[Movies] have an obligation to be sort of timeless. A good story is a good story, it doesn’t change. The Searchers is still The Searchers. It’s A Wonderful Life is still charming, Dirty Harry is still suspenseful, Jaws is still terrifying. These are movies that are prime, pristine examples of storytelling. The Exorcist is as […]
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There’s a writer named Evan Hunter who worked under the pen name of Ed McBain. I’ve always been a fan of mystery and thriller novels, of suspense, you know? He was a suspense novelist, and one thing he wrote that I always took to heart was, “Every movie’s a thriller.’ “Think about it. It’s like […]
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A couple of days ago I wrote a post titled Screenwriting from Your Darker Side—here’s an example of that from The Dark Knight written by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan: Related post: Writing Good Bad Guys (Tip #85) Scott W. Smith 
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Now I want to talk about the most important thing a writer must know how to do—which, for lack of a better phrase, is just to get out of his or her own way. Or as cellist Pablo Casals said about playing music well, ‘Learn the notes and forget about ’em.’ Simple, isn’t it? You […]
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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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