Screenwriting for Neurotics: A Beginner’s Guide to Writing a Feature-Length Screenplay from Start to Finish

273 Pages·2014·1.18 MB·English

by  Scott Winfield Sublett

for Neurotics
SCREENWRITING

SCREEN WRITING
for Neurotics
A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO
WRITING A FEATURE-LENGTH
SCREENPLAY FROM START TO
FINISH
SCOTT WINFIELD SUBLETT
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA PRESS, IOWA CITY
University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 52242
Copyright © 2014 by the University of Iowa Press
www.uiowapress.org
Printed in the United States of America
Design by Richard Hendel
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The University of Iowa Press is a member of Green Press Initiative
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Printed on acid- free paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sublett, Scott Winfield.
Screenwriting for neurotics : a beginner's guide to writing a feature-length
screenplay from start to finish / by Scott Winfield Sublett.
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-60938-276-6 (pbk), ISBN 978-1-60938-300-8 (ebk)
1. Motion picture authorship—Handbooks, manuals, etc.
2. Television authorship—Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title.
PN1996.S83 2014
808.2′3—dc23    2014010245
Dedicated
to my loyal friend
CathleeN MIller,
who proves that writers
can and do change the
world

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction:
Myths That Make You Crazy 1
1 The Idea 11
2 The Spine 26
3 Plot 62
4 Deeper into Plotting 83
5 The Scene 114
6 The Step Outline 126
7 Format 156
8 Description 176
9 Dialogue 193
10 Miscellany 210
11 The Rewrite 234
12 Selling Your Script 247
Index 257

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
So many people helped me grow in my teaching and writing,
foremost among them my mentor and friend Professor Richard
Walter, legendary chair of the University of California, Los
Angeles, Screenwriting Program and one of the last original
thinkers. The brilliant Joseph Epstein, whose class I took at
Northwestern, is why I write today. At San Jose State University,
Professor Mike Adams, Dr. David Kahn, and my delightful
students taught me that teaching is learning—and nearly as
much fun as writing. Throughout life, my mother, father, sister,
and brother have supplied love (and money) that I can never
repay. Bernardo Bertolucci supposedly once said that his
psychiatrist deserved a credit on all his films. I similarly credit
two accomplished psychologists, Dr. Collins Chiu and Dr. Pat
Hanley- Peterson, for liberating in me the creativity that lives in
us all. I never met Alfred Hitchcock, but he has my everlasting
gratitude for performing the ongoing experiment in cinematic
narrative that was his life. Thanks to Sue Bergin, Melanie
Webber, and Carolyn Beach Welcome for their proofreading,
and to Drew Tucker for his indexing. Saved for last is my
wonderful editor at the University of Iowa Press, Elisabeth
Chretien, without whose help and encouragement this book
would not exist.