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| Foreword | |
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| Introduction | |
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| About This Book | |
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| Conventions Used in This Book | |
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| Foolish Assumptions | |
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| How This Book Is Organized | |
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| Icons Used in This Book | |
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| Where to Go from Here | |
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| So You Want to Write for Pictures | |
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| Introducing the Art of Screenwriting | |
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| Thinking Visually | |
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| Developing the Writer's Mind | |
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| Approaching Screenwriting as a Craft | |
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| Finding Your Screenplay's Story | |
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| Working through the Writing Process | |
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| Formatting Your Screenplay | |
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| Constructing Your First Draft | |
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| Rewriting Your Script | |
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| Adapting Your Screenplay from an Outside Source | |
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| Selling Your Screenplay to Show Business | |
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| Preparing to Think Visually | |
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| Exploring Other Mediums | |
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| Fiction | |
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| Stage plays | |
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| Poetry and studio arts | |
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| Screenplays | |
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| The Visual Life of a Screenplay | |
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| From the outside in | |
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| From the inside out | |
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| Diving In to the Screenwriter's Mind | |
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| Learning from Other Writers | |
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| Reading for dramatic intent | |
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| Recognizing a screenplay's genre | |
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| Art and Life: What's the Difference? | |
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| Developing an Artistic Sensibility | |
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| What a writer sees | |
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| What a writer hears | |
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| What a writer remembers and what a writer forgets | |
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| Recognizing a Story When You See One | |
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| Identifying the call to write | |
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| The four important P's of story | |
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| Finding an opening image | |
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| Approaching Screenwriting as a Craft | |
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| A Look at the Creative Process | |
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| Imagination: Your Creative Arsenal | |
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| Flexing the imagination | |
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| Putting the imagination to work | |
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| Identifying your writing voice | |
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| Craft: A Vehicle for Your Imagination | |
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| Form | |
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| Technique | |
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| Discipline | |
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| Breaking Down the Elements of a Story | |
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| Unpacking Your Idea | |
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| I Have This Great Idea. Now What? | |
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| Pinpointing your interest in the idea | |
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| Documenting your interest in the idea | |
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| Getting to Know Your Audience | |
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| Matching the story to the audience | |
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| Connecting with your audience | |
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| Knowing What Happened Before Your Story Began: Creating the Backstory | |
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| Elements of the backstory | |
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| Developing a screenplay through backstory | |
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| Identifying the Tone of Your Piece | |
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| Establishing Your Story's Time Clock | |
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| Deciding When to Start Your Story | |
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| Getting to Know Aristotle: A Dramatist's Best Friend | |
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| What's It All About?: Writing a Nutshell Synopsis | |
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| Plot Part I: Beginnings | |
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| Enhancing Your Opening Images | |
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| Person, place, or thing: What do you want to present first? | |
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| Conflict: What's wrong with your story? | |
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| Possible ways to begin your story | |
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| Tracking Success: Three Compelling (and Contrasting) Movie Beginnings | |
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| The Untouchables | |
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| American Beauty | |
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| Jaws | |
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| Plot Part II: Middles | |
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| Deciding What Comes Next | |
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| From Lights to Camera to ... ACTION! | |
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| Presenting both action and activity | |
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| Revisiting the story's time clock | |
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| Status: Where's the Upper Hand? | |
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| What's Your Problem? Introducing Conflicts and Obstacles | |
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| Exposition: From Clunky to Creative | |
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| Sharing info the characters know | |
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| Sharing info the characters may not know | |
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| Determining What to Write from What You've Already Written | |
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| Continuing Success: Tracking Three Successful Movie Middles | |
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| Jaws | |
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| The Untouchables | |
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| American Beauty | |
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| Plot Part III: Endings | |
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| How Do You Know When You're Done? | |
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| Tracking the change: What's different now? | |
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| Crafting your story's conclusion | |
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| Danger Will Robinson: Threats to an Otherwise Healthy Plot | |
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| Would that really happen? The probable versus the possible | |
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| Scenes where nothing happens: Two final threats to watch for | |
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| Ultimate Success: Tracking Three Movies through Their Triumphant Conclusions | |
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| Jaws | |
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| The Untouchables | |
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| American Beauty | |
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| Character Building | |
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| Portrait of a Person: Constructing a Physical World | |
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| Your character's physical being | |
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| Your character's physical environment | |
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| The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Constructing an Internal World | |
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| Dreams, desires, and passions | |
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| Talents and expertise | |
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| Internal obstacles | |
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| Your character's argument | |
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| From the Inside Out: Making the Inner World Visible | |
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| Balancing character dialogue with character action | |
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| Crafting concrete character goals | |
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| Providing character opportunities | |
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| Establishing routines that change | |
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| Forcing your characters to choose | |
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| Using a mentor | |
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| Using a narrator | |
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| Crafting secondary characters | |
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| Say What? Constructing Dynamic Dialogue | |
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| Diction: What's in a Word? | |
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| Isn't versus ain't: Diction's determining factors | |
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| The highs and the lows of language | |
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| Name That Tune: Crafting Your Character's Music | |
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| Sound 101: Using poetry as a guide | |
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| Fascinating rhythm: Crafting your script's pulse | |
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| Listening: The Other Half of Conversation | |
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| Putting It Together: Letting Your Characters Speak | |
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| Setting the scene | |
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| Dialogue do's and don'ts | |
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| The Nontraditional Film | |
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| Breaking with Tradition - Other Ways to Get the Job Done | |
