Many of the best movie scenes are payoffs to plot elements that have been set up earlier in the story. Often the set-up and payoff involves a physical object, something that becomes imbued with symbolic meaning and, therefore, emotional power. …

The co-star of K-9 was a dog named Jerry Lee. A few years later, I landed an assignment in which the key characters were superhero mutant frogs. Not long after that, another assignment in which the hero was a pig. That’s right: Dogs. Frogs. Hogs. This did not happen by…

One month. Fade In. Fade Out. Write an entire zero draft. Have a story you want to write? Feature length movie screenplay? An original TV pilot? Web series pilot? A novel? Short story? An epic length limerick? The 2023 Zero Draft Thirty March Challenge is for you! …

My interview with the 2022 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner. Sam Boyer wrote the original screenplay “Ojek” which won a 2022 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. …

“This is my church. And if you don’t think Christ is down here on the waterfront, you’ve got another thing coming.” In a fundamental way, screenwriting is scene-writing, so the more we learn about this aspect of the craft, the better. Today’s scene: The 1954 movie On the Waterfront, screenplay…

And if you don’t have the self-control to do it, I’ve got a tip for you! An observation from writer and essayist Jonathan Franzen: It’s doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction. Oh, yes. The evil temptress known as the Web! Sure, you…