I have a soft spot for dialogue. There. I said it. It’s a screenwriting sin, I know. You’re not supposed to write too much dialogue. It’s maybe the one note every screenwriter has heard: “Less dialogue. More action.” Or maybe it’s just a note I hear time and time again because I have a soft spot for dialogue and write too much of it. The … Continue reading Writing About Writing: Let’s Talk About Dialogue
There are certain things that you’re either obsessed with or you just plain don’t understand. Competitive cup stacking. CBS’s Big Brother. Professional wrestling. Pineapple on pizza. Musicals. But regardless of whether or not you actually enjoy musicals you can learn SO much from them. In a good musical, the songs actually help to advance the story. They don’t just reiterate information we already know. Now to be … Continue reading Writing About Writing: The Songs in Every Musical and What They Can Teach You About Story Structure
There’s a huge paradox with screenwriting, or really storytelling in any medium. You have to make stuff the same, but different. Your protagonist needs to be special, but also universally relatable. Your story needs to be fresh and original, but you also can’t really stray too far from audience expectations either or else you risk being “too out there” or “experimental, but it just didn’t … Continue reading Writing About Writing: Make It the Same, But Different
I sincerely believe that a villain can make or break a story. There’s nothing that ruins an otherwise good story quite like an underdeveloped villain. Now, it’s worth mentioning that not every script needs a traditional “villain.” Sometimes the protagonist and antagonist is the same character, fucking up their own life and then finding ways to overcome their challenges. Sometimes two characters serve as antagonist … Continue reading Writing About Writing: Three Strategies For Writing A Good Villain
So I got this e-mail a little while back, but it turned out that recently a script I wrote was an Official Selection of the 2018 Smashcut Screenplay Competition. This signifies that my script was among the top 35 submissions. I tell you this for a couple of reasons. One is that I hope as you read any of my writing advice you understand that … Continue reading Writing About Writing: Your girl got herself some laurels!
For the most part, I’m trying to make this series stand alone blog posts, but for this one I can’t help referencing an earlier one, The Four Things You Need To Know. This post might make a little more sense if you go read that one, but as a quick refresher, here are the four things: What does my character want? Why does my character … Continue reading Writing About Writing: Ch-ch-ch-CHANGES!!!
If I had to pick the two most common pieces of advice given to writers, they are as follows: Write a lot Read a lot There’s a damn fine reason they are so common. Ultimately, you won’t learn to write without writing. And it’s very hard to know what makes good writing good and bad writing bad if you aren’t consuming the work of others. … Continue reading Writing About Writing: Other Fields Writers Should Study
Potentially the most overrated exercise in creative writing is the character bio. It’s not that they’re COMPLETELY useless because I’m sure they’re at least somewhat helpful to at least some people. However, I think it’s also possible to trick yourself into thinking that you’re making a ton of progress by writing character bios when you’re not. You could write a bio for everyone from your … Continue reading Writing About Writing: A Case Against Character Bios (ft. Star Wars!!)
I am a huge believer in backwards writing. If there’s a more officially-accepted term for this practice, I have yet to hear it, so for me, it’s backwards writing. Backwards writing is the idea that some of the first scenes you write should be some of the later scenes in your script. I strongly believe that it’s virtually impossible to know what your beginning should … Continue reading Writing About Writing: Try Writing Backwards!
So you want to write a screenplay. Awesome! I’m proud of you. Remember, no matter how crappy your screenplay is, you will be miles ahead of every single person who’s ever said “I have a great idea for a movie!” but never bothered to write that script, which from my experience is the entire human population outside of screenwriters. So where do you start? I … Continue reading Writing About Writing: The Four Things You Need To Know
Butcher Thoughts 