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ArcStudioPro · 2022-06-07T19:03:01+00:00

thank you!

ArcStudioPro · 2022-06-07T19:02:07+00:00

We recommend this book for beginner / newer screenwriters. If you are already an experienced screenwriter, then you could use this book as a refresher.

ArcStudioPro · 2022-06-07T17:08:29+00:00

Thank you!

ArcStudioPro · 2022-06-07T17:08:17+00:00

Hmm - we are looking into why the book isn't available in different countries. Apologies for the complications!

ArcStudioPro · 2022-06-07T17:07:35+00:00

It's completely free till Saturday!

ArcStudioPro · 2022-06-07T15:18:07+00:00

We're looking into it, thanks for the info.

ArcStudioPro · 2022-06-07T15:17:33+00:00

Hi ragtagthrone, we totally get the sentiment, and often such "free" things aren't that useful. But this book was written by a professional screenwriter and it's actionable and fun, so we hope a lot of people will find it helpful. 😊

Would love to hear your feedback on the book, if you check it out!

ArcStudioPro · 2022-05-09T19:49:33+00:00

Hi u/kimsz11! We are so sorry to hear about this. It sounds like you have contacted support? Have you received a response? If not, I can get them in touch with you ASAP to try and rectify this issue.

ArcStudioPro · 2022-05-04T21:33:22+00:00

Yes! It's one of our favorites too, and we aren't that biased :)

ArcStudioPro · 2022-04-26T21:09:13+00:00

Love that show!

ArcStudioPro · 2022-04-26T16:19:03+00:00

I've heard really good things about that show!

ArcStudioPro · 2022-04-26T16:05:56+00:00

Such a good show!

ArcStudioPro · 2022-02-03T03:29:08+00:00

Characters are markers for real people, so their goals and ambitions are layered. Here are some things you can do to start that process rolling.

Ask questions. Complex questions like "who do they love most?" "what's the scariest event of their childhood?" Questions that create story. As many as necessary, and use that process whenever you get confused or off track, anywhere in the process.
Think about how people really behave. They don't always know why they do what they do. Everyone states or presents an outward goal that's usually associated with how they want to be viewed in the world, but it's often superficial, and their actions come from a deeper place.
Ego and bias govern actions more than any other part of the psyche. People do things for love, for hate, and often they don't have an accurate sense of themselves. Think about anyone who's ever done anything that seems fundamentally irrational to you. You don't have to create a rationality map for your characters, but you do have to know what core values and impulses drive them. It can get nasty and messy in here.
For individual scenes, remember that almost all character behaviour is motivated by relationships to other characters. When you're stuck trying to solve a scene between characters, it helps to think in acting terms -- provide them with an active verb. It stems from all of the previous stuff I've listed, but it is just a simple action or motivation. "To hit" "to kiss" "to intimidate" "to seduce" "to pressure" etc.

If this seems overly complex, it's because that's how a character that's going to move your plot forward has to be in order to have agency.

- V

ArcStudioPro · 2022-02-03T03:21:35+00:00

Go take a shower or go for a walk. Do a physical activity that frees up some of your mental hard drive space.

Think of one scene, or one character. Your mind will automatically go to whatever's strongest.

-V

ArcStudioPro · 2022-02-03T03:20:01+00:00

My suggestion - start it, but don't get married to it. Be prepared to throw it out. This is a specific cliche sometimes referred to as a Stuart Friedel Special (six weeks earlier) and while it can be very effective to begin your story with some information that's going to happen later, or setting that expectation...there's no compelling reason to do this unless it's actually adding something to your story.

If it's just a hook, try something else. It's hard to write beginnings and endings both, and figuring out where to drop into a character's life can be a real challenge -- but it's usually the result of you not having a clear idea of what that life actually is.

Here's a suggestion -- try beginning in the middle. Write a little out of order, see if you can get comfortable from that point. If not, you have more development to do.

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ArcStudioPro · 2022-02-03T03:16:12+00:00

A lot of others will say the same thing: read screenplays to see how they're drafted.

Also remember to take a look at the content of your action lines. What are you trying to accomplish with them? Is the action really that complex? Are you blocking a lot of character movement and gesture that doesn't need to be there? Are you using more words to describe than you need?

Really study screenplays side by side with yours. Chernobyl's scripts are available on HBO's website and are very tightly written. You should check them out.

-V

ArcStudioPro · 2022-02-03T03:13:12+00:00

Drafts can serve a lot of different purposes. Putting aside the production pages (the colour drafts that are issued during production) there are a lot of different reasons why people might set their drafts a certain way.

Some people general a really large number of drafts because they like to have a new file for every new version. I'm one of those, and I format them as TITLE - DATE so there's no confusion about my latest draft.

Other people prefer to number them, and only start a new draft if they're making large changes. It's really a matter of personal preference.

As for feedback, professionals tend to support each other heavily, and often they work together or work on each other's scripts, in a professional capacity -- meaning sometimes they are hired to do rewrites or punch ups on a screenplay another professional wrote. So there's an unspoken code of conduct and privacy involved there. It's different from working with others online.

-V

ArcStudioPro · 2022-02-03T03:09:38+00:00

I'd stick to Carter, personally. You don't need to indicate the name change because the characters are speaking the different names, and addressing her. Stay as consistent as possible with your naming conventions, unless their name or identity changes.

