Screenwriting Articles

BlueCat · Mar 27, 2008

Screenwriting Articles by Gordy Hoffman

READ FULL ARTICLES: http://www.bluecatscreenplay.com/news/advice.php

You're an Idiot: Making Value from Reaction to your Screenwriting
If you're like me, if someone doesn't like something about my screenplay, my very first reaction is always the same. You're not as smart as me. If you knew what I knew, you would understand what I wrote. And you don't understand what I wrote, because you don't know as much as I do. About everything, in general. In short, life. You know, people. Planet Earth.
Read full article: http://www.bluecatscreenplay.com/news/youre_an_idiot.php

The Rogue Knight of Cinema: Why Screenplay Contests Matter
Screenplay contests are changing cinema. Coming from a person who runs one, your first reaction to this statement is most likely, "The only reason you're saying that is you want me to enter yours."
Read full article: http://www.bluecatscreenplay.com/news/rogue_knight_of_cinema.php

YOU ARE THE BOX OFFICE SMASH: The Personal Screenplay
Right this very second, in the heart of every struggling, undiscovered screenwriter, in the dark, hidden corner deep within, there is a voice, a clear whisper, saying one thing: You're never gonna figure this out. And this is not referring to the story with its gaping hole, the finale missing a payoff, the hit and miss humor, the flat title. I'm talking about freedom. The freedom to work as a screenwriter.
Read full article: http://www.bluecatscreenplay.com/news/box_office_smash.php

Naming Your Baby: How to Find a Great Title to your Screenplay
How exactly does one work on the title of their screenplay? I recently came up with such a wonderful idea for a movie, one of those miraculous moments, like finding money on the sidewalk. I told somebody, and they said, "Great. What's the title?" Suddenly, and rather horrifyingly, my beauty of an idea is crippled.
Read full article: http://www.bluecatscreenplay.com/news/naming_your_baby.php

Screenwriting Tips from a Screenplay Contest Judge
After cracking hundreds of screenplays sent into the BlueCat Screenplay Competition, the same problems in the execution of the story and script continue to emerge. Here is a general overview of these persistent issues.
Read full article: http://www.bluecatscreenplay.com/news/screenwriting_tips.php

Discovering the Great Movie Idea for Your Next Screenplay
I am lucky. I have no problems coming up with very good ideas for movies. If I never had another idea for the rest of my life, I would not make a sizable dent in the ones I already have.
Read full article: http://www.bluecatscreenplay.com/news/great_movie_idea.php<

How to Start a Screenplay: Treatment or Free Fall?
Starting a screenplay can sometimes be as hard as finishing one. Impatient to pull up to the front door of a classic motion picture, I want to get everything right so quickly. This impatience challenges my trust in the work, the creative process of screenwriting.
Read full article: http://www.bluecatscreenplay.com/news/how_to_start_a_screenplay.php

Writing the Classic Movie Ending (How to Finish your Screenplay!
I’ve only finished so many screenplays in my life. Writing a script all the way to the very last page is always an extremely significant, personal achievement for me. A large part of its significance is the reality that I actually wrote an ending, or, at the very least, typed “THE END.”
Read full article: http://www.bluecatscreenplay.com/news/finishing_your_screenplay.php

Rewriting your Screenplay: The Road to your Audience
The promise of the rewrite is very sweet. I have collected evidence that the more authentic the labor put into rewriting your screenplay, the greater the reward, and the reward is high, for whatever lovely, wonderful moments you might have discovered in the frightening process of plowing through the first draft.
Read full article: http://www.bluecatscreenplay.com/news/rewriting_your_screenplay.php

The Heart and Soul of Screenwriting: Writing good dialogue and description
Writing dialogue and description is writing a screenplay. You can argue about format and tab margins and what to capitalize and what not. I won't. Dialogue and description is where the experience of screenplay for your reader lives. We write screenplays to make movies. They are not literature.
Read full article: http://www.bluecatscreenplay.com/news/heart_and_soul_of_screenwriting.php

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Flu · Mar 28, 2008

Thanks for the links, will read them later. :Thumbs:

Had a quick read through this one before I'm out the door...

BlueCat said:
Read full article: http://www.bluecatscreenplay.com/news/youre_an_idiot.php

...since it's something I'm going through at the moment. (Terrible reading session Tuesday, I'm only just about recovering from it now.)

Good article, and I agree with it. Though I still think I'm right and all the others are idiots.

WriteKnight · Mar 28, 2008

Valuable or irrelevant input

The first article did strike a chord with me. I recently got some feedback from a reader, who had two 'issues' with the script that NO ONE else did.

One of them was quite serious. The main character is dealing with the loss of a loved one that occured about a year earlier. At one point, he finds old letters in a closet, and slams the closet door shut, breaking the full length mirror on the front. "So what's seven years?" he remarks.

Seven years of bad luck for breaking the mirror.

Any 'idot' would understand that. Hell, everyone else who had read it got it. But this reader missed the earlier reference to the closet door BEING a sliding glass mirror, and the 'seven year' comment she took to mean the loved one dissapeared seven years earlier - which threw the context of the entire film completely out of whack.

I could have said "Well the reader's an idiot - or lazy". Or I could insert "Cracking the mirrored DOOR " into the action line - and remove ALL chances of another reader making the same mistake.

That was VALUABLE feedback.

The reader was also confused by the reference to a "Wall" that is important to the story. It's a boundary between two yards. In Texas (where I grew up... and where the story is set) - All boundary lines between properties are called 'fences' - Doesn't matter if the fenceline is made of brick, barbed wire, picket-posts or marshmallow creme - it's called a 'fence'. So characters refered to the 'fence' while the action necessarily described it as a 'vine covered wall'. It confused the reader. So a few more judicious changes were in order.

Although the reverse of the 'expert' syndrome also occured. The reader objected to the characters hearing cicadas in the early fall, because cicada's came out only in june and were dead by july.

Where SHE lived. And she was something of a naturalist.

I pointed out that there are 40 species of cicadas in Texas, not one, and that they did indeed 'scream' all summer long on theTexas Gulf Coast.

I left the references in, unchanged.

So the point of the article is, for me, extremely relevant. There is no such thing as 'bad' feedback. It's all good to hear. Don't be quick to judge the reader an 'idiot'. If they didn't GET something - take the time to figure out why.

Screenwriting Articles

BlueCat

Flu

WriteKnight

Arranger Of Disorder