My friend had a rough writing day the other day. She had a moment of disappointment that she wasn’t writing projects that are more high-concept and commercial. I reminded her that we can only write what we love. That’s the best we can do. Sometimes we just have to write what we love just because […]
Tag Archives | screenwriter
If It Doesn’t Buy You Something, Take It Out
By Monica on July 29, 2009 in Beat Sheet, Character, Genre, Location, Logical World, Process, Screenwriting Competitions, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
The more I write and the more I read, I find I return to this mantra again and again: If it doesn’t buy you something, take it out. Screenplay beats to me are a commodity. You have to buy the beats in the beginning of your story to cash them in later on in the […]
Screenplay Openings: Most Beginnings Are Overwritten
By Monica on July 28, 2009 in Beat Sheet, Character, Formatting, Genre, Location, Logical World, Process, Screenwriting Competitions, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
This article follows up on Screenplay: The Importance of the First Five Pages. In the last batch of scripts I read for one of the screenwriting competitions, I would say about 30% of the screenplays had beginnings that were overwritten. It’s not uncommon. In several cases, the real story didn’t start to pick up until […]
Fighting for Your Craft
I’ve been back in LA this week. And from the minute I got here, all I’ve wanted to do was go back to Santa Fe. There’s a specific energy here in LA for me that’s a little bit like living beneath a veil. Everything is a little bit obscured. I chalk this phenomenon up to […]
Subject Matter: Sci-Fi Writers Beware
Science fiction is complicated to write. You have to create a believable world that is rich and full of detail with no breaks in logic in a limited pagecount, hit the genre conventions and then write a smart story on top of that. Also, it can’t be something we’ve seen before – it has to […]
Q&A: Simple Present vs. Present Progressive (“-ing”) Verb Tense
Michael asks: Is it ever okay to use the “ing” present tense to describe action? “The Complete Screenwriters Manual” says no, but I don’t buy it. Monica says: Thanks, Michael. Great question. Here’s the deal with what I refer to as active verbs vs. passive verbs and screenwriting. The standard for screenwriting is to use […]
Clarity Above All
By Monica on July 23, 2009 in Beat Sheet, Character, Formatting, Genre, Location, Logical World, Process, Screenwriting Competitions, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
There is no shame in being absolutely clear with your beats. In fact, I am that reader who is likely to not get something if it isn’t on the page. You should assume that if it’s not clear on the page, your reader is not going to get it. If you hint at something but […]
Subject Matter: Don’t Write About Writers or Hollywood, Please
By Monica on July 21, 2009 in Character, Genre, Logical World, Process, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Uncategorized
Today I’ve read a couple of stories about Hollywood aspirings – aspiring writers, directors, actors, etc. In this reading season I’ve probably read a number of these kinds of scripts. Please, people, no. Don’t do it. Ninety nine times out of one hundred, your life as an aspiring writer isn’t interesting enough to warrant a […]
Screenplay: The Importance of the First Five Pages
By Monica on July 20, 2009 in Beat Sheet, Character, Formatting, Genre, Location, Logical World, Process, Screenwriting Competitions, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
The opening five pages of your screenplay give me a ton of information about the breadth and scope of your project. As with the opening of a novel or any other literary work, the opening of your screenplay should be a microcosm of the world of your script. It’s the first taste – but as […]
What Happened to the Inciting Incident?
You’d be surprised – I have been – but a very high number of scripts I’m reading don’t have inciting incidents. I am getting to page 15, page 20, page 30, and there’s really no defined story. I would say that this is in about 25% of the scripts I’m reading. Obviously, these scripts are […]
The Small Character Drama: Life or Death Stakes
By Monica on July 16, 2009 in Character, Genre, Logical World, Process, Screenwriting Competitions, Story, Subject Matter, Uncategorized
I’m not someone who generally loves small indie movies that blow some minor human drama into a hysteria for the ages. I love real stories – stories with action, externalized drama, physical obstacles, where something transformative happens. To me, most small character dramas that I read don’t offer up enough dramatic stakes to warrant a […]
Look at It From the Reader’s Perspective…
By Monica on July 15, 2009 in Character, Genre, Location, Logical World, Process, Screenwriting Competitions, Story, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
I just got through another big push of scripts. There were a handful of recommends, but overall many of them were dismal. When writing, just get the words down on the page. Get through that first draft. But, then rewrite. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. As you get closer to the time you’re going to send your […]
The Scoop on Line Edits
A lot of writers really get all bent out of shape and neurotic about the level of control with the words on the page. In most cases, I look at this as a writer who’s inner critic has run amok. This is one of the many ways to self sabotage. There was one girl in […]
The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations
I attended a seminar years ago with Jeff Kitchen wherein he passed out a xeroxed sheet of the thirty-six dramatic situations as identified by Geroges Polti, culled from the original French-language book, which was written in the 19th century. I didn’t understand much else from his talk (it was a lot of fancy jargon to […]
How to Craft Theme
Once you decide what the overarching umbrella theme of your story is, then make sure that theme is abundantly clear within the A story and the protagonist’s character arc, but also present within the B stories and the other character arcs. I was told once to write out the theme on a post it and […]