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[theincitingscreenwriter]

Screenwriting Master Post

Online Outside Resources | These are websites that compile a lot of information for beginning screenwriters in the industry, have contests/other resources written within, and are just plain helpful and not really any place collected together. (Please let me know if there’s more because I’ve been collecting and learning for years.)

Screenwriting Contests/Representation

Writers Guild of America (WGA): Where writers for the industry work and organize, have contests, just general resources of information on questions on how to get started

Blacklist: Started in 2008, this website was a list of the most read scripts, represented and not represented scripts, that get compiled together for agents, producers, any other members to find stories on this website, it has been getting bigger for years, their twitter also posts stories from their submitted stories, always recommending one sentence stories that are popular from it

ScreenCraft: By far the most popular and stuck out contests, it has been getting bigger for years and the list of contestants give feedback for script submissions and different genre categories with industry lead ins for screenwriting contests

Women in Film (WIF): I only discovered this organization recently but right now they have a contest collaboration with Blacklist where they want more diverse scripts from women having labs for scripts for actors to read with industry lead ins so they are definitely a place to check out

WeScreenplay: This website was started by Ava Duvernay but it also has a lot of contests looking for diversity and is something to check out; also to submit scripts, you can get feedback at a small fee but I found this really helpful for anonymous feedback for my own scripts

Recommended Books

Basics

The Screenwriter’s Bible by David Trottier: This is what my screenwriting teacher recommended me to read first because it was a basic overview of the screenplay formatting, act structures, dialogue, story, etc for me and covers a lot of ground if you have never got started on this

Screenplay: The Foundations on Screenwriting by Syd Field: Definitely a useful resource that I still go back to from now and again if I have questions on what to do with my own scripts

Making a Good Script Great by Linda Seger: This was another read recommended to me and it still covers the basics of writing a story for movies from beginning to end

Story

Four Screenplays by Syd Field: Additional reading that helped me understand certain things to highlight such as character emphasis, themes that undermine characters and their actions, adaptations from a book to the screen, the challenges of it, along with the dramatic writing for an epic and how it was done

Bird by Bird by Annie Lamott: This doesn’t focus on screenwriting per say but I found very helpful to focus on why I’m writing on what I’m writing with her insight and come back to every now and then

Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee: I haven’t read this all the way through but LFTS refers to this book all the time in his videos and I am confident that it would help anyone with this 

Character

Creating Character Arcs: The Masterful Author's Guide to Uniting Story Structure (Helping Writers Become Authors) by K.M. Weiland: Learned about this from youtube but come back to this book a lot of the time because it’s useful at understanding character arcs and navigate on how you want them to be in your stories

YouTube

Lessons From The Screenplay (LFTS): Love LFTS for all his work on movies because everything is beautifully done and still entertaining to get you inspiring to write scenes and why we write them a certain way, explores story, themes, dialogue, etc and always will watch

Every Frame a Painting: This channel doesn’t produce any more videos but the ones still on this website provide a lot of insight for movie techniques and everything is artfully done and entertaining

The New York Times || Anatomy of a Scene Series: Very useful insight into how directors purpose and story behind key scenes of current movies that I find very interesting while writing my own

Vanity Fair || Expert(s) Notes on a Scene Series:  Useful and insightful to watch directors break down why they choose to do certain things with the story, the budget, the effects, and learn something new

VF: Actor/Composers’ Career Timelines Series: This is still fairly new but I think it is amazing how each person gets to comment and reflect on what has happened so early and so far in their own careers and stories that occur behind the scenes of movies they made

VOX || Pop Culture & History: I originally watched this for the film technique series such as how The Wizard of Oz was being made in technicolor and how cinematography has changed dramatically for the better to capture wildlife we would never have seen 50 years ago but there are plenty of series in this entire channel that provide interesting bits and pieces of stories that make you expand your mind and provide entertainment and learning that I find useful still

The Cosmonaut Variety Hour: I give it to the main guy who writes these a lot of credit for providing insight on what he loves and talks about story, it is hidden behind a lot of sarcasm and tiredness, which I can relate to, and believe he makes a lot of valid points within his videos, he loves what he loves and I respect him for it for making me believe in movies a lot and also very entertaining

Nerdwriter1: I don’t always watch every single video but there are some good ones nestled on this channel as well; focusing on several different topics in story

Wired || Technique Critique Series: Love this series in particular because it showcases experts who provide insight and advice on scenes, accents, movie magic, and such

GQ || Iconic Characters’ Series: Even though GQ is meant for the “men”, there are still interesting stories the actors relate and show with their movies throughout their careers and I find it very interesting through the filmmaking process

kaptainkristian: Love this guy and the way he edits all of his film essays, provides a lot of insight in stories, themes, and choices for films

Wisecrack || Philosophy of ... Series: Love this series in particular because it can sprout from film, tv, books, and culture in general and they’re all interesting to watch if you’re ever in a halt

Just Write: Love this channel’s way of editing and exploring themes of movies and such too

Pop Culture Detective: This channel explores a lot of themes throughout tv and film which I find interesting and wish more of this existed on the internet because they are so damn well done for a wide range audience

Patrick (H) Willems: Love this channel as well because it expanded my viewpoint of why we make films, love them, and how we can go further with film technique and what we can do about it in interesting formats and such

Screenwriting Tips, Tricks, & Other Useful Things

General

Read as many scripts as possible, read your favorite movies, read scenes where you want to emulate into your own scenes, analyze why they work/don’t work and keep reading scripts to understand how past writers wrote something to borrow something for your own

Read theatre plays and attend them if possible because they provide direction and themes to works people have incorporated in scripts for TV & film

While writing drafts of films, tv, scenes, have a trusted reader or reading circle who can give you feedback and insight on what to fix, what’s missing, spelling errors, word choice, actions of a character, you’ll need this to make your scripts better

Follow a close, inspiring niche of artists, writers, producers, actors, fans, organizations of inspiration on social medias: Instagram, Twitter,  Pinterest, etc; this will provide insightful knowledge and information for you to work on your own stuff instead of just walking around in circles

Especially recommend Pinterest to create storyboards/mood boards that evoke the feel and tone of your stories such as the aesthetics of movies you enjoy, get influenced from, and aspire to make, these will truly help give direction to the characters, setting, background, dialogue, and such to your screenplays

On YouTube, create a playlist of videos that give you inspiration, this can comprise of film scenes that make you not give up on life, movie trailers I definitely recommend since they hype you in two minutes, film edits, tv scenes, monologues, anything that can be played at a moments notice for writer’s block; if they are very important to you, I would download them to refer for your personal viewings

Format

Celtx: You can make a free account on this website where you can automatically make the script format and produce scripts with whatever you want to get started on

Final Draft: Another screenwriting program a lot of people in the industry use and have automatic formatted screenplays

Script Examples

Film

imsdb.com: This is the biggest website where all scripts seem to end up on for people to read

TV

The 100 Writers Room: I love this show so when the writers release some jpeg glimpses of their scripts from past episodes, I think this is very kind and useful to understand what they write comes to screen