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https://www.amazon.com/Two-Gentlemen-Lebowski-Excellent-Tragical/dp/1451605811
WOO: Rise, and speak wisely, man--but hark; I see thy rug, as woven i'the Orient, A treasure from abroad. I like it not. I'll stain it thus; ever thus to deadbeats.
[He stains the rug]
THE KNAVE: Sir, prithee nay!
BLANCHE: Now thou seest what happens, Lebowski, when the agreements of honourable business stand compromised. If thou wouldst treat money as water, flowing as the gentle rain from heaven, why, then thou knowest water begets water; it will be a watery grave your rug, drowned in the weeping brook. Pray remember, Lebowski.
THE KNAVE: Thou err'st; no man calls me Lebowski. Yet thou art man; neither spirit damned nor wandering shadow, thou art solid flesh, man of woman born. Hear rightly, man!--for thou hast got the wrong man. I am the Knave, man; Knave in nature as in name.
BLANCHE: Thy name is Lebowski.
You can write Shakespeare easily enough.
I always loved reading the scripts that were included with the "Art of Books", and The Phantom Menace scripted was released with storyboard art. I really wish they'd do this with TFA and TLJ.
The "Annotated Screenplays" book for the original trilogy is an epic read too. https://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Screenplays-Laurent-Bouzereau/dp/0345409817
You need to read Screenwriting is Rewriting.
Then you need to find a writers' group so you can learn how to take notes better.
Then you need to actually read and digest two hundred produced pilots.
Edit:
>Sorry I didn’t go to Harvard or am only half Jewish.
Also, maybe chill with the casual racism.
Why couldn't you submit your script?
If turned into a video, it'd be about 1minute of footage. It's bare-bones and could use more polishing and details. In 7 pages of script, D.Va cries in 4 of them.
>despite having no industry experience
Save The Cat! is highly recommended if script-writing is your passion. Consider your first work a rough draft, and keep at it. Looking forward to seeing the animated version in a few months :)
This is common practice on every movie. If you're interested or fascinated by the business and work behind being a working screenwriter, check out Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant's book "Writing Movies for ~~Fun and~~ Profit"
It's an honest and humorous guidebook to being a working writer in Hollywood. Basically gets right into how when you sell a script, it doesn't mean your name will be on it when the movie is released because you will be fired from the writing job, then they'll bring in someone else to give it a fresh take, then they'll fire them hire someone else, then they'll fire them and MAYBE re-hire you, then you'll look at how they butchered your script and you'll go back and make changes to all the things they did so the arbitrator will give you the credit and not them when it's released and then hope you don't get fired again and then you can reap your rewards.
Basically, this is how M. Night Shamaylan came up with "The Sixth Sense". A common Hollywood rumor truth is that he didn't come up with the idea, he was just the last guy to get his hands on the script after a dozen rewrites so he got all the credit for the idea.
Yes and no.
There are great books about screenwriting for the feature film like Save the Cat, but the recent upsurge in longer-form television writing required for the binge services (Netflix,Amazon etc,) stretches the conventions of these books.
The lessons learned in a college level script analysis class apply to all types of media using theatre as an example, and are generally grounded in classics. Many film-hopefuls don't know that understanding these classic forms tend to make the difference between truly great stories and stories that will fade away.
Taking a screenwriting class after or in conjunction will improve your ability to write in a variety of forms that might be required by the different story ideas that you might have. The industry is evolving almost as quickly as it did during the invention of film and later television.
You will need to understand the classical structures and ideas at some point during your career as a writer, and so I would heartily recommend a script analysis class. But then again, I'm a college teacher. Who teaches script analysis. And often acts in movies when directors and writers don't understand these classic forms.
Think about the possibility of hitting a home run without ever been told to keep you eye on the ball or step into the pitch. It's possible. But it's much less likely.
This book is awesome.
It's an annotated script of A New Hope , Empire and Jedi. Keeping in mind Lawrence Kasdan (co)wrote Empire and Jedi, you will also find that all the great, witty lines from A New Hope have an asterisk and are attributed to Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz. Lucas seems great at writing the mystical, philosophical dialogue that we hear from Obi-wan and Yoda but not at sprinkling in humor.
Big picture, George Lucas is awesome but he is not good and writing scrips or directing actors.
Interestingly, in the interviews for the annotated script book Lucas said that he always wanted foils. Every character has someone they are in conflict with: R2D2/C3PO, Han/Obi-wan, Luke/Han and Leia/Han. These continue throughout the trilogy but was missing from prequels...especially from TPM. Everyone gets along too well.
Lucas has also stated that he cast ANH in ensembles. He found the three actors (Harrison Ford, Mark Hamil and Carrie Fisher) who worked best together. The prequels were cast with known, successful actors.
