The 21st-Century Screenplay is the long-awaited, much-expanded successor to the author's internationally acclaimed Scriptwriting Updated. Many books in one, it offers a comprehensive, highly practical manual of screenwriting from the classic to the avant-garde, from The African Queen and Tootsie, to 21 Grams, Pulp Fiction, Memento and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Whether you want to write short films, features, adaptations, genre films, ensemble films, blockbusters or art house movies, this book takes you all the way from choosing the brilliant idea to plotting, writing and rewriting.
Featuring a range of insider survival tips on time-effective writing, creativity under pressure and rising to the challenge of international competition, The 21st-Century Screenplay is essential reading for newcomer and veteran alike.
List of FiguresList of development strategiesForewordPrefacePart 1 Getting Ideas 1 Creativity and general problem solving2 Triggering good ideas fast from screen models3 Triggering good ideas fast from other models 4 What film are we in?Part 2 Conventional Narrative Structure5 Overview of conventional narrative structure6 Planning a conventional, three-act structure 7 Normality and disturbance (the set-up)8 Action line or relationship line?9 Protagonists and characters who seem like protagonists but are not10 One protagonist, many antagonists11 Characterisation12 The plan and first-act turning point13 The second act14 The third act: Climax, resolution, symbolism and myth15 Structural analysis of The PianoPart 3 Practical Plotting16 The nature of the task17 Close plotting: Beats, interweaving and condensing18 Plotting: Tips,
