Building the World of Your Screenplay: Your First 10 Pages. Click to tweet this article to your friends and followers! As religious lore has it, God took 6 days to build the world… You have 10 pages. You’ve all heard the horror stories of producers who only read the first 10 or 20 pages, and if they’re not hooked, intrigued and impressed, they toss the script. And unfortunately, those stories are true. So you need to make sure your first pages accomplish all the things necessary to keep a reader’s interests. You need to paint a picture in your first few pages that make it clear your story is visual and your writing is interesting. We need a great opening image, a clear tone and genre, engaging characters, emotion, compelling dialogue and voice, high stakes, conflict, a relatable theme, and a world that intrigues us from the start.
You are the God of your script’s world. Always set up the most implausible and outlandish part of your world first. No matter what genre or type of story you’re writing, every world has rules that must be set up. 8 Tips For Creating Great Stories From George R.R. Martin, Junot Diaz, And Other Top Storytellers. What the hell is a Story Lizard? In Wonderbook: The Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction (Abrams Books, October 15), Story Lizards join Prologue Fish and other infographic helpmates designed to banish dry textual analysis in favor of a kicking, screaming, slithering approach to storytelling creativity.
Author Jeff Vandermeer, a three-time Fantasy World Award-winning novelist who co-directs the Shared Worlds teen writing camp, says "The way we're taught to analyze fiction is to break down and do a kind of autopsy. But I think writers need to be more like naturalists or zoologists when they study story because then you're looking at how all the elements fit together. " Enter the Story Lizard, above, illustrated by Jeremy Zerfoss. As Vandermeer tells Co.Create, "A recurring thing in Wonderbook is to think of stories as being more like living creatures than machines. " Neil Gaiman.
Read on for a sampling of Wonderbook tips about how to craft mind-blowing stories. Tell, don't show Name Wisely. How Creativity Works: Neil Gaiman on Where Ideas Comes From. Download the App. MUJERES QUE ESCRIBEN; TODA UNA AVENTURA EXISTENCIAL. Por Mónica Maristainmarzo 8, 2015- 00:00h Mujeres que escriben, toda una aventura existencial. Foto: Francisco Cañedo, SinEmbargo “Del libro y del hijo no se dudan”, dijo la fantástica Marguerite Duras, ejemplo de una vida dedicada a la escritura, la gran aventura que para muchos seres humanos ha constituido una posibilidad de trascender la futilidad existencial, aunque sea por un segundo, probablemente de manera ilusoria y tan abstracta como inasible. En el Día de la Mujer, un festejo que destaca el lugar que el género ocupa en un sistema social que ofrece todavía muchas desigualdades, quisimos celebrar la presencia de las escritoras con una pregunta: ¿Qué es la escritura para ti: qué te ha dado, qué te ha quitado?
No era nuestro interés acudir al cliché de explicar la condición de género, porque pensamos que ese cliché ahonda precisamente las desigualdades. A los hombres nunca se les pregunta qué significa ser hombres. Como toda selección se construye también por las ausencias. » There’s No Such Thing as a Fake Reader. Three people walk into a bar: the first is carrying a book of experimental poetry, the second holds a YA vampire novel, and the last sits down and opens up a Victorian classic. Who is the “real reader”? Writers, understandably, are always seeking advice for how to better connect to readers. And there is an abundance of advice that makes claims about what readers want: “Readers want realistic characters!”
“Readers crave plot!” “Readers want emotion!” “Readers want simple stories, not complex literary gymnastics!” But, contrary to these claims, readers are not a monolithic block. An appreciation of readers as diverse individuals with different tastes should be a basic tenet of criticism. Take, for example, this painfully un-self-aware NPR review of Mark Doten’s experimental Iraq war novel, The Infernal: [The Infernal is] a novel written not for readers but for those who love to argue about the novel-as-object more than they love the words. Stephen King’s “Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully – in Ten Minutes” | Aerogramme Writers' StudioStephen King's "Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully – in Ten Minutes" I. The First Introduction THAT’S RIGHT. I know it sounds like an ad for some sleazy writers’ school, but I really am going to tell you everything you need to pursue a successful and financially rewarding career writing fiction, and I really am going to do it in ten minutes, which is exactly how long it took me to learn.
It will actually take you twenty minutes or so to read this essay, however, because I have to tell you a story, and then I have to write a second introduction. But these, I argue, should not count in the ten minutes. II. The Story, or, How Stephen King Learned to Write When I was a sophomore in high school, I did a sophomoric thing which got me in a pot of fairly hot water, as sophomoric didoes often do. Eventually, a copy of this little newspaper found its way into the hands of a faculty member, and since I had been unwise enough to put my name on it (a fault, some critics argue, of which I have still not been entirely cured), I was brought into the office. III. IV. 1. The Basics – Better Storytelling. The BasicsIndex of Articles The Basics of Storytelling by William F. Nolan As a storyteller, you must begin by creating a protagonist who is real, three dimensional, with genuine emotions that play out over the course of your narrative.
