How many definitelys out of 25?

If you design enough books on a school of therapy that seems to work, you’ll find that the incorporated ideas would be useful for anyone. You don’t need to be a ‘client’ (the current name for patient) of a therapist to learn from the ideas of solution-focused brief therapy or occupational therapy.
One of the great [...]

Control

You can find ideas that could be explored in screenplays in odd places.
The following quote comes from an article on the search for a new manager for England’s football team:
One can only truly love someone if they exist to some degree outside the sphere of your control; if in a relationship you can dominate someone [...]

Quotidian

As I passed a local shop yesterday morning, I saw that it had been gutted. I was away in France last week, so I didn’t notice that the shop had closed down.

I have lived on the same block on and off for over thirty years. The launderette had been there all that time. Suddenly [...]

Remakes and the zeitgeist

Why do most remakes not work? Why were the recent versions of ‘The Italian Job’ and ‘Alfie’ flops? Will the new version of ‘The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3′ surpass the original?
Screenwriters hit the big time if their script is on the zeitgeist. The zeitgeist is the dominant cultural perspective. To be ‘on the zeitgeist’ is [...]

“The plane took off over an hour late…

…on my way back to London – back in March.”
A good way of dealing with day-to-day irritations is to realise how unlikely it would be for you to tell the tale of your frustration to a loved one a few days or even hours later. The late train, the mislaid keys, the burnt toast. In [...]

Dream stories

As editing is about storytelling, we can learn from what we leave out from the stories we tell. The moments that aren’t directly required to relate our tales are left out. Dreams are stories that our unconscious mind tells us so that we learn the lessons from the experiences of the day. When I wake [...]

The mass debate

It may be that you have a plot that suggests a theme, or a theme you need to find a plot for, but choosing a compelling theme is very useful when developing your screenplay.
Some people see screenplays as arguments on a given theme. All the characters take positions on the theme. Minor characters’ single lines [...]

A famous philosophizer

For the last few years I have been exploring screenwriting. I think that the more an editor understands screenplay structure and methods, the better the editor.
Part of understanding screenwriting is coming up with ideas for films. You can start with a character and work out an ironic situation they could find themselves in. You can [...]