Screenwriting books

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I'm addicted to these in the same way that my girlfriend's mother is to Oprah and self-help groups. Most of them are new-age crap, but I read 'em anyway. Robert McKee I found pretentious, overblown, and unintentionally hilarious, Syd Field bland but readable, Vicki King (think this is the right name) was okay, but the only one I really found useful was Elliot Grove.I was then lucky enough to be taught by him for a while, and he's a really nice guy. Anyone else know any good ones?

― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Friday, 20 December 2002 13:35 (twenty-three years ago)

McKee! hah! Have you seen "Adaptation" yet? You will dig that movie.

― geeta (geeta), Friday, 20 December 2002 13:47 (twenty-three years ago)

NO, but I look forward to it. God, this was a dud thread, wasn't it?

― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Friday, 20 December 2002 22:18 (twenty-three years ago)

"Thinking In Pictures" by John Sayles.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 20 December 2002 22:23 (twenty-three years ago)

See also Screenwriting Updated by Linda Aronson

― Queen G (Queeng), Saturday, 21 December 2002 09:39 (twenty-three years ago)

I opened my mail today and got these recommendations from a woman who's getting her first feature made NOW:

- Writing books that I love include David Howard's "Tools of Screenwriting, Linda Seger's "Making a Good Script Great", and Lajos Egri's "The Art of Dramatic Writing." But the best books on writing are "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott and "On Writing" by Stephen King. A great website for writers is Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott's site: http://www.wordplayer.com/

Here's the website for Drew's script-o-rama.
http://www.script-o-rama.com/

Oh, and one of my friends, he took McKee's course, and said he's just as bombastic as they depicted in that movie, but that's his style/shtich and that he's actually a good teacher. I went up to Charlie Kaufman after the screening here at school to ask how he got away w/ that representation of McKee, and he just said that McKee was cool with it and knew that they're going to have someone play him in this movie (permission was of course asked), even though, to his knowledge, he doesn't know if McKee had seen the movie yet. He himself had no problem w/ McKee.

― Vic, Saturday, 21 December 2002 09:50 (twenty-three years ago)

five years pass...

This is full of really interesting interviews. Great bathroom reading.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Screenwriters-Masterclass-Kevin-Conroy-Scott/dp/0571217826

― caek, Saturday, 12 January 2008 05:53 (eighteen years ago)

five months pass...

http://arxiv.org/abs/0805.3799

― caek, Monday, 16 June 2008 20:12 (eighteen years ago)

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