Go Into The Story

Screenwriting 101: Patty Jenkins

“Every villain has their belief system that makes perfect sense to them.”

Daily Dialogue — January 29, 2019

Otter and Mrs. Wormer are in the supermarket vegetable section.

Keys to Handling Exposition

Take my 1-week online class to learn ways to make exposition entertaining.

Character Type: Clown

“Clowns tend to be Trickster figures and often defy convention or authority. As such, they upset the normal state of affairs, creating…

Reader Question: Are there any script rules that really shouldn’t be broken?

Or this: “How can you break screenwriting rules if there are none?”

On Writing

“Spend some time living before you start writing. What I find to be very bad advice is the snappy little sentence, “Write what you know.”…

Daily Dialogue — January 28, 2019

“There’s a box of Twinkies in that grocery store. Not just any box of Twinkies, the last box of Twinkies that anyone will enjoy in the…

That scene with Carla is chilling.

I have a slightly different take on the car crash. The Coens have a sustained interest in the fickle nature of fate. In fact, I wrote a…

Go Into The Story at 2019 Sundance Film Festival

Daily reports from Park City starting today.

Go Into The Story Script Reading & Analysis: “Destroyer”

The entire 6 part series delving into the gritty crime drama.

Screenwriting News (January 21 — January 27, 2019)

Script sales, pitch deals, greenlit projects, talent attachments, and more.

Daily Dialogue theme next week: Supermaket

Join the Daily Dialogue crew: 3,909 consecutive days and counting.

Daily Dialogue — January 27, 2019

“Think of it this way. You’re running on hot bricks. You leave your feet on the ground, you’ll get burned.”

Let me focus my takeaway on a universal theme which lies at the core of the story: Regret.

Erin Bell fucked up. In a big way. Lost her lover. Responsible indirectly for the death of an innocent victim. Her life has gone south…

Yes, Rose, characters in good scripts are complex.

So a Mentor may don a nemesis mask… an attractor mask… a co-protagonist mask… a trickster mask for any given scene to try to accomplish…

“Character driven.”

Which is to say the work we put in immersing ourselves in the lives of our characters and delving into their multilayered psyche, then…

Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 377th installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other…

Script Analysis: “Destroyer” — Part 6: Takeaways

Read the script for the gritty crime drama and analyze it this week.

Download 2019 Oscar Nominated Best Original and Adapted Screenplays

The Favourite, First Reformed, Green Book, Roma, Vice, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, BlacKkKlansman, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, If Beale…

Script to Screen: “No Country For Old Men”

The coin toss scene from No Country For Old Men (2007), screenplay by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, one of the most riveting moments in the…

Daily Dialogue — January 26, 2019

“Five push-ups? I got three dollars says I can do five push-ups.”

Excellent analysis, Roo, Rose, and Cameron.

Regret. Redemption.

Movie Story Type: Frustration Comedy

With movies, there are Genres. Cross Genres. Sub-Genres. Also Story Types. One of them: Frustration Comedy.

Script Analysis: “Destroyer” — Part 5: Dialogue

Read the script for the gritty crime drama and analyze it this week.

2019 Dialogue-Writing Challenge: Day 19

A chance for you to work on your dialogue chops and win free prizes!