Screenwriting From Iowa

  I think that writing isn’t psychotherapy but there are elements of it in it. It’s not its purpose, but I do think we work things out in our stories. Ultimately I think that’s the whole point of stories, whether you’re the creator of them or the audience of them that’s why we want to […]

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“I think the best book about screenwriting that will help you in terms of prose is Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett. Read his prose in that book—he says a lot with a little. It’s so terse and wonderful. Just the way he describes things in that novel. The way the dialogue done, but more importantly […]

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“One of my favorite screenplays is Melvin and Howard and it has a 25-minute opening scene—and it’s a great script. It’s very episodic and I don’t’ know what the act structure of that movie is. I think [screenwriting classes on structure] are great if they help you think about writing, and that they get you writing, […]

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  Your only touchstone as to what’s good is what you like and what makes you feel good as a writer— what inspires you. And then you hope that that will somehow connect with an audience. I think there are some stories that are less cinematic than others, and might not be engaging in terms […]

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[Director] Sydney Pollack tells the story of these two actors who are improving once and they were talking about having a baby—they were making plans for their life. The female actress was pregnant [in the scene] and the acting teacher whispered into her ear without telling the male actor that she just had an abortion […]

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Here’s a different view from all those that say screenplays are structure, structure, structure: When I first started writing I don’t think I paid much attention to structure, I relied more on inspiration. I thought inspiration was all that mattered and that structure would work itself out. Looking back on things I’ve done, I noticed […]

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Here’s a quote pulled from my 2010 post Your Screenplay Sucks! One of the ways that William Akers says that your screenplay sucks is,  “You worried about structure when you came up with your story.” Then he elaborates: Screw Structure. Have fun. Structure is for later. For now, just let your incredibly creative mind run […]

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“To insist that a storyteller stick to the facts is just as ridiculous as to demand of a representative painter that he show objects accurately…We should have total freedom to do as we like, just so long as it’s not dull. A critic who talks to me about plausibility is a dull fellow…I don’t want […]

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“Most coverage templates include, what I call, the idiot grid. It’s a grid of criteria on which the script is judged – categorized (usually) by POOR, FAIR, GOOD, EXCELLENT. It’s a quick way for someone to see the qualities of the script without even having to read the coverage (hence the term, “idiot grid”). I’ve […]

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