How Not to Write a Screenplay: 101 Common Mistakes Most Screenwriters Make
by Denny Martin Flinn
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Book Summary Information
Author: Denny Martin FlinnEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-05-01
ISBN: 1580650155
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: Lone Eagle
Book Reviews of How Not to Write a Screenplay: 101 Common Mistakes Most Screenwriters Make
Book Review: Great Advice
Summary: 5 Stars
In reading about screenwriting, I have come to understand that a screenplay is a highly technical document. A blueprint, if you will, for making a movie. And like all technical documents, it should be succinct and clear; above all else, clarity.
Yet it seems many pre-professional screenwriters like me are frustrated novelists who like to pack their work with overly descriptive prose. Flinn's book is a wonderful antidote to this creeping verbosity.
He divides the book into three parts--there is a very short third part that deals with development--but the first two are the major sections and deal with Form and Content, reasoning that screenplays are the same way. In Form, he dissects bad screenwriting and shows why it is bad then contrasts those examples with good ones from 43 screenplays.
Along the way, the author gives you certain guidelines about writing screenplays well. Like, "Do not write ideas and metaphors." I love the specificity of his advice, it's clear and straight to the point. This entire part is filled with such good advice, but the really wonderful thing about it is how easy the writing is; far from pedantic, it's jovial, funny and easily digestible. I read this section in one sitting. I know I will have to return for a more studious reading.
Part 1 or Form takes the lion share of the book. The second part, Content, gives some more examples from produced films to illustrate the author's ideas about what should go into a good movie. In the section on Structure, for example, Flinn discusses the different gurus (Syd Field's three act paradigm, Robert McKee's five part narrative, Truby's seven major steps, Seger's eight sections, and Campbell's Monomyth) and shows how their versions of structure all hardly matter in a practical sense.
What does matter, he writes, is that the writer have structure to a screenplay, pointing out that "in a linear art form (as opposed to painting and sculpture) there is always a start and a finish. You have to begin when the audience is in place, and you have to--eventually-let them go home. How you travel from the former to the latter is your structure."
He also discusses, briefly, such important topics as theme (Don't preach!), suspense, and character, among others. All the while using excerpts from screenplays to illustrate his ideas.
The third part is very short and deals with development. Some basic advice on how to deal with the Hollywood system.
I have given this book five stars because it covers the mechanics of good screenwriting that I haven't seen others do in any adequate manner (with the possible exception of The Screenwriter's Bible: A Complete Guide to Writing, Formatting, and Selling Your Script). "How Not to Write a Screenplay" should be on the desk of every aspiring screenwriter.
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Summary of How Not to Write a Screenplay: 101 Common Mistakes Most Screenwriters Make
All good screenplays are unique, but all bad screenplays are the same. Flinn's book will teach the reader how to avoid the pitfalls of bad screenwriting and arrive at one's own destination intact.How Not to Write a Screenplay is an invaluable addition to any aspiring screenwriter's shelf--and you'd best make the shelf within arm's reach of the computer. Author Dean Martin Flinn, an experienced script reader, details the common rookie mistakes that drive script readers crazy. Flinn makes no pretense of being able to teach anyone how to write the next Great American Film--or for that matter the next Stupid Summer Blockbuster. Instead he offers information that will help keep the novice screenwriter's opus from being immediately tossed on the trash pile (arguably a more valuable service). As Flinn says in his introduction, if you follow the advice in this book, "you may not write a particularly good screenplay, but you won't write a bad one." Flinn offers practical advice on formatting, such as the proper form for a slugline and where to set your margins, and more general rules of thumb on giving the actors room to interpret their roles and avoiding dictating camera angles to the director (who will ignore them anyway). The second half of the book deals with content, also in a remarkably pragmatic way--structure, pacing, plot resolution, and dialogue that really stink are all handily dealt with. Flinn illustrates almost all his points with excerpts from screenplays both good and bad (names have been changed to protect the guilty), giving the reader concrete examples of the difference between poorly and well-structured scenes. Not sucking is an unusual goal for a screenwriting manual, but any script reader will agree it is a noble one. --Ali Davis
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