screenwriting book recommendations

K

kiyong

Well-known member
i've read a ton of books on screenwriting, and here are 2 i always recommend - "save the cat" by blake snyder and "crafty screenwriting" by alex epstein. both are written by actual screenwriters (i know, a big surprise considering most are self acclaimed gurus who have no writing credentials whatsoever). both writers also have informative blogs. just google them.
 
Another fine book by another actual screenwriter, The Devil's Guide to Hollywood: The Screenwriter as God! by Joe Eszterhas. I read the intro and first chapter and holy crap. This guy doesn't pull punches.
 
A book that Barry recommended in an old, but recently revived thread is "How to Write a Movie in 21 Days"

I just bought it yesterday, so I haven't turned the first page yet. I'll let you know

Jason
 
I didn't like Viki Kings 'How to Write a Movie in 21 Days'.

I like Joe Eszterhas's ones though :)

A great book to me was Denny Flinns HOW NOT TO WRITE A SCREENPLAY (which is must-do reading for the newbies).

EJ
 
I have an arsenal full of "How To" books and found them all useful in one form or another. I have one under the short leg of my book case for balance.

Before I list some good books let me tell you that you need to pick one and stick with it until you understand what the author is offering and then move to the next one. After reading a few dozen books on the craft I would have started with The Screenwriter's Bible by David Trotter and then turned to the others. After I got an understanding into what I was doing and had my bare bones script I started turning to other books for that one additional item.

I am glad I read them all but could have achieved my script with just the eight listed below (probably less).

1) Screenwriting: The Arts, Craft and Business of Film and Television Writing. By Richard Walter

2) TV Scriptwriter's Handbook by Alfred Brenner

3) Making a good Script Great by Linda Seiger

4) Selling Scripts to Hollywood by Katherine Atwell Herbert

5) 500 ways to beat the Hollywood Script Reader by Jennifer Lerch.

6) Screenwriting Tricks of the Trade by William Froug

7) The Screenwriter's Bible by David Trotter

8) How to Write A Script in 21 Days by ... It's being used at the moment and I can't get to it to look for the name of the author.

In all fairness, for the first time scriptwriter, How to Write A Script in 21 Days will give you a basic script if you follow the instructions but don't fool yourself into thinking you can polish a finished product in 21 days.


By the way, don't worry too much about format because your software will take care of that. I found out a few months ago that Page2Stage was walking away from their scriptwriting software and will be offering it free on their website after 12/25/2006. I have used it for over a year and have found it to offer the same bells and whistles as most of the popular software packages. I paid $75 dollars for it so free is great.

I hope this helps.

Shihan
 
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I don't do too much screenwriting, but I bought syd fields Screenplay to get into writing a little bit and I liked it a lot. I'll have to check out some of these other books though because, well...readings fun! Especially when you're reading about filmmaking.
 
I'm following Viki King's "How to Write a Movie in 21 Days" right now. Mainly to force me to sit and write every day. Well, every day that I'm not working for actual money. So far, so good. Using it on a screenplay I started about 18 months ago and only had 13 pages. Up to 45, so I'll take it. Also read "How Not to Write a Screenplay," which others have mentioned -- very nice. And, of course, Syd Field's "Screenplay" and Robert McKee's "Story."
 
I just looked up How to write a movie in 21 days and it was only 3 bucks on amazon. Shipping brought it up to 9, but it wasn't too bad. I should be getting that sometime soon and I'll see how it is. Hopefully it'll be as good as everyone is saying.
 
Vicki Kings book is awesome if you already consider yourself a writer, because like Jason said it forces you to sit down and do it.

THe first time I read it I had a first draft in 10 days....I cheated, but that's what's great about the book. It tries to give you discipline and confidence. Also, it's really small, so it doesn't seem overwhelming.

Best,

Jason
 
Dave Trottier's book THE SCREENWRITERS BIBLE is incredible. It's helped me tremendously. Top of my list.

I also like Syd Fields books. I have a ton of screenwiriting books, but I always end up referring abck to Trottiers book.
 
I picked up The Idiot's Guide to Film Making by Joanne Parret. While it doesn't focus on scripting, it does offer several valid points to keep in mind.
 
So far I've read a half dozen or so, including the following (I'm working from memory here, so some titles/authors are incomplete):

-Screenplay by Syd Field
-Save The Cat
-How to write a screenplay in 21 days
-Good Script/Bad Script
-Story by Robert McKee
-The understructure of screenplay writing

and as yet partially read: How Not To Write A Screenplay

Of those I've read, Story, by Robert McKee stands head, shoulders, feet...carpeting...(you get the idea) above the others. It's less of a "do this then do that" book than most of them, but it is such a masterpiece of pespective on the craft that it's the only true gem in my (admittedly pretty small) list. It's such a great book that I'd unhesitatingly recommend it to any film buff, even if they don't want to write screenplays.

To put it another way, it's one of the best books I've ever read, about anything...
 
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Here's my thoughts on books: The first book i read when i first started to attempt screenwriting was Trotter's Screenwriter's Bible. Being new to all this it was a little confusing/frustrating but helped a little. 2 Years later I picked up "Writing Your ScreenPlay" by Cynthia Whitcomb. Wow! this book really gave me a sensible, direct and easy approach. I read the book in 4 days and then turned around and wrote a 1/2 hour tv show drama script in 3 weeks - was my best effort to date! After reading her book I picked up Trotter's book again and suddenly his book all made sense to me whereas previously I struggled with it.
I highly recommend Whitcomb's book, (geeze I sound like a paid endorser -lol) it's one that no one else has mentioned here but I think it's great.

For my current endeavor I'm also using Syd Field's The Screenwriter's Workbook. In doing all the excercises it's REALLY helping out. Got a very good structure in place now.

As far as Viki King's "how to write a movie in 21 days" it's ok, just ok. I'd recommend reading only if you haven't read any others, and don't plan on reading any others. Otherwise you might see her approach as "pie in the sky". I found trying to use it in conjuction with the other books a no go. Whereas the other 3 I constantly refer to during my writing process. They seem to compliment each other nicely.

Just my thoughts.

ripupthehwy
 
I also enjoyed The Hero's 2 Journeys, a DVD by Michael Hauge and Christopher Vogler. I don't think I'd recommend it as a starting point, but after you've got the basics it will help with character development. You might want to read Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces as a prelude to the DVD, too. Hell, even if you're not going to watch The Hero's 2 Journeys you should read The Hero With A Thousand Faces.
 
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It has been said a few times above, but I too believe that Story by Robert Mckee is the best book for any screenwriter out there. This is a book that does not spend any time on telling you how to write, how to format and how to publish your screenplay ( you should read some of Syd Fields books about this, or, just read one, I think that a lot of what Syd writes in one of his books is copied to some other books.)
Once you read Story, you really get an idea of how the STORY of your screenplay works and how you can best implement this into your own screenplays. Also, Mckee uses a lot of examples from Chinatown, so if you havent seen this movie, see it, then read Story, and the watch it again.

Fredric
 
On a very serious note, as much as we can all trade on what books we've read that helped us all out - one of the most important things you can do other than write scripts, is actually read scripts.

It's simple to over-pass, and often people would rather *not* read scripts and do something else.

Your education curve of writing IMO will vastly increase if you decide to read scripts, instead of actually books on how to write them.

I'm not saying there is no content in reading how-to-books, but if the average writer read more actual scripts (they are free online) than how-to-books (which are not), their writing would improve.

www.dailyscript.com and www.simplyscript.com and www.screentalk.biz are all *excellent* places to pull pdf scripts and read them, in format, with page numbers, at your own pace.

EJ
 
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