Your range is … The Blank Page – Where To Begin? Start At The End Have you ever read a story with an intriguing plot, compelling characters and great action, but when it came down to the end of the story, the author dropped the ball? What Makes A Great Hero? How Setting Affects Your Story Some writers make the mistake of ignoring where their stories take place. Lead With The Theme Stories with a well developed theme are rare. Desire: The Spine Of Your Story Some stories lack zest, gusto… oomph! Need: The Heart Of Your Story Many writers fail to notice the emotional undercurrent in their stories.
Identification Have you ever read a story or seen a movie where you couldn’t “get into” the main character. Writer’s Block – Feed Your Muse! Neil Gaiman’s Advice to Aspiring Writers. Reel Story: Most Common Reasons Why Scripts Are Rejected. Whenever a script is submitted to the industry, it is passed off to a reader for analysis. The reader will give the script a “recommend,” a “consider” or a “pass.” And unless it gets a recommend, probably no one else is going to look at it. So how many scripts get a recommend? About two percent. Which means roughly ninety-eight percent of spec scripts are dead on arrival. Why do so many writers make these kinds of errors, often over and over? 1. I have found that roughly five percent of writers naturally write in professional-level conflict, by which I mean the kind of conflict that hooks a reader and makes them want to keep reading.
The good news is that professional-level conflict is a learnable skill based on techniques that can be practiced and mastered. If you don’t naturally write this way, as most writers don’t, I can’t emphasize enough how important it is that you make the investment to train yourself in these skills. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. The Key to Success Step one. The Neuroscience Of "Harry Potter" Let's do a casual experiment. Here's a brief passage from the first book in some obscure fiction series called Harry Potter: A bush on the edge of the clearing quivered. … Then, out of the shadows, a hooded figure came crawling across the ground like some stalking beast.
Harry, Malfoy, and Fang stood transfixed. The cloaked figure reached the unicorn, lowered its head over the wound in the animal's side, and began to drink its blood. And here's another passage from the final book of the series: He got up off the floor, stretched and moved across to his desk. Which passage did you find more engaging? The results of our experiment, that action is more engrossing than scene-setting, may be unsurprising. Hsu and collaborators recruited test participants to enter a brain scanner and read passages of Harry Potter (translated into German) about four lines long. The results support what the researchers call the "fiction feeling hypothesis" of reading immersion.
The Taming of the Shrew: Writing Female Characters & Archetypes. One of the biggest topics discussed in entertainment this year, especially the last few months, is the decrease in the number of women in the industry and especially the lack of female directors and female protagonists in cinema. Despite there being a number of films with female leads that have become massive hits, there are still far fewer produced than those with male leads. Studios are still passing on female protagonist projects and it’s our job to figure out why instead of just bemoaning that it happens. Recently, at the Final Draft Screenwriting Awards, the infamous Nancy Meyers labeled 2013 as the Year of the Shrew. That with few exceptions, most of the lead female characters in films last year were basically shrew-like bitches that no one could like and advised that writers “should write women you want to know, instead of run away from.”
The more I thought about it, the more I realized – she’s not wrong. Cate Blanchett in ‘Blue Jasmine’ Were some of them complex characters? 1. 2. Ursula Le Guin. Writersroom - Writersroom interviews...Steven Moffat. The Science of the Movie Screenplay. Michael Lewis on Writing, Money, and the Necessary Self-Delusion of Creativity. By Maria Popova “When you’re trying to create a career as a writer, a little delusional thinking goes a long way.”
The question of why writers write holds especial mesmerism, both as a piece of psychological voyeurism and as a beacon of self-conscious hope that if we got a glimpse of the innermost drivers of greats, maybe, just maybe, we might be able to replicate the workings of genius in our own work. So why do great writers write? George Orwell itemized four universal motives. In Why We Write: 20 Acclaimed Authors on How and Why They Do What They Do (public library) by Meredith Maran — which also gave us invaluable wisdom from Susan Orlean, Mary Karr and Isabel Allende, and which was among the 10 best books on writing from my recent collaboration with the New York Public Library — Michael Lewis, one of today’s finest nonfiction masters, shares his singular lore. More than a living, Lewis found in writing a true calling — the kind of deep flow that fully absorbs the mind and soul:
Neil Gaiman’s 8 Rules of Writing. By Maria Popova In the winter of 2010, inspired by Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules of writing published in The New York Times nearly a decade earlier, The Guardian reached out to some of today’s most celebrated authors and asked them to each offer his or her commandments. After Zadie Smith’s 10 rules of writing, here come 8 from the one and only Neil Gaiman: WritePut one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.Put it aside. Read it pretending you’ve never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right.
