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How to Write a Screenplay That Doesn't Suck and Will Actually Sell: Your Ultimate, No-Nonsense Screenwriting 101 for Writing a Screenplay by Michael Rogan | 111 pages pages I think it's ironic that a book that purports to be the "ultimate, no-nonsense" guide to screenwriting — a writing format that is notoriously sparse — has such a bloated and overwrought title. But I suppose that's kind of emblematic of this whole book, which is a very few bits of advice (much of which is out of date even by its 2013 publishing date standards) presented with punchy language like calling things "crappy" and saying "bitchin'" and "frickin'" that is meant to convey dynamism and excitement but mostly just seems to be an attempt to stand out. I'm not really sure what I expected from the editor of "ScriptBully Magazine," an e-zine that, as far as I can tell from its Facebook page, was last active sometime around 2016 and has very little connection to anyone in the industry actually doing anything. Instead, this seems to be one of the many offerings in the cottage industry of "screenwriter advice," which is basically when people who aren't successful screenwriters themselves offer "expert advice" to aspiring screenwriters about how to make it in Hollywood. This author's bio even says that he's a "former overworked, underpaid script reader and optioned screenwriter" (in other words, a freelancer paid to cover scripts for someone here and there, who once upon a time made a deal with a production company or producer to buy his script but it fell through and the movie was never made). And I don't really want to trash the guy because getting movies made is hard and when they fall through it's often not the writer's fault... but to then parlay that into some sort of position of expertise where you tell other aspiring screenwriters "surefire" ways of becoming successful? Then why isn't he using those techniques for his own writing career?  Anyway, I don't want to bag on this guy too hard, but at the same time if you want to be a screenwriter, this is definitely not your "ultimate, no-nonsense" guide to doing it. In fact, I'll save you the trouble of reading it and list his ten tips for writing a screenplay that doesn't suck. They are, in order: be bold, write every day, watch movies and read scripts, watch classic films, print out the script and compare it to the finished film, rewrite, act like you live in Los Angeles (even if you don't), network, randomly reach out to celebrities and people who work in Hollywood and tell them how much you admire them, and do it yourself if all else fails.  I could talk more about any one of those points and why it's either incredibly basic advice, or incredibly outdated and irrelevant. But I'll save that for another day because otherwise this review would be 5,000 words long and way more negative.  |
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