Go Into The Story Resource: Screenwriting 101

Hundreds of observations about the craft of screenwriting from professional writers.

On May 16, 2022, Go Into The Story turned 14 years old — you can read the very first blog post here. I led with this paragraph:

Welcome to Go Into The Story! Right now, it’s nothing but a humble, threadbare blog, but I hope it will evolve into an active resource for aspiring screenwriters, as well as a community for anyone interested in storytelling and the creative life.

And evolve it did! To the point where it was named “Best of the Best” Scriptwriting Website in the 20th Annual Writer’s Digest Best Websites for Writers list.

To celebrate 14 years of blogging about screenwriting, writing, Hollywood, movies, TV, and the creative life, each day in May, I’m going to feature a piece of Go Into The Story trivia, plus a writing resource you can find in the site’s archives. This is not an exercise in self-congratulations so much as I figured readers could use some tips about how to best use the site. With — to date — over 100 archive topics, there is a LOT of content here. Hopefully, these posts this month will clue in more recent followers and remind long-time readers about resources you can use to facilitate deepening your understanding of the writing craft.

Today’s trivia: While Go Into The Story is the official screenwriting blog of the Black List, I receive no money from them for what I do here. This was at my insistence to Franklin Leonard when we first began our partnership some seven years ago. It’s also why I have refused multiple offers to have ads on the blog promoting a variety of writing related consumer goods.

Why? Two reasons. First, I find ads tacky. I want visitors to my site to experience it for what it is: a resource for writers and screenwriters, free of the clutter of advertisements.

Second, I want complete editorial control over the content on the site. That way, visitors know what they are going to get. Only with my interviews and the occasional guest blog is there a voice different than my own.

As the saying goes, “What you see is what you get.”

And I intend to keep it that way.

Today’s Go Into The Story resource: Screenwriting 101.

Being a big fan of writing quotes, I have featured screenwriters pretty much every Tuesday since I launched the blog. Here are hundreds of quotes below, including several you won’t find anywhere else, coming from my own interviews with screenwriters and filmmakers.

Abrams, J.J.: “The idea that this world we know isn’t just this world we know but that a package might arrive at your door…”

Acker, James: “I usually just do a scribble draft and take it scene by scene. Here’s a description what happens in this scene. Here’s one line of…”

Adamson, Isaac: “Screenwriting is a kind of format where you spend six weeks or eight weeks… and you can have something that’s actually done.”

Adamson, Isaac: “If you want to sell a spec, concept is really important. Studios already have plenty of their own properties — you have to bring…”

Alexander, Scott: “But through the scripts, I’m able to act out and scream at everything that bugs me…”

Alibar, Lucy: “Writing that scene, I ran a lot that day. I would write, go for a run, and come back.”

Allen, Jay Presson: “I do a script very fast, because I don’t stop. All day. All night, until I’m too sleepy…”

Allen, Jay Presson: “I’ve always been interested in the why of human behavior. I think most dramatic writers are natural psychologists.”

Amel, Arash: “I am a great believer in the psychology of character in screenplay. I think that almost…”

Amel, Arash: “It’s all about that conflict between passion and discipline and making yourself write when you don’t want to write. That’s the difference…”

Amini, Hossein: “I love trying to find the simplest way to say something with the maximum impact on the person who’s…”

Anderson, Paul Thomas: “Bad movie dialogue speaks in complete sentences without any overlapping…”

Anderson, Paul Thomas: “If emotional logic is betrayed, then you’ve got a problem. Not that none of it’s plausible — it seems to be vaguely plausible…”

Anderson, Paul Thomas: “Writing can happen really fast if you’ve done your research about the setting, time and the characters.”

Anderson, Paul Thomas: “If I’ve ever had a theme in mind, usually that’s the worst. You feel yourself writing and there’s nothing worse than that…”

Anderson, Wes: “When I’m on a movie, part of that process is creating a setting for the story and a world that they live in.”

Arndt, Michael: “On Tuesday, May 23, 2000, at 4:27 p.m., I sat down to write Little Miss Sunshine…”

Arndt, Michael: “Good writing is deceptive in that it hides its own artifice — it makes it seem easy.”

Arndt, Michael: “It’s really how your hero achieves her goal (and / or defeats the antagonist) that is crucial. And the way around the ‘so what?’ factor is...”

