Last-minute reminder to download all the Oscar screenplays before the Academy Awards — they’ll be taken down soon. Happy reading!
Archive | Subject Matter
John Carter’s Massive Bomb and Screenwriting Beats – Part 3
By The Reader on February 23, 2017 in Adapting, Audience, Beat Sheet, Beats, Character, Concept, Genre, Ideas, Location, Logical World, Process, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
Click here to read Part 1 and Part 2 of this post. Let’s more carefully investigate exactly why John Carter didn’t work. What are the lessons learned from this? Analysis: Flashback and Voice Over Not to overstate the obvious, but within the opening minutes of this $600mm trainwreck, there are two separate instances of voice […]
John Carter’s Massive Bomb and Screenwriting Beats – Part 2
By The Reader on February 23, 2017 in Adapting, Audience, Beat Sheet, Beats, Character, Concept, Genre, Ideas, Location, Logical World, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
Click here to read Part 1 of this post. Click here to read more about screenwriting beats. What went so wrong with John Carter? Well, let’s look at the beats. Here’s a basic breakdown of the beats of Act 1. 1. Open on Mars with the space wars going on. Fast and furious voice over […]
John Carter’s Massive Bomb and Screenwriting Beats – Part 1
By The Reader on February 23, 2017 in Adapting, Audience, Beat Sheet, Beats, Character, Concept, Genre, Location, Logical World, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
If you are unsure what screenwriting beats are or need a quick refresher, please read my article on beats first. Now… The film John Carter was a very expensive, massive bomb in the spring of 2012, almost five years ago now. (Reading online that it was estimated this film would have needed to gross $600mm […]
Concept Is King
By Monica on February 26, 2012 in Audience, Concept, Genre, Ideas, Process, Story, Subject Matter, Uncategorized
I was speaking with a client recently who, unnecessarily insecure, joked that I might read her draft and then think it was complete crap and needed to be scrapped completely. But I already knew this wouldn’t be a problem because when she told me the title, I laughed. It’s a super high-concept broad comedy. The […]
Okay, Fine… But What’s Your Story About, Really?
By Monica on December 7, 2010 in Character, Genre, Ideas, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
Anyone who knows me well can probably tell you that sometimes I can be wholly oblivious to the most obvious points but pick up on subtleties the average person wouldn’t even think to look for. This is an interesting character juxtaposition and probably what makes me a writer before anything else. Documenting and chronicling the […]
Be Your Own Audience
By Monica on October 21, 2010 in Audience, Character, Genre, Ideas, Process, Story, Subject Matter, Uncategorized
When I’m writing and rewriting something – a script, story, manuscript – it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. Much of the time I get so inside my story that it’s hard for me to step outside of it and think rationally if what I’m trying to construct is working or not, and […]
Screenwriters Are Storytellers First
By Monica on October 20, 2010 in Adapting, Audience, Character, Genre, Ideas, Location, Logical World, Process, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
A professional screenwriter said to me recently, “If someone reads my script and says, ‘Man, I really loved the writing,’ I want to punch them in the face. What I want them to say is, ‘I really loved your story.’ There’s a big difference.” He explained that the difference is that we’re primarily storytellers – […]
The Season of Weird, Chatty Dramedies
By Monica on August 31, 2010 in Audience, Character, Genre, Ideas, Location, Logical World, Process, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
I can’t say I totally understand it but this year was definitely the reading season for the Weird, Chatty Dramedy. I’d estimate that approximately 20% of the scripts I read this year involved an ensemble of types sitting around, chatting about various personal issues that were of absolutely no interest to me. Many of these […]
Dunne: The story is the journey for truth. The plot is the road it takes to get there.
By Monica on August 30, 2010 in Books on Screenwriting, Character, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Uncategorized
I’ve just started reading Peter Dunne’s “Emotional Structure: Creating the Story Beneath the Plot” and it’s giving me a lot to think about. Dunne writes in Know Your Story, Know Your Plot, Know the Difference: When we think about great stories, about great movies, we remember first and foremost about whom the story is told. […]
Don’t Forget Film is a Visual Medium
The visual medium is the essence of “show, don’t tell.” A lot of scripts I’m seeing this year seem to have disregarded the fact that these stories should be a blueprint for something visual. This reading season has been the season of the chatty dramedy. By dramedy, I mean stories that at their essence aren’t […]
Women’s Romantic Fiction in Film
By Monica on May 27, 2010 in Adapting, Audience, Character, Genre, Story, Subject Matter, Uncategorized
I am not a huge consumer of women’s romantic fiction because I like a good story – and so I can’t speak intimately to the ins and outs of the genre. It would appear superficially that this genre is formulaic in the extreme so that the story is something secondary (contrived) and the primary focus […]
Biopic: A Character’s Journey
By Monica on March 19, 2010 in Audience, Character, Genre, Location, Logical World, Process, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
I’ve been reading a number of biopics based on very famous historical personages. They are flat and dry, like cardboard. The feeling I have reading them is that they take a marionette of a historical figure and dance them through the major events of their life. I start off with little or no understanding of […]
Writing and Rights
By Monica on March 4, 2010 in Character, Genre, Ideas, Location, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
I know there can be some confusion about adapting work for the screen and owning the rights. If you are absolutely in love with a novel, cartoon, graphic novel (or ANY work that is not your own) and feel that it is your life’s destiny to adapt this work for the screen, then GET THE […]
What is “High Concept”?
By Monica on March 3, 2010 in Audience, Genre, Ideas, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
“High concept” is an expression within the entertainment industry that basically boils down to meaning ‘highly commercial.’ But what does it really mean? “High concept” indicates a few things: 1. A universal concept, whereupon every person hearing the idea will have a specific common point of reference. Successful universal concepts can be based on tropes, […]