ScreenwriterGuy.com

I keep a notebook, like most writers, of all the different ideas I might want to use in various stories.  Usually, it’s more like twelve notebooks, each holding a few, torn half-pages of panel programs, leftover snippets of previous notebooks, and likely a few napkins. It’s worth doing, because you might not remember that cool [...]

I was recently catching up with the last few episodes of Mad Men. (It’s one of the coolest new shows on the air, by the way… Of all places, it’s on AMC.)  Anyway, they had a line that I thought was fantastic, so I had to write it down.  The philandering creative director at the [...]

Asked who I admire in the field of screenwriting, I suppose I’d give many of the standard answers. There’s a reason David Koepp makes the money he does. Charlie Kaufman is a mad genius. William Goldman has a career of mostly masterpieces, and Lawrence Kasdan‘s credits include some biggies. Then of course you’ve some of [...]

This evening is the first all-group meeting of my online sketch comedy effort. It will be the first time the writers, actors, and directors all meet each other. I’ve been gearing up for it for some time now, so I’m pleased to finally have it happen. I still have some handouts to finish preparing, but [...]

Tutoring is slow over the summer, but I do have a couple of students I’m working with. One of them is a teen doing something of a writing intensive. To reinforce varying sentence structure, over the weekend I had him write 20 sentences of several different types. One of the resulting efforts was this sentence: [...]

Writing isn’t fun. Sure, there are parts that are brilliant.  Every writer loves working through ideas for the first time, and nothing beats the moment when a flash of inspiration hits you, making your story a million times better.  And then I love outlining, wrestling all those ideas into an actual shape that might entertain [...]

One of the (many) curses of being a writer is that one never knows when the subconscious is going to toss an idea up to the conscious that the conscious thinks might work in its current writing project. It could happen as you’re driving to get groceries, talking on the phone to tech support, or [...]

OK, before I step too far into the land of sacrilege, let me begin with the caveat that I love Jane Espenson. Not only does she maintain one of the most useful blogs a writer could hope to find, adding a genuinely useful tidbit with alarming frequency, but the woman wrote some of my favorite [...]

There came a day during college when a friend offered me some very logical advice. He pointed out that I was getting C’s in my engineering classes, but A’s in my film classes. Film seemed to make me happy, but engineering did not. Perhaps, he suggested, I should rethink my focus. Not smart enough to [...]

The part of my brain that is good at math behaves like a puppy. It has always come to me whenever I’ve called, and it’s happy to do anything I ask it to do. Estimate the cost of these groceries and calculate tax? Explain the quadratic equation to an 8th grader? Fetch your slippers? No [...]