Part II will address points 4 & 5 and be published at 10AM tomorrow. It’s one thing to be told to write sizzling dialogue, but quite another to recognize when the dialogue you’ve written doesn’t.  There are essentially five reasons your dialogue is flat: on-the-nose: describes exactly what’s happening in the scene no subtext: character [...]

Entertaining Isn’t Enough The worst excuse for a poorly crafted screenplay is this: it’s only a movie.  Yes, it’s only a movie, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that it isn’t about anything.  Every movie must be about something.  This means it must be centered around a theme, have a controlling idea and answer a [...]

*Spoiler alert: this article discusses the endings to popular movies The  Surprise Twist Ending Everyone hates the movie that ends with the hero waking up in bed realizing that it was all a dream.  They don’t hate it if it’s later revealed that it WASN’T a dream.  That’s an effective twist, but it’s been done. [...]

How do you know if your ending works?  When writing any story, you are open to so many possibilities, it’s often impossible to know what ending to choose.  Actually, you are open to the following possible endings: Good/bad guy wins (happy fairy tale) Good/bad guy loses but wins something unexpected (bittersweet ending) Good/bad guy loses [...]

The other day I attended a script reading that got me thinking about what was missing from his writing beyond the basic structural flaws, story issues, and underdeveloped characters.  The writer lacked one major thing: a basic understanding of the human condition. Sadly, a handful of people, writer included, couldn’t see that all the female characters were either bitches [...]