Scriptwriting Updated: New and Conventional Ways to Write for the Screen

Scriptwriting has changed. As well as being skilled in traditional writing methods and approaches, today's writer must be able to take on new structures like the parallel storytelling of Pulp Fiction and Magnolia, the multiple protagonist narrative of American Beauty and the complex flashback form of films like The Sweet Hereafter. Writers need a new kind of book, one that puts the emphasis on versatility and explains how the new narrative structures work in relation to the old. Scriptwriting Updated : New and Conventional Ways to Write for the Screen is a desktop reference guide and do-it-yourself script doctor to help writers consolidate their skills in traditional narrative and grasp the practical mechanics of the new. Practicality is the key to this book. Traditional and new narrative structures are carefully explained and cross-referenced. There is a range of helpful analytical aids like charts, quick reference guides and structural breakdowns. Special script development strategies help with plotting. There are highly effective concentration techniques for countering clich and a wide variety of ways to trigger ideas. Scriptwriting Updated is a new generation of scriptwriting book and an indispensable aid for the modern writer. A fabulous book that deals not with the mechanics of writing but with the creative thinking necessary to write. Rather than showing how to make a good script great, Scriptwriting Updated shows how to get a great script in the first place. Mario Andreacchio, Emmy-award winning director, writer and producer (Captain Johnno, Napoleon, Young Blades) Linda Aronson provides screenwriters with invaluable detailed strategies to lay bare the workings of the craft. She has constructed a remarkable guide to take you from that mind-numbing first blank page, over all the hurdles, through to polishing the final draft. Jane Scott, Producer (Shine, Head On, Crocodile Dundee I + II, Goodbye Paradise) A lucid and eminently useful atlas of screenwriting technique. At last you will understand Pulp Fiction! All the vague confusing things that teachers and studio executives say about flashback, turning points and multiple protagonists are whipped into coherent shape here, in a comprehensive, precise and extremely practical theory. Clear structural diagrams, up-to-date examples and thought-provoking analysis of failed films make this an essential tool in any writer's kit. Christopher Vogler, Screenwriting Theorist (The Writer's Journey) Scriptwriting Updated is used in courses at leading international universities and colleges including New York University, Columbia University, University of London, Th

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents Forward Preface Part I Getting Ideas 1. Creativity and general problem solving 2. Getting good ideas fast from screen models 3. Getting good ideas fast from fairytale, myth + fable 4. Getting good ideas fast from non-narrative triggers Part II Narrative Structure 5. Overview of traditional narrative structure 6. Development strategies for a traditional three-act film 7. Alternative narrative structures: flashback 8. Varieties of flashback narrative 9. Quick reference guide to using flashback narrative 10. Structure charts of flashback narrative 11. Tandem narrative and sequential narrative 12. Multiple protagonists and antagonists 13. Lost in the telling: films with structural flaws Part III Getting it onto paper 14. Dialogue 15. Examples of flawed dialogue writing 16. Treatment writing and the scr

About the Author :
Linda Aronson has almost 20 years experience as a screenwriter, script assessor and teacher.