Secrets of Screenplay Structure [Paperback]

Linda J. Cowgill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1999

This guide helps writers understand how and why great films work as well as how great form and function can combine to bring a story alive.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Linda J Cowgill

Product Details

• Paperback: 225 pages
• Publisher: Lone Eagle; First Edition edition (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158065004X
• ISBN-13: 978-1580650045
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #647,968 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent unique approach -- Best home-study course ever!, December 2, 1999

By 

Critical Thinker (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secrets of Screenplay Structure (Paperback)

As a professional screenwriter with over a dozen produced feature length credits, I'd like to compliment Ms. Cowgill on creating the best home-study course on screenwriting available. Anyone with access to a video store (to rent the referenced popular films) and this informative, engaging text can proceed step-by-step, adding one or more films at a time as instructed, toward unlocking the "Secrets of Screenplay Structure". Each chapter adds new films to view, highlights a subject appropriate to those films (Chinatown - plotting; It Happened One Night - dialogue; Tootsie - subplots; etc.) and augments the current discussion by referring back to previously chosen films. The build from chapter to chapter and film to film flows beautifully to complete a comprehensive view of the whole picture of screenwriting. Without qualification, I recommend this book to beginners and professionals alike.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BEST SCREENPLAY WRITING BOOK ON THE MARKET, May 10, 2001

By 

DavyRay4782 "DavyRay4782" (San Jose, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secrets of Screenplay Structure (Paperback)

Linda Cowgill's Secrets of Screenplay Structure is the finest example of accessible scholarship I have ever read. (I say this as a UCLA Ph.D. in Comparative Literature). Not only is it evident that Cowgill is someone who has what it takes to write REAL screenplays with depth and intelligence (we need more of those!), it is clear that she also has the ability to take the best films apart--like swiss watches--and help us understand exactly what makes them tick. And like a swiss watch, Cowgill's book is exceptionally well put together.

A listing of the titles of the 18 succinct chapters of Secrets of Screenplay Structure might help give an indication of the tremendous scope and depth of Cowgill's book, which analyzes and illustrates all of the major elements of story through film. Each chapter features a current or classic "study film," to illustrate its chapter's main points.

The book is divided as follows:

1)The Essence of Dramatic Structure; 2)The Three-Part Nature of Screenplay Structure ("Witness"); 3) Five key Focal Points (focusing on the THREE-ACT structure and its segments) ("Risky Business"); 4)Characterization's Relationship to Structure--including the vital point of character development and its relationship to plot structure("Casablanca"); 5)Theme's Relationship to Structure ("The Piano"); 6)The Structure of Plotting ("Chinatown"); 7) Review, which includes detailing the mechanics of what characters WANT and what,in contradiction, they NEED ("Quiz Show"); 8)The Structure of Subplots ("Tootsie"); 9) Structure and the Ensemble Film ("Diner," "Parenthood," "The Best Years of Our Lives,"Grand Hotel"); 10) Structure and the Nonlinear Plot ("Citizen Kane" and others); 11)Building Momentum: Structuring Scene and Action Sequences ("The Last of the Mohicans"); 12) Openings and Main Exposition ("Jerry Maguire"); 13)The Middle--the Rising Action; ("North by Northwest") 14)The Main Climax and Resolution ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"); 15)The Structure of Planting and Payoff ("Groundhog Day"); 16)The Structure of Scenes ("Se7en"); 17)Dialogue ("It Happened One Night"); 18)The Subtext of Meaning ("Thelma and Louise").

Cowgill's study films are works that have been used as examples in many other current screenplay writing books. However, Cowgill presents these films with a fresh, exceptionally insightful perspective, never wavering from the point she wishes to teach through the films' specific examples. Her thought is ORGANIZED; her writing is exemplary: clear, concise, lively and engaging.

I highly recommend Secrets of Screenplay Structure to new and established writers of any form of fiction. It is an elegant work of scholarship and practical advice by an artist in her own right. The only name that comes to mind right now who could pull off such dual and contradictory roles is that of T.S. Eliot.

Carol Zapata-Whelan, Ph.D. California State University, Fresno

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lives up to half its title, July 29, 2003

By 

Keith Snyder (Rego Park, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Secrets of Screenplay Structure (Paperback)

She's got the "Recognize" part down cold. The analyses are excellent. "Emulate," however, is almost entirely absent, except in the vaguest of terms. This book has helped me to become a slightly better viewer of movies, but not a significantly better writer of screenplays.

That's my major quibble. My minor quibble is the constant use of the word "great" when, in fact, what's really meant is "extremely solidly constructed, with clear points of interest for commentary." Not the same thing.

If you just don't know what makes a story tick, this book is good for getting you up to speed. If you already know what makes a story tick, and you're looking to expand your understanding in a practical, useful way, this is not a good book for it. For instance, I already understand what a subplot is--but being able to recognize it in a diagram after the fact isn't the same thing as knowing how to construct one. This book is mostly "Look at what a subplot looks like after you've made one." Again, recognition rather than emulation.

Worth the time, and interesting. But not as practically useful as I would have preferred.