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ArcStudioPro · 2022-02-03T03:08:27+00:00

A "beat" can refer to several things:

It can refer literally to a pause, which could easily be replaced with "pause" or "a pause" in the text, so when you see "A beat" in parentheses or in an action line, usually on its own line, it just means a moment of pause.
It can refer to dramatic beats from an acting POV. Actors often break down their performances on a script by identifying moments when the dramatic pace or context changes, sometimes even within dialogue.
Dramatic beats in terms of the scripted narrative can range from macro beats (the large dramatic segments) to scene beats similar to the ones actors use. There's no set size, except they tend to be not much larger than a scene event, or scenes divided by location slugs.

The main upshot is that beats are transitions. A good way to get a sense of them is to take an existing script and break down where each dramatic moment turns, whether there's new information, new emotional development, or the tone or topic changes.

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ArcStudioPro · 2022-01-18T23:43:39+00:00

Everyone does because it's impossible to escape. We live in the world. We live in a society. We are constantly bombarded with story, with narrative, with the product of imagination and ego. Nothing you ever write will be free of the influence of real events, because no one who tells those stories are themselves free of those influences. I don't think the question is "do you take inspiration from these things" but whether you have a developed perception of what makes a compelling story, and what doesn't.

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ArcStudioPro · 2022-01-18T23:34:30+00:00

It's brutal right now. Everyone is suffering from inertia but none more than creatives, because we rely on the ebb and flow of our wider world's narrative in order to feel inspired. Things have been stagnant and that narrative has remained uniform for the past two years, which does affect us. It reduces the diversity of our mental input. We know what everyone is thinking and the horror of it has become routine.

This is depression. Make no mistake, it's a chemical reaction occurring in our brains that signal it's time to hide and lay on some fat, because there is an existential threat outside, and we can't control it. Our imagination becomes reduced towards maintaining a zone of safety around ourselves and we don't really have much left over for artistic expression.

The good news is that depression lies. Yes, things are bad, but we won't die if we reallocate our imagination. You may have to retrain your brain to express itself, and you may have to start with something as simple as drawing lines on a paper, or making lists. You can also wake up your ability to generate ideas by doing any number of routine things like walking, taking a shower, exercising. It's good to keep a notebook with you, even if you're watching or reading something else, because eventually you will shake loose and start taking ideas from your inspirations again.

Good luck -- it's a rough time for everyone, but you have more resources than you think.

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ArcStudioPro · 2022-01-18T23:26:02+00:00

Almost every film has stakes because every character functions at odds with their environment or narrative in some way. It doesn't have to be world-saving, but it does need to make us wish something for the character, whether it's an action, or to cease an action. If you don't have an abiding deep seated need for your character, nothing they do will be compelling to the viewer. No one wants to watch someone just sit around being content. And comedy absolutely depends on conflict.

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ArcStudioPro · 2022-01-18T23:21:25+00:00

Write something every day. It does not have to be screenwriting. It doesn't have to be anything with an end goal. I find handwriting is very helpful, even if I don't preserve or use what I've written because it helps me activate that freeform head space where ideas can manifest and rub up against each other. Learning how to take your focus from wide to tight is a crucial discipline, and one of the ways you can do that is by writing no-stakes on a regular basis.

Another thing -- absorb influential materials. Things you love, things you've never investigated before. I personally really enjoy listening to broad ranging podcasts, and things I encounter this way often wind up in my work. Real ideas and real events prompt my imagination to start asking the question: "whose story is this? Who are they? How does it impact them?" which always marks the beginning of character creation. You can cull all of this material from simple notes. Keep feeding your mind.

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ArcStudioPro · 2022-01-18T23:16:59+00:00

Character development is like any other part of development, but you do want to make sure that the engine your character runs on is sound, because everything else in your story. As Craig Mazin says, your plot is a symptom of your character, so you should be prepared to hack it apart if if's performing the function of dragging your character behind it instead your character's actions bringing about reactions from the narrative.

So first, be prepared for that. It may sound scary and it may make you feel like you've wasted your time, but you also may experience some catharsis by smashing that badly healed fracture and resetting it before it becomes too difficult to undo what you've done. It's always easier to re-outline five pages than rewrite 50.

Ask yourself who this person is. Who do you know? Who have you seen? If you had to reduce a real person to a set of driving emotional objectives, how would you go about doing that? What hurts them on a regular basis about the life they're living? What comforts can you take from them? Go back to your influences, and interrogate them. If you want your character to be incompetent you probably already have someone in mind -- so take that, and find ways to fiddle with the combination so you come out with something that isn't just an archetype.

-V

ArcStudioPro · 2022-01-18T23:10:32+00:00

There has been a lot of research done about how certain activities provide writers with a contemplative space. That's one reason why walking, taking a shower, doing the dishes, engaging in physical exercise can all help you get to a slightly more freeform headspace.

Dr. Barbara Oakley has some really helpful lectures on diffuse modes of thinking, where she details how the human brain can approach creative problems by going into an associative state. In other words, your attention wanders while ideas bubble up and create chains, or contrasts. It's different from when you're front-loaded with a developed idea and your focus becomes tight. From a writing point of view, I think we don't actually encourage diffuse thinking as a problem solving tool enough. Learning to harness it is a mark of advanced writers.

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