Go Into The Story Resource: Screenwriting Tweetstorms

Currently 67 Twitter threads posted by professional screenwriters, TV writers, producers, and others in the movie and TV business.

On May 16, 2018, Go Into The Story turned 11 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 recently named “Best of the Best” Scriptwriting Website in the 20th Annual Writer’s Digest Best Websites for Writers list.

To celebrate 11 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 — 26,422 articles and over 100 archive topics, there is a LOT of content here. Hopefully, these posts for the next 31 days 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: When Go Into The Story migrated from WordPress to Medium, one of the superheroes was Dino Sijamic, the CTO of the Black List. For years, while overseeing all things technological for the burgeoning Black List initiatives, Dino would handle my plaintive appeals for assistance when the WordPress would simply crash, which it did with irregular frequency. From his home office in Vermont, Dino never once failed to restore the site. He knows about the consecutive days streak.

Well, when we switched over to Medium, there were a number of technological issues, one in particular which really concerned: how to bring reader comments over here.

The Medium folks — who are great — didn’t know what to do. But Dino figured it, so whenever you see a post with a link for Comment Archive, that’s the fine work of the Black List CTO himself. That’s probably 75,000 comments and much of what makes the site valuable is those conversations with GITS readers.

Here’s Dino announcing a 2014 Black List script from his Vermont lair:

Here’s to you, Dino! Thanks for everything!

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

Twitter is a perfect social medium for screenwriters. To waste time, of course, but the impulse to dash off a thought here or there is pretty common to writers who traffic in words pretty much all the time. Occasionally something wonderful happens: A professional writer will go off on a tweetstorm, taking on a subject at some depth, albeit in 280 characters bites.

Those are great, however, they tend to disappear down the relentless and unending Twitter feed rabbit hole, so I decided to create an archive for them here.

I’ll be on the lookout for helpful tweetstorms, but also encourage GITS readers, if you see one happening, send me an email. I’ll contact the writer to see if they’re willing to let me post them on the blog, then archive them here as an ongoing resource.

To date: 67 tweetstorms.

Monica Beletsky (@MonicaBeletsky): On Writing 1-Hour TV Drama Script.

Amy Berg (@bergopolis): On TV Staffing Season and Surviving Writers’ Room Interview Process (Part 1)

Amy Berg (@bergopolis): On TV Staffing Season and Surviving Writers’ Room Interview Process (Part 2)

Amy Berg (@bergopolis): On Getting Hired Onto a TV Series Writing Staff

Carter Blanchard (@cartblanch): On Tips to Prepare for a Pitch

F. Scott Frazier (@screenwritten): On Writing Action Set-Pieces

Katherine Fugate (@katherinefugate): Black Facts About Hollywood

Katherine Fugate (@katherinefugate): On What is “Perfectly Okay” for a Screenwriter to Write

John Gary (@johngary): On How He Used Query Letters to Find New Representation

Gary Graham (@thegarygraham): On Some Keys to Screenwriting

Javi Grillo-Marxuach (@OKBJGM): On Writing Screenplay Scene Description

Paul Guyot (@Fizzhogg): On Writing Plans

Alex Hawley (@AlexiHawley): On Surviving as a Screenwriter in Hollywood

Eric Heisserer (@HIGHzurrer): On Drafts, Parenthicals and Respect

Eric Heisserer (@HIGHzurrer): On Finding the Joy in Your Writing

Eric Heisserer (@HIGHzurrer): On How to Treat a Film Crew

Eric Heisserer (@HIGHzurrer): On Loglines

Eric Heisserer (@HIGHzurrer): On Losing the Love for a Story

Eric Heisserer (@HIGHzurrer): On Minimalist Screenwriting Style

Eric Heisserer (@HIGHzurrer): On Pitching

Eric Heisserer (@HIGHzurrer): On Procrastination, Precrastination and Productivity in Writing

Eric Heisserer (@HIGHzurrer): On Story Notes

Eric Heisserer (@HIGHzurrer): On Subtext

Eric Heisserer (@HIGHzurrer): On the Challenge of Screenplay Adaptations

Eric Heisserer (@HIGHzurrer): On the Current Slate of Action Heroes

Eric Heisserer (@HIGHzurrer): On the Screenwriter’s Creative Power

Eric Heisserer (@HIGHzurrer): On When a Writer Should Walk Away From a Project

Eric Heisserer (@HIGHzurrer): On Writing and Cultural Sensitivity

Melissa Hilfers (@MelissaHilfers): On Dealing with Ego, Pride, and Script Notes

Gennifer Hutchison (@GennHutchison): On Becoming a TV Writer

Brian Koppelman (@briankoppelman): On Fear and Writing

Brian Koppelman (@briankoppelman): On Writing Advice and the Courage to Risk Failure

Daniel Kunka (@unikunka): On Being a Productive Writer

Daniel Kunka (@unikunka): On “Lincoln” and the Value of Reading Scripts

Daniel Kunka (@unikunka): On OWAs (Open Writing Assignments)

Daniel Kunka (@unikunka): On the Importance of Ideas

Daniel Kunka (@unikunka): On Writing Feature Spec Scripts in the Age of Peak TV

Geoff LaTulippe (@DrGMLaTulippe): On Avoiding Red Flags in Screenplays

Geoff LaTulippe (@DrGMLaTulippe): On Hollywood Script Development Process

Geoff LaTulippe (@DrGMLaTulippe): On Studio Script Development Process

Jeff Lieber (@JeffLieber): On How a Pilot Script Works

Justin Marks (@Justin_Marks_): On Script Page Count

Justin Marks (@Justin_Marks_) : On Exposition

Craig Mazin (@clmazin): On the Working Relationship Between Studio Execs and Writers

Craig Mazin (@clmazin): On Script Consultants

Rachael Prior (@ORachaelO): On How a Development Team Works

Rachael Prior (@ORachaelO): On Life as a Development Executive

Rachael Prior (@ORachaelO): On Movies as a Business

Rachael Prior (@ORachaelO): On the Self-Delusion Imperative

Rachael Prior (@ORachaelO): On Treatments and Outlines

Rachael Prior (@ORachaelO): On What Makes a Writer Stand Out

Rachael Prior (@ORachaelO): On Writers, Script Notes, and the “Gap”

Ed Solomon (@ed_solomon): On Pitching

Ed Solomon (@ed_solomon): On Story Structure, What It Is, and How to Find It

Zach Stentz (@MuseZack): On Being ‘Good in a Room’

Zach Stentz (@MuseZack): On Rewriting Strategies

Mike Sweeney (@Courier12): On Being More Than a Black List Writer

Mike Sweeney (@Courier12): On Focusing on the Quality of Your Spec Scripts, Not the Quantity

Mike Sweeney (@Courier12): On ‘New Screenwriting Rules’

Mike Sweeney (@Courier12): On Not Writing to Stats, Metrics, and Trends

Jake Thornton (@jakethornton): On His First Two Years as a Hollywood Screenwriter

Jeff Willis (@jwillis81): On Copyrights and Protecting Your Written Material

Jeff Willis (@jwillis81): On Query Letters

Jeff Willis (@jwillis81): On Should You Pay for a Script Consultant

Jeff Willis (@jwillis81): On the Reality of Spec Script Sales

Jeff Willis (@jwillis81): On Writing Compensation

Nate Winslow (@nate_winslow): On the Black List, Uploaded Scripts and Genres

Each day this month, I want to take the opportunity to thank you for supporting Go Into The Story. I’d love to hear from you in RESPONSES. When did you start following the blog? What are your favorite features? And as always, if you have any suggestions, feel free to suggest away.