Customer Reviews

Advanced Screenwriting: Taking Your Writing to the Academy Award Level

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I'm not familiar with Linda Seger's other books, but she does go on quite a bit about previous material she has written in "Advanced Screenwriting". It turns me off a bit when authors want to plug themselves to death in their other books - I mean, why can't we separate from what we've already written or else sell both books as a package - but I'm almost at the end of this, and I have to say I did find it quite insightful. I'm attempting a draft of a screenplay I'm really excited about writing and I really wanted to raise my game this time around, but while I feel I do have the fundamentals down pat, I still don't think I feel confident enough to attempt it based on just this book. She offers quite a lot of advice and tips, which are great, but in the end I feel like... wow, where to start? I do like the topics covered and I like that she uses recent films versus older films as reference, but I feel like she dwells too much on her other book "Making a Good Script Great" (which I don't have).

Ah well. Still good. Also, FAR too many typos to be believed in this book. It distracted somewhat after awhile. I really was taken aback. I want to ask her editor... "What's up with that??"

Advanced screenwriting is a tremendous tool for any experienced screenwriter. It's true that the book does not pay heed some of the basic advice given in many beginning books. As a matter of fact the author doesn't even pay heed to much of her advice from her earlier works. But that does not detract from the material she presents to us the reader in this work. For example many beginning books talk about the 3-act structure and the number of scenes that should be present in each act. Seger knows we know that already and gives us a glorious chapter on the wide diversity of scenes, we the writer can create. Like the Love scene, the Pay-off scene or the Reflection scene. She goes into over 15 different types of scenes. This is not lip service to the 3-act structure this is fully building on it. This book is filled with material that builds on our prior knowledge. And even though this book is not meant as a primer on how to start a screen play, I found her advice extremely helpful in crafting a (hopefully) sound treatment. Basically, after reading this book it made me envious I wasn't in a position to hand my scripts over to her for a go over.

One thing that may be off putting to some is that this work seemed very personal. And some of her asides may detract from the material presented, for some readers. I, on the other hand enjoyed her personal insights and felt it added a lot to the book.

Linda Seger is unquestionably one of the brightest and most precise screenwriting consultants and teachers in the business. ADVANCED SCREENWRITING fine-tunes the practically perfect path so carefully defined and so well marked by Linda in her other essential books on screenwriting, MAKING A GOOD SCRIPT GREAT, THE ART OF ADAPTATION and CREATING UNFORGETABLE CHARACTERS... leading us even deeper into the enchanted forest of excellent screenwriting. Seasoned screenwriters will do well to be reminded of those almost mystical elements that inhabit well-crafted films and beginners will find it a finishing course--though having been a big fan, student, and professional who has benefited by Linda's script consultation on more than one major film I urge newcomers to get the entire Seger Screenwriting Library to insure they get the most from ADVANCED SCREENWRITING. When writers submit material to our production company we ask whether they've read Linda Seger. If they say "no" we urge them to, "go back, read her books, re-write their script and then resubmit." That way we know we won't be wasting our time reading a script that needs more work and structural discipline and the writer can be confident that they are giving us their absulut best shot.

Those would-be screenwriters who are familiar with Linda Seger's How to Make a Good Script Great and The Art of Adaptation may expect this book to take the next step from those books. It doesn't. In the interim, Seger has acquired advance degrees in New Age theology (yes, really) and has become Dr. Seger. This book turns its back on three-act structures and rising action and throws its support entirely behind post-x film-making. She can use (some) Academy Award-winning films (from the last twenty years only) because people with the post-x mentality have gained considerable influence in the Academy in those years and have given these disjoint and depressing films the Awards. If that's the type of screenplay you want to write, then this book is for you, and it's one of the few that deals with this type of screenwriting. You'll also need connections in the industry to get your play produced because, unless they are given an Award, they lose money. So, only a close friend is going to be willing to put up the millions to make your film.
But if you want to write for the other 95% of the movie-going public, you'll need her former books and others like them.

In my Script Consultating sessions with clients who have written three or four screenplay I always refer them to Dr. Linda Seger's Advanced Screenwriting as the go-to textbook. This accessible book teaches many ways to dimensionalize and deepen your script and to continue engaging the reader. Absorbing and using the information in this book will improve a writer's chances in the marketplace.

Script Consultant Karen Folger Jacobs, Ph.D.

