J.K. Rowling, in her recent Harvard commencement address, details what she considers to be the true power of imagination when it comes to storytelling.

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My original plan for tonight was to write reviews of some films I’ve seen recently. But then I made the mistake of watching the following video interview with David Milch and those plans were quickly tossed out the window. If you ever want to be inspired to write, this is the man to listen to.

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You’ve heard it a million times and by now you’ve committed it to memory: screenplays are structure. It’s what brought you to this site and what you hope to learn more about. Clever dialogue, fancy locales, witty prose, all of it pales in importance when put up against the backbone of a truly great story.

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Need some inspiration to write your next screenplay? A quick look at the most talked about screenplays in Hollywood for 2007 might just be what you’re looking for.

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Pretending to be a screenwriter is easy. Anyone can do it. Coming up with a good idea however, can be a bit harder. Even more difficult? Finding a way to put all the pieces of your story together to create a compelling narrative. But the most difficult task of all is convincing someone to give you that big break - to transform you into that honest-to-goodness professional screenwriter.

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Is it possible that four throughlines are too much to think about during the early stages of writing a story? I’m beginning to think so.

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The Dramatica Theory Tip of the Month for February 2007 concerns using Dramatica to write children’s stories. Having used the theory to write three short stories and two screenplays for children, I’ve got a word or two to add.

Chris’s tip for this month (well, technically last month since today is March 1!) has some great [...]

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Turns out my brother might’ve been right about Deadwood.
This weekend I picked up Deadwood: Stories of the Black Hills written by the series creator, David Milch. I’ve only read the first couple of pages, but it seems to be a book all about the making of said series. It should be known that I absolutely [...]

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At the User Group Meeting last night, Chris was giving some helpful advice (as always) on what to do if you’re having trouble writing your Main Character’s throughline.
The problem with writing the Main Character (a problem i’ve written about before here) is that often, because it is the first-person perspective, you’ll end up basically writing yourself [...]

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Recently, Creative Screenwriting held their Expo here in LA. While I wasn’t able to go, I had several friends in the animation industry who made their way there and were kind enough to record their thoughts on their blogs.

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