How to Use Go Into The Story

Blog resources to support your growth as a screenwriter in five areas: Watch Movies. Read Scripts. Write Pages. Study the Craft. Learn the Business.

With over tens of thousands of posts on this blog, here’s a logical question:

HOW THE HELL DO I USE THIS STUFF?

Resources to help writers. And they’re all free!

1: Watch Movies

Many years ago, I coined this screenwriting mantra: Watch movies. Read scripts. Write pages.

Seriously, you can learn the craft just by doing these three things.

Some tips on how to use Go Into The Story to help you watch movies.

Go Into The Story Movie Analysis Series: A series dedicated to watching movies and analyzing them. Hit the link to see dozens of analyses.

Great Scenes: Dozens of memorable moments from notable films. Watch. Study. Use as inspiration for your own writing.

Movie Story Types: Hollywood movies exist within certain genres and sub-genres. This series explores these narrative forms.

Script To Screen: Read a script while watching that movie. Great educational opportunity. This series demonstrates the transition from script to screen.

And if you’re looking for inspiration and information about what movie to watch next, check out our Classic Movie series:

30s Movies
40s Movies
50s Movies
60s Movies
70s Movies
80s Movies
90s Movies
International Movies

Don’t forget to see movies in actual theaters. That’s how they’re intended to be experienced. In the dark. With an audience. Big screen. Plus, you can support movies you’d like to see more of. Movies are a a bottom line business. If Hollywood believes they can make money on this or that type of film, they’ll produce it.

2: Read Scripts

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to read screenplays. There are certain things you can only learn by immersing yourself in scripts.

Some tips on how to use Go Into The Story to help you read scripts.

Go Into The Story Script Reading and Analysis Series: A bi-weekly series dedicated to reading movie scripts and analyzing them. Hit the link for access to over 100 movies broken down by Plot, Character, Dialogue, Theme, etc.

Go Into The Story Interviews: Over the years, I’ve interviewed 200+ Hollywood professionals, most of them screenwriters and in almost every discussion, we dig down into one or more of their scripts. Go inside writers’ minds!

Great Scenes: Dozens and dozens of movie scenes, most of them featuring script and video.

How to Read a Screenplay: There’s reading a script. Then there’s really reading it. This 7 part series provides a systematic approach on how to drill into and analyze a screenplay.

Movie Script Scene-By-Scene Breakdowns: One of the best ways to understand a screenplay’s structure and there are dozens of breakdowns — downloadable and like everything else on this site free.

But I hear you crying in the wilderness: Where can I find official movie scripts that can be downloaded legally? Why on Go Into The Story, of course. Go here to access 100+ movie scripts made public by studios, production companies, and financiers over the last several years.

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of reading scripts. Yet of the three keys — Watch movies. Read scripts. Write pages. — my guess is this aspect of learning the craft is the one most often ignored or minimized.

Don’t be that guy or gal.

3: Write Pages

Some tips on how to use Go Into The Story to help you write pages.

Dialogue Writing Prompts: Some exercises you can use to work on your dialogue-writing skills.

Dumb Little Writing Tricks That Work: They’re not really dumb, actually quite smart, and most importantly effective.

Great Characters: Hundreds of movie characters analyzed to give you a creative jolt when crafting your own story’s characters.

On Writing: Go here to read inspirational quotes on the craft from hundreds of professional writers.

The Definitive List of Clichéd Dialogue: Avoid them or give them a twist to make them feel new, but bottom line it’s a good thing to be aware of them.

The 10 Steps: How To Write a Script: One of my most popular posts which proposes one way to approach the script-writing process.

Writing Mantras: Excellent advice I’ve picked up over the years.

But the biggest boost to write pages is something which emerged spontaneously in last year: The Zero Draft Thirty Challenge. The initial #ZD30SCRIPT Challenge attracted over 1,000 participants and was a big success. Subsequently, Go Into The Story has hosted a Challenge each March and September. We’ll be doing that again in 2019. You can join the Zero Draft Facebook group which has evolved into a terrific, supportive community of over 3,300 writers.

Here’s the thing: You can’t make a sale… you can’t land representation… you can’t go up for writing assignments… you can’t have the credibility to pitch a project… you can’t do anything unless you have sat down and actually written an original screenplay.

Don’t just think or talk about it. Do it!

4: Study the Craft

Seriously, you can learn the craft just by watching movies, reading scripts, and writing pages. But if you want to maximize your chances of succeeding as a professional screenwriter and/or TV writer, go deeper.

Add two more points of focus to you work: Study the Craft and Learn the Business.

Some tips on how to use Go Into The Story to help you study the craft.

1, 2, 7, 14: A simple formula to be a more productive and better writer.

Black List Writers on the Craft: Read what Black List writers have to say about screenwriting and TV writing.

Character Types: Learn the power archetypes can bring to your writing.

Go Into The Story Interviews: Read my interviews with pro writers including Black List selectees and Nicholl Fellowship winners.

Go Into The Story Reader Questions: Over 300 questions I’ve responded to over the years.

Guide to Aristotle’s “Poetics”: If you haven’t read “Poetics,” here’s a multi-part series which goes deep into this seminal work.

How They Write A Script: Extended interview excerpts from notable screenwriters.

Screenwriting Tweetstorms: A collection of pro writers and industry insiders.

Songwriters On Songwriting: Writing is writing and here are some valuable insights into the craft by songwriters.

The Theology of Cinema: A metaphorical look at religious themes and their relevance to writing.

And if you really want to go deep into the craft, there’s this: Deep Focus: The Go Into The Movies Project. This truly is film school on the cheap!

Breaking into Hollywood, let alone building and sustaining a writing career there is extremely challenging. You must push yourself to learn as much as possible and bring that knowledge to bear on your writing.

5: Learn the Business

Finally, some tips on how to use Go Into The Story to help you learn the business.

The Business of Screenwriting: Dozens of posts about the ins and outs of life as a working screenwriter.

An Argument Against Screenplay Formulas: A five part series exploring the problems formulas create for screenwriters trying to work in Hollywood.

Everything You Wanted to Know About Specs: A twenty part series, essential reading for anyone who is writing and hoping to sell a spec script.

Screenwriting 101: Lessons from professional screenwriters about the business and the craft.

Screenwriting Advice From The Past: Loos & Emerson (1920): Historical perspective from the book “How to Write Photoplays” written by famed screenwriter Anita Loos and her husband John Emerson.

Showrunner Rules from TV writer-exec producer Jeff Lieber: Everything you wanted to know about writing a TV series.

So-Called Screenwriting ‘Rules’: A comprehensive series on most of the so-called screenwriting ‘rules’.

The Story Behind Script Coverage: Learn how script readers approach script reading and coverage.

Finally, you can study script sales and development trends from the last 10 years here:

2008 Spec Script Deals Analysis
2009 Spec Script Deals Analysis
2010 Spec Script Deals Analysis
2011 Spec Script Deals Analysis
2012 Spec Script Deals Analysis
2013 Spec Script Deals Analysis
2014 Spec Script Deals Analysis
2015 Spec Script Deals Analysis
2016 Spec Script Deals Analysis
2017 Spec Script Deals Analysis
2018 Spec Script Market Analysis
2019 Spec Script Market Analysis
2020 Spec Script Market Analysis
2021 Spec Script Market Analysis

What you learn about the business of filmmaking and TV may or may not influence your creative choices, but in order to survive as a working writer, your knowledge about how the system works is vital.

There you go! A virtual ton of free resources on the blog to support your growth as a writer.