Making a Good Script Great / Edition 3

by Linda Seger

Overview

Making a good script great is more than just a matter of putting a good idea on paper. It requires the working and reworking of that idea.

Making a Good Script Great takes you through the whole screenwriting process-from initial concept through final rewrite-providing specific methods that will help you craft tighter, stronger, and more salable scripts.

While retaining the invaluable insights that placed its first two editions among the all-time most popular screenwriting books, this expanded, revised, and updated third edition adds rich and important new material on dialogue, cinematic images, and point of view, as well as an interview with screenwriter Paul Haggis.

If you're writing your first script, this book will help develop your skills for telling a compelling and dramatic story. If you're a veteran screenwriter, it will help you articulate the skills you know intuitively. And if you're currently stuck on a rewrite, this book will help you analyze and solve your script's problems and get it back on track.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781935247012
Publisher:	Silman-James Press
Publication date:	02/01/2010
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Linda Seger is the author of Making a Good Script Great. She is married and lives in Venice, California.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Preface to the Third Edition xiii

Introduction xvii

1 Gathering Ideas 1

2 The Three-Act Structure: Why You Need It and What to Do with It 19

3 What Do Subplots Do? 50

4 Act Two-How to Keep It Moving 65

5 Establishing a Point of View 86

6 Creating the Scene 108

7 Creating a Cohesive Script 127

8 Making It Commercial 137

9 Balancing Images and Dialogue 158

10 From Motivation to Goal: Finding Your Character's Spine 177

11 Finding the Conflict 186

12 Creating Multidimensional and Transformational Characters 197

13 Character Functions 212

14 A Case Study: Writer Paul Haggis in His Own Words 229

Index 239

About the Author 252