My Story Can Beat Up Your Story: Ten Ways to Toughen Up Your Screenplay from Opening Hook to Knockout Punch [Paperback]

Jeffrey Schechter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2011

My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! is the same powerful, easy-to-learn system that industry insiders have used to generate millions of dollars in script sales and ?assignments. In a clear, step-by-step fashion, this book is a fun, eye-opening, ?brain-expanding, and often irreverent guide to writing stories that sell. Covering everything from Heroes to Villains, from Theme to Plot Points, from cooking up good ideas to a business plan for smart writers, this book forever eliminates that horrible feeling every writer goes through staring at the blank page and wondering what comes next?

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! is the same powerful, easy-to-learn system that industry insiders have used to generate millions of dollars in script sales and ?assignments. In a clear, step-by-step fashion, this book is a fun, eye-opening, ?brain-expanding, and often irreverent guide to writing stories that sell. Covering everything from Heroes to Villains, from Theme to Plot Points, from cooking up good ideas to a business plan for smart writers, this book forever eliminates that horrible feeling every writer goes through — staring at the blank page and wondering “what comes next?”

About the Author

Jeffrey Alan Schechter was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, which explains his endearing personality. After moving to Los Angeles and not wanting to starve, he quickly established himself as a versatile writer, able to work in all genres from action films to family comedies, from pre-school to adult drama, from live action to animation. His writing has earned him nominations for two Emmy awards, a Writers Guild of America award, a Writer’s Guild of Canada award, and a BAFTA award. Over the years Jeff has worked with dozens of studios and networks including Warner Bros, Universal Pictures, ABC, NBC, The Discovery Channel, Nickelodeon, The Hallmark Channel, the BBC, VH1 Films, RHI, and The Walt Disney Company.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Michael Wiese Productions (April 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932907939
• ISBN-13: 978-1932907933
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #79,639 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #16 in Books > Arts & Photography > Performing Arts > Reference

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book on punching up your script!, March 14, 2011

By 

Matthew Terry (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Story Can Beat Up Your Story: Ten Ways to Toughen Up Your Screenplay from Opening Hook to Knockout Punch (Paperback)

I've been writing screenplays for over twenty years and I've heard the term "punch it up" and I never really understood what that meant. Punch it what? Punch it where? Punch it how?

Though Mr. Schechter's book really doesn't use the term "punch it up" - it was in the back of my mind as I read. Simply put, punching up your screenplay - or toughening it up is the task of looking at the elements of your screenplay and making sure they're the best they can possibly be. Is your hero heroic? Why? Is your villain really a villain? How? What does the villain have in common with the hero and vice versa? Is your format correct? Are the elements in place? What of the plot points? Are you missing some? And sub-characters...what about them?

Mr. Schechter's book helps you strip your screenplay and story down to the core elements and then forces you to focus on them (as much as you may not want to) until you've worked through them and made your script better than it was and possibly better than many scripts out there.

How does he do this? By taking the basics of your story and parsing it out. Hero, villain, acts 1, 2a, 2b, 3, formatting, structure, characters, etc. By using graphs, photos and wonderful examples (recent films such as, but not limited to: "Avatar," "The Sixth Sense," "The Dark Knight" and, especially, "Star Wars - Episode IV - A New Hope"), to get his points across. And if the book isn't enough - he gives you links to free downloads to help you even further.

The only area where I feel the book stumbles a bit - is when Mr. Schechter creates the absolute of 44 plot points throughout your script. I'm not a fan of absolutes as I kind of figure that everyone's script is different and may not follow formulas to an absolute degree but, BUT, he makes a valid point. I've read many a script where the main characters hate each other on page 25 and love each other on page 30 and there were no plot points in between to show the transition. Do you need the 44 for a 108 page script? I don't know - but you certainly need more than what you probably have already. And this book will help you with that.

Personal note: As I read this book I couldn't help but think about how we (my co-writer and I) needed to punch up our hero in our current script and I used the tools and examples that Mr. Schechter provided to do just that. I also was able to re-think a previous script that I had written and saw how - without thinking - I had already had many of the elements discussed. You might find the same thing, too

Bottom line is that not only does Mr. Schechter's book give you the tools to strengthen your story so it can beat up other stories; it holds them down and gives them wedgies, too. One of the best books on punching up your script you will ever read.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you see it, pick it up, March 15, 2011

By 

MR DANIEL JA PILDITCH - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Story Can Beat Up Your Story: Ten Ways to Toughen Up Your Screenplay from Opening Hook to Knockout Punch (Paperback)

MY STORY CAN BEAT UP YOUR STORY is a refreshing read from cover to cover, and having waded through many a screenwriting book, this one comes highly recommended.

It's a rare example of a screenwriting book that's educational AND a fun read. It's real, applicable, and honest. I should also mention that this was written by somebody who's actually had (and continues to have) a career as a working writer. No 'if you can't do, teach' risk here. Jeff can do, and he also happens to teach.

This book has something for writers at any level, from those who know zilch, to those who think about nothing but.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars My Story Can Beat Up Your Story, May 10, 2011

By 

Heather Hale (Hollywood, California USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Story Can Beat Up Your Story: Ten Ways to Toughen Up Your Screenplay from Opening Hook to Knockout Punch (Paperback)

In My Story Can Beat Up Your Story, Jeffrey Alan Schechter promises "Ten Ways to Toughen Up Your Screenplay From Opening Hook to Knockout Punch."

Like the old Arthur Murray dance classes where students would learn by stepping on the cut out footprints on the floor, Schechter simplistically breaks down basic screenplay elements into bite-sized pieces, ending each chapter with an exercise to put what you've just learned into practice. He's smart to drive Readers to the book's website (MSCBUYS.com) by offering them the chapter exercises as free downloadable worksheets.

As the pieces begin to form the big picture, you, as the Reader-Writer, are taken on a journey unveiling the thought process behind the story structure software, Contour, that Schechter helped develop.

You're encouraged to consider Schechter's four key questions and then apply four classic literary archetypes to your own contemplated project. And as you build (or renovate) your three-act structure, he encourages you to populate it with your own unique interpretation and execution of the six supporting characters that will help illustrate the different viewpoints of the thematic argument in play - especially through character-specific dialogue.

With such a rich cannon of screenplay literature, it's difficult not to step on familiar terminology or territory and come across as derivative, so Schechter saves time by just crediting and starting with Michael Hauge's great definition of what a story must do: "enable a sympathetic character who overcomes a series of increasingly difficult, seemingly insurmountable obstacles to achieve a compelling desire," Schechter traces these elements through the most successful, non-sequel movies of all time as examples. This is a great filter to the vast inventory as it focuses on box office successes that were contingent on original story execution.

The playful "bully" motif and terminology for plot point sequences and page goals were (to me) reminiscent of Blake Snyder's Save the Cat. The distinction being here, perhaps, that where Snyder focused on commercial genre delineation and overall story beats, Schechter goes into the minute detail of structure to the point where he codifies a series of paired reversals to raise the stakes in the Second Act, which to me, harkened back to Robert McKee's (positive/negative) unity of opposites.

By interactively reading My Story Can Beat Up Your Story and seriously analyzing your own story idea, you'll learn Schechter's reproducible forty-four plot point system and put it in action as you strategize how to most-effectively populate your own story and build each beat, scene and act into an ultimately satisfying story and ideally, a marketable and producible script.