Screenwriting Tricks for Authors (and Screenwriters!): STEALING HOLLYWOOD: Story Structure Secrets for Writing Your BEST Book

ASSIGNMENT: Write out your reasons WHY THEM? for the lovers in your WIP.

ASSIGNMENTS: · Go to an office or stationery store or shop on line and find yourself a wonderful notebook to work in. · List ten books and films that are similar to your own story in structure and/or genre (at least five books and three movies if you’re writing a book, at least five movies if you’re writing a script.). · Or if you’re trying to deci

ACT ONE CLIMAX · 30 minutes into a 2-hour movie, 100 pages into a 400-page book. Adjust proportions according to length of book. · We have all the information and have met all the characters we need to know what the story is going to be about. · The Central Question is set up, and often is set up by the action of the act climax itself. We know the

MIDPOINT CLIMAX · 60 minutes into a 2-hour movie, 200 pages into a 400-page book. · Is a major shift in the dynamics of the story. Something huge will be revealed; something goes disastrously wrong; someone close to the hero/ine dies, intensifying her or his commitment. · Can also be a huge defeat, which requires a recalculation and a new plan of a

ACT TWO CLIMAX · 90 minutes into a 2-hour film, 300 pages into a 400-page book. · Often can be a final revelation before the end game: the knowledge of who the opponent really is. · Often comes immediately after the “All is Lost” or “Long Dark Night of the Soul” scene — or may itself be the “All is Lost” scene. · Is very, very frequently a “double

· ASSIGNMENT: Make a list of ten high concept premises (that I haven’t already discussed here!). Try to define what about them makes them high concept for you. · ASSIGNMENT: Make a commitment to come up with at least three premises a week. Try them out on your friends and family. Which ones make their eyes light up? Why aren’t you writing those sto

· ASSIGNMENT: Pay attention in class or in professional networking situations to see how authors, screenwriters, and aspiring writers present themselves and their writing. Who stands out? Who presents an intriguing sense of the kind of writing that they do? Who sparkles? Who makes you want to know more? Are there ways that you can communicate your

· ASSIGNMENT : Make a list of ten great twists, and write out what makes them great, for you.

ASSIGNMENT: Make a list of ten books (books this time, not films) with first chapters that you love. Now read the first few pages of each, or the whole chapter, one after another, and figure out what it is that makes you love those openings so much. Is it the emotion, the characterization, the imagery, the dialogue, the sense of an unseen narrator?