SceneWriting: The Missing Manual for Screenwriters

Description

You've got an idea for the next great screenplay. Maybe you're just getting started or perhaps you've spent time with other screenwriting books, and you have your hero's journey, plot twists, reversals, and cat-saving scenes all worked out. Either way, what stands between you and an outstanding finished screenplay are the blank pages that you must fill with cinematic life, energy, conflict, and emotion. So how on Earth do you do that? The secret is scenewriting. This thorough and effective guide will help the beginner and the professional master the most critical and overlooked part of the screenwriting process: the art and craft of writing scenes. With step-by-step instruction, and numerous exercises, you will learn how to transform an outline into a fully-developed script. Learn how to prepare scenes for writing, construct sparkling, naturalistic dialogue, utilize scene description and the unique structure of the screenplay format to maximum advantage, and polish your scenes so that your idea becomes the script you always imagined it could be. Through scenewriting, great ideas become brilliant scripts.

Chris Perry and Eric Henry Sanders, both of Hampshire College, USA, have spent decades in entertainment; SceneWriting is the culmination of their shared experience analyzing, teaching, and exploring the craft. And talking about it a lot. Probably too much.

Scene Writing: The Missing Manual for Screenwriters delivers on its promise to be an invaluable asset for beginning and intermediate writers of film and TV content and to teachers and students. The more advanced screenwriter would be well advised to sharpen their scene skills with this book. The casual reader will find the book diverting and entertaining. And in the academic setting the book can be useful as a part of a class on screenplay structure. * Journal of Screenwriting * Buy this book. Read this book. Then when you inevitably hit that moment in your screenplay where you're certain what you've written is garbage, read the book again. Chris and Eric break down the elements of screenwriting with deft humor and loads of insight, using spot-on examples from virtually every genre and subgenre you can imagine. Whether you've never written a screenplay or written dozens, SceneWriting is an invaluable resource. * David Walpert, Executive Producer (House of Lies, Veronica Mars, New Girl) * A multitude of books are focused on helping writers gain skills and solve problems relating to plot and story, but the audience ultimately judges their work one scene at a time, one scene after another. Perry and Sanders focus on these fundamental and often overlooked building blocks from which all scripts are built in an energetic and thorough style. * Jeremy Sheldon, Head of Development, Omeira Studio Partners, UK * SceneWriting is perfect for anyone wanting to turn their idea into a polished script. It brings logic to a craft that is often wildly illogical, and goes deeper than any book out there. * Jessika Borsiczky, Writer, Showrunner, Director (House of Lies, UnREAL, Lucifer) * The book is well laid out so you can pinpoint where your weak spot is as a scene writer and then dive into those chapters ... Some polishing and description reduction and my scenes are actually amazing. * Phoenix Screenwriters Association * SceneWriting stands out among screenplay manuals for its unique and valuable approach in focusing on the style and structure of the scene rather than the screenplay. The helpful attention to the writing process and its accessible style make it a useful component of any aspiring screenwriter's library. * Julian Hoxter, Screenwriting Coordinator for Cinema at San Francisco State University, USA * SceneWriting is a must read for screenwriters of all levels and backgrounds, regardless if you're an established writer or just starting out... the key to a great script all comes down to writing great scenes, which is why Perry and Sanders have put together a highly instructive and invaluable manual for success. * Will Reiser, USA, Writer/Producer of the film 50/50 * SceneWriting: The Missing Manual for Screenwriters is such a welcome addition to the world of books on screenwriting. Most books have a chapter or a section on writing scenes, but there are precious few titles that focus on this important topic. The authors present the material in an incredibly engaging, user-friendly style that is not just clear and easy to understand, it is is inspiring. The book kind of flips the model of most screenwriting books, because it centers its attention on constructing rich, active scenes but also gives ample time to other topics like dialogue, structure, and character development. The examples provided from contemporary films are effective in illustrating points and the authors' comments on them are enlightening. I am so glad that this book exists and have already started to implement some of the material into my classes. * David J. Greenberg, University of the Arts, Philadelphia, USA and author of Screenwriting For Micro-Budget Films * Chris and Eric are story-tellers who know there is no formula for screenwriting, only the joy, delight, and hard work of making things happen and creating the people things happen to. * Susan Shilliday, Writer (Legends of the Fall, thirtysomething), Sundance Advisor *