Aronofsky, Darren: “Then comes the great leap which is the first draft, I call it ‘the muscle draft…’”

Arriaga, Guillermo: “I want to have dark parts of my characters’ history so they can surprise me…”

Arriaga, Guillermo: “…when I have read all these manuals of screenwriting, they say things that I will never follow.”

Arriaga, Guillermo: “I put every effort in a screenplay to having beautiful language and a beauty of structure and a beauty…”

Arriaga, Guillermo: “I’m not here for the money, I’m not here for the job, I’m here because I want things. I think that I have something to express, so I…”

Asante, Amma: “When I’m starting a script, I write two or three thematic words down on little pieces of paper. I fold them up, stick them in a drawer…”

Atkins, Michele: “Write what you love. Write with what you can align with, and feel good about. Whether it’s a success or it’s not a success, at least…”

August, John: “I don’t write in sequence at all… I just write whatever scene appeals to me to write…”

August, John: “While working on Big Fish, I got very Method: I’d stare at a mirror until I could get myself crying…”

August, John: “If you have four ideas, all equally viable, I’d recommend writing the one that has the best ending…”

August, John: “A writer can always write. That’s one of the great luxuries we have: Words are cheap.”

August, John: “A lot of screenwriting is disciplined daydreaming. It’s like you’re trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle, but you’re not quite sure...”

Axelrod, George: “The first half of any script of mine has been rewritten forty — fifty times…”

Axelrod, George: “The first part of a movie has got to be not only engaging their attention, but building their trust. They’ve got to feel they’re in good…”

Baker, Sean: “My hope is that the more stories that are told about marginalized communities and subcultures, the more awareness will spread.”

Ball, Alan: “[In American Beauty] Lester’s a man who in midlife has completely lost his passion…”

Baron, Sam: “There are some great quotes that I always keep in mind. One is the David Mamet quote ‘Who needs what from whom, and what will…’”

Bartels, Haley: “I always appreciate those little moments in a script, some little charactery‑something that informs their state without someone…”

Bass, Ron: “Everything I write is in three acts, and I actually start with three pieces of paper…”

Bass, Ron: “I’ve always felt that writing was communication… making your reader see exactly what you see in your mind.”

Bass, Ron: ““I’ve always felt that writing was communication — not showing off how articulate you are, or showing off your vocabulary. It’s about…”

Baumbach, Noah: “When something strikes me, I write it down in a notebook. I’ll often find I write versions of the same idea over and over with slight…”

Beall, Will: “The process is that I force myself to sit down and write and hope it doesn’t turn out shitty…”

Beaufoy, Simon: “With adaptations, all I promise the author I’ll do is remain true to the spirit of what they wrote… You’ve only got 90 minutes or…”

Beck, Scott: “When we’re honing in on a single project, we start having our own brainstorm meetings… We always love having our conversations first...”

Beckwith, Nikole: “I think if you’re inviting people into a story, you should invite them into all parts…”

Bendinger, Jessica: “Your movie has to be about something. A movie is not a plot. What’s it about? What is it about thematically?’ There’s a symbolic…”

Bendinger, Jessica: “If you can get in touch with who you are as a writer, this is huge. What do you want to write? What’s your point of view? How…”

Benedek, Tom: “Every script we write is a piece of ourselves. We may say we are writing a script…”

Benedek, Tom: I wrote ten spec scripts before I got a decent job. I kept trying to figure out how to do it better. I am still doing that. I look forward to...”

Bennett, Charles: “The construction [of the story] is the most important goddamned thing…”

Bentivegna, Roberto: “I think it’s very dangerous when you get bogged down in rules, because that’s…”

Bentivegna, Roberto: “Remember how much you love movies. Remind yourself of those movies when you’re struggling to get your stuff out there...”

Benton, Robert: “We made a set of decisions, the first of which was to not pass moral judgment…”

Berg, Amy: “There’s more rising and falling tension in a television show versus a film where it tends to be a more steady build to the climax.”

Berg, Amy: “You always want your characters to lead the plot, rather than plot leading your characters. The way to generate story ideas organically is to…”

Bernstein, Walter: “I accept the cooperative nature of filmmaking. It’s one of the things that attracts me to movies, that idea…”

Bird, Brad: “To make something really great and different and interesting means taking risks and…”

Black, Dustin Lance: “That’s where I start, taking an idea… not just what you’re going to tell, not that it’s entertaining or interesting, but why...”

Black, Shane: “I’ll write down… snippets for scenes and… dialog… and throw them all in a shoe box.”

