The Five Best Books for Screenwriters!
The Screenwriter's Bible, 7th Edition, A Complete Guide to Writing, Formatting, and Selling Your Script
Author Dave Trottier
The Screenwriter s Bible's 7th edition marks the 25th anniversary of one of the most popular, authoritative, and useful books on screenwriting. A standard by which other screenwriting books are measured, it has sold over 340,000 copies in its 25-year life. Always up-to-date and reliable, it contains everything that both the budding and working screenwriter need under one cover five books in one!
- A Screenwriting Primer that provides a concise course in screenwriting basics
- A Screenwriting Workbook that walks you through the complete writing process, from nascent ideas through final revisions
- A Formatting Guide that thoroughly covers today's correct formats for screenplays and TV scripts
- A Sales and Marketing Guide that presents proven strategies to help you create a laser-sharp marketing plan.
Among this book's wealth of practical information are sample query letters, useful worksheets and checklists, hundreds of examples, sample scenes, and straightforward explanations of screenwriting fundamentals. The 7th edition is chock-full of new examples, the latest practices, and new material on non-traditional screenplay outlets.
Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting
Author Robert McKee
- Robert McKee's screenwriting workshops have earned him an international reputation for inspiring novices, refining works in progress and putting major screenwriting careers back on track. Quincy Jones, Diane Keaton, Gloria Steinem, Julia Roberts, John Cleese and David Bowie are just a few of his celebrity alumni. Writers, producers, development executives and agents all flock to his lecture series, praising it as a mesmerizing and intense learning experience.
- In Story, McKee expands on the concepts he teaches in his $450 seminars (considered a must by industry insiders), providing readers with the most comprehensive, integrated explanation of the craft of writing for the screen. No one better understands how all the elements of a screenplay fit together, and no one is better qualified to explain the "magic" of story construction and the relationship between structure and character than Robert McKee.
Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need (#1 Best Seller)
Author Blake Snyder
This ultimate insider's guide reveals the secrets that none dare admit, told by a show biz veteran who's proven that you can sell your script if you can save the cat!
In his book, Snyder gave greatest emphasis on the importance of structure through his Blake Snyder Beat Sheet or the "BS2" which includes the 15 essential "beats" or plot points that all stories should contain.
Snyder's method expanded the 15 beats further into 40 beats, which are laid out on "The Board." The Board is divided into 4 rows, with each row representing a quarter of the story, namely the 1st Act, the 1st half of the 2nd Act, the 2nd half of the 2nd Act, and the 3rd Act.
The Science of Screenwriting: The Neuroscience Behind Storytelling Strategies
Author: Paul Joseph Gulino & Connie Shears
In a world awash in screenwriting books, The Science of Screenwriting provides an alternative approach that will help the aspiring screenwriter navigate this mass of often contradictory advice: exploring the science behind storytelling strategies.
Paul Gulino,author of the best-selling Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach, and Connie Shears, a noted cognitive psychologist, build, chapter-by-chapter, an understanding of the human perceptual/cognitive processes, from the functions of our eyes and ears bringing real world information into our brains, to the intricate networks within our brains connecting our decisions and emotions.
They draw on a variety of examples from film and television -- The Social Network, Silver Linings Playbook and Breaking Bad -- to show how the human perceptual process is reflected in the storytelling strategies of these filmmakers. They conclude with a detailed analysis of one of the most successful and influential films of all time, Star Wars, to discover just how it had the effect that it had.
Riding the Alligator: Strategies for a Career in Screenplay Writing and Not Getting Eaten
Author Pen Densham
A bestseller that is the first artist-friendly screenwriting guide to success by an Oscar nominated Hollywood insider whose productions have grossed more than a billion dollars.
Riding the Alligator is different from other screenwriting books in that it takes a non-dogmatic approach to finding your own personal creative process, and shares Pen’s best kept secrets for selling your creations and yourself.
Pen is your own, warm, funny, personal mentor as you read this book. Actress Robin Wright says: “It is like getting a UC screenwriting course for under $30!!!”.
Pen draws from his own extremely simple breakthrough techniques, shares his inspiring philosophy of finding a personal well of creativity from your inner voice, to overcoming the many challenges in a unique business, managing stress, the real secrets to selling your work, finding the right agent and being true to one's nature to create a lasting and passion filled career.
The book is hailed by Hollywood luminaries like Ron Howard, Paul Haggis, Jeff Bridges, Morgan Freeman, as well as heads of major motion picture studios and academics from top film schools including USC, UCLA, NYU and AFI.
Also included are short, personal essays by A-List Hollywood scripters such as Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding), Eric Roth (Forrest Gump), Robin Swicord (Memoirs of a Geisha), Ron Shelton (Bull Durham/White Men Can't Jump).
Additionally, Pen provides an ‘Instant Library’ summarizing 10 other popular books on Hollywood, as reviewed by his USC Film Students.
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