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Screenwriting Tips - How To Write A Screenplay That Sells


The first thing you need to realize when you begin is that the audience is fickle, the smash last week or last month could easily be this weeks dud.

Today we live in an instant gratification society and at most you have three maybe five minuets  to grab and keep their attention, how do you do that you might be asking, well this is how Bill Wilder a very famous writer and director explained it.

For those of you who don't know who Billy Wilder was, he was an Austrian-born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films.

The Golden Rules


  • The audience is fickle. Grab ‘em by the throat and never let ‘em go.
  • Develop a clean line of action for your leading character. Know where you're going.
  • The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
  • If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.
  • A tip from Lubitsch: Let the audience add up two plus two. They'll love you forever.
  • In doing voice-overs, be careful not to describe what the audience already sees. Add to what they're seeing.
  • The event that occurs at the second act curtain triggers the end of the movie.
  • The third act must build, build, build in tempo and action until the last event, and then—that's it. Don't hang around.
















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Comments

  1. WillApril 2, 2013 at 11:18 AM

    Thanks for taking the time out to checkout the blog. What kind of stories are you working on?

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousApril 2, 2013 at 7:26 PM

    My problem is-

    1)My native is not English-so i want someone to write the dialogues plus since this is my first time-I need someone to get me through the nuances and professionalism of screenwriting.I'm not wealthy to hire a writer or a film consultant the 375 $ for an hour of private consultation-that is the whole income of my family for a month in my country.

    2) I cannot try to get into local film making here -because they have nothing on internet plus my ideas are advanced - theme wise and also technical wise.

    I cannot go in person-because my parents won't allow me-because film making is not considered a respectable profession here and they don't want to risk-they just want me to become the safe engineer.

    So i decided to seek help from internet-the kind of collaboration i ask is-they send me their outline and i give them my ideas as like that in my posts-i will make sure that i just send the amount that can be read within 2.5 minutes a day-and i will send them daily-and they just have to take a 2.5 minutes to reply to me-their reply just have to tell me which are the ideas they are including or adapting-so their reply is only have to be a sentence-"I'm adapting ideas number 1,7,9..."-it will not take 2.5 minutes-so totally all i need is 5 minutes a day.

    If you can help me then i would be happy.

    my email-davidwashington@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. WillApril 3, 2013 at 8:18 AM

    I have a few question,what is your native language? What kind of story are you wanting to tell? It almost sounds like you have an idea and you want some one to write it for you, I'm not sure but that's what it sounds like.

    I would be happy to help you.What kind of budget do you have to work with?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousApril 3, 2013 at 8:47 PM

      I just want to get a recognition-so either they can adapt my stories or i can give ideas on theirs-it is not exactly co-writing nor consulting-but something in between.

      And I don't know anything about budgets.

      can you please give me your email-i will explain everything-who am i,where i'm from-if you don't want it to be public then please email me,i will get your address from there.

      Thank you very much for taking the time to help me.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousApril 10, 2013 at 9:38 AM

      sorry i made a mistake my email is-davidwashington796@gmail.com not davidwashington@gmail.com,sorry

      Delete
  4. AnonymousApril 3, 2013 at 8:46 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousSeptember 12, 2013 at 5:15 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete

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