Genre: Writing Horror by James Moran
I kill people for money. Fake people, obviously. In scripts. But they don’t feel fake to me. I have to breathe life into them, make them full, realistic characters, with hopes, dreams, prospects – and then kill them. It’s sadistic and awful and weird and I love it. You have to love horror if you […]
‘Story’ Versus ‘Save the Cat’ – Screenwriting Book Review by Phil Lowe
I can’t claim to have read every book on screenwriting (I don’t suffer from procrastination quite that badly) but I’ve done my fair share, and these two hardy perennials are the books I return to most often when I’m stuck or needing a compass to navigate through a rewrite. Like good scripts, they are a […]
Screenwriter Interview – Tripper Clancy
Script Pipeline Winner Tripper Clancy found management through the contest and this year has gone on to sell projects to 20th Century Fox & QED International. Tripper has kindly agreed to share his experiences with Script Angel. HM: The script that won the Script Pipeline contest was Henry the Second. I’m guessing that wasn’t the first […]
Genre: Writing the Science Fiction Film by Robert Grant
There are a ton of good reasons why you should be writing science fiction. I’ll start with the obvious one – money – because no other genre can match science fiction at the box office. Take a look at the worldwide grosses for 2014 to date, 11 of the top 20 are science fiction (and […]
Book Review: The Insider’s Guide to Writing for Television
Guest blog by screenwriter Heather Wallace-Brown. When I first decided to steal my thoughts from out of the ether to place them onto paper, upsetting the minimalistic look of my front room was the furthest thing from my mind. I’d heard people speaking about this screenwriting book and that screenwriting book, read of authors whose […]
Genre: Writing Steampunk Films by Steve Turnbull
Steampunk? What’s that about then? In the late 1970s and through the 80s, three authors—K.W. Jeter, Tim Powers and James Blaylock—had been publishing science fiction/fantasy created with a Victorian/Edwardian viewpoint which Jeter, in a letter to Locus magazine published in 1985, humorously called “Steam-punk”, a reference to the Cyberpunk genre. It took another twenty years […]
Genre: Writing Fantasy And Supernatural Drama by Debbie Moon
Fantasy and supernatural drama has gone from being ignored and derided to the genre of the moment. Twilight, Once Upon A Time, Sleepy Hollow, Game Of Thrones, (and dare I mention my own show, CBBC’s Wolfblood…?), and the massive market for young-adult fantasy and supernatural romance novels have made the genre more visible and respectable […]
Book Review – Writing for Television Series, Serials, Soaps by Yvonne Grace
There might be a ton of books on screenwriting but most of them focus on the glamorous world of writing film. Film talent is making the move to television – even Steven Soderbergh’s got in on the act (The Knick) – and so too are the publishers of screenwriting books. In her no-nonsense book experienced television producer Yvonne Grace guides you through the […]
Genre: Writing a Gripping Thriller by Charles Harris
Let me keep you in suspense for a little while. In my view, a thriller is a film in any genre but with added fear. Fear and suspense dominate the thriller – an almost constant sense that something frightening is about to happen – or is happening right now. This contrasts with a classic action-adventure, where […]