Customer Reviews

The Whole Picture: Strategies for Screenwriting Success in the New Hollywood

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This book is so complete that, at this point, I won't even consider taking instruction from any other source on the subject. I own both of Mr. Walter's books and have found them to be both inspirational and invaluable during my journey into the screenwriting craft. I am currently working on a screenplay and have two others outlined and waiting. As a novice of the trade with no formal training, I honestly don't beleive I would have grasped some of THE most important aspects of this craft were it not for Mr. Walter. The following principals, which can be found in this book, as well as his first, "Screenwriting: The Art, Craft and Business of Film and Television Writing", are the reasons why:

(In my own words)
(1) Every drop of ink which makes up your screenplay must be properly integrated in order to effectively advance story, plot and character. Simply put, your words should deliciously and tantilizingly seduce your audience from one scene to the next, all the way through to climax and conclusion. If a particular scene or piece of dialog hinders this progression, the audience becomes riders on a proverbial rollercoaster. This rollercoaster promises a great ride and may even get off to a magnificent start but soon begins to stop, start, sputter and chug; the boxcar barely makes it up the big hills, lacks the momentum to properly execute the loops and ultimately poops out to its disaterous end, leaving its "passengers" feeling angry, annoyed and immensely disatisfied. Screenwriters if you want to dazzle your audience take them for the ride of their lives at full throttle and don't you dare interrupt that "ride" with boring settings, dull characters, or uninspired dialog.
(2) Movies utilize TWO SENSES ONLY: Sight and sound. That which cannot be seen or heard must never appear in your screenplay as it cannot be shown on screen. This simple rule should train screenwriters to become more skilled in conveying thoughts and feelings through dialog and action alone.
(3) Movies are for AUDIENCES not WRITERS. Throw in "meaningless prattle" for no reason other than it suits or amuses you personally, and you may as well throw in the towel as this ranks number one on the long list of screenplay (and film) suicide.
(4) To those screenwriters who like to write dialog in keeping with "the way people really talk", Richard Walter reminds us that "the way people really talk is free", but movie-speak costs! Dialog must be crisp, concise, brilliant and poetic yet, somehow, magically come across as natural as one hundred percent cotton. If this principal sounds contradictory, implausible, or downright impossible to you, I sincerely hope you work it out as this principal is the mark of a great screenwriter if not the very definition of screenwriting.
(5) More can (and should) be said with less.
(6) That which is implied is often superior to that which is actually spoken. Strive to craft scenes where, when appropriate, actions speak louder than words.
(7) Respect your audience and give them credit. Don't spell everything out as if for a six year old. Strive to write more subjectively and less leading.
(8) Just WRITE! Do the Hollywood film and television community a favor and don't attempt to "direct" or "act" your screenplay from your trusty word processor. To do so is "not merely unappreciated" but downright "resented".
(9) Conflict and tension are the two most important aspects of a great screenplay. The writer who develops and nutures the ability to use conflict and tension effectively will captivate an audience from the first frame to the end credits no matter what the subject matter, and in doing so hold the key to this craft.
(10) Shock them! Dazzle them! Excite them! Incite them! Frighten them! Sicken them! Touch them! Repulse them! Move them! Anger them! Thrill them! Inspire them! Amaze them! JUST DON"T BORE THEM!!!

This, and much more is, in my opinion, Richard Walter. There is a reason he is Professor and Faculty Chairman of the prestigious UCLA Screenwriting Program. Pick up his books and find out why.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable read on the art and craft of writing. It explained to me what makes a page-turner a page-turner, whether it be a short story, a novel or a screenplay. Mr. Walter explains, then shows, how the basic structure of every great screenplay is the same (and the details that make them beautifully different). He explains in simple terms why some stories make the reader keep reading, and the moviegoer keep watching.

Mr. Walter clearly has read thousands of scripts from the best in the business and from many newcomers to the craft, and he draws heavily on this extraordinary breadth of experience. He explores the elements that make a screenplay worth our attention, and what goes wrong when a screenplay turns the audience off. He shares his insights with great and gentle humor that teaches without offending.

I doubt I'll ever write a great screenplay, but this book certainly gives me reason to try and an encouraging voice to guide me. Best of all, even if I do not write the next, great screenplay, the book taught me a lot about why I find so few movies worth my while any more.

