Confused by Screenplay Rules?
Join the club.
You've got plenty of company that can be found all over Hollywood and especially at the local pitch fests.
I've read more than 20 books on screenplays and came to the conclusion that most said the same things about structure, character development and formatting. It's almost as if one book copied the other.
But all that information still isn't what you need to know to write a good screenplay.
I had to take acting and directing classes to realize what should be in a screenplay -- and what should not. That's when the light bulb went on but brightly.
Non-fiction writers and reporters, unfortunately, are the most notorious for putting out scripts that need doctoring. That's because their flowing A -> B -> C writing style is just the opposite of what a screenplay should be -- particularly if the writer worked for a newspaper, periodical or spent time in the technology industry.
In this section, I offer a few tips to make your script more compelling to a producer or director.
Click on the links below for information on topics that interest you:
Screenplay vs. Novel
Writing the Action
Writing the Dialogue