A comprehensive resource on screenwriting basics.
Hollywood script consultant and blogger Gray offers a debut soup-to-nuts guide to creating a script and getting it to the people who can get it made.
The author states that the most important part of any screenplay is its “Entertainment Quotient,” which she defines as “the reason the reader can’t put your script down,” “the reason your script gets a ‘consider,’ ” and “the reason scripts get sold and movies get made.” What motivates gatekeepers in the entertainment business is putting “behinds in seats” and “dollars in…pockets,” she says. However, she also notes that this doesn’t necessarily mean that a writer must sell out and write a soulless rehash of whatever’s popular at the moment. Gray does counsel writers to keep an eye on the zeitgeist but also to work hard on perfecting basic elements of plot, character, tone, dialogue, and tension—all of which she addresses in chapters in a highly modular format with lots of headings and lists as well as writing exercises and end-of-chapter reviews. The book also has a highly conversational tone, and Gray even points this out: In Chapter 3, she specifically talks about ways that a writer’s distinctive “voice” can come through in his or her writing. Her own voice, she says, is a “Mary Poppins, spoonful-of-sugar voice” that’s “not terribly different from how I sound in person. But it’s still a voice.” She effectively tackles other basic concepts, such as overcoming a bad draft and how to write a voice-over. She also takes writers through the essentials of networking and finding an agent. Over the course of this manual, Gray provides very clear instruction, and her methods are consistently simple and helpful. Fledgling screenwriters having organizational difficulties, for example, should check out the author’s thoughts on outlining using smaller scenes, each with their own setup and resolution. On the whole, her tips are practical and positive.
A comprehensive resource on screenwriting basics.Pub Date: April 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-304-40483-1
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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