Tools
I have five tools that I use almost every time I create a story. They are described briefly below and then each has a link to a fuller description and in some cases a sample template showing how each works.
The Hero’s Journey –Chris Vogler/Joseph Campbell
One of the best things I ever did as a screenwriter was to take a class with Laurie Scheer, a wonderful woman who has been a friend and Mentor to me ever since. It was a twelve-week course/seminar, during which the participants were to write a screenplay – roughly ten pages a week.
Laurie used as her textbook “The Writer’s Journey,” which is Chris Vogler’s unapologetic reworking of Joseph Campbell’s “Hero with a Thousand Faces.” I resonated with that twelve-step template so strongly that I can’t think of a story I’ve written since where I did not analyze the story’s structure using the Hero’s Journey template. learn more
One of the best things I ever did as a screenwriter was to take a class with Laurie Scheer, a wonderful woman who has been a friend and Mentor to me ever since. It was a twelve-week course/seminar, during which the participants were to write a screenplay – roughly ten pages a week.
Laurie used as her textbook “The Writer’s Journey,” which is Chris Vogler’s unapologetic reworking of Joseph Campbell’s “Hero with a Thousand Faces.” I resonated with that twelve-step template so strongly that I can’t think of a story I’ve written since where I did not analyze the story’s structure using the Hero’s Journey template. learn more
Writing a Great Movie – Jeff Kitchen
Guys who drive pick-up trucks often have a big steel box in the bed just behind the cab with a lid that’s sealed against rain and a hasp for a padlock. It’s for tools and when you lift the lid you find not only tools but also one or more smaller toolboxes. That’s what I think of when I turn to Jeff Kitchen’s book.
Talk about jam-packed with good things, Jeff examines a host of ways to craft and then improve your screenwriting project. There’s one that stands out (for me at least) and that’s “Sequence, Proposition and Plot,” a thought process and template created originally by William Thompson Price, founder of the American School of Playwriting in New York in 1901. Nothing rattles my complacency about my pet projects more violently than utilizing this tool.
You know how sometimes you don’t much like a thing and yet you really love it? That’s Sequence, Proposition and Plot for me. learn more
Guys who drive pick-up trucks often have a big steel box in the bed just behind the cab with a lid that’s sealed against rain and a hasp for a padlock. It’s for tools and when you lift the lid you find not only tools but also one or more smaller toolboxes. That’s what I think of when I turn to Jeff Kitchen’s book.
Talk about jam-packed with good things, Jeff examines a host of ways to craft and then improve your screenwriting project. There’s one that stands out (for me at least) and that’s “Sequence, Proposition and Plot,” a thought process and template created originally by William Thompson Price, founder of the American School of Playwriting in New York in 1901. Nothing rattles my complacency about my pet projects more violently than utilizing this tool.
You know how sometimes you don’t much like a thing and yet you really love it? That’s Sequence, Proposition and Plot for me. learn more
The Writer's Advantage - Laurie Scheer
As of December 2014, there's good news. Laurie has published a book, "The Writer's Advantage," whose subtitle, "A Toolkit for Mastering Your Genre" aptly describes the focus of the content. learn more
As of December 2014, there's good news. Laurie has published a book, "The Writer's Advantage," whose subtitle, "A Toolkit for Mastering Your Genre" aptly describes the focus of the content. learn more
The Hero’s Greatest Fear – Laurie Scheer
As you see above, Laurie has a published text on writing, but only recently. Before that, we will not say how long before that, I had another encounter with this lovely person, one that has guided me in just about everything I have written.
I firmly believe that the path to good answers is to ask good questions and Laurie has a couple questions she invariably asks me that get right to the heart of whether my story is working – and if not, why not. learn more
As you see above, Laurie has a published text on writing, but only recently. Before that, we will not say how long before that, I had another encounter with this lovely person, one that has guided me in just about everything I have written.
