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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Practical, useful, humorus, as if a friend is talking to you, November 10, 2002
This review is from: Secrets of Film Writing (Paperback)
A Hollywood insider, Tom Lazarus has taken the time to organize his book into understandable parts. He begins with what could be the earliest expectations of the novice writer. Then as he develops the approaches to writing and the usual twists and turns that a writer would encounter in writing a script, he adds the personal comments, anecdotes, and metaphors that entertain as well as elucidate the writer's growth and development and challenges. Like William Goldman's more autobiographical "Which Lie Did I Tell" Lazarus puts his heart, mind, and strengths right on the table. He writes like a good friend telling you almost everything you want and need to know. He has the guts to tell you what will and will not work. I applaud him for that. As a writer of a How To book, he took the time and risked the emotional upheaval of writing from the heart to give us the goods. He also revised this book enough times to make it easy and fun to read and understand. This book is what you need to know to write a good script. Period. Thank you for a great book, Mr. Lazarus!
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Worth Owning, July 3, 2001
This review is from: Secrets of Film Writing (Paperback)
I wasn't sure what to think of this book at first. It's a little unorthodox, a little unorganized, a little rambling. But I think there is a method to Lazurus' madness. He manages to bring his ideas across in easily digestable chunks. My one complaint is that the book reads a little more like a rough draft rather than a polished manuscript. Of all the screenwriting books I own (that would be all the big ones and some of the not-so-big-ones) this most clearly brings out what it is really like to be a living, breathing screenwriter. Lazurus is one. He's not the pedantic Syd Field (who to my knowledge has never sold a script) or the methodical Michael Hauge, but what he offers in pragmatism makes up for any shortcomings in presentation. -rdg3
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Secrets of Film Writing - Hail Lazarus! A Must-Own Gem!, May 11, 2001
This review is from: Secrets of Film Writing (Paperback)
All readers will be pleased with Tom Lazarus' SECRETS OF FILM WRITING, since it affords all budding screenwriters a welcome alternative to the much maligned three-act structure paradigm. Lazarus, author of five produced feature films, including STIGMATA, allows us to enter his screenwriting mind vicariously: the reader follows Lazarus' thought processes as he teaches screenwriting principles and reinforces them via examples from scripts he has written and/or directed. Best of all, no lesson is omitted. We learn about the traditional three-act structure, and then Tom Lazarus takes us through a screenwriting program unparalleled in screenwriting pedagogy: not only do we learn by reading from a plethora of examples from Lazarus sold/produced scripts, but we also learn key insights from reading some of Lazarus revisions: e.g. five different drafts of one piece of writing. I bought SECRETS OF FILM WRITING today and couldn't put it down until it was finished. I'm sure I'll read it a dozen times. Buy Lazarus' book immediately, read it several times, and add it to your permanent screenwriting reference library: books by Jennifer Lerch, Denny Martin Flinn, David Trottier, Irwin R. Blacker, Paul Argentini, Richard Walter, William Froug, William Goldman, Cristopher Vogler, Michael Hauge, and many other wonderful screenwriting instruction books. Yet despite this long and distinguised list of screenwriting authors, this much is for sure: Lazarus SECRETS OF FILM WRITING is a unique source book in form and content. What an exciting addition to screenwriting pedagogy...a wondrous new paradigm in screenwriting instruction!
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