Screenwriting From Iowa

“The writer in any field, and particularly the television writer, runs into ‘dry periods’—weeks or months when it seems that everything he writes goes the rounds and ultimately gets nowhere.” Rod Serling

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“In 11-12 years of writing I can lay claim to this—I’ve never written beneath myself. I’ve never written anything I didn’t want my named attached to.” Rod Serling in 1959 “No one could know Serling, or view or read his work, without recognizing his deep affection for humanity … and his determination to enlarge our […]

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“Leave It to Beaver is probably the most classic TV show ever. There’s just something so wholesome about it. Kurt Cobain interview with Kurt Saint Thomas Who knows how long this will lastNow we’ve come so far, so fastBut, somewhere back there in the dustThat same small town in each of us The End of the […]

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On this repost Saturday, I’m tapping into a post I originally wrote in 2009. Of course, Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone are ageless: All filmmaking is embracing limitations because you always have to draw the line somewhere on running time and expenses. The Twilight Zone was no exception. Now considered one of the best programs […]

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“I don’t have any system. I dictate a lot, through a machine, and I also have a secretary. But I used to type just like everybody else. I find dictating in the mass media particularly good because you’re writing for voice anyway; you’re writing for people to say a line and, consequently, saying a line […]

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“Somehow, some way, incredibly enough, good writing ultimately gets recognized. I don’t know how that happens but it does. If you’re really a good writer and deserve that honored position, then by God, you’ll write, and you’ll be read, and you’ll be produced somehow. It just works that way.” Rod Serling 1975 interview with Linda […]

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Former Florida State University football coach Bobby Bowden once said of a standout player, “He may not be in a class by himself, but whatever class he’s in— it doesn’t take long to take roll.” (That’s from memory, but you get the point.)  I thought of that quote I heard decades ago when I read […]

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Former Florida State University football coach Bobby Bowden once said of one of his players, “He may not be in a class by himself, but whatever class he’s in it doesn’t take long to take roll.” I though of that quote I heard decades ago when I read the following quote by Rod Serling. “You […]

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If I have a gift to the screenwriting world, it’s having a filter to sift through the mountains of material out there and find bit-sized chunks to posts in this internet generation we’re living in. I love digging through interviews and finding these kinds of quotes: “A writer’s greatest fear now is not that he’s […]

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“For me, writing a screenplay is an important thing, it is a thing unto itself, as opposed to a blueprint for a movie. I take pride in those 120 pages, that the screenplay can be a piece of art all by itself, a thing you can sit down and read, as opposed to just connecting […]

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