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Story and Plot Screenwriting

A weekly mini-lesson on the craft and business of screenwriting from a professional screenwriter of 27 years who has been teaching the subject for almost as long.

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Give your scene some juice with YES/NO.

To read online, click HERE. The YES/NO of a scene. So much of the screenwriting I read just kind of moves along. Something happens, then something else happens. It's all very polite. No bad pages. But there aren't any great scenes, either. You need great scenes. You gotta make a meal of those moments. We need scenes that make us FEEL something. Because that's what we are here to do. We want the audience to feel something. And when we're done, all those small moments, all those big moments,...

To read online, click HERE. You're going to get notes. You're a screenwriter. You can't avoid it. It might be a friend, a fellow writer, an agent, or a producer. Perhaps you've hired someone specifically for notes. The world will never run out of notes. As long as you keep asking for notes, you will get them. And even some after that. Implementing notes is a skill we must develop. I have seen far too many (especially early) writers take every note they get, and I've seen some refuse any note...

A still photo from the movie Taken.

To read online, click HERE. Does your character need a superpower? There are certain common questions or notes we hear in development. Why now? What is the character's flaw? Or, what is their "trauma?" Can the stakes be higher? You can add to the list the topic of today's email: What's their superpower, and how do they use it? These questions aren't dumb; they're just not universal. They don't apply to every story. People like to duplicate what has worked in the past. I know I do. Most of us...

To read online, click HERE. Share a link to The Weekly Email! When others subscribe, you can earn free stuff like video lectures, discounts, and free courses. Email it, post it, and throw it up on social media; however, you connect with people online. Seriously, it's that easy. [RH_REFLINK GOES HERE] "Acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances." -- Sanford Meisner This is true. Of course, it's true. Do you think I am going to argue with Sanford Meisner about acting? But it is...

To read online, click HERE. After the midpoint. I spend a lot of time talking about the midpoint. It was a huge breakthrough for me. It was a significant step in my growth when I discovered its importance to narrative momentum, so I pushed it hard in my classes. But the midpoint's value isn't an isolated step. It brings more than just dramatic momentum. It has a vital role in the story as well. Its value is in how it affects the protagonist, especially in the moments after in the 5th...

To read online, click here. It's not the plot. It's the emotion. I am currently writing an old screenplay. I first wrote this one in 1999 or so. It's one of my earlier scripts and probably the first one I felt was genuinely GOOD. I made some money off it over the years. I optioned it three times. At one point it was set up at Castle Rock with Nicolas Cage attached to star. This one really should have been made. Unfortunately, events always seemed to conspire against it. Often, it was a...

To read online click HERE. How the monster movie structure can help you with any genre. If you have been reading the Weekly Email for long or have taken classes with me, you know that one of my primary goals is to make big, decisive decisions upfront. The commitment to these decisions then makes each subsequent decision easier and easier. What story are you telling? What's the dramatic question? The goal is to remove the tyranny of infinite choices and narrow them down to manageable levels....

To read online, click here. The First 100! Last week was Email 100! I wrote 25 emails before it became a weekly thing, so that is 75 straight weeks now, with 25 that were a little more sporadic before that. That totals 100! You can see them all HERE. You can also hit a tag and divide them by topic. I should create a menu where you can do that at some point. But anyway, 100 is a lot! Thanks so much for being a part of it Three foundations to solve any problem. We all hit walls with our writing...

To read online, click here. A confused audience doesn't care. One of our primary goals with the audience is engagement. The term has taken a bad rap because of social media and its algorithms to monetize our attention, but it remains apt. We want the audience to listen and think actively, but to do so while immersed in the story rather than separate from it. We want them to hope for some outcomes and fear others. This is how we get them to feel. And losing that engagement sinks us. Every...

To read online, click here. Falling to the level of your systems. My first writing teacher was Edward Albee. Edward was as gifted as they come. Three Pulitzer Prizes for Drama will attest to that. And he didn't even win one for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The downside to Edward's genius was that he could not always teach you what he did. He wrote mostly from his own unique gifts, and what processes he did have were also from there. His lesson for characters: "I go for walks and talk to...