Complete Screenwriting Course

A complete guide to writing, developing and marketing a script for TV or film

Charles Harris

• Publisher: Teach Yourself
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781471805516
• Topic: Filología
• Subtopic: Escritura creativa

Designed to take you from the moment you first put your pen to paper to pitching and selling your completed screenplay, this is one of the most inspiring books on screenwriting you'll ever read.Practical exercises will teach you the craft of writing for film and television, both mainstream and independent, the art of building your own plots, characters, dialogue and scenes. It gives you the skills you need to succeed and helps you critique your own work, meaning that at every step of the writing process you'll be producing the best scripts you can.This book is filled with essential writing tools, including techniques for overcoming writer's block and how to find your unique voice. You will learn how to pitch and get your work optioned, how to work as part of a team and how to make the best use of social media - in all a comprehensive companion that you will keep coming back to as your career develops.ABOUT THE SERIES
The Teach Yourself Creative Writing series helps aspiring authors tell their stories. Covering a range of genres from science fiction and romantic novels to illustrated children's books and comedy, this series is packed with advice, exercises, and tips for unlocking creativity and improving your writing. And because we know how daunting the blank page can be, we set up the Just Write online community, at tyjustwrite.com, for budding authors and successful writers to connect and share.

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Title
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Contents 
• About the author
• List of figures
• 1 How to use this book
• 2 Getting into gear
• 3 Finding your spark – the premise
• 4 Finding your genre
• 5 Engagement and insight – developing your characters
• 6 The character constellation for single stories and series
• 7 Act One – normality and disaster
• 8 Act Two – the project
• 9 Act Three – the final battle
• 10 The treatment – fanning the flames
• 11 Troubleshooting treatments
• 12 Scenes and sequences – the building blocks of a story
• 13 Hearing voices – creating dialogue
• 14 Writing the descriptions – adding pictures and sounds
• 15 Learning to fly – writing the first draft
• 16 Troubleshooting the first draft
• 17 Revising structure – the first edit
• 18 Revising subplots – adding texture to the story
• 19 Playing with time – flashbacks and non-linear stories
• 20 Series, multiple-act, no-act and other unusual structures
• 21 Revising character – increasing audience engagement
• 22 Redrafting scenes – building story energy
• 23 Rewriting dialogue – clarifying and sharpening
• 24 Rewriting descriptions – adding screen values
• 25 The final polish – the difference that makes the difference
• 26 Preparing to go to market
• 27 Pitching and query letters
• 28 Success – building your career
• Appendix 1: ‘Three ways’ pages
• Appendix 2: Screenplay format
• Appendix 3: Planning charts
• Appendix 4: Glossary
• Appendix 5: Resources
• Copyright