Screenwriting From Iowa

“The novelist and short story writer John Cheever, when asked why he wrote did not say, ‘To show the upper middle class lives of Connecticut.’ He said, ‘To make sense out of my life.” Wallace Stegner On Teaching and Writing Fiction P.S. Both Wallace Stegner and John Cheever had connections to Iowa. Stegner (who won […]

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I grew up watching the Apollo launches from Cape Canaveral dreaming about being an NASA astronaut and traveling into space. The astronaut thing faded away long ago, but the space travel thing never died. Time will tell if SpaceX (or some other group) will realize some kind of space tourism, but this SpaceX promo shows […]

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“I don’t think there’s any artist of any value who doesn’t doubt what they’re doing.” 5-time Oscar winner Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather) Academy of Achievement Q&A Below is a partial list of Francis Ford Coppola related posts I’ve written over the year. I’m going to designate Coppola the Godfather of this blog.  If you’ve never […]

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“Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated; it satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening—and it is without a doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented.” Arnold Palmer This morning when I heard he’d died it reminded me of a couple of years ago when […]

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[Note: To support this blog, and further interviews, please become a patron at Patreon. Even if just $1 or $3 a month.] Today rounds out the nine part series with screenwriter, and author of Bring the Funny: The Essential Companion for the Comedy Screenwriter, Greg DePaul. Scott W. Smith: What do you tell the writer who’s been […]

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[Note: To support this blog, and further interviews, please become a patron at Patreon. Even if just $1 or $3 a month.] Scott: Part of my emphasis on this blog is to put the spotlight on filmmakers doing things in unlikely places, which are often micro budget filmmakers. Do you think there’s a place with Amazon, and […]

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[Note: To support this blog, and further interviews, please become a patron at Patreon. Even if just $1 or $3 a month.] Scott W. Smith: There are dozens of working screenwriters I can think who came to their success in different ways, but the one thing they have in common is it took time to reach their […]

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[Note: To support this blog, and further interviews, please become a patron at Patreon. Even if just $1 or $3 a month.] Today we pick up part six of the interview with Greg DePaul, screenwriter, teacher, and author of Bring the Funny: Scott W. Smith: Richard Pryor once said all comedy is rooted in pain. In your […]

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Scott W. Smith: One of your lines in your book {Bring the Funny] is “You must teach yourself how to screenwriter.” Screenwriter Greg DePaul (Bride Wars): Definitely. But I do have tools that can save them a lot of time in the learning process. Scott: You write that the most important key to success as a […]

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Scott W. Smith: From the original conception of the idea for Bride Wars to when it finally got produced how many years went by? Greg DePaul: It might have been five years, 2004 to 2009. Scott: So there’s a lesson there. Michael Arndt talks about writing 10 screenplays over ten years before he sold one, […]

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