Image by Kimberly Butler. How Neil Gaiman Stays Creative In An Age Of Constant Distraction. The great German writer and realpolitik statesman Goethe once said “talent is nurtured in solitude.” The only way to achieve true creativity, then, was to become “a child of solitude.” But in our culture of constant connectivity, is solitude still needed, let alone possible? And when creators come down to Earth via Twitter, Facebook, and email, making themselves more publicly accessible than ever before, is there any hope for pure, untempered creation? Has the Internet made writers, painters, architects, and scientists more successful because they can reach a wider audience, or has all that white-noise hamstrung the very value these people are known for: creation?
After all, what is art now, aside from the random expressions of everyone? “It doesn’t matter what social media you’re plugged into, or what’s going on,” counters Neil Gaiman. “At the end of the day, it’s still always going to be you and a blank sheet of paper, or you and a blank screen. Digital Publishing’s Peaks And Valley. How Stephen King Teaches Writing. Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft has been a fixture in my English classroom for years, but it wasn’t until this summer, when I began teaching in a residential drug and alcohol rehab, that I discovered the full measure of its worth.
For weeks, I struggled to engage my detoxing, frustrated, and reluctant teenage students. I trotted out all my best lessons and performed all my best tricks, but save for one rousing read-aloud of Poe’s “A Tell-Tale Heart,” I failed to engage their attention or imagination. Until the day I handed out copies of On Writing. Stephen King’s memoir of the craft is more than an inventory of the writer’s toolbox or a voyeuristic peek into his prolific and successful writing life. I asked King to expound on the parts of On Writing I love most: the nuts and bolts of teaching, the geekiest details of grammar, and his ideas about how to encourage a love of language in all of our students.
Jessica Lahey: You write that you taught grammar “successfully.” David Foster Wallace on Writing, Self-Improvement, and How We Become Who We Are. By Maria Popova “Good writing isn’t a science. It’s an art, and the horizon is infinite. You can always get better.” In late 1999, David Foster Wallace — poignant contemplator of death and redemption, tragic prophet of the meaning of life, champion of intelligent entertainment, admonisher against blind ambition, advocate of true leadership — called the office of the prolific writer-about-writing Bryan A. Over the course of the exchange, the two struck up a friendship and began an ongoing correspondence, culminating in Garner’s extensive interview with Wallace, conducted on February 3, 2006, in Los Angeles — the kind of conversation that reveals as much about its subject matter, in this case writing and language, as it does about the inner workings of its subject’s psyche.
Wallace begins at the beginning, responding to Garner’s request to define good writing: This act of paying attention, Wallace argues, is a matter of slowing oneself down. The writing writing that I do is longhand. . . . How to Write For Any Medium (From a Guy Who's Written For "The New Yorker," "Saturday Night Live," and Pixar) Aside from the fact that his name is right there at the top of the page, it’s always fairly obvious when a "Shouts and Murmurs" piece in The New Yorker is the product of Simon Rich. Telltale signs include the elegant skewering of adult human behavior, as glimpsed through the eyes of children, animals, spectral beings, or inanimate objects—and the fact that the reader is hunched over laughing. These short essays comprise just one of the many textual weapons at the writer’s disposal, however, and only one of the fields on which he regularly deploys them.
Rich’s recently-completed second novel, What in God’s Name? Occupies shelf space right next to his previous effort, Elliot Allagash (for which Jason Reitman bought the movie rights), and two short story collections. Rarely is such range achieved in any writing career, let alone by the ripe old age of 28, but that’s what happens when prodigious talent meets ceaseless work ethic, and is fortified by some admitted neuroses.
Bob Dylan on Sacrifice, the Unconscious Mind, and How to Cultivate the Perfect Environment for Creative Work. Kafka on Books and What Reading Does for the Human Soul. Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing. 10 Tips on Writing from David Ogilvy. Jack Kerouac’s List of 30 Beliefs and Techniques for Prose and Life. H. P. Lovecraft’s Advice to Aspiring Writers, 1920. How to Be a Writer: Hemingway’s Advice to Aspiring Authors. Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling--Visualized. The Most Moving and Timelessly Beautiful LGBTQ Love Letters in History. Correspondence Course: John Moe Is Deconstructing Pop Culture, One Letter At A Time.
How to Get Ahead At Your Creative Job--From A Guy Who Went From "Daily Show" Intern to Head Writer. "The Fault In Our Stars" Author John Green On Building A Passionate Audience. ¡¡Quiero publicar una novela!! ¿Qué hago? | El cazador de Libros.