Black, Shane: “I think about the audience in the sense that I serve as my own audience. I have to please myself that way…”

Black, Shane: “I assumed there weren’t many rules and you just sort of did whatever you wanted to…”

Blanchard, Carter: “If you grab people that early in a script, they’re going to keep reading.”

Blanchard, Carter: “Writing a script is like running a marathon. But it’s also about training for that marathon. Research, plotting, character work…”

Lawrence Block: “One thing that helps is to give myself permission to write badly. I tell myself that I’m going to do my five or ten pages no matter what…”

Boal, Mark: “So the structure came about in an attempt to be faithful to the reality of the situation…”

Boam, Jeffrey: “Plot tries to engage intellectually but that’s not how an audience responds…”

Bomback, Mark: “A big misconception people have about these franchise movies is that all the studios care about is the action.”

Borrelli, Chris: “You should always be open to ideas and stories. I have an idea file. I look back over it…”

Borrelli, Chris: “I’m always thinking, what’s the emotion I’m trying to convey, what’s the fun of the movie, what are the moments?”

Borrelli, Chris: “Sometimes, as screenwriters, we get into structure as we should, and all these character moments, but then, an actor looks at it…”

Borten, Craig: “For me, it’s the characters, breaking the characters. That’s what I spend most of my time with. Once I’ve done that…”

Borten, Craig: “When I write a scene, I write from the inside‑out. What is the scene building to, what is the heart of the scene. I’m trying to capture that…”

Boyer, Jon: “A bad script written is still better than an amazing one that isn’t.”

Boyer, Jon: These 12 sequences, I just find that in trying to keep it down to very simple, pithy statements, it really helps you trim the fat off of your…”

Boyle, Danny: “Beyond persistence, the only advice I ever give to young filmmakers is, don’t be shy in the way you tell a story.”

Brackett, Leigh: “I was very poor on construction when I first began. If I could hit it right from…”

Brickman, Marshall: “The first script of Annie Hall was much more episodic, tangential, and novelistic…”

Brancato, John D.: “I’ve read screenplays, plenty of them, where the writer obviously hates what he’s…”

Brooks, Albert: “I got so good at writing to a budget, my brain was restricting myself. I’d write, It’s a stormy night. Then I’d cross out…”

Brooks, Richard: “I can make a movie with half-assed camerawork, or with actors who are not quite up to par…”

Brooks, Richard: “Sex is a tremendous drive, and love, but that is not enough. People have to care about each other. Then the picture means something.”

Brophy, Alisha: “”When you’re writing the pages, as long as you’re sticking to that throughline, it’s sticking to the promise that you made in that logline.”

Brown, Rita Mae: “You sell a screenplay like you sell a car. If somebody drives it off a cliff, that’s it…”

Brown, Rita Mae: “Character is destiny. The resolution of any plot must come from within the character…”

Broyles, William: “Writing really is a process of discovery. The biggest enemy is being satisfied…”

Bujalski, Andrew: “Write out the scene the way you hear it in your head. Then read it and find the parts where the characters are saying…”

Burnett, Allison: “A lot of writers try to get approval and love way too early. Get the script right first.”

Burnett, W.R.: “The trouble with most film writing is that too many writers have no feel for film…”

Burnham, Bo: “I have to work inside out. It has to work moment to moment before I even start to extrapolate from a scene to feature-length…”

Bynum, Elijah: “There’s a difference between characteristics and character. It’s not until you really throw yourself…”

Bynum, Elijah: “Writers have to be curious by nature. Curious about life, curious about human beings, curious about what makes the world…”

Cain, James M.: “Slack is one fault and slick is another. Both are bad faults in story.”

Cameron, James: “Writing a screenplay, for me, is like juggling. How many balls can you get in the air at once? All those ideas have to float out there...”

Cameron, James: “People ask me all the time, ‘What would your advice be to a young filmmaker?’ It used to be, pick up a camera and start making a movie.”

Cannell, Stephen J.: “I was self-taught, but I also was using a lot of rules that I developed myself for plotting and for character construction.”

Carolin, Reid: “There’s a magic to being present when you’re actually writing a character…”

Carolin, Reid: “”If you’re smart and you have something to say, your movie’s going to find that tone, and you don’t have to whack people over the head...”

Carrière, Jean-Claude: “The language of film is very complex. It is made up not only of images…”

Chandler, Raymond: “The challenge of screenwriting is saying much in little and then take half of…”

Carpenter, John: “You need some thematic element that gets the audience going, reaches out to them.”

