Screenwriting Tips

Hollywood, mid-budget, MILE 22, PEPPERMINT, Reviving Dead Genres, screenwriting tips, storytelling, thriller - May 29, 2019

Dead Genres and How To Revive Them: The Mid-Budget Thriller

There’s a truism in Hollywood that certain genres are dead. In this 4-part series of blog posts, we’re going to look at these genres Hollywood wisdom says are dead, why their death is the prevalent theory, and what it may take for any writer to revive them with their own script. Second up is the mid-budget thriller, the type of film that many filmmakers complain Hollywood has largely abandoned. STX Entertainment was founded in part on the idea of pursuing these types of films, which had fallen into a gap in the market between giant comic book movies like the...

Inspiration from Life, Not Movies

Here in TV staffing season, if you read interviews or listen to podcasts with showrunners, a familiar refrain comes up repeatedly. People who have led interesting lives tend to be more compelling writers, because they are drawing inspiration from real life, not from other movies/TV shows they have seen. Writing primarily from movies/TV as a frame of reference is a bit like making a copy of a copy. The quality of the second copy is likely to decrease. The work is also likely to be derivative. Does this mean we should all drop everything and become firefighters, cops, or tiger...

Case Study: Risk-Taking in Screenwriting with A QUIET PLACE

Risk-taking in screenplays can sometimes feel like a financial roll of the dice. “If I do this crazy thing on the page, will someone still buy my script?” But in many examples, taking the risk is why people respond to material.Shortly after its release, A QUIET PLACE quickly became the comparison title du jour of spec screenplays. It’s a title that comes up a lot when asking representatives or producers what they’re looking for. The danger of chasing that trend is just trying to copy A QUIET PLACE, rather than the spirit with which A QUIET PLACE was written.The film...

How Many Drafts Will You Write Before Your Script Gets Produced?

Rewriting is writing. Nothing reinforces this more than seeing how many drafts it takes to move a feature from first draft to produced film. For this example, we’re going to use a project written by one of our ScriptArsenal readers. This was a low budget film, which means that in this case, the amount of drafts is likely lower than what you might see in a higher budget film. In this case, the writer was hired and wrote several drafts, adapting a novel, for a production company. After three drafts, the production company took the script and partnered up with...

Ass in the Chair: Productivity in Screenwriting

There’s an old truism that having written is greater than writing, and it’s true. Having a completed script is a great feeling. Having to write that script is a terrible feeling. While writers vary on how much they enjoy the physical process of writing, many writers agree that the actual writing part is the least fun element of the process. Part of the reason writing can be so laborious is because, the longer someone writes screenplays, the more items come across their mental checklist with each scene. In any given scene, you may ask yourself… Am I advancing the story?...

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Dead Genres and How To Revive Them: The Mid-Budget Thriller

Inspiration from Life, Not Movies

Case Study: Risk-Taking in Screenwriting with A QUIET PLACE

How Many Drafts Will You Write Before Your Script Gets Produced?

Ass in the Chair: Productivity in Screenwriting

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