Erik Bork – Throwing Rocks at your Characters Erik was another highly effective seminar leader.  Most of his material dealt with structure and came from Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat, which is a really helpful book on structure.  The one problem I had with Snyder’s book was that after reading it, I found it screwed [...]

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 [...]

Working in the film and TV industry, you meet everyone who is writing a script and within five minutes of talking with them, you can determine who is serious, who is amateur, who will make a career of it and who is nuts.  The first question I ask is “where did you study screenwriting”?  If [...]

By now you have the series act breaks, story lines and story arc.  You’re not done yet!  You need to break down each act into scenes and note what happens when.  If you’re thinking, “I already noted what happens when while looking at the story arc”, you may have noted the major plot points for [...]

You’ve broken down the skeleton or act structure and figured out the story lines so now you have to map out what happens in each act for each story line.  This is the story arc. Story arc is simply knowing where your story is going and how it maps out over the course of the [...]