Cassavetes, John: “People who are making films today are too concerned with mechanics — technical things instead of feeling.”

Chan-Wook, Park: “A common beginner’s mistake would be to try and be perfect about everything that you write, and each line that you write…”

Chayefsky, Paddy: “I have no compassion when it comes to cutting. No pity, no sympathy…”

Chayefsky, Paddy: “My dialogue is precise. And it’s true. I think out the truth of what the people are…”

Chayefsky Paddy: “Artists don’t talk about art. Artists talk about work. If I have anything to say to young writers, it’s stop thinking…”

Chazelle, Damien: “I know my strengths, and I know my weaknesses… I’m very good at sitting around and brainstorming…”

Chazelle, Damien: “The thing I learned [from Whiplash], especially after having written a bunch of stuff that wasn’t personal, was that the more...”

Chazelle, Damien: “I feel like you can tell when movies start from a theme or intellectual question, and they’re not that interesting. I want to start from…”

Chervin, Stan: “I think it’s always easier to revise a script, even a truly awful one, than face the tyranny…”

Chervin, Stan: “If your goal as a screenwriter is to make a lot of money, you’re doomed to fail. If your goal as a screenwriter is to produce the best…”

Cholodenko, Lisa: “So it’s really important to know not to panic, it’s all going to come together…”

Chomko, Elizabeth: “Write. Write write write — grocery lists, journal entries, emails, short stories, whatever, it doesn’t matter. Write at every opportunity.”

Chun, Tze: “When I want to come up with a new project, I will sit down and I will try to write 25 ideas a day for a week…”

Chun, Tze: “When I was out of college I just wrote from page one. I’d just start writing a script, having a vague idea of where things were going…”

Clarke Jr., Joey: “If writing is important to you, in order to make a proper effort, you have to sacrifice other facets of life — be it going out with…”

Cody, Diablo: “Every week I learn some new word the kids are saying and I try to integrate it…”

Cody, Diablo: “I don’t have a formal rewrite process; I just compulsively groom and re-groom scenes…”

Coen, Dana: “Is the scene driven by the intent of the characters? Are there external and internal obstacles, and are…”

Coen, Dana: “With television, particularly one-hour episodes, there’s little time to reflect. You have to start with structure. I would develop the idea…”

Coen, Ethan: “I don’t know what that is, three-act structure. Maybe part of it is you’ve internalized some structural thing. It’s not like some target...”

Coen, Joel: “Every movie ever made is an attempt to remake ‘The Wizard of Oz.’”

Cohen, Larry: “When I write, I’m watching the movie in my head, imagining it. I want to be in it…”

Cohen, Spenser: “People always say, write what you know, and I think it’s write what you know…”

Cohen, Spenser: “One thing that I do when I first start writing is to put the outline aside and just start trying to find the character’s voice…”

Colella, Laura: “I just want to keep making films that I’m really passionate about. That usually means things that aren’t formulaic. I try to do things...”

Coogan, Steve: “To write from personal experience, you also need the humility to be able to…”

Coppola, Francis Ford: “Always try to discover what the theme of the movie is in one or two words.”

Cretton, Destin Daniel: “When I start writing, I just have to keep reminding myself to make every…”

Cretton, Destin Daniel: “I love that moment in a story’s development when the characters begin to feel like real people who I can’t wait to spend time with.”

Crowe, Cameron: “The most exciting thing is when you take the pages you’ve just written and heft…”

Cuarón, Alfonso: “That’s something so important in the process of screenwriting, that sense of time that binds us with the now.”

Curtis, Richard: “I like to really live with an idea. A film is not a flirtation, it’s a relationship.”

Curtis, Richard: “I’m always choosing between three films I’d like to make and I always choose the one that means the most to me.”

Daniels, Sean Robert: “Steven King said this amazing thing in his book on writing. ‘Don’t write what you know. Write what you believe is true.’”

Daniels, Sean Robert: “I think the first thing you have to do is listen to other people. A lot. And not just when you are part of the conversation.’

Darabont, Frank: “How much do you love it? How much are you willing to give it? Only the person…”

Darabont, Frank: “Everybody wants to hear, ‘I can teach you a three-act structure, I can give you a…’”

del Toro, Guillermo: “If you’re not operating on an instinctive level, you’re not an artist. Reason over emotion is bullshit, absolute bullshit. We suffocate…”

Denis, Claire: “In terms of writing a script, I have to figure out moments, and if I see a moment that is fulfilled, I think, now I can start writing because…”

Densham, Pen: “I interpret this to mean that all stories come from fundamental issues of human…”

DePalma, Brian: “The problem with writing a movie is you’ve got to have a great idea.”

