On successful screenplays

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 Why the traditional three-act structure is obsolete?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.

Veteran script consultant Jill Chamberlain discovered in her work that an astounding 99 percent of first-time screenwriters don’t know how to tell a story. These writers may know how to format a script, write snappy dialogue, and set a scene. They may have interesting characters and perhaps some clever plot devices. But, invariably, while they may have the kernel of a good idea for a screenplay, they fail to tell a story. What the 99 percent do instead is present a situation. In order to explain the difference, Chamberlain created the Nutshell Technique, a method whereby writers identify eight dynamic, interconnected elements that are required to successfully tell a story. Now, for the first time, Chamberlain presents her unique method in book form with The Nutshell Technique: Crack the Secret of Successful Screenwriting. Using easy-to-follow diagrams (“nutshells”), she thoroughly explains how the Nutshell Technique can make or break a film script. Chamberlain takes readers step-by-step through thirty classic and contemporary movies, showing how such dissimilar screenplays as Casablanca, Chinatown, Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects, Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, Silver Linings Playbook, and Argo all have the same system working behind the scenes, and she teaches readers exactly how to apply these principles to their own screenwriting. Learn the Nutshell Technique, and you’ll discover how to turn a mere situation into a truly compelling screenplay story.

Hundreds of books claim they can teach you how to write the perfect script. Listen up: your script doesnt need to be perfect to sell! It does need to include nine standard story elements. Producer, writer and story analyst Donna Michelle Anderson, best known in the industry as DMA, has been hammering this point home for more than a decade at UCLA Extension Writers Program, film fests, production companies and more, and as the founder and screenwriting instructor of the Movie in a Box one-day filmmaking seminars.With this concise guide, DMA brings you the simplest steps to unifying a theme, character arc and spine, then streamlining those elements into a sellable script. She calls it The 1-3-5 System. Youre going to call it a miracle.

Dan O'Bannon famously crafted his screenplays using a self-designed system which he called "dynamic structure." This book outlines how O'Bannon's method differs from those of other well-known screenwriting gurus, and illustrates with examples from classic (and not-so-classic) films how dynamic structure can be applied to craft narrative and character. O'Bannon also includes his insights on subjects such as the logic of the three-act structure, the role of the producer in screenplay development, and the psychological principle known as "hedonic adaptation," which has a unique effect on the structuring of screen stories.

Writing Short Films is one of the bestselling university text books on writing short film screenplays. This updated and revised edition includes several new chapters.