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VoiceoverDespite being overused and used to shortcut actual writing voiceovers can be a powerful tool used properly. I ask my students to not use these, to work harder to get across their ideas, and invariably someone will bring up Casino or Goodfellows and my argument goes right out the window.I will say that these movies are b...
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Exposition is the beating heart of any story be it script, novel, song, article or poem. Building to a solid ending requires layering and delivering information in specific ways to make that ending work.But exposition isn’t just telling the audience something. It involves many aspects of a script – or any story for that matter. ...
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Victor Fleming and King Vidor made movie history when they made the timeless, inventive and fantastical The Wizard Of Oz in 1939. The spinoff film Wicked, based on the book series The Wicked Years by Gregory Maguire and a musical book by Winnie Holzman, was adapted into a hugely successful broadway musical in 2000, and is still ...
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Because the holidays are upon us, I thought it would be fun to look at one of my favorite genres - The Christmas movie.I will start off by saying this: I do not agree that Die Hard is a Christmas movie. If you would like to stop reading right now because this tears a hole in your dark Christmas heart and makes you want to pull y...
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These screenplays and their writers were selected by ISA staff members as standouts in their genres and formats for the month of December, 2024. They are being submitted to agents, managers, producers and production companies actively looking for writers to rep or projects to produce.  Staff Picks:HEAVY by Colette LeGault (Featu...
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Thanksgiving is just around the corner. You know what that means? Christmas isn’t too far behind. So make sure you’re on Santa’s “nice list” to join the Christmas cheer.But Santa has been kidnapped and must return to the North Pole in order to deliver gifts to millions of children and save Christmas. This is the story of Christm...
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I think that we ignore the process of theme development in our projects mainly because we’ve never really been told how to define what theme really is, or how it can inform more than just meaning and sentiment.I gave this note to one of my writers this week (with regard to her thematic statement): “…I think there is a lot to say...
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This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series "Found Family."It’s A DisasterNothing forces people to form a family faster than a disaster – a plane crash, shipwreck, or a natural disaster such as an earthquake, tidal wave, or tornado. Yellowjackets tells the story of a girls soccer team whose plane crashes in the wilderness during a f...
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This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series "Found Family."Found Family films are not new, but you may not have explicitly heard the term before. It simply means a film featuring groups of people who are not genetically or legally related and joined by circumstances to try and accomplish a common story goal by the end. These movies ...
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Let’s get back to some very basic elements of story, since the past few chapters have been a little head-spinning, deep, and oddly esoteric. Whether you’re writing a pilot, a feature, an epic fantasy novel or a small YA series with some juicy romance, or even if you’re sitting around a campfire enjoying the last few days of warm...
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Goals: Driving the Narrative

  • James "Doc" Mason
  • .November 18, 2024
As with every story element described in this series, the goal relates directly back to the idea of conflict. To reiterate, in its most basic form, conflict is when someone wants something and another person doesn’t want them to have it.More specifically, narrative conflict is typically when one character proactively pursues a g...
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This entry is part 2 of 2 in a series on Writing Quotes.6) A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but not necessarily in that order. ~ Jean-Luc GodardNon-linear storytelling is a difficult technique to pull off and it varies greatly. From Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol which starts at an event and the rolls f...
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(Be like Hermione…study, read, practice, be smart.)I am going to vent a little bit in today’s post, but it’s because you all need to hear it. I’ll hold myself back as much as I can. Please remember that I am coming to you with love and positive intention here, I swear.Your logline sucks.OK, so maybe I didn’t hold myself back. I ...
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This entry is part 1 of 2 in a series on Writing Quotes.By the time any writer becomes successful, they’ve typically gathered a war chest worth of things not to do. If one is doing it right, you’re writing, reading, listening, and learning a ton of how to and not to write.Let’s see what lessons successful writers have learned.1)...
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RewritingIt’s something we all need to deal with, and there is no getting around it. Rewriting, rewriting, rewriting. In the last post, I talked about writer’s block and, well, how and why writer’s block is pretty much a whole bunch of bullshit, and to again quote Terry Pratchett, “something invented by people in California who ...
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Nothing makes a reader’s mind wander faster than a boring scene which makes them lose interest in your screenplay and scroll or flip through your pages without actively reading or engaging with them. Here are some creative ways to identify and even rectify that:1) Character StereotypesThe characters are a carbon copy of what aud...
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Max Timm and The Story Farm offer all of his Substack content to ISA members for free, but a week or more after the original post was sent. If you would like to receive his most up to date Substack posts, as well as participate in a community of writers through his subscription and the Substack app, you can do so by going here, ...
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This article is a continuation of Writing Morally Gray Characters, Part 1. Politics Is A Dirty Gray“Politics is a dirty business, but if you do not do politics, politics will be done to you.” So states novelist Will Shetterly.Many movies and TV series about politics shows the absolute compromising nature of politics. Gray charac...
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These screenplays and their writers were selected by ISA staff members as standouts in their genres and formats for the month of November 2024. They are being submitted to agents, managers, producers and production companies actively looking for writers to rep or projects to produce.  ETERNAL PURSUIT by Benjamin Font (Feature)Lo...
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When you speak of gray in life, you’re normally talking about a mainly colorless tapestry. But morally gray characters, those considered not good nor bad, neither heroes not villains, are some of the more complex characters you can write. Even more interesting, is a psychological phenomenon that allows our audiences to embrace a...

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