Derrickson, Scott: “Many filmmakers, especially young ones, are afraid being ‘pigeonholed’, but…”

Derrickson, Scott: “Reading a mediocre screenplay is like driving when you’re sleepy — every minute is work.”

Derrickson, Scott: “The Divine Comedy of Filmmaking: Writing = Inferno. Shooting = Purgatorio. Editing = Paradiso.”

Devlin, Lindsay: “I look at articles, whether it’s true stories, or scientific‑based things, to kind of find those kernels…”

Devlin, Lindsay: “There’s structure, there’s craft to it. You can’t just sit down and puke out a script and think you’re a genius.”

DiPego, Gerald: “The first thing the executive said was, ‘We really like your script for what it can be.’”

DiLapo, James: “Emotional authenticity… is more important than historical authenticity. If you can get…”

DiLapo, James: “The midpoint is very crucial. It doesn’t have to be as overt as it is in the middle of this script, but there needs to be that transition on..”

Dobbs, Lem: “You have to inculcate movies, not ‘screenwriting.’ There are shapes and patterns…”

Duffield, Brian: “Interesting things happening to interesting people is basically the only rule of screenwriting.”

Duffield, Brian: “I find that by starting with theme, you instantly gravitate towards a character who is almost at an opposite place to deal with that…”

Duncan, Patrick: “Every time I write, I find myself going through a form of self-examination…”

Dunham, Lena: ““It’s amazing to me that Hollywood persists in writing these two-dimensional female…”

Dunne, Philip: “Every scene should advance the story. The other thing… let the characters tell the…”

Dunne, Philip: “If you get an idea in the middle of the night, it’s a good idea to write it down, or it’s…”

Duplass, Jay: “Every question I hear when I speak at colleges or film festivals is, ‘How can I get my script in the hands of someone…”

Durand, Allan: “The way I did it is every 5 to 10 pages, I wanted a big fist to come out of the…”

Durand, Allan: “If you’re going to write a screenplay, it better interest the living hell out of you, either the story or the amount of money you’re…”

DuVernay Ava: “When I write a screenplay, I’m writing for myself. I’m the director and I need to create…”

DuVernay, Ava: “My mind immediately went to an all or nothing scenario. It doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. You can dream a bit at a

DuVernay, Ava: “The best thing is when you see people and you’re wondering, ‘What’s their story? How do they fit together? Where did they come from?”

Elliott, Ted: “If you look at a movie and say, ‘That’s crap, I can do better,’ then basically all you’re…”

Ellis, Trey: “I haven’t always loved Hollywood, but I’ve always loved roller coasters. It wasn’t till I…”

Ephron, Nora: “Don’t write what they want, they don’t know what they want, just make it GOOD.”

Ephron, Nora: “I don’t care who you are. When you sit down to write the first page of your screenplay, in your head, you’re also writing your Oscar...”

Epps, Jack: “This is going to take time, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. If you’re impatient this probably isn’t the business for you.”

Epps, Jack: “What is really hard is that you have a draft and an intention of what you wanted to write when you started.”

Epstein, Julius: “It’s the words, it always gets back to the words…”

Eszterhas, Joe: “Write it from your heart. Life is short; shorter than you think…”

Eszterhas, Joe: “Don’t pitch stories, write spec scripts. Why try to convince a roomful of unread egomaniacs…”

Farrelly, Peter: “Our feeling is you need three-dimensional characters for our type of comedy to work…”

Federman, Matthew: “Biggest mistake writers make when pitching is getting bogged down in details. You don’t describe every scene. You talk about a…”

Feig, Paul: “I say [dialogue] out loud. If I can’t say it and make it sound convincing and not clunky…”

Fergus, Mark: “They’re [actors] giving you a truth test on your own material.”

Ferguson, Larry: “Take a yellow Marks-A-Lot and highlight every verb in this screenplay…”

Ferguson, Larry: “Get an audience to care before you throw ’em into an action sequence.”

Ferguson, Larry: “There’s only one difference between a writer and somebody who isn’t a writer. One writes.”

Fincher, David: “The thing I always say to any writer that I’m working with is: Just make sure that in any argument, EVERYONE is right.”

