Getting Started

Here are the resources I believe any beginning writer -- particularly screenwriters -- should study in order to quickly and efficiently educate yourself on what you need to know.

If you've already studied a few of these, round out your knowlege with the rest of them. If you've studied other resources that you feel have educated you sufficiently that you don't need to look into these other avenues... then what are you doing here?

If you're here, you're looking for something. Here's what I suggest:

- www.wordplayer.com

Ted Elliot & Terry Rossio have, as of this writing, 45 articles/essays about what it is to be a professional screenwriter. These guys have worked with the current BEST (and worst) in the industry. Plus, I believe these guys are at the very top of their game right now, and these articles describe how they got there.

- Stephen King's On Writing

King is astoundingly candid about the writing process, and very no-nonsense about what it takes to be a writer. This book is focused on prose writing, but any screenwriter will benifit from most, if not ALL, of what King has to say.

The only point I believe he drastically differs from a screenwriter is his stance on plotting. Novelists have a tendency to sit down day after day and just write the story as it presents itself to them, then they rewrite. Screenwriters -- well, professional screenwriters -- have to deal with prohibitive deadlines. Though many beginning writers seem to enjoy the process of sitting down and just writing, allowing the story to unflod for them as it does for their characters, this is a practice that will get in their way once they begin writing for studios and production companies and the like.

But that's about it. Everything else is not only amazingly informative, the book is an enjoyable read!

-Steven Pressfield's The War of Art

Having difficulty actually sitting down and getting the words onto the page/screen? Pressfield not only offers his reasoning for why, he also offers the INSPIRATION to do it! You'll never see Writer's Block the same way you do now. More than that, you'll never perceive WRITING the same way, either.

-Robert McKee's Story

This is the first half of the Bible for writers! McKee has discected, bisected, trisected storytelling and figured out what all those gooey parts do and how they fit together. More than that, he's figured out why WE do what we do and why there will ALWAYS be a place for storytellers (the good ones, anyway) in society.

-Melanie Anne Phillips's StoryWeaver program, which can be found at www.storymind.com/storyweaver.

I toyed with the free demo version for a couple of years before finally buying it at the 2004 Creative Screenwriting Expo. This is a great utility for creating and organizing story elements. When you're feeling insecure about what you're up to as a writer, this program sort of takes you by the hand and helps you feel more secure about the fact that the hours you're putting in WILL yeild results.

Then, when you feel pretty comfortable with the structure and function of storytelling -- but BEFORE you sit down to your first draft -- you MUST, MUST, MUST read...

- Karl Iglesias's Writing For Emotional Impact: Advanced Dramatic Techniques to Attract, Engage, and Fascinate the Reader from Beginning to End

Iglesias wrote this as a sort od Masters class. It relies on you already understanding structure -- which is 50% of screenwriting -- provides the remaining 50% of your education.

The reason I am so adamant about your reading this before you attempt your first screenplay is that you are likely to be discouraged by your efforts without the knowlege Iglesias provides. For 12 years (this book only JUST came out as of this writing) I have been pounding out structurally good scripts, but they just didn't seem to "work" the way I wanted them to. The reason, I discovered, is that I wasn't producing the emotional response in the reader that I wanted to, and I didn't understand that dynamic well enough to fix the problems.

I wanted to write like Joss Whedon and Aaron Sorkin, but instead what came out was flat and ametuerish. And I've been a reader for a Hollywood agent and for a couple of screenwriting contests; I'm very familiar with what "ameteurish" reads like.

I would save you such frustration.

And although I recommend you hunker down and read all the material I've suggested -- because the current attitude of aspiring screenwriters (for the past decade, at the least) is a distinct laziness that you will ultimately BE FORCED to lose, and commiting to the very few resources I've recommended is NOTHING compaired to the work you're actually getting youself into as a writer -- if finances are restrictive, here's the short list:

First, read Story by McKee. (To learn structure and function.)

Second, read Writing For Emotional Impact by Iglesias. (So that people actually ENJOY reading what you write.)

Third, visit www.wordplayer.com. This is free. No excuses. Read each article at least once, then return as needed.

I also recommend that you get a copy of On Writing eventually. King offers invaluable information about gramar and writing style that EVREY screenwriter should commit to heart!

If you are already schooled in the fundamentals of writing but haven't read Story and/or Writing For Emotional Impact, I highly recommend you do that. It's entirely possible that one of these two brilliant men have the answers that lead you here.

From here out my entries will be less thorough and will cover whatever specific territory I am currently trudging through. Expect seemingly random epiphanies and theories.

And maybe some straight-up ranting.