Authors: Irving Stanton Elman
ISBN-13: 9780595099771, ISBN-10: 0595099777
Format: Paperback
Publisher: iUniverse, Incorporated
Date Published: July 2000
Edition: (Non-applicable)
So You Want To Be A Scriptwriter was written to fill a need, when I started teaching script writing at Santa Monica College and my students asked me to name a book on the subject I could recommend. After voluminous reading, I could find nothing that was completely satisfactory. Most of it seemed to have been written by people who had never written professionally for films and/or television, and thus had no first-hand knowledge of it from personal experience. The books were written from hearsay and observation, like trying to learn how to swim by standing at the edge of a pool and watching others do it, without ever getting into the water yourself. Or trying to fly by flapping your arms like a bird. It doesn't work. They have no hands-on (or wings-on) concept of how commercially producible scripts are actually put together, and then marketed; and are of no real practical help to the beginning writer, or anyone else who's interested. Only a swimmer, or a bird, or a writer who has made his living at it, really knows how his special trick is done and can pass it on to others. And so here it is. Enjoy while you learn. Because if writing isn't fun, it's no way to make a living. Rob banks instead (but try not to get caught).
In the Beginning Was the Picture | 1 | |
How Did You Do It? | 9 | |
Screenplay, Teleplay, What's the Difference? | 17 | |
How Do I Begin? | 21 | |
The Outline | 29 | |
The Script | 39 | |
Character | 91 | |
Openings | 101 | |
Endings | 107 | |
Conflict | 111 | |
Suspense | 121 | |
Climax | 127 | |
Resolution | 131 | |
Dialogue | 137 | |
Exposition vs. Dramatization | 149 | |
Plots: Deep, Dark and Otherwise | 157 | |
Adaptation | 167 | |
Soaps | 177 | |
Docs | 189 | |
Writer's Block | 195 | |
Plagiarism | 203 | |
The Genus (Not Genius) Hyphenate | 215 | |
Scripts for Sale | 223 | |
In Union There is Strength | 239 | |
Last Words | 249 | |
About the Author | 251 |