Fisher, Carrie: “Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and the confidence will follow.”

Fisher, Mickey: “Now when I sit down to write the script, I know scene by scene who wants what and why and all the basic…”

Fisher, Mickey: “The best thing I ever did for myself was to not wait around for someone to give me a break. I kept writing, I kept making my own stuff…”

Folsom, Stephany: “Don’t worry about getting an agent or a manager. When you have enough quality work under your belt…”

Folsom, Stephany: “Structure is so important in visual storytelling, and your structure lives or dies by your outline.”

Folsom, Stephany: “We live in a fear‑based business and so, you have to make everyone around you feel comfortable and like they’re going to be taken…”

Folsom, Stephany: “In my outline, I lay out what needs to happen in the scene, and how it’s part of the overall plot, and what the characters need to get…”

Foner, Naomi: “If you’re doing it to tell stories that need to be told, you can get yourself through…”

Foote, Horton: “For me there was a whole period of unlearning the bad habits I had picked up in my conventional…”

Foote, Horton: “I keep notebooks, and sometimes just a phrase in a notebook will start me off. I never know. I’ve also learned that you can’t really…”

Foreman, Carl: “When I first came out to Hollywood, it never occurred to me that the story had to be…”

Foreman, Carl: “I rewrite and rewrite and rewrite. I know in advance that my so-called first draft will be my tenth draft.”

Forte, Joe: “It’s important to build a broad life that feeds you, that nourishes you, gives you stability.”

Forte, Joe: “There’s a phrase you hear in Hollywood: ‘It’s a movie.’ It’s code for, ‘This script encompasses everything we need it to be.’”

Frank, Scott: “Then I tell my own story and filter it through my own point of view…”

Frank, Scott: “The best writing is subconscious where you don’t know that you’re doing it…”

Frank, Scott: “The first paragraph of a screenplay can tell you if they can write. The first five pages can tell you if they have a voice.”

Frazier, F. Scott: “I firmly believe that the currency of the screenwriter is a finished script. Not an…”

Friedhof, Andrew: “I think it’s an act of folly to write a screenplay as though you’re going into production tomorrow. The first thing you should aim…”

Friedhof, Andrew: “The first thing you should aim for is to provide a fun and enjoyable reading experience for the reader.”

Friedman, Jeremiah: “It’s tricky because you have to walk that line between staying open to feedback…”

Gaghan, Stephan: “”I realized screenwriting was a real art form. I had to prostrate myself before it and study it if I wanted…”

Ganz, Lowell: “We’re always trying to have [what a character says be]… specific, honest, and emotional.”

Garcia, Liz W.: “You might love and treasure that one script, but you cannot control when that one script is going to get made, get you an agent, or get…”

Garcia, Liz W.: “Outlining is really tough work, it’s the necessary work that I loathe. It’s necessary so …”

Garcia, Liz W.: “I think there are two kinds of spec scripts. If you’re actually writing a spec script that you want to sell, then the story is everything.”

Garland, Alex: “Stories are my primary concern because I think they are a… vehicle for themes…”

Gary, John: “Screenwriting is an ocean of nos surrounding a handful of yesses. All you need is one yes.”

Gary, John: “A movie is about an emotional struggle. The physical struggle is a manifestation of that.”

Gelbart, Larry: “I just know when you’re in trouble at the end, it’s because you were in trouble in the beginning. There’s no…”

Gerwig, Greta: “I have gotten into baseball recently, and whenever I have trouble writing, I think about the pace of baseball. It’s slow…”

Gerwig, Greta: “I think structure is so deep in us. We put it in stories we tell our friends or in emails we write. We want it. It’s how we create meaning.”

Gilroy, Dan: “The style of the screenplay can often not just enhance the screenplay–it can move the screenplay forward…”

Gilroy, Tony: “Screenwriting is the biggest bunch of rules anywhere. It’s gotta be 125 pages, gotta be…”

Gilroy, Tony: “The movie business has fundamentally changed and it’s never changing back. And in this new movie environment, if you want to play...”

Golden, Joshua: “The concept, of course, has to be original. But if you have strong characters, the rest will follow.”

Goldman, William: “Nobody sets out to fuck up your movie. It’s not like the director or the star wake…”

Goldman, William: “Rule of thumb: You always attack a movie scene as late as you possibly can…”

Goldman, William: “The first thing is, I read it and decide, ‘Do I really care about this project?’”

