(via The Story Department)

Totally agree.

I come from a new generation of (aspiring) screenwriters. We are, more often than not, computer-based writers, having abandoned pens, notepads, and moleskin notebooks for writing software and inestimable laptops. We spend (or ask our parents to spend) hundreds of thousands of dollars on screenwriting degrees. We read books and articles and watch documentaries about the industry and expect Hollywood to seek us out – and are frequently upset when it doesn’t. Ours is a new approach to writing, perhaps an over-informed one, but undeniably an ambitious one. We have the above tools at our disposal that earlier writers didn’t. And of course, we have another, which we grew up using every day. Something very precious. Something as valuable as writing software, how-to books, and university screenwriting courses. We have the internet.

None of the highlighted scene description above can be shown on the screen or heard in dialogue. Much of it is, in effect, ‘directing’ the actors. Two supposed rules - broken. But in service to the story. To convey to the reader the importance of what’s happening in the moment.

I imagine this rule about “show, don’t tell” was created because there were so many writers out there who are not Alan Ball and who abused the ability to communicate directly with a reader.

Don’t write a book. Even better, stop thinking about writing a book. Your endless internal debate and self-conjured guilt about that book you haven’t written yet is a sensational waste of your time. My guess is if you took all the time that you’ve spent considering writing a book and translated that into actual writing time, you’d be a quarter of your way into writing that book you’re not writing.

The article is great, including this last little thought about part-time writers and the motivation that comes from being so:

While the idea of writing books for a living is appealing, my impression is that if I stopped being a software engineering manager, my voice would quickly become an echo of how things used to be rather than how they are. Thanks, no.

I came across StoryFanatic completely by accident. It’s a site that delves deep into screenwriting theory, in particular the Dramatica theory. I was superficially aware of Dramatica, but after being amazed at the insightfulness of some of the many articles on StoryFanatic, I’m now reading the Dramatica book and finding it fascinating.

But with movies, the high concept premise has a couple of incredibly practical considerations. It suggests a built-in marketing campaign - and it is such a good idea that you could shoot it on a low budget and still have a movie that people would go see. That doesn’t mean anyone’s GOING to shoot it on a low budget, because we are after all talking about Hollywood. But you COULD shoot it on a low budget. It is the idea that is golden.

Most articles regarding this subject regurgitate the same old, same ol’ when it comes to helping writers find that choice idea. Something about the way Alexandra writes simply compels you to follow along. Very motivating piece.

Freedom to pass back and forth across the world division, from the perspective of the apparitions of time to that of the causal deep and back – not contaminating the principles of the one with those of the other, yet permitting the mind to know the one by virtue of the other – is the talent of the master. The Cosmic Dancer, declares Nietzsche, does not rest heavily in a single spot, but gaily, lightly, turns and leaps from one position to another. It is possible to speak from only one point at a time, but that does not invalidate the insights of the rest. The individual, through prolonged psychological disciplines, gives up completely all attachment to his personal limitations, idiosyncrasies, hopes and fears, no longer resists the self-annihilation that is prerequisite to rebirth in the realization of truth, and so becomes ripe, at last, for the great at-one-ment. His personal ambitions being totally dissolved, he no longer tries to live but willingly relaxes to whatever may come to pass in him; he becomes, that is to say, an anonymity.

Clarice does NOT transform. She is not acting out-of-character in those final scenes. To interpret her character this way is to completely misunderstand What Character Arc Really Means. In fact, Clarice’s actions show very clearly that she is still behaving the way she has from the very beginning, that she is still driven by the screaming of those lambs. That is the whole point of the entire story.

I would agree though that the complete 188 Hero’s Journey steps do give you more that four acts, plot points and mid-point. But not as many as the 510+ stages of the Hero’s Journey.