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The Relentless Road to “Back to the Future”

There’s one trait every successful screenwriter must have, and it’s not just talent. It’s not even just hard work. It’s persistence. Grit. The ability to keep pushing forward when every door slams shut in your face. I was thinking last night about how to talk to emerging screenwriters about the necessity of more than just hard w...
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‘Yes, And’-ing Your Story Into Existence: The Hunger Games Edition

When watching a movie or TV show, I’m always thinking about how and why a story works, and how and why the writer made those particular story choices. I’m also intrigued by how the concept began. How small was the kernel of the idea when they began to formulate the story and how did they go about expanding on the original premis...
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Celebrating One of the Best Minds in The Film Critic Community: Gene Siskel

Every now and then I will be treating this “Screenwriter’s Almanac” a bit more specifically. And today, I did a little research - a pretty wide net was cast with just a simple search of, “What cool thing happened today in history?” Yeah, pretty broad, so of course I focused it more around screenwriting and Hollywood, and I found...
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9 Components Of The Perfect Logline (Part 1)

  • James "Doc" Mason
  • .January 13, 2025
This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series "Logline."Many aspiring writers battle with loglines. Quite a few working writers struggle, too. Afterall, it’s a different skill from writing a script. The good news is crafting a logline becomes much easier when the writer knows what to include and, more importantly, what to leave on the...
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An Inside Look: Judging Creative Screenwriting Magazine’s Competitions

  • Jeffrey Morales
  • .January 10, 2025
Creative Screenwriting Magazine runs a range of screenwriting competitions for television pilots and feature length scripts throughout the year. Each one has a specifically-trained pool of readers to judge each category. This article breaks down the various components that are judged and some sample comments you can use to ensur...
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Showrunner Tia Napolitano Offers Tips On Getting Your Next TV Writing Job

  • Staff Writer
  • .January 9, 2025
There’s an ongoing fiery debate regarding ways newer TV writers can most effectively break into writing for television or securing their next writing job. More specifically, whether they should write a spec script for an existing TV show or an original sample.“I think an original sample is what people are looking for and have be...
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"Red One" Writer Chris Morgan Rescues Kidnapped Santa in Yuletide Actioner

  • Staff Writer
  • .December 2, 2024
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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Writing Effective Found Family Films: Part 2

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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I Hate to Break It to You, But Your Logline Isn't Working

(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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Writing Morally Gray Characters, Part 1

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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The Trigger – More Than An Inciting Incident

  • James "Doc" Mason
  • .October 18, 2024
While even the non-writer will recognize that the climax is the character’s final battle, the end of the story, fewer know what to call the start of the story. Remember, there is no story without conflict. Therefore the story starts with a clear conflict. Writers will know the Inciting Incident or Inciting Event is often describ...
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Navigating Your Story

  • Salva Rubio
  • .September 16, 2024
Since its inception over twenty years ago, the methodology of Blake Synder’s Save the Cat has been as synonymous with storytelling as Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey and Syd Field’s Paradigm Worksheet.Many screenwriters can’t help but spot the moment when “Bad Guys Close In”, or the “Dark Night of the Soul” whenever they sit do...
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Be Undisciplined And Write Your Voice

  • Basil Iwanyk
  • .February 26, 2024
Basil Iwanyk is a prolific film producer at Thunder Road Pictures known for box office hits including Sicario, John Wick, The Town and Oscar winner, A Star Is Born. “I grew up in New Jersey and you grew up doing one of three things – you commuted into New York City and ran your own business, or you became a lawyer or a doctor… n...
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Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

Dr. Linda Seger, author of Making a Good Script Great and 8 other books on screenwriting discusses how to set yourself up as a writer so that there is ALWAYS something to write about !   Writers vary in terms of how many ideas are floating around in their heads at any one time. Pen Densham, (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) told m...
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Writing A Blockbuster Movie

  • Gene Del Vecchio
  • .November 15, 2022
5 Things Every Screenwriter Should Know Before Writing A Blockbuster Movie:Screenwriters should always think big in terms of their careers. Blockbuster big. We all want our films to be seen by the largest audience possible. In old studio parlance, the term blockbuster referred to audiences queuing around the block to see a movie...
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Desperation, Dread, & Determination

I call them the triple D’s of screenwriting:DreadEvery screenwriter experiences this eventually. You get to a place where it feels like it’s all over. You’ll never get that agent. The manager will never call you back. Will anyone respond to my query? Listen my friend. I’ve been there. You are not the only one. I remember doing o...
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5 Character Traits of an Awesome Action Hero

  • Armaan Uplekar
  • .May 3, 2022
Sarah Connor. Ethan Hunt. James Bond. There’s a deep bench of iconic characters that have helped define and exemplify action cinema for decades. Between preventing nuclear annihilation, rescuing hostages and restoring balance to the universe, these characters have proven themselves to be larger than life while also capturing the...
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“My Superpower is Persistence” - Gregory Allen Howard

“My Superpower is Persistence” Gregory Allen Howard Talks ‘Ali’, ‘Remember The Titans’, And ‘Harriet’Gregory Allen Howard’s cousin introduced him to “what was underneath the movies.” Although his cousin wasn’t in the film business, he taught Howard that there was so much more underneath the service of something he previously vie...
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The Power of Belief

We all have obstacles of some kind. A personal challenge. A flaw, or for most of us, a series of flaws – a whole host of issues, really. We deal with them on a daily basis, whether they’re literal and physical, or mental and emotional. We’re imperfect. And most of the time our beliefs surrounding our issues or personal challenge...
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The Neurotic Superhero: From Comic Book to Catharsis

There’s a historical pattern around the popularity of the superhero—he or she is most needed during dark times in the real world. In Captain America: The First Avenger, when Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) visits the US troops to boost morale, it’s more than mere fiction; it’s art imitating life. Sales of comic books ...

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