Screenwriter-to-Screenwriter.com

The Season of Weird, Chatty Dramedies

Monica — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:13:43 +0000

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.

Monica — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 07:40:31 +0000

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. The answer [...]

Beat Sheets

Monica — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:16:23 +0000

I’m going to start working on posting some beat sheets to the blog – requests, anyone?

I’ll try to do one film in each genre grouping to start.

And if any reader has some beat sheets they’d like to share, please send them on over!

Thanks!

Don’t Forget Film is a Visual Medium

Monica — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 06:51:30 +0000

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 [...]

AL Kennedy on the Ideal Writing Day

Monica — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:15:53 +0000

Author AL Kennedy on the ideal writing day.

Women’s Romantic Fiction in Film

Monica — Thu, 27 May 2010 15:13:52 +0000

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 [...]

To Adapt or Not To Adapt?

Monica — Wed, 26 May 2010 06:48:11 +0000

Is it a good choice to adapt a project as an unproduced writer – or should you concentrate more of your energies on writing your own original screenplays?

I actually discourage new writers (i.e., unestablished, without credits) from writing any screenplay to which they don’t own the rights.

The problem with then adapting something as an [...]

Off the Grid

Monica — Tue, 04 May 2010 21:10:36 +0000

I’ve been off the grid for a while. I don’t have Internet access where I’m staying now, so it’s been hard to write and post to the blog.

However, I’m still here – just very busy with reading and everything else going on right now.

Anyway, thank you all for being patient with me and [...]

The Confusion Between Main Character and Protagonist

Monica — Tue, 04 May 2010 21:01:28 +0000

Interesting information from Story Fanatic on the difference between the main character and protagonist.

Read this article here.

Biopic: A Character’s Journey

Monica — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 22:19:25 +0000

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 [...]