Most books about screenplays instruct on three-act structure, character arcs, and how to format a script. But you already know all that. Secrets of Film Writing reveals a working writer's secrets-the tips, short cuts, tricks, and insider advice that will get your story down on paper, maximize your idea, and seduce your readers. Do you know why actors pick scripts out of a stack? Why montage sequences don't work? Why the traditional three-act structure is obsolete? Lazarus lifts the veil with dozens of secrets like these. Lazarus's insights and techniques will smooth and improve any screenwriter's process and will make any script more readable and ultimately more salable. Secrets of Film Writing takes you behind the scenes of feature and television writing and demystifies, once and for all, the Hollywood System.

Through a "Crazy" approach in writing the feature screenplay, the first half of the book guides the reader in how to create and develop: Story Idea, Characters, One Page Step Outline, and the solid script. In the second half, the book covers professional business side of the ever-changing industry by taking the reader through the work flow of Hollywood and explores how to work creatively with international countries like China in producing movies that resonate with a global audience.

On successful screenplays

Takes a look into the lives and workspaces of screenwriters, who share their best practices in their own writing careers.

Every screenwriter needs to rewrite—more than once, probably many times—to make the story work and then to make a sale. And then again later on, to please producers, studios or stars. Tom Lazarus--author of "Stigmata", among other scripts--is a working screenwriter and professor at UCLA extension. In this book, he's distilled his own experience and that of other screenwriters into a system. SECRETS OF FILM REWRITING will teach writers how to: -prioritize big scenes -track transitions -plot corrections -add new information -pass through for dialogue -do an "on the nose" rewrite Hugely valuable to first-time screenwriters and to grizzled veterans of Hollywood pitch wars alike, SECRETS OF SCREENPLAY REWRITING is larded with humor and attitude as well as information. Its anatomy of a screenplay rewrite breaks down the book's lessons into their practical application—a must for anyone looking for a break in the film business.

Writers will understand why they're stuck and how to get unstuck through proven methods of breaking the logjam of self-judging and second-guessing that keeps good screenplays from being finished. Attain confidence by knowing your story is clear and solid. Seal out negative influences such as “industry experts” and fleeting trends. This is a way to write a script with integrity that makes a screenplay “storyworthy.” This is how to write a screenplay that works.