After reading some of the "reviews", I'm wondering if the "reviewers" are actually critiquing the content of the book or simply making remarks about the author. I read ADVANCED SCREENWRITING & felt it addressed the emergence of alternative structure, which at the time this book was published, hadn't really been mentioned much. I certainly did not get the feeling that Seger was turning her back on the classic 3-act structure, but was merely informing writers that occasionally, writers are able to push the envelope & come up with alternative story structures that work well. Heard she has a new book coming out which actually details the Oscar-winning movie CRASH, which is an example of creative structuring that works. When all is said & done, most stories still have a beginning, middle & end. ADVANCED SCREENWRITING seems a worthy & apt follow-up to MAKING A GOOD SCRIPT GREAT & I found it to be very informative & most useful.

There are so many screenwriting books available these days, and I've learned a good differentiation. Old-school and new. Sid Field and Robert McKee are definitely of the old school. They praise movies such as Casablanca and Chinatown and others that are 35+ years old. The newer books mention films like Pulp Fiction and get more involved in the business side of writing...like how to get your work into the right hands at a studio. Seger's Advancd Screenwriting tries to be "mod," but is still too far entrenched in old-school mentality, much the same way her "Make a Good Script Great" was. For example, she gives examples of how producers and agents wanted certain changes in scripts. She mentions an original plot and how the studios wanted things changed for the better. Yes, the end result IS indeed better, and she demonstrates this. However, these changes are the results of the DEVELOPMENT process, not the writing process. Hell, if I had an agent and a producer and a studio working with me to prepare my screenplays, I wouldn't need a screenwriting book, now would I? Screenwriting books are read by dreamers looking to break in, yet Seger writes as if we're all establish Oscar-winners with Hollywood connections. She also writes as if we have pull. Modern screenwriting books emphasize that the studio and the director are in charge of making the movie, and the writer is in charge of only the script, and only the first draft of that script. Yet Linda Seger talks about using music as a recurring theme from one scene to the next. She writes about a CUT TO one scene from another. These are elements that the writer has no say over. Any modern screenwriting book will tell you NOT to worry about CUT TO or FADE TO, etc., since those are director's choices, not the writer's. And music/soundtracks are complicated matters dealing with copyrights and such. Those discussions are fine for books about movie-making, but they have little value in a book for screenwriters. She mentions the non-linear flow of Mulholland Drive and how unique that was, but she fails to mention that David Lynch can get away with that garbage because he's a HUGE player in the industry. A newer writer who writes that kind of script is facing the kiss of death. Seger's resume looks impressive and I'm sure she's a fine script consultant, but still, her books leave you with the impression that they will only help you if you already have an Oscar-worthy script and are looking to home it to make it better. This is just an opinion, but she seems like the type who would turn down movies like American Pie and other HUGE money-makers because the drama of the character arch doesn't fall into the iron-clad three-act structure and the rising action doesn't hit its proper plot points by page 47. There's a place for that kind of screenwriting advice, and it died out in the 70s.

I am a working screenwriter and the winner of several writing awards. Yet recently, when faced with a rewrite of a complex script I found I had hit writer's block--until I picked up this book and read through it. I couldn't put it down as the material was so relevant to the issues I am dealing with in the rewrite. I can't praise this book enough. The topics covered in this book deal with, as Dr. Seger herself states in the introduction, details. Only those details are what separate a good script from a great one. As for those who are displeased with this book, the only explanation I can give for that is that this book is indeed not for the beginning writer. In fact, Dr. Seger states that it is meant to be a sequel to her other books..."If you are reading this book, you have most likely read some basic screenwriting books, taken some seminars and written some scripts." Her purpose in writing the book, again as stated in the introduction, is "to see more innovation in the art of screenwriting." The material in this book is nothing short of brilliant, it will make the writer dig deeper and demand much more of their writing...so if you are a beginning screenwriter, I would suggest reading her other excellent books and the other requisite screenwriting books such as Syd Field's and McKee's "Story" and pick this book up later in your screenwriting journey. And if you study the material in this book, it just might happen that you will became a "player" someday soon with all the right contacts in Hollywood--it's that good.

A tremendous resource. But don't start here--as the title suggests, this book is meant for those who have already developed the basic and intermediate skills set forth in Dr. Seger's prior screenwriting how to's. As a professional screenwriter, I have used the techniques put forth in Advanced Screenwriting on many occasions and multiple scripts. I highly recommend it.

This book is the best book I've read on screenwriting. Helps refine one's screenwriting. Very strong examples and clear direction ennabling the reader to critically analyze their own scripts as well as movies. All in all, a wonderful, must-have tool for serious screenwriters.