Supporting Characters Samwise from LORD OF THE RINGS, Janis from MEAN GIRLS, Luna Lovegood from HARRY POTTER, Lisa from GIRL, INTERRUPTED–they all have something in common. They are supporting characters. Angelina Jolie won an Academy Award for best supporting actor for the latter. What else do they have in common? They are all three-dimensional, fascinating…
How do you strengthen your ANTAGONIST? Annie Wilkes in MISERY–she goes from fawning fan to your worst nightmare. She’s delusional, unstable, and sad. She’s also a capable nurse and an enthusiastic reader. Alonzo Harris in TRAINING DAY–smart, cunning, charming and convincing when he needs to be as well as completely ruthless. Terence Fletcher in WHIPLASH–he’s…
Your protagonist needs to be the driving force of your story. They can’t be a bystander. They can’t be reactive. They can’t have low stakes in the outcome. Yet all too often we find protagonists that exist in the story, even get quite a bit of screen time, but don’t carry the movie. How can…
The Dos and Don’ts You probably already know that you should be out there networking. And if you don’t, let this be your wake-up call, because this business is all about who you know. Now you may think “but I don’t know anybody. I didn’t go to the right university. My family isn’t in the…
Tips for Visual Writing Writing a novel? Great! We can have long internal monologues, a dozen subplots, philosophical musings, and a page-long description of a dining room table set just so. Writing a play? Wonderful! Soliloquies are a must. Actors love monologues. And dialogue can be endless. Twenty-page-long scenes recounting anecdotes that (hopefully) relate thematically to the plot…
Take These Steps Before Sending Out Your Script & Maximize Your Chances Yes, we all want to share our work with the world as soon as possible. But before we do so, let’s take a few final steps to make sure our screenplays are in fighting shape. Here are ten (relatively) quick and simple things you…
How to Write Dialogue that Sings We’ve all written dialogue that sounds a bit like this: “I really don’t want you to go out with your friends because I’m totally insecure and afraid you’re going to meet someone and cheat on me.” But, hopefully, we then did a dedicated dialogue pass and came up with…
A Whole New Era for CI as Get Repped Now Starts Feb. 16 As CI enters its 24th year, and after 11 years of Get Repped Now, a thought struck us. A really interesting thought. One we think you’re gonna like. What if instead of doing Get Repped Now for a brief window of time every…
Writing is only half the battle. The other half is selling someone on your writing. Here is what happens all too often: Your screenplay is polished to shining perfection. It has an engaging story, three-dimensional characters, scintillating dialogue, and it’s even marketable. All of the above finally gets you in the room. In fact, several…
The Networking Dance How do you get to know people? You’ve heard it before: this business is all about who you know. And assuming you weren’t born into show business, how do you get to know people? This is a question that comes up a lot. In particular, from screenwriters. Let’s face it, most of…
