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. An excellent example of this is in the superb movie…

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! And it all…

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. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Sam about his creative background, his award-winning script, the craft of screenwriting, and what winning the Nicholl…

“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…