Seger - Making a Good Script Great: Revised & Expanded

Rx for ailing screenwriters: Read this tonight and call me in the morning. Tony Bill, Actor-Director-Producer, Producer of The Sting

Linda Seger has written quite simply the most brilliant and useful book on screenwriting that I have ever seen. William Kelley, Academy Award-winning Co-Writer, Witness

Linda Segers updated Making a Good Script Great is an invaluable tool for beginning writers, as well as a go-to manual for seasoned professionals. I plan to keep it very close at hand. Fern Field, Producer, Monk

The first edition of Making a Good Script Great is sufficiently timeless, but perfectionist Dr. Linda Seger makes great greater and even sensational in this edition. Dr. Lew Hunter, Writer-Producer and Screenwriting Faculty Chair Emeritus, UCLA

Making a Good Script Great clarified for me what a great screenplay should be. After I read itI was ready to go. Like a great script, it is clear, concise, has great dialog, and is a compelling read. In a crowded market, this one is essential. David Gleeson, Writer-Director, Cowboys & Angels and The Front Line

A must-read for every writer, beginning or professional. Barbara Corday, Co-Creator, Cagney & Lacey

If they handed out Olympic medals for books on screenwriting, Linda Seger would take gold every time. As if her classic, pioneering text Making a Good Script Great wasnt already good enough, shes written a new edition and in so doing has, predictably, brought us another winner. As perceptive, lucid, reader-friendly and eminently practical as all her writing, the third edition of this old friend arrives refreshed, invigorated and bang up-to-date with a wealth of examples from contemporary films and a range of new material If youve read previous editions youll find the new spin Seger achieves thought-provoking and inspiring If youve never read Making a Good Script Great, you have a great experience ahead. Youll find a resource youll return to across your entire career. When in doubt, see what Seger has to say. Compulsory reading for novice and veteran alike. Linda Aronson, Author, Screenwriting Updated and The Twenty-First Century Screenplay

There have been many books on writing, but none that have the depth and accessibility of Linda Segers. Its a marvelous book for producers and executives as well as writers. Renee Valente, Producer, Blind Ambition and Love Thy Neighbor

An invaluable tool for the working writer. Richard Walter, Screenwriting Faculty Chair, UCLA

Making a Good Script Great is the quintessential go-to book on rewriting your screenplay. Though not limited to just the rewrite process, it also teaches how to organize yourself prior to putting pen to paper and offers practical hands-on tools to identify problem areas once your screenplay is written. We recommend it to all our students and feel it is the right game plan for writers, executives, and producers to tackle the ever elusive writing process. Rona Edwards and Monika Skerbelis, Authors, I Liked It, Didnt Love It: Screenplay Development from the Inside Out

A classic that guides you through the specifics of writing, revising, and polishing your draft into a commercially viable project. Sensible, thorough, and empowering! Dave Trottier, Author, The Screenwriters Bible

Making a Good Script Great is the gold standard of screenwriting books, a must-have Linda Seger has surpassed her own standard with this latest edition that includes not only the basics, which she covers so well, but also new information and examples. Use it and you can raise the standards of your script and go for the gold. Pamela Jaye Smith Power of the Dark Side, Inner Drives

Whether youre on your first script or your tenth one, screenwriting can be such a bumpy and solitary road. But the journey certainly can be made much smoother with the latest edition of Making a Good Script Great. Kathie Fong Yoneda, Author, The Script-Selling Game

MGSG is one of those books that does what it saysit enables any writer to improve. Linda makes the difficult seem achievable. Julian Friedmann, Literary Agent and Editor of TwelvePoint.com (formerly ScriptWriter magazine)

Copyright 2010 by Linda Seger

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission from the publisher.

Acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reproduce the material indicated: MCA Publishing Rights for excerpts from Back to theFuture, copyright Universal Pictures, a division of Universal City Studios, Inc., courtesy of MCA Publishing Rights, a division of MCA, Inc.; MCA Publishing Rights and Peter Benchley for excerpts from Jaws, copyright Universal Pictures, a division of Universal City Studios, Inc., courtesy of MCA Publishing Rights, a division of MCA, Inc.; Paramount Pictures excerpts from Witness copyright Paramount Pictures; Columbia Pictures, Don McGuire, Larry Gelbart, and Murray Schisgal for excerpts from Tootsie.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Seger, Linda.
Making a good script great / Linda Seger. -- 3rd ed.
p. cm.
1st Silman-James ed.--T.p. verso.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-935247-01-2 (alk. paper)
1. Motion picture authorship. I. Title.
PN1996.S384 2010
808.23--dc22

2009051981

Cover design by Arthead, adapted from first edition cover design by Hal Siegel.

Printed and bound in the United States of America

Silman-James Press
1181 Angelo Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210

Contents

With many thanks to my publishersGwen Feldman and Jim Fox for agreeing to do a new edition, and for all theyve done to make the first two editions successful. And many thanks to Jim for his excellent editing.

Thank you to Alvin Shim, my college intern, for his invaluable help on researching, brainstorming with me, discussing films with me, and doing a month of hard work to help me finish this project on time.

Thank you to my wonderful readers who gave me feedback: Elizabeth Copley, Devorah Cutler-Rubenstein, Elona Malterre, Lori Marrett, Kim Peterson, Ellen Sandler, Dr. James Schaap, Pamela Jaye Smith, and Elizabeth Stevens.