The subtitle of this book is "The Last Book On Screenwriting That You'll Ever Need." Given that I've never had any real interest in writing a screenplay, one might think I didn't need any book on screenwriting at all. But a number of friends of mine who write novels are big fans of this book, because what it's really about is how to structure the beats of a story so that your narrative builds and lands the way you want it to. And after the last novel I read lost the plot entirely in my view, it was very nice to read something which helped me identify why and how that happened.
The best part of this book, and the thing that my friends primarily recommended it for, is the author's beat sheet, which divides every screenplay up into a three act structure with set beats within each of the acts. Because the second (or middle) act also has a midpoint break by which point the narrative should have reached a certain moment within the story, I actually think of this structure as having four acts rather than three, but that's just how it breaks down mentally for me. The beat sheet and the storyboard visualization based on that beat sheet are the main methods he explores; there are a couple of other tips for creating characters and building tension that he mentions, but I found most of those to be either very basic or not particularly helpful for how I think about writing.
The style of the author's writing can be a bit grating, and in his view if a movie makes money it's automatically successful, and if it doesn't it's because the screenplay doesn't adhere to his laws. I don't actually think that how much money a movie (or a book) makes directly corresponds to how successful the story is narratively, but I do think his narrative structures are worth thinking about while writing. Not all of his tips can be applied to fiction writing, but enough of them can be that I think it was a useful book on writing for me to have read.
Grade: B
The best part of this book, and the thing that my friends primarily recommended it for, is the author's beat sheet, which divides every screenplay up into a three act structure with set beats within each of the acts. Because the second (or middle) act also has a midpoint break by which point the narrative should have reached a certain moment within the story, I actually think of this structure as having four acts rather than three, but that's just how it breaks down mentally for me. The beat sheet and the storyboard visualization based on that beat sheet are the main methods he explores; there are a couple of other tips for creating characters and building tension that he mentions, but I found most of those to be either very basic or not particularly helpful for how I think about writing.
The style of the author's writing can be a bit grating, and in his view if a movie makes money it's automatically successful, and if it doesn't it's because the screenplay doesn't adhere to his laws. I don't actually think that how much money a movie (or a book) makes directly corresponds to how successful the story is narratively, but I do think his narrative structures are worth thinking about while writing. Not all of his tips can be applied to fiction writing, but enough of them can be that I think it was a useful book on writing for me to have read.
Grade: B
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