Writing the Killer Treatment: Selling Your Story Without a Script [Paperback]

Michael Halperin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 30, 2003

Writers have to understand and develop the elements that make a great script before writing the script itself. Halperin demonstrates how treatments can be effective, taking writers through the entire process in a variety of genres including originals, adaptations, movies-of-the-week, miniseries, sitcoms and soap operas.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Halperin is a professional writer and has worked extensively as a creativeand story consultant in the television industry.

Product Details

• Paperback: 150 pages
• Publisher: Michael Wiese Productions (July 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 094118840X
• ISBN-13: 978-0941188401
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #612,096 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Short on Substance, August 10, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Writing the Killer Treatment: Selling Your Story Without a Script (Paperback)

This one suffers the flaw common to how-to books on writing: it's short on models. Plenty of TALK about how to write a treatment, but most writers know that the best instruction comes from an assortment of professionally polished examples. If you want to be a journalist, read the NY Times. If you want to write killer treatments, read some killer treatments.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very, very thin, September 15, 2003

By 

Michael L. Goldberg "mlewisg" (Kirkland, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Writing the Killer Treatment: Selling Your Story Without a Script (Paperback)

Not much here to help novices and certainly not for anyone with the vaguest idea of how scripts "work." Very skimpy with examples. There's so much "nuts-and-bolts" knowledge that's necessary to create a good script or treatment, and this book provides little of it.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars No Treatment at All, April 20, 2008

By 

chaztv "chaztv" (the beach, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Writing the Killer Treatment: Selling Your Story Without a Script (Paperback)

The title promises to instruct one on how-to write an exceptional script treatment. Yet, like most books of the Hollywood how-to genre, story elements are stressed. Though Mr. Halperin may or may not be "the foremost authority on screenwriting in America," one thing is for sure: you will not find one example of a "killer treatment" in this book. No, you won't even find one fraction of a decent treatment. The only example of the writing of this difficult to define style of storytelling sales document in the book begins: "Dark, threatening clouds loom over jagged snow-covered peaks casting ominous winter shadow on the river." A.K.A. the "It was a dark and stormy night..." opening gambit. I find treatments the most troubling and perplexing form of writing required in the motion picture business. For me, the last piece of the four major forms: log line, synopsis, treatment and script. The one form I have not yet come close to being able to execute with any aplomb. I bit the bullet and bought the book hoping to at last gain some insight into how I might improve. There's nothing in here you haven't read in other screenwriting how-to books, but even more egregious you won't even find a good treatment, or part of one, as an example and an inspiration.