Walker - Intro to Screenwriting

INTRO TO SCREENWRITING

by Sally J. Walker

Genre: Nonfiction

Book #3 in the Write Now Workshops series

Write Now Workshops logo by Tony McGowan

Kindle: 978-1-58124-958-3

ePub: 978-1-58124-959-0

2012 by Sally J. Walker

Published 2012 by The Fiction Works

http://www.fictionworks.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission, except for brief quotations to books and critical reviews.

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to my ever patient and supportive husband and soul mate, Lyle J. Walker. He has always done a lot of head shakingoccasionally noddingand even more loving to keep me reality-bound when my creative side tried to dominate my life. And to my fellow members of the Nebraska Writers Workshop, a group that has been my safe zone of creative sanity every Wednesday around the calendar since 1985.

My sincerest thanks go out to Nebraska author / screenwriter Lisa Kovanda,experienced editor Beverly Teche and the ever knowledgeable, iconic Lew Hunter for their advice and corrections throughout this book.

Book #3

FOREWORD

I am addicted to writing. I have to write every day.

Something, anything. Even e-mails and social networking help to satisfy that urge, but not quite. Nope. I have to create stories. I am driven. I think thats why I am prolific and love it! I have been a storyteller since I was a toddler and a writer since my first short story written in pencil in the first grade, The Wise Mother Pig. I still have it. It is preserved in plastic covers so I can show it to kids when I do my grade school presentations. My first stage play The Black Saddle, was written in third grade, then my first melodramatic western novella in sixth grade.

At age 16 I sent a letter to one of the original Paramount writers of BONANZA, N. B. Stone, Jr. He mentored my first teleplay via correspondence while on the shooting set of RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, a film he wrote for Sam Peckinpah to direct. That summer birthed my addiction to screenplays. Seven years later during nursing school, I took a creative writing course and, much to the fine arts majors dismay, a nursing student won that years Fine Arts Honors for a short story. While working full time as an R.N. with a young and growing family, I began on a degree in writing in 1977, which I finally earned in 1985. The rest is history as can be viewed on my website at http://www.sallyjwalker.com .

By of the end of 2011, I had penned fourteen novels (two published and four more being released in the months aheadif I can editing of other peoples books to finish the polishes), six childrens books, six stage plays, 27 screenplays (sixteen polished to the marketable stage with a Writers Guild of American signatory agent peddling them) and hundreds of poems. I wrote 365 mini-essays electronically released February 2011 as the collection A Writers Year, a kind of devotional meant to challenge any writer day-by-day. Each discipline has provided a different kind of satisfaction, each enhancing my abilities in the others.

Several former students encouraged me to put my classes into book format. This book is among the first three contracted by The Fiction Works and released through their business division with my Write Now Workshops logo. Romantic Screenplays 101 addresses the complex needs of cinematic romances and Screenwriting Secrets in Genre Film examines eleven genres and more in-depth concepts of cinematic storytelling, as well as walks through the steps of writing a screenplay.

THIS BOOK

I have taught this material many times both on-site classroom style and on-line. Know ye that I am not one of those people who talks the talk, but cant walk the walk. I use the principles I am about to explain every time I sit down to write a screenplay. Fundamentals never get outdated. They are what they are: Essential to any writing process.

You may be wondering how I evolved the concepts you will find here. Way back when I was 16, I discovered something deep inside me that was satisfied writing screenplays, but I also knew I was ignorant of the hows and whys of that kind of writing. Even before my BFA studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, I searched and read every text I could on the subject of writing in general and screenwriting in particular. There werent that many back then. Over the years since then I have found an ever-growing number of resources that continue to feed my voracious appetite for more knowledge, more insight. That means I am constantly refining my fundamental concepts.

Intro to Screenwriting presents my approach to simplifying the screenwriting process with the understanding there is no single right way. I am explaining my way and, yes, it incorporates bits and pieces of how others write screenplays and teach screenwriting. I have found a lot of people out there who do not have access to film schools. They have a hunger to try cinematic storytelling yet want to grow their knowledge without spending their life-savings in the process. For several years, I have taught this material to adult learners and even free to teens in the Omaha area just before the annual Omaha Film Festival. Why free to teens? Because N.B. Stone Jr. started me on the journey when I was 16, and I feel the need to pay-it-forward and keep the creativity going.

One profound belief I practice and preach is A multi-disciplinary approach to writing makes all my creative efforts better. Any poet can enhance their appreciation of the world by learning the craft of dramatic writing, just as every novelist can broaden the scope of their fiction and hone their dialogue skills by working at the dramatic forms for stage and screen.

We will begin the journey with storytelling fundamentals you may or may not already know. I will build on and refer to these as the book moves forward. Everyone needs to be on the same page. If you find yourself saying I already know that, I challenge you to deliberately walk through the steps as they apply to a script you want to write this moment. Doing the work makes it more meaningful than simply reading about it.

Here are some of the best books on screenwriting I have read. They are presented in a suggested order of progressive reading (from fundamental to advanced concepts). My own books are included at the end of the list.

The Idiots Guide to Screenwriting, Skip Press

(A fundamentals-type text with lots of insider questions answered)

The Writers Journey, Christopher Vogler

(A storytelling construct applying Joseph Campbells concepts)

Screenplay, Foundations of Screenwriting, Syd Field

(Another fundamentals-type textbook)

The Screenwriters Workbook, Syd Field

(An applications-type textbook)

The Art of Dramatic Writing, Lajos Egri
(A fundamentals concept book for stage and film writers)

The 1-3-5 Story Structure System, Donna Michelle Anderson

(A little handbook written by a studio reader applying basics)

( http://www.movieinabox.com/135/ )

Others (in progressively more complex-concept order):

Screenwriting 434, Lew Hunter

Save the Cat, Blake Snyder

Making the Good Script Great, Linda Seger (And any other Seger books...)

Stealing Fire from the Gods, James Bonnet

Writing Screenplays That Sell, Michael Hauge

Story, Robert McKee

The Anatomy of Story, John Truby

Writing for Emotional Impact, Karl Iglesias

And my own:

Romantic Screenplays 101, Sally J. Walker

Screenwriting Secrets in Genre Film