So I always wondered why he didn't repeat the formula that worked for him so successfully before.
Plenty. They just don't dig deeper enough, even with a billion dollar excavator.
The other thing the current existing writers for local dramas could have done is to, gasp, read a book on screenwriting by the likes of Robert McKee, instead of attending some dubious seminar by certain persons who can't stop posing in front of their Mercedes.
Lucas wrote the screenplay to Empire from start to finish. He threw away Leigh Brackett's draft, the only reason he gave her credit instead was out of respect because she got cancer and died before the movie was finished. Kasdan came on later to punch up the dialogue but the story was all Lucas. You can read Brackett's draft here which has Luke's father and Darth Vader as two separate characters and you can read about it in Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays.
> Until I decide to write a book after finding inspiration in the A Song of Ice and Fire and The Witcher series.
So, this gives me a bit of pause. Most of us who pick up our pens are pretty heavy readers before we get started.
That said, I would rather encourage than discourage, so I'm going to recommend a book to help get you started: Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting, by Robert McKee. I only purchased this book a few weeks ago, and I have been kicking myself ever since for not getting it years ago (I've been writing on a professional level since 1999, and this book has raised my game). It's not just for screenwriting - it will give you a very good idea of how stories work on a structural and mechanical level, from plotting to character development.
Here's the buy link from Amazon Smile (which donates money from each purchase to a charity of your choice): https://smile.amazon.com/Story-Substance-Structure-Principles-Screenwriting/dp/0060391685/ref=rvi_sccl_6/131-2124249-3477910?pd_rd_w=9Fqr9&content-id=amzn1.sym.f5690a4d-f2bb-45d9-9d1b-736fee412437&pf_rd_p=f5690a4d-f2bb-45d9-9d1b-736fee4124...
(I would also strongly recommend On Writing, by Stephen King.)
Textbook good protagonist(s). No, seriously, <em>textboook</em>
Fujimoto knows what he's doing, as always - I'm delighted to see our boy back and I'm sure Power would be proud
"“Save the Cat” is just one of many ironclad rules for making your ideas more marketable and your script more satisfying, including: The four elements of every winning logline The seven immutable laws of screenplay physics The 10 genres that every movie ever made can be categorized by"
https://www.amazon.com/Save-Last-Book-Screenwriting-Youll/dp/1932907009
I feel like this conversation is going in circles, with you just desperately trying not to be wrong...
Glad to help! Asking questions is best and really only way to learn this craft. Nothing beats hands-on learning and helpful hacks/tips from industry pros in all departments. It's first helpful to get an idea of what makes a good script. For screenwriting and understanding script story beats Save the Cat is the most popular by far (although everyone has to find their own voice). I can dig up more book suggestions but youtube film channels would probably be your best choice to see the principles in action. I can link some soon but I'm about to drive home. Be a student and consumer of all art forms and different cultures and ideas. Filmmaking is a colorful collaborative patchwork blanket stitching together pieces of things you like and find interesting or satisfying. Embrace "stealing" anything that catches your eye and remix it, understanding that absolutely nothing is completely original and is just synthesized from things that came before it, even subconsciously. As a creative exercise, it would be a great idea to recreate a scene shot-for-shot from a film or show you love, but just change names/places/props while keeping the same rhythm. Deconstructing/dissecting something that "works" and inspires you will help you understand how and why certain things work and get reused so often across films.
>Every Story is written around the 3 act structure
Negative! You should read this book, it's a fantastic exploration of what narrative structure is and is not
It's not an accident. Hollywood has some very detailed movie-making formulas. One of them is illustrated in the book Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need. It has the pacing of your typical cheeseburger action flick timed in there down to the second.
For the Hollywood suit-and-tie crowd, the script that's already known to work is the safe bet. Thus we'll see The Fast and the Furious LXXVII: Geriatric action tearing down the cul-de-sacs in The Villages in Florida!
Look for the directors that tend to throw the book away. I loved Dune, for example - I love Denis Villeneuve's work!
In the video essay The Dark Knight - Creating the Ultimate Antagonist, LftSP includes a quote from Story by Robert McKee that I thought was well placed:
>True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure - the deeper the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character's essential nature... A protagonist and their story can only be as intellectually fascinating and emotionally compelling as the forces of antagonism force them to become...
>
>As such, if we define an antagonist, they are a character who is uniquely, exceptionally good at attacking your hero's greatest weakness, pressing their buttons, forcing them to make difficult decisions that reveal who is *actually* hiding underneath the shining armor.
So, anyhow, I think you're looking at this backwards.
It's not necessarily about the villain getting their comeuppance. Maybe that's part of it, but I think its more about seeing the protagonist (whom we're emotionally invested in) come out on top after being kicked so many times.
