Successful Scriptwriting

by Jürgen Wolff and Kerry Cox

A comprehensive guide offering practical, down-to-earth advice and an instructionally sound step-by-step approach to TV and film scriptwriting.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0898793254
• ISBN13: 9780898793253
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: Writer's Digest Books
• Length: 361 Pages
• Weight: 1.66 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Informative

This how-to book will not make you into a screen writer, but it will help you understand how to get there. The authors cover basic writing topics such as plot structuring and characterization, and then move onto more advanced topics such as treatments, pitching, and the legal/business issues screen writers face. You'll find a chapters on specific cinematic genres - feature films, animation, daytime serials, made-for-TV movies, sit-coms, and hour-long television shows. The authors also include informative interviews with professionals about their craft. What you won't find is mechanical advice - how to format a script and the devices, such as the capitalization of character names, specific to screen writing. You'll need to study professional scripts and other books on screen writing to get those details.Like most how-to books on writing, this volume makes the path to becoming a professional seem much easier than it is. Still, it is a good book for the aspiring screen writer.

I am already writing

I originally purchased Syd Field's book years ago and found that book boring and unhelpful. I am a begining script writer and I went to college for finance not writing so I wanted something that would help to get me going. I don't know if I would recommend this book for begining writers because it seems to treat the reader as if they already know something. But this book did have some good ideas that I incorporated.Bottom line is it wouldn't hurt to have this in your collection, if you can only get one book on script writing, I would compare this book with Keane's book at your local bookstore, that one seemed to get a lot of positive reviews. I haven't read it, but the reviews are prompting me to buy that to supplement my education.On a final note, I purchased Movie Magic 2000 software and that was a big help on formating.

The perfect guide for creative scriptwriting!

"Successful Scriptwriting" is an excellent source of information and practical help for beginners as well as experienced scriptwriters, and it is also entertaining and well-organized. Mr. Wolff and Mr. Cox have been there, and they kindly give us the benefit of thier experience. This book is a must-have for aspiring scriptwriters!