when I’m writing is ‘How can I show it rather than say it?’ Characters are best defined through action, and in screenwriting in particular it is very important to find visual ways to convey character because, with the exception of voice-over, it is very difficult to get [...]

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“Coincidence may mean exposition is in the wrong place, i.e. if you establish the too-convenient circumstances before they become dramatically necessary, then we feel no sense of coincidence. Use coincidence to get your characters into trouble, not out of trouble.” Writer/director Alexander Mackendrick (Sweet Smell of Success, The Ladykillers) On-Filmmaking: An Introduction to the Craft of [...]

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“A week later [my agent] called with news that the folks at Starsky and Hutch had read my screenplay and didn’t think I had what it took to work on the show. I told my agent I was on page 108 of my new script and he should not to anything rash. I’d call him [...]

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“When I first started to write novels while running a magazine, I told myself that I would only write for 15 minutes a day. I knew that working for a short amount of time was an achievable goal, and I managed to get 10 books written just this way.” Kate White Former editor in chief [...]

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When I took the tour last week of the childhood home of writer/composer Meredith Willison (The Music Man) I learned that he wasn’t the only writer in the family. His sister Dixie was a novelist and screenwriter. And it’s not just that sehe sold some books and earned some IMDB credits, she actually influenced on [...]

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“There’s an Iowa kind of special, Chip-on-the shoulder attitude, We’ve never been without.” Iowa Stuborn from The Music Man Written by Meredith Willson Composer, conductor, songwriter, and playwright Meredith Willson is most well known as the creative forced behind The Music Man. He was born in Mason City, Iowa in 1902 and educated at what [...]

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“Unfortunately, people believe that their first thing should be great. Writing is like anything else. You’re not supposed to write a page and expect it to be good. You have to write a thousand pages and expect it to be good. It’s as if we were training for the 20-yard-dash, and instead of waiting until [...]

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“[David]Magee struggled to find the right voice and tone for the screenplay. The book [Life of Pi], after all, ranged in content from philosophical musings on religion and zoology to the slapstick silliness of young a young schoolboy. How to encompass both in one screenplay? It wasn’t until late June of 2009, during a trip [...]

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Though the film Life of Pi was shot in Taiwan, I just learned about the screenplay’s Midwest roots. Not only was David Magee born in Flint, Michigan but: “Magee has had an unusual career path for a screenwriter. A graduate of the University of Illinois (where he studied theater around the same time as Lee did), [...]

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