They all follow this asshole's book, https://www.amazon.com/Save-Last-Book-Screenwriting-Youll/dp/1932907009
Because it's been marketed as the best way to get people to watch your movie because every movie has to have certain elements otherwise people won't understand it. I fucking hate this book.
Hollywood decided that they could rely on this dumb book for all their ideas and that way they could stop hiring original writers. Save their money for hookers and blow or something.
It's a book about screenwriting, and I believe there's an adaptation on novel writing.
https://www.amazon.com/Save-Last-Book-Screenwriting-Youll/dp/1932907009
More specifically, "saving the cat" refers to a pivotal moment in which the protagonist makes a choice which demonstrates they're the hero of the story. This might occur early, during their introduction, or much later if the protagonist has a lengthy arc in which they only slowly develop into the hero.
I adapted Blake Snyder's Story Beats from a screen play to novels to control story-wide pacing. Where he talks about pages, just convert it to a ratio and figure out the words.
Here are Story Beats for most genres (Romance is different)
- First Image
- Plot Point One --- 25% -- MC makes decision to solve story problem
- First Pinch Point -- about 35% -- MC learns nature of opposition
- Mid Point -- 50% -- False victory
- Second Pinch Point -- about 65% -- MC learns power of opposition
- All Is Lost
- Dark Night of the Soul
- Epiphany
- Plot Point Two -- 75%
- Last Temptation
- Final Battle -- 85%
- Final Image
If you are writing the Hero's Journey, sit down and watch the first Star Wars film made (Star Wars IV???) and keep tabs on where these events occur.
Write long and prosper. :)
I think 99% percent of how-to writing books bog down the reader with so much extraneous information, ideas, rules, systems, 'this is the way' thinking and so on, as to almost be discouraging. My favorite writing book is actually a screenwriting book but the general rules apply, in my opinion, and it's a fun read that distills a project to its basic process.
https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Movies-Fun-Profit-Billion/dp/1439186766
The strength of this book is it keeps things simple. It avoids philosophy dives and meandering examples. It lays out the structure of a screenplay which is the same as most best selling novels. This may not be what you're looking for but I found it helped me break my project into parts making it easier to tackle.
It also emphasizes the most important lesson: a book won't sit at your keyboard and write for you. That's the most difficult aspect of the process.
I'm going to summarize one part of the book I like: the authors method is to write their screenplay as a 20 to 30 page story. From there they 'fill in the details' and flesh out the story. As simple as it sounds this was a game changer for me and my writing.
Start with the story-wide pacing, which means understanding story structure. There is a posting further up about structure. I like Save the Cat but there are other, equally good ones.
Once you know how to set up a story, you can concentrate on the ebbs and flows, for which I like Make A Scene which shows how to set up individual scenes.
I hope this helps. :)
Just a tip about something:
I’d recommend you not write: We hear…” or “we see…” or “We jump cut to…”
Simply write the action.
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Other than that, all I can say is that this story is extremely uneventful.
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I'd recommend you read more scripts. List some movies you like and see if you can find the scripts for them. Perhaps read the book 'Save The Cat'.
>But the characters always feel very distant from the plot.
Characters give the plot meaning. They want something and they need something.
Look up the Hero's Journey. Buy a copy of this book and see how the character are is the story.
I find it a little disingenuous, personally. It's not that he's wrong, it's just that formatting and coding is endemic to the film industry. Denis uses tropes and established techniques same as thousands of other directors in thousands of other high profile movies. 999 times out of 1000 you're simply not making a big-budget film in the modern era without knowing cinematic language and exploiting it to put lots of butts in seats.
I wrote my first serious WIP using the original. I took all my notes and thoughts and organized them in piles. From there, the story almost wrote itself.
Write long and prosper. :)
This calls for Story Structure 101. :)
I strongly suggest a hard copy craft book because you will want to read this many times, take notes, mark it up, etc... something not easily possible with e-books and totally beyond blogs. I cut my teeth on Save The Cat. It targeted movie scripts but I adapted it to novels by turning his page numbers into word count percentages and layig out a 100,000 word story.
If you must go blogs or YT, then find Dan Wells or Brandon Sanderson. They have a lot on writing techniques in general, and their story structures will get you started.
Whichever way you go, prepare for a fun journey. :)
Write long and prosper. :)
Sounds like you are suffering from a sagging middle, not uncommon at all. You might consider investing in some craft books on story structure. Snyder offers some very concrete writing devices and where to put them wrt word count. Once you know the trick, you won't have to guess anymore.
Write long and prosper. :)
> you said a good story is full of twist
No I said a turn, which I'm pretty sure I got out of this very well-known screenwriting book:
Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting
It definitely does not mean hook, twist, or cliffhanger.