Writer Unboxed

Therese Walsh on Jun 06 2007 | Filed under: Click Here

I haven’t posted a Click Here in a while, so here you go. Continuing with our screenwriting trend, these research links that should appeal to the Hollywood-intrigued among us.

Does your story have a clear protagonist and antagonist? It it emotionally, rather than intellectually, driven? Is there clear conflict? Does it possess an interesting “air?” Might it make a good screenplay? Hmm… Check out The Seven Tests of a Good Screenplay Idea HERE.

Love Chris Vogler’s Hero’s Journey and want to see it applied to a well-known flick? See how the Journey breaks down with Star Wars HERE.

Ask a professional screenwriter’s advice at Done Deal Professional: David H. Steinberg’s Hollywhooped HERE. But before you do, check out Done Deal’s message boards where you can find a wealth of great info. Here are a few of the things I picked up there:

Screenwriting freeware Celtx available HERE.

Read scripts at Script-O-Rama, Simply Scripts and the Internet Movie Script Database.

Wordplay resource site has loads of articles, FAQs and forums for the would-be-screenwriter, including some first drafts of some famous scripts. Check them out HERE. (Psst, the first draft of Pirates of the Caribbean is HERE.)

The Movie Clichés List provides “a list of the most annoying and common logic flaws and stereotypes found in movies.”

Also, great article there by Steven King called Writing for the Third Eye—an article about writing stories as if you’re writing for the movies. A quote from the piece, “…the most important thing that film and fiction share is an interest in the image — the bright picture that glows in the physical eye or in the mind’s eye.”

Write on, all!

Therese Walsh co-founded Writer Unboxed in 2006. Her debut novel, The Last Will of Moira Leahy, sold to Random House in a two-book deal in 2008, was named one of January Magazine’s Best Books of 2009, and was a Target Breakout Book in 2010. She's never been published with a lit magazine, but LOST's Carlton Cuse liked her haiku best on Twitter, and that made her pretty happy.