HowExpert - How To Write a Screenplay: Your Step By Step Guide To Writing Screenplays

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How To Write a Screenplay

Your Step By Step Guide To Writing Screenplays

HowExpert with Travis Seppala

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Table of Contents

"Lights. Camera. Action!" That's what many people want to hear as a movie gets made with a script they wrote. That's probably why you decided to read this book, in hopes one day creating your own masterpiece screenplay to have a movie based on.

It's a lofty goal and I tip my hat to you for wanting to dive into one of the most sought after professions. The movie industry pulls in BILLIONS of dollars a year and employs hundreds of thousands of people. And that's not even mentioning television and commercials! None of those jobs would exist if there weren't screenplays for the movies (and shows and commercials) to be based on. In that aspect, screenwriting is one of the most important jobs in the industry.

So kudos to you for wanting to join the ranks of such greats as Stephen Speilberg, Quentin Tarantino, Diablo Cody, David Seidler, David S. Goyer, and many others. Theirs are lofty shoes to fill, but they WILL be filled by the next generation of screenwriters and filmmakers. So that next generation could very well include you!

But before we start, I want you to ask yourself a very important question: Why do you want to be a screenwriter? It's an important question that you should think long and hard about before you ever start your first page.

Do you want to be a screenwriter so you can become rich and famous and win little golden statues? If the answer to that is yes, then please do us both a favor and stop reading this book now. Sure, fame and money ("Fortune and glory, Dr. Jones. Fortune and glory.") are great and all, but they are entirely the wrong reasons for wanting to make this your profession. Furthermore, I cannot help you get famous or rich or win any major awards... so if those are your goals, you should stop reading now, as you won't find this book very helpful.

Do you want to be a screenwriter because you have an intense passion for storytelling so strong that you don't think you could live with yourself if you weren't writing and feel that screenwriting might be a good outlet for such creative expression and creation? Then read on my friend because THAT is a good reason to pursue screenwriting. Especially if you don't NEED the money right away (because chances are you won't get anything for your first script unless you happen to be a secret screenwriting god with untapped potential and write pure perfection your first time out of the gate).

So what can you expect as a screenwriter? Brace yourself; this isn't going to be pretty. There will be lots of rejection and even more silence. Oh, and let's not forget the large amount of waiting! Waiting for someone to answer your query letter (which we'll talk about later), waiting for someone to read your script, waiting for contracts to be written up, waiting for contracts to be rewritten, waiting for a production company to raise the money to make your script into a film, waiting for the check to arrive, waiting for the film to be released, waiting to hear how it's received...

Patience is a virtue, and by God, you're going to need it!

So far, this book has probably done one of the two things... either 1) you've already been scared off and you're not even reading any longer because I've convinced you to give up and leave and I'm just wasting time by finishing this sentence, or 2) you're psyched and ready to get down to the hard work of turning your idea into a fantastic feature film screenplay.

So if you're ready to start the journey, you're probably wondering what you'll learn from this book.

COMING UP WITH YOUR BIG IDEA -- Everyones got ideas on what they think would make a good movie. If you're really a writer, you probably have dozens of movie ideas. That's great! The hard part is figuring out if your idea would actually make a great movie that would sell and get made. To figure this out together, I'll be telling you about "high concepts" as well as helping you figure out if your idea would be better suited for Hollywood, or an indie producer.

PLANNING IT OUT -- Just like an architect needs blueprints for the structure they're about to build, you should have some blueprints for your script. You'll learn about various methods of doing this planning including the index card method, outlining your story, writing a logline, and writing a treatment.