There are many books out there about structure and where to put what plot points where and Richard Walter has made an addition to that field itself with "Screenwriting: The Art, Craft and Business of Film and Television Writing.

However, this is more about advice on issues of screenwritings, arguing such points about all screenplays being personal, which I might add he does so very well. He also gives advice on why writers write, agents and working within the industry. And a look into the process of rewriting a scene of a screenplay (very useful). I would describe it as Adventure's in the Screen Trade without the bitterness of Goldman.

My only criticism being that it makes you so hungry and ravaneous for more advice. The Bibliography is more useful than what you find at the end of most books.

It is a worthy addition to any screenwriter's or movie moguls bookshelf.

If you don't know what's wrong with your screenplay, this book can tell you. Richard Walter's notes section is by far the best thing I've ever read on cleaning up your screenplay. I recommend this book mostly for people who have written more than one screenplay, but who are still puzzled about why they aren't getting any attention. I also strongly recommend Walter's earlier book, Screenwriting.

Forget all the screenwriting seminars. Just write, write, write and then use Richard Walter's book to boil it down. His chapter on "Notes on notes" is my bible for editing.

Married, harried, and crumpled Herb arrives with his suitcases to take up his assigned post at the Book Fair. He runs into an old flame. In no time at all, he's stashed his suitcases in a locker at the trainstation; finds himself in a hotel tryst with this woman from his past; and after sex and cigarettes, returns from a trip to the bathroom to find the bloodied corpse of his illicit lover, and the aforementioned suitcases at the foot of the bed. From there, we follow the suitcases through the twists and turns in the tale Richard Walter, chairman of the screenwriting dept. at UCLA, has constructed to illustrate the elements of solid, artful storytelling.

Walter's two books, The Whole Picture, and Screenwriting: The Art, Craft, and Business of Film and Television Writing, are among the most practical and helpful a writer will be fortunate enough to come across. For the neophyte, they may not contain enough information on the exasperatingly nit-picking "industry formatting standards" that get scripts past the scanning eyes of a scriptreader, but he shines a bright, clear light on the single most important bit of information a writer must know if s/he is to come to the end of his/her labors with a good screenplay in hand: write well. In addition to making his points by using this clever device of constructing a story right before the reader's very eyes, he reveals a great deal of sound advice about the movie business and what works in a screenplay. If you don't know how to integrate a compelling theme with characters an audience can care about, dialog that rings in the ear, and action structured to keep the story moving forward, learn how before you quit your day job.

When people ask me for advice about what books to read to learn about writing--screenplays or other formats--I always tell them they couldn't get a better start than this book.

A humorous and sage book on the craft of screenwriting, by the only full Professor and the Dean of Screenwriting (MFA), Dept of UCLA Film school (there are lots of lecturers, visiting and adjunct professors on the faculty).

Walter's book has three parts: Show, Business, and The End of Adversity, divided into 9 chapters, an Intro and a Recommended Readings list. There is no index and no pixs or figures.

Most Screenwriting principles are in the first 3 chapters of the book, about half of the entire content:

Chap1: The Personal Screenplay: Integration and Gender
Chap2: Creative Choices: Idea, Story, Theme
Chap3: Identity: the ONLY choice

The book's 25 principles are summarized in this review.

p15 1. Whenever writers sit down before blank paper or glowing green (or amber) phosphor, their personal story is all they can write.

p18 2. Screenwriters must embrace authentic self-disclosure, no matter how painful, as nothing less than the organizing principle of their creative lives.

p25 3. If a screenplay is truly personal and genuinely integrated, it does not matter what the script is about.

p35 4. Even if you do not know that you are writing your own personal story, that is what you are writing. Your own heart and your own hand make every script you write only that: your own.

p43 5. All movies -- no matter how diverse their subjects -- treat but one and the same theme: identity.

p51 6. The least important, most overappreciated element in screenwriting is the idea.

p52 7. It is in the story, not in the mere idea, that the theme is ultimately articulated.

p68 8. Audiences will tolerate characters on screen in situations they themselves would never be in, as long as the characters in the movie act the way the audience members themselves would act under those same circumstances.

p93 9. In screenwriting there are but two genres -- 1) good movies and 2) bad movies.

p95 10. In screenwriting, implication is always superior to expression.

p98 11. Do not have one character tell another character what has already been told to the audience.

p105 12. Writers should prefer what "appears" to be true -- even if it is not -- over that which is actually, verifiably true.

p116 13. Every worthy screen story structurally models the romanticized, idealized human life -- short beginning, big middle, and even shorter end.


