Amazon.com Review
Aspiring screenwriters don't need another book on how to write a screenplay, says Karl Iglesias. What they need is a book on how to be a screenwriter. Voilà:
The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters, featuring interviews with 14 screenwriters, arranged by subject. The result reads like a panel discussion, touching on such subjects as collaboration, schmoozing, discipline, Hollywood, and story pitching. The dream of winning a Hollywood jackpot has lured everyone and his gardener into the screenwriting game. Still, despite the unencouraging odds, "all you need to do is write a good script," says Scott Rosenberg (
Beautiful Girls). Some of the book's best advice concerns one of the screenwriter's most formidable hurdles: getting a screenplay read. Submit it to film festivals and screenwriting competitions, or follow Tom Schulman's (
Dead Poet's Society) advice and hire an entertainment attorney. After all, "most of them know a lot of agents."
--Jane Steinberg
From the Author
"Winners have simply formed the habit of doing things losers don¹t like to do." -Albert Gray
Following the basic philosophy of modeling excellence--that our most important teachers are those who have succeeded, the essence of the master-apprentice relationship--this book is the next best thing to having the top screenwriters in the business be the reader's personal mentors as they guide and inspire him or her to adopt the mind-set and commitment inherent in being a professional screenwriter in Hollywood. The difference between successful writers and aspiring writers is that successful writers do all the things that aspiring writers won't do, can't do or don't know how to do. Common sense dictates why not look at what successful writers do specifically and do the same.
Designed for beginning writers as well as those more experienced who seek to jump start their career to new heights, this book focuses not on how to write a formulaic script but on what it takes to become the writer who creates a unique one. Whereas most screenwriting books attempt to teach the reader what to do, this book outlines, by studying those who are already doing it successfully, how to do it, stressing the key habits, so that the 'how' becomes second nature to the reader. Its structure offers a powerful and unique twist on the few established interview books by arranging the screenwriters' comments by topic rather than by individual interview, thereby following a more efficient model of accessing information needed by the reader. Rather than waste time reading a whole interview to pinpoint nuggets of information, the reader can refer to a specific topic and read what a group of successful writers have to say about it. Study their habits, learn from them, and mayb! e their wisdom will rub off on you and arm you with enough knowledge and self-confidence to accomplish your goals.