Goldman, William: “The most exciting day of your life is your first day on a movie set, and the dullest day of your life is the second day.”

Goldman, William: “Screenplays don’t have to read like an instruction manual for a refrigerator. You can write them as a pleasurable read.”

Goldman, William: Some screenplays are like Jacob Marley: dead to begin with. Many more, however, are recommended or passed on within the first...”

Goldsman, Akiva: “Adaptation is always the same process for me, which is some version of throwing the book at the wall and seeing what pages fall out.”

Goldsman, Akiva: “Writing is both a pleasure and a struggle. There are times when it’s really aversive and unpleasant…”

Grahame-Smith, Seth: “”Writing a novel and writing a screenplay have nothing to do with each other…”

Grant, Susannah: “My goal in the first draft is to create, for the reader, the emotional experience that watching the movie…”

Gray-Rockmaker, Kristen: “Just keep writing and don’t get fixated in any one project for too long. Write your project. Get your feedback, rewrite it, and...”

Grieco, Anthony: “You want people to experience a story, not plot. There’s a big difference between the two. You won’t notice structure and page…”

Grillo-Marxuach, Javier: “A great script… creates an irresistible narrative flow that propels the reader…”

Guggenheim, David: “I think screenwriting is the cleanest and quickest way to break into the industry.”

Guggenheim, David: “I think in a spec you need to make sure you’re hooking your reader in that first 15 pages, and that it has a strong enough concept.”

Guggenheim, David: “In any notes process, I will take any idea and I will try it. I may not agree with it when it’s given to me, but I always give the idea…”

Guggenheim, Marc: “Before I go to bed at night, when my head hits the pillow, I will write a scene in my head. That’s usually going to be the first…”

Guzikowski, Aaron: “I think learning the craft is how you break into Hollywood. You just need to do it everyday and love it and be passionate…”

Hampton, Christopher: “I don’t believe in any of those rules for writing screenplays. What that gives you is a formula.”

Hampton, Christopher: “David Lean had several principles, that he repeated more than once. Lesson One was that the most important…”

Hannah, Liz: “Read everything you can. Read every script you can bad, good. Read Paddy Chayefsky’s collected works. That’s probably the best place to…”

Hannah, Liz: “The perspective of whose point of view you’re telling the story from, what character you want your audience to empathize with…”

Hare, David: “But that’s when I began to realize why my own films were so bad: I’d never subjected them to this narrative test…”

Hart, James: “Find that material which speaks to you and has a certain truth…”

Hart, James: “So I listen to my kids. Even now, at ages eighteen and sixteen, our story meetings…”

Hart, Julia: “I write a ton and then I’ll cut a bunch of it out. I’ll write like seven lines where there…”

Hart, Julia: “If I think too much about what my themes are, it becomes laborious, over the top, like hitting you over the head. I just try to think…”

Hartofilis, Sean: “I don’t think writing is as much an act as a way of being…”

Harvey, Lloyd: “Give yourself permission to enjoy the small wins along the way. We make it a practice within our creating, our writing, our making…”

Harvey, Spencer: “Tone is so important. If you can make sure you have something, a peg to pop in the dirt there to say, ‘This is my tone,’ then…”

Hay, Phil: “To me, the main thing I believe qualifies you to be a writer is that you’re really interested in other people.”

Hayes, John Michael: “I want to put as much as I can into the first draft… to get all the emotion, color…”

Hedges, David: “I think the thing I hate about writing is you have this piece of mashed, bleached wood pulp that you’re going to make these black marks…”

Heisserer, Eric: “You know you’re in the presence of a screenwriter in command of their craft when…”

Heisserer, Eric: “I think a really strong script that has a crackling voice and a unique character can go a long way. But it if it has a solid story concept…”

Heisserer, Eric: “They [ideas] can show up in my brain fully formed, or I have to work long and hard at it. The end product is no better or worse, but…”

Hensleigh, Jonathan: “Well made action pictures, the action sequences don’t exist in a vacuum…”

Herskovitz, Marshall: “If I have a criticism of many screenwriters, it’s that they are too wedded to…”

Higgins, Colin: “The job of the screenwriter is to run the film in the reader’s imagination. And nothing should get…”

Hill, John: “Terrific scenes are the coin of the screenwriting realm. But what are some characteristics…”

Hill, Walter: “When I’m working alone, the old hard way. Longhand. Fountain pen. Legal pad…”

Hitchcock, Alfred: “To make a great film, you need three things — the script, the script and the script.”

