Of course you could just wait for the movie...

Thanks, everyone, for visiting this blog. I’m still getting used to the idea that people care what I have to say. Some people hate what I say while others find it useful, but it’s just a strange feeling to have people care one way or the other. Sometimes the only way that I can muster up the courage to write this blog is to pretend to myself that no one reads it. I didn’t even want to start this

Read More

How to be Original

"All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having

Read More

The Rabbit Doesn't Always Win

Last weekend I guest lectured for some friends who co-teach a screenwriting class and something came up that I see happen a lot. As I taught/spoke, I could see people were working very hard to “get it.” They felt like they had to understand what I was talking about right then and there.One of the things that teaching has done for me is make me a better student, because I see where others get

Read More

Here There Be Monsters

One of the most common things I hear from people who object to learning, or having others learn, story structure is that the writing becomes stiff and mechanical. They are right. I will not argue with them about that. This argument, however, is made primarily by those who have a hard time understanding and applying story structure and it is convenient to say that it makes their work mechanical.

Read More

Movies I Like: It's a Wonderful Life

There are some films we have that are respected and less loved, and some that are beloved and less respected. Citizen Kane, for instance, is respected but not beloved like The Wizard of Oz. A few (very few) are both loved and respected—Casablanca is a prime example.
As a rule, films that make us think are respected while those that make us feel are beloved. Film scholars and

Read More

One-trick Pony

"Overall theme leads to character and then on to plot" -- Rod SerlingThere are two things that inexperienced screenwriters talk about ceaselessly--dialogue and the twist ending. The twist ending is the Holy Grail for the new or inexperienced writer. Younger writers think a twist is the end-all be-all is because it is writing that can be seen, writing that can be noticed. Young writers don't speak

Read More

Yet another movie I like—The Apartment

"The best director is the one you don't see." -- Billy Wilder

Someone asked me today why I like older movies better than new ones. This is not an easy question to answer to everyone’s satisfaction, but I will give it a try. They’re better.

This is not to say that all old films are great, but they are better on the whole. The level of storycraft in the older films is higher. It just is and as

Read More