FADE IN: on Screenwriting, by Jeffrey Scott

If you’re a writer who wants to improve the quality of your story, or a producer who wants your film to have the best possible chance at the box office, I've got 10 writing maxims for you that will maximize your chances of success...

Much has been written about the subject of BE-DO-HAVE in the self-help arena. But applying it to screenwriting can be very helpful as well.

Everybody knows that Moe Howard, as well as his cohorts Curly, Shemp and Larry, were creative geniuses. But not so many know that Moe’s son-in-law, Norman Maurer, was a genius in his own right. 

I recently went to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and looked at dozens of pencil drawings by Gustav Klimt. Surprisingly, I made an interesting mental connection with screenplay outlines: A pencil drawing visualizing what is going to be painted is to an oil what a screenplay is to a film.

Last month I asked my readers what their favorite animated series of the last 50 years were. Now the votes are in...

You sat before the TV watching them when you were a kid. Now dig up those warm memories and let's find out the favorite cartoons of the past 50 years!

Congratulations to all my friends at Reliance Animation for winning the 2012 FICCI BAF Award for "Best Animated TV Episode"!

Wish it wasn’t so damned hard to write a great screenplay? Wish no more! Emmy-winning writer Jeffrey Scott reviews THE CORE ELEMENTS screenplay writing method.

When I’m not writing important blog posts I’m writing frivolous stuff like feature films. Earlier this year I had the pleasure of working with Chris Moujaes, the Director of Original Entertainment at FUNimation Entertainment, and producer April Bennett on Electronic Arts/Bioware’s animated feature film, Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker...

There is no precise definition of what writer’s block is. Most likely, it’s just the terror of staring at a blank page or screen and thinking that the next words that come out of your cranial matter have got to be Oscar quality. Whatever it is, it’s really not that hard to handle. Over the years I have found three effective ways to get past whatever is blocking my creativity...  

Ever get a big fish on the line only to have it get away before you could pull it into the boat? You probably didn’t set the hook. Rule #1 in fishing: set the hook. The same is true in screenwriting, only you’re not trying to hook a fish, you’re trying to hook the audience. You don’t need a fishing rod, you need ten great pages.

Does self-promotion really work?  What happens when you promote your writing via blog, Facebook and LinkedIn?  Over the past several weeks I’ve done just that.  The results are in.  Check out this post and find out exactly what happened with my experiment in self-promotion...