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| Thinking Out of Time | |
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| Song and Dance: The Movie Musical | |
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| Original musicals | |
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| Musical adaptations | |
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| Maintaining an Audience's Trust | |
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| Screenwriting and Ethics | |
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| Screenwriting and Responsibility | |
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| What are you willing to put your name on? | |
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| Approaching difficult subject matter | |
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| The Immunity Factor | |
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| Turning Your Story into a Script | |
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| Mapping Out Your Screenplay | |
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| Conceptualizing Your Concept | |
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| How to Treat Your Treatment | |
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| Before you begin | |
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| Putting it on the page | |
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| Exploring the Ins and Outs of an Outline | |
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| One sentence at a time | |
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| One step at a time | |
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| What to Do When the Outline's Through | |
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| Surviving Writer's Block | |
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| From Panic to Peace: Switching Mind-Sets | |
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| The top ten reasons for writer's block | |
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| A survival guide | |
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| Reevaluating Your Routine | |
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| Seeking Outside Help | |
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| Formatting Your Screenplay | |
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| How the Screenplay Looks on the Page | |
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| Setting your typeface and your margins | |
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| Spacing your script correctly | |
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| Making your computer work for you | |
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| Creating a PDF | |
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| Key Formatting Elements | |
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| Character introductions | |
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| Cinematic description | |
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| Camera concerns | |
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| Terms that defy categorization | |
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| A Sample Scene | |
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| Putting It Together: Structuring Your First Draft | |
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| Navigating the Three-Act Structure | |
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| Introductions | |
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| Your opening moments | |
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| The first ten pages | |
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| The inciting incident | |
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| Plot point one | |
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| Salting the Wound | |
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| Know where the action is | |
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| The about-face | |
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| The midpoint: A halfway house | |
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| Plot point two | |
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| The Final Frontier | |
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| The climax | |
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| The resolution | |
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| A Note on Subplots | |
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| Take Two: Rewriting Your Script | |
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| Downshifting between Drafts | |
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| How to work when you're not working | |
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| Your first time back: Read-through #1 | |
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| A second glance: Read-through #2 | |
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| Back in the Saddle Again: Rewrites | |
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| Finding a Reader | |
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| Your Critique: Surviving the Aftermath | |
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| Adaptation and Collaboration: Two Alternate Ways to Work | |
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| Acquiring Rights to Primary Material | |
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| Understanding copyrights | |
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| Obtaining permission | |
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| Determining how much to adapt | |
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| Navigating between Forms | |
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| From fiction to film | |
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| From stage to screen | |
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| Poetry and music | |
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| The Process of Adaptation | |
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| How to approach an original work | |
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| What to do when you're stuck | |
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| The Art of Collaboration | |
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| What to look for in a writing partner | |
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| How to approach collaboration | |
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| Learning from the Masters | |
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| Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor | |
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| Joel and Ethan Coen | |
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| Selling Your Script to Show Business | |
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| Before You Send It: Premarketing Considerations | |
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| Understanding the "Biz" in Showbiz | |
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| Getting to know the players: The Hollywood hierarchy | |
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| Getting to know the buyers: The studio hierarchy | |
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| Getting a "grip": Hollywood jargon | |
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| Preparing Yourself for the Biz | |
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| Putting on a happy face: The art of attitude | |
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| Organizing your records | |
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| Acquiring the right information | |
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| Setting personal expectations | |
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| Polishing the Copy You Send | |
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| A last-minute checklist | |
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| Front-page news | |
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| Protecting Your Work | |
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| The Library of Congress | |
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| The Writer's Guild of America | |
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| The "poor-man's copyright" | |
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| Getting Your Screenplay Noticed | |
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| Designing Your Own Package | |
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| Highlighting the universal | |
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| Gaining the competitive edge | |
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| Considering the reader | |
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| Preparing to Pitch | |
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| The teaser pitch | |
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| The story pitch | |
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| Finding an Agent | |
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| Approaching an Agent | |
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| Small versus large: Does size matter? | |
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| The query letter | |
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| The "cold call" and the "drop in" | |
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| Pitching Your Script without an Agent | |
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| What to Do When They Say Yes | |
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| Meeting with an agent | |
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| Meeting with executives | |
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| Looking Ahead: Upon Achieving Success | |
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| A Final Note | |
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| The Part of Tens | |
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| Ten Screenwriters You Should Know | |
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| William Goldman | |
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| Ruth Prawer Jhabvala | |
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| Alan Ball | |
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| Nora Ephron | |
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| John Logan | |
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| Sofia Coppola | |
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| Wes Anderson | |
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| Charlie Kaufman | |
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| Christopher Nolan | |
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| Diablo Cody | |
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| Ten Screenwriting Myths | |
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| I Have to Live in Los Angeles to Write Screenplays | |
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| You Have to Go to School to Learn How to Write | |
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| Screenwriting Is Entertainment; It's Not a Real Profession | |
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| If You've Never Written Before, It's Too Late to Start Now | |
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| Writing Is a Lonely Profession | |
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| Hollywood Has No Ethics; It'll Ruin the Integrity of My Script | |
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| It's Not What You Know; It's Who You Know That Matters | |
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| I Have Too Many Obligations to Be a Writer | |
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| You're Only as Successful as the Last Screenplay You Sold | |
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| I'm Not Talented Enough to Be a Writer | |
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| Index | |