Then Chap4 encapsulates all the principles into a ficticious screenplay titled "Deadpan" penned by the author

Chap4: Challenges in Story Craft

p123 Ch#1 Who is Warshaw?
p124 Ch#2 What's on the Film?
p128 Ch#3 Who's the Embezzler?

Then in other stories proposed by students,

p132 Ch#4 Backdraft -- Who's the Arsonist?
p133 Ch#5 The Hand that Rocks the Cradle -- Who's the Nanny?


Then there are inevitable revisions and corrections. Chap5 has a discourse on what make a script bad. Not many authors cover this tough exercise. There is a sample script with handwritten annotations in the margins on p179-82. There is lots of editing even though submitted by a UCLA student.


Chap5: Rewriting: Notes on Notes

a) hwk? or see/hear or ink v. light (How do we know?)
b) ess. det. only or SIFYN (essential details only)
c) drekt/aft (don't direct or act; merely write)
d) $? (inconsequential action)
e) s. or n. (something or nothing)
f) 3 strikes (info: purpose, worthy; move story, exp char)
g) notnot (no answer in a dialog is a response)
h) too straight-line
i) checkerboarding
j) l.f. (left field; too rude a twist)
k) conk (concreteness is one essential element)
l) mstrso (master scenes only)
m) prez (all actions told in present tense)
n) novry (don't use adjective "very")
o) xpltlang (don't use "incredible," exploit language)
p) drma/do (drama means "to do"; not "to talk")
q) moomPIX (movies have dynamic pictures)
r) cue the pigeon! (script must be filmable)
s) fmpmt! (lengthly dialogue overwritten)
t) payoff?/aha! (elim all superfluous, too stright-line)
u) clue/hands (writer is steering, forcing the dialog)
w) too on-the-nose (too obvious)
x) 6v.4 (overwriting by # words)
y) noFX (screenplay: NO BF, illustr, storyboards)
z) clok?
aa) 100min18mos = 1 movie
ab) eye/eye (sufficient intensity for conflict?)
ac) 1 or o. (one or the other, too redundant)
ad) 'veen (convenience for audience?)
ae) "Bw!Cyc!" (don't have chit chat in dialog)
af) 2bxpo (too-brazen exposition; backstory)


Part II. Business

Chap6 Gratitude versus Attitude
Chap7 Agents

p207 14. If you want others to treat you as a professional, you must treat yourself as a professional.

p212 15. Every single successful professional writer -- without exception -- was once totallly unknown.

p212 16. Every writer will do anything, will seek any excuse, to avoid working upon the particular assignment in front of him at any given moment.


Part III. The End of Adversity

Chap8 Cooperation and Collaboration

p221 17. Screenwriting is not about the movie business; the movie business is about screenwriting.

p233 18. Smart screenwriters first show the way, then they get out of the way.

p233 19. Reach as many people as you can.

p233 20. Sex and violence occupy a proper place in film and television.

p233 21. Lie through your teeth.

p233 22. Bourgeois, middle-class values are the hope of the world.

p233 23. The wisest course, the most enlightened route for any person or people, is not separation but assimilation.

Chap9 Crazy Art: a word on authority from an authority on words

p239 24. People in position of authority do not know what they're talking about. Worse, they do not want to know.

p241 25. Art's not smart. It's deliriously dumb, sweetly stupid, full-tilt schizophrenic. Creativity as a profession is not intelligent and reasonable; it's wacky and eccentric, mad-as-a-hatter, jerky as sin.

After reading this book you will fully understand why the director says, "lights, camera, ACTION" and not "lights, camera, TALK"

I got to see Richard Walter do a seminar at SMU one weekend for our writer's group. I was enthralled. The man is a creative dynamo. And it shows in his books. He puts in his books succinctly what Mckee tries to say in his tombs. I write fiction, not screenplays, yet I recommend Walter to all writers.

This book by far is the best screenwriting book I've read and I've read a lot of them. The tools I learned in this book I've used even in my fiction writing. It deserves all the praise it receives and Professor Walter is a very down to earth, approachable guy. -- Jeff Rivera (Author of Forever My Lady: A Novel) www.JeffRivera.com