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34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
THIS IS THE BIBLE OF THE FILM INDUSTRY, September 2, 1999
By A Customer
Thee are some serious distinctions to be made about books on screenwriting. Some of them are very good, very theoretical, very serious works. Some of them are throw-away one time reads. A very few of them are "working" books, books that you will never throw away - books that you will use as reference. And even fewer still are books that you will use over and over again - books that will inspire you everytime you pick them up. Syd Field's "The Screenwriter's Workbook" is one of those rare books. It is the "Bible" of the film industry. All of Field's books are excellent for this reason - they not only tell you how to write screenplays - they tell you why screenplays are structured in a unique way. It is understanding structure that is the key to writing movies. All the ideas about character development, the representation of myth, and the history of cinema are necessary to writing good screenplays. But only one thing is really essential and that is a clear understanding of a form that appears simple but is actually very complex. I still have many of the screenwriting books I have read over the years but Field's books are the only ones I actually USE.I know many other screenwriters, professionals all, who would say the same thing. Fashion in screenplay writing and thinking about movies comes and goes - and every new writer thinks they have to either read the latest theory or re-invent the wheel - but when you actually write you only want a book that YOU CAN USE. Syd Field never goes out of style because he writes from a serious understanding of the relationship of structure to screenwriting - and it's this relationship that you constantly return to in order to make the writing work. Buy this book and keep it. You will need it.
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The First 10 Pages, the Sequel, June 30, 2005
Syd Field's claim to fame, book royalties and workshop revenue is his paradigm. Some people swear by it. Some people swear at it.
First presented in "Screenwriting: the Foundations of Screenwriting", Field develops his paradigm in the "Screenwriter's Workbook". But, sad to say, not by much. A plot pinch here, a plot pinch there.
The takeaway from this book is the essentially the same song, second verse of a major point in his previous book, "Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting". That is, the first 10 pages are the most important pages of the script. Get them right.
His emphasis on the first 10 pages are a product of his experience as a script reader. Script readers are gatekeepers. They evaluate manuscripts for the people with the clout and money to make a film. The script that fails to get a favorable coverage from a reader is DOA. A script has to get its foot firmly in the door of a reader's mind in the first 10 pages to stand any chance of getting a positive review and advancing to the next stage, getting read by somebody with clout or money.
Field says that of the more than 2,000 scripts he read while the head of a story department at a production company, only 40 were good enough to recommend for development and production. If his experience is typical, then only 1 out of every 50 submissions keep its foot in the door of a script reader's mind. The goal of "Screenwriter's Workbook" is to improve the odds for a script to get a thorough and favorable read.
If you only have the interest or money to read one book by Field on screenwriting, this is the one. Version 2.0 of his paradigm is worth a read even if it is far from the definitive word on dramatic structure. And the book has some useful information to impart on aspects of writing and the realities of the business.
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
for beginners, yes, but helpful if used with caution, February 6, 2005
It is unfair to criticize a book for containing only the basics. Beginning writers have to learn the fundamentals somewhere. An intermediate book would be a bad book for an absolute beginner. The advantage of this book over other beginning books is that it does not bob and weave over every point for fear of being wrong.
This book is also criticized for its use of the three-act structure. In fact, however, Field implicitly acknowledges the inadequacy of this structure, although he invents other terms to hide this fact. "Act II is twice the length of Acts I and III; it is a unit of action that is 60 pages long" (p. 122). This makes it 60% of the whole screenplay. But then, Act II is broken into two parts, called "First Half" and "Second Half". The turning point that leads from one to the other, Field calls "the midpoint" (p.131). First Half and Second Half, moreover, are divided by a "pinch" (p. 155). So, in fact, Field's structure is not the boring work turned out by so many screenwriters, in which something happens on page 20, something further happens on page 80, and the entire second act marches in place or repeats the same impressions over and over with additional behavior in different places. In Field's paradigm, some important development occurs every 15 to 20 pages. These points are illustrated by extended examples from a number of movies. And in fact, these examples occupy about 80% of the space in this very short book.
Still, this (six Act?) structure may be too rigid for experienced screenwriters. Why not have several things happen in a row? If you've got enough material, you can do it. The problem with most beginners is, they don't invent a long enough story or a story with enough events or steps in it. Being presented with a structure like Field's at least forces such writers to come up with something! But it also gives aid and comfort to those people who think it is a sign of quality to throw out all structure and write a film in which nothing happens and even the characters repeat themselves endlessly.
In short, beginning screenwriters will find this book less vague than many other beginning books. The only trap is to avoid both the extremes of (a) thinking that every screenplay has to fit Field's mold or (b) thinking that you can do anything and get away with it.
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