Sublime

A catchy logline and a killer title will get you noticed. A well-structured screenplay will keep you in the game, and knowing how to fix your script — and any other script you may be presented with — will get you a career.

And I don’t mean quote as in “recite lines from,” I mean quote as in “explain how each movie works.” Movies are intricately made emotion machines.

when a hungry industry saw Star Wars become insanely popular and then learned it was built from a template and could thus be replicated, all hell broke loose.

make sure I’ve introduced or hinted at introducing every character in the A story.

“Well, it ain’t his folks paying your bills, I don’t have to be a detective to know that.” Althea puts her hands behind her head and stretches, jutting out a truly mammoth bosom that shades half her desk.

a shocking yet inevitable turn

The movie producer and all-around mensch Stuart Cornfeld once told me that in a good screenplay, every structural unit needs to do two things: (1) be entertaining in its own right and (2) advance the story in a non-trivial way.

protagonists have to be active and why stories wither the minute they become inert. Without desire – unless Michael pulls the trigger – there is nothing to catalyse the scene.

payoff, in part, depends on the audience forgetting the set-up.