There are shelves and shelves of books on how to write, hundreds of classes you can take, dozens of university programs you can enroll in. All of them are there to tell you the rules—even when they tell you there are “no rules”—and if they’re not telling you the rules they’re not actually telling you anything.
Writing for kids can be lucrative. Books, movies, graphic novels, cartoons, and television shows aimed at children make up a huge segment of the storytelling market. The stories can get paired with toys and other products, which increases revenue, and some kids ask to re-watch items they’ve already seen, which means even more revenue.
The new book Crazy Screenwriting Secrets: How to Capture a Global Audience by Weiko Lin does double duty. The first half of the book goes into detail about how 3-act film structure works, how to craft dynamic characters and how to break into the business.
Everyone knows writing can be stressful. Not a writer alive publicly proclaims “this is always extremely easy!” and lives to tell the tale, especially if they have murderously jealous writer friends. Art isn’t always simple and effortless. There are ups, downs, and a lot of quiet space in between which you can spend slowly breaking down and digesting your own mind. It can be challenging.
Anyone reading this article is probably looking to grow as a writer. Growth is one of the hardest things to do as a creative person, but most people who have ‘made it’ in this business will tell you it is a necessary and never-ending process. There’s no one Promised Land of Perfection where everything you write will be easy and flawless. The best any writer can do is work hard and keep learning.
Back when I was in film school at UCLA, a friend told me about a real woman named Ada Lovelace who lived in the 1800s. She was a mathematician and worked with inventor Charles Babbage to create programs for the world’s first computer. I read several biographies about Lovelace’s life, and though I went to film school to write broad, female-centric comedies, I decided I would try my hand at a biopic.
When we talk about screenwriting rules, Hollywood legend Frank Capra said it best: “There are no rules in filmmaking. Only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness.”
Everyone in Hollywood wants to write a cult classic. Who doesn’t want a crazed fandom going berserk over your movie and watching it obsessively while memorizing every single line and getting permanent tattoos on their arms in the shape of your main character’s face? That’s the dream, folks.
Cult classics aren’t always the ones that garnered critical acclaim when they hit the theatres, but they’ve all found an extraordinary afterlife in the imagination of their viewers. If you’re one of those writers who dreams of writing a cult classic, let’s take a look at some of our favorites and see what makes them tick.
One of the oldest bits of writing advice is: Write what you know. I remember being told this as a young writer and thinking 'But I’m too young to know anything.' Indeed, taken at its most literal there would be many fewer plays by Shakespeare ...
Entering into a new year is a great time to rededicate yourself to your screenwriting practice. If you just read that sentence and felt excited, great! But if you just read that sentence and felt an overwhelming sense of dread, maybe it’s time to try something new. How about a new genre?
As you’re learning to write, it’s important to observe yourself and consider what kind of writer you are. Different writers have different strengths and gravitate toward different types of stories. When I was in film school, it was pretty easy to pick up what kinds of writers the other students were. Roughly, we broke down into two camps. Some of us were much more focused on commercial story-telling, while others were attracted to films that were more artistic.