I firmly believe that the path to good answers is to ask good questions and Laurie has a couple questions she invariably asks me that get right to the heart of whether my story is working – and if not, why not. learn more
Save the Cat – Blake Snyder
Blake is another Mentor I feel honored to have considered a friend. I say that in the past tense because this wonderful soul died long before many of us were ready to bid him farewell. He was quicksilver, lightning, spontaneous combustion. While he had a gift for leaping unpredictably to a perfect insight, he also ascribed to a host of mundane, pragmatic, almost simplistic mechanics of good movie-making. The title of his book is a perfect example.
“I hate it when I go to a movie,” he would say, “and there’s a lead character who has to be pretty much unlikeable and then the writer doesn’t even bother to give us a ‘save the cat’ moment.”
Blake would then describe a scene where the lead character enters a warehouse in which he will kill innocents and by-standers in his blind rage. But then he sees a cat dangling above some power transformer and he reaches out and . . . saves the cat. And then he goes in and slaughters all those innocents. But the audience now has one shred of humanity allowing them to identify with this evil character (we’ve all got an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, right?) A “Save the Cat” scene is a purely mechanical device but he would argue, “It’s one or two lines, maybe a half page at most. Why would a writer not do that?” learn more
Blake is another Mentor I feel honored to have considered a friend. I say that in the past tense because this wonderful soul died long before many of us were ready to bid him farewell. He was quicksilver, lightning, spontaneous combustion. While he had a gift for leaping unpredictably to a perfect insight, he also ascribed to a host of mundane, pragmatic, almost simplistic mechanics of good movie-making. The title of his book is a perfect example.
“I hate it when I go to a movie,” he would say, “and there’s a lead character who has to be pretty much unlikeable and then the writer doesn’t even bother to give us a ‘save the cat’ moment.”
Blake would then describe a scene where the lead character enters a warehouse in which he will kill innocents and by-standers in his blind rage. But then he sees a cat dangling above some power transformer and he reaches out and . . . saves the cat. And then he goes in and slaughters all those innocents. But the audience now has one shred of humanity allowing them to identify with this evil character (we’ve all got an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, right?) A “Save the Cat” scene is a purely mechanical device but he would argue, “It’s one or two lines, maybe a half page at most. Why would a writer not do that?” learn more
The Mini-Movie Method – Chris Soth
As a disclaimer, Chris and I collaborated on “The Batting Order.” I suppose that makes me less than a disinterested observer. As a writer, I am a finisher (I have only one story I stopped writing), but for those who find writer’s block an issue, Chris Soth’s process could be the most valuable tool in the box.
Basically Chris looks back to the old days of filmmaking when there were physical “reels.” Each ran roughly fifteen minutes and it was common to think of a movie as a series of reels (usually eight). Chris is known to give his impression of the distraught producer or director rushing in hollering, “We’ve got a problem in reel three.”
Chris uses the “reel paradigm” to delve into what should be in reel #1 and what in #5, etc. The goal is to write a mini-movie of roughly fifteen pages that accomplishes the reel's prerequisites. A writer who finds himself “blocked” by a massive screenplay may be enabled by the idea that a mini-movie is only fifteen pages. “I can do that!” learn more
As a disclaimer, Chris and I collaborated on “The Batting Order.” I suppose that makes me less than a disinterested observer. As a writer, I am a finisher (I have only one story I stopped writing), but for those who find writer’s block an issue, Chris Soth’s process could be the most valuable tool in the box.
Basically Chris looks back to the old days of filmmaking when there were physical “reels.” Each ran roughly fifteen minutes and it was common to think of a movie as a series of reels (usually eight). Chris is known to give his impression of the distraught producer or director rushing in hollering, “We’ve got a problem in reel three.”
Chris uses the “reel paradigm” to delve into what should be in reel #1 and what in #5, etc. The goal is to write a mini-movie of roughly fifteen pages that accomplishes the reel's prerequisites. A writer who finds himself “blocked” by a massive screenplay may be enabled by the idea that a mini-movie is only fifteen pages. “I can do that!” learn more