Customer Reviews

Writing the Script

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Well, thanks Forest for the shout-out! Not sure who you are, so email me if you get this. Anyway, my review of Wells Roots' book is that it is fantastic. I guess this one got overshadowed by Syd Fields' "Screenplay" as they came out in the same year (or very close), but it's just as helpful and clear. The movies cited as examples may not be very recent, but they're still classics that use the same form and structure as today's best cinematic milestones. I particularly liked his analysis of "tension," or what we might call "escalating conflict" these days or just plain "suspense." I say pick it up and you won't be disappointed.

Chapters:
Tell me a story - the beginning middle and end
Characterization - playing god, making people
Conflict - the working substance of drama and comedy
supense - romeo and juliet as the cliffhanger
content and emotion - the heart has a mind of its own
beginning your screenplay
ending a dramatic story
what am I going to write about next - story ideas basic plots. there is no such thing as an original story
dialogue
situation comedy
tv
and four other chapters

Read it after recommendation from Dan Calvisi of Act Four Screenplays [...]
One of the original (and best) books on screenwriting, Writing the Script (1980; Holt, Rinehart and Winston), even Romeo and Juliet is a suspense story: "Shakespeare told his love story in a sequence of...suspenseful scenes. And in resolving each crisis, he created another! Thus, the progressive tension increased until the play's resolution, which was the lovers' reunion in death."