Hitchcock, Alfred: “First we write the screenplay, then we add the dialogue.”

Holderman, Bill: “It’s really important for writers to not be defensive and to be open to the collaboration, whether you think the notes from development…”

Holderman, Bill: “Even though it’s a blueprint for the moviemaking process, it is its own finished product in its own right and it should be incredibly...”

Horowitz, Jordan: “You have to just listen to the work. The work is paramount. If you’re invested in the work and you’re patient, then the...”

Houston, Velina Hasu: “The vigorous desire to make something happen… is mandatory for writers…”

Huggins, Roy: “A screenplay is a series of interesting scenes. Too often scenes are boring in order to head to an unusual ending…”

Hyams, Peter: “If you’re not prepared to be rejected, don’t try to write films.”

Hyams, Peter: “If I want to make a film, I’m asking somebody for money. The only reason why they’re going to give me money…”

Ingelsby, Brad: “What does a character want and why do they want it? Those are what I look at when…”

Iqbal, Melissa: “I think it’s so important to write in the language of cinema. It should always evoke the experience of watching a film.”

Jackson, Peter: “I think [humor] helps make these people feel as real as you or I, rather than being…”

Jacoby, Ben: “People talk about a screenwriter’s voice. I think a single screenplay’s voice is more important. Make me feel like I’m in this movie…”

Jacoby, Ben: “A big way to connect emotionally to a story for me is music. I listen to it all the time when I write. I have different playlists for each project.”

James, Elgin: “We have all this beautiful wreckage inside, then you try to get it out somehow…”

January, Michael: “Hollywood lives and dies on something that seems new, but is very much like…”

Jenkins, Barry: “I think it’s important to stay in the world of the characters. It’s more about once you enter that space, you gotta just stay in it.”

Jenkins, Patty: “Every villain has their belief system that makes perfect sense to them.”

Jenkins, Tamara: “The stillness that is necessary to write, the act of silencing yourself, your cellphone, silencing everything to think, to bring words...”

Jones, Amy Holden: “Roger Corman taught me a very valuable lesson…”

Jones, Patty: “You might love dialogue like I do, but if it’s not directing towards the plot or towards character development, better get rid of it.”

Joon-ho, Bong: “If we think about our friends and relatives, they’re both good and bad to some degree. No one’s a complete villain. They’re in this...”

Joon-ho, Bong: “My films are always based on misunderstanding — the audience is the one who knows more, and the characters have a difficult...”

Joseph, Rajiv: “I feel that every story has to have an idea that transcends the action and the characters…”

Joy, Lisa: “The thing that is first and foremost to me is, ‘Do I love the character? Do I empathize with them?’”

Joy, Lisa: “It’s important to have a story concept that you as the writer are interested and tickled by and that gives you a fun playground to romp in…”

Kamen, Robert Mark: “Write what makes you excited, and if it makes you excited, and you’re any good, it will excite…”

Kamen, Robert Mark: “If you’ve got craft, you got game. If you got game, you can write your way in and out of anything.”

Kasdan, Larry: “Very often my films are about the conflict between our ideas and our desires…”

Kaufman, Charlie: “I’m interested in trying to find a real moment between people…”

Kaufman, Charlie: “That’s something I always ask myself: ‘Is this a movie that I would go to see?’”

Kaufman, Charlie: “One of the biggest things about writing your first screenplay is that you actually finished a screenplay.”

Kazan, Nicholas: “‘No’ is the single most important thing a writer can say…”

Kelley, David E.: “Writing’s hard work. But what fuels you often is the euphoria that comes with hatching an idea, breaking a story…”

Kelley, William: “The secret to screenwriting is short sentences, small words, and BIG pictures.”

Khouri, Callie: “It [Thelma & Louise] wasn’t meant to be a literal ending…”

Killen, Kyle: “We talk around things, at things, and about things, without ever overtly stating them…”

Kinberg, Simon: “In my experience, audiences go to movies to feel. When the movie starts to break down and it becomes…”

Koenig, Eric: “Write because you love writing. Write because you want to make the reader laugh, or cry, or cringe…”

Koppelman, Brian: “The job of the writer on a studio assignment is to deliver a shootable script as defined by other people…”

Krasna, Norman: ““When you are committed to the skeleton of a beginning, a middle and an end, the cleverness is in concealing…”

Kremer, Justin: “Above all, write something unique that showcases your voice. Readers read so much — at times four or five scripts a day. So many…”