The best books to a beginner?

Yes, valid point on stuffing all of the plot points into a short -- hard to do.

Yet, I think that book has other valuable tools for the beginning writer. It distills and exposes abstract writing concepts better than the other options. I am speaking of, understanding genre (fish out of water, dude with a problem...) and also characterization and plot items (save the cat moment, limp and an eyepatch). I'm sure there are other items that I am forgetting. Anyway, those items are fairly universal, and they are well explained.

Plus, I think the best education is still reading other screenplays, either shorts or features. IMO
 
David Trottier's "Screenwriter's Bible" is a good one that hasn't been mentioned so far I think. A very comprehensive but not extremely deep book, which makes it well suited for a serious beginner IMO.
 
I think 62stratplaya is right: STC contains a great deal of very useful perspective that isn't made the least bit less relevant because the structure-and-pacing chapter is focused upon what's most applicable to feature screenplay writing.
 
One of the best condensed explanations of writing a script I heard was from someone here on dvxuser, I can not recall who, but it was basically we start a story with throwing a protagonist's life off balance with some incident, create drama (obstacles for protag), then resolve that by the end. That seems to be the essence of a short. Much more of course for a feature.
 
Sounds like the sort of thing David Gerrold would say. Although I don't think he posts here.

Now that I think of it, it also sounds like something Blake Snyder suggests...
 
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