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How To Write A Great Story Arc For Your Character (With Examples)

A Great Story Arc Needs Conflict Every great story has a beginning, middle, and end, also known as a story arc. In order to keep your audience engaged, your story should have a clear story arc with a conflict that is resolved by the end. Le duh! But what is a story arc? As you may guess, it’s the narrative structure of a story. How that story arc works will depend on the story being told. Characters may deal with problems – aka conflict – in order to make changes in their lives or important realisations. The most common of these… Read More »How To Write A Great Story Arc For Your Character (With Examples)

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10 Quick And Easy Tips To Boost Your Writing

How To Boost Your Writing If you want to give your writing a quick and easy boost, you’ve come to the right place. Here’s a top 10 of writing tips I give most often. What I love about these is they’re straightforward and easy to implement. You can start doing them all TODAY!  Ready? Let’s go … 1) Start Anywhere Writing a whole screenplay or novel from start to finish can seem insurmountable. But what if I told you that you DON’T have to write in chronological order? Just start anywhere. GOGOGO! 2) Bullet Point It Lots of writers freak… Read More »10 Quick And Easy Tips To Boost Your Writing

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FOCUS ON FORMAT – When To Use Captions

What is a caption? On a screenplay, ‘captions’ are those bits of text you may see flash up on screen – i.e.: 24 HOURS EARLIER NEW YORK DAY 32 COLONY 1, THE MOON BAGHDAD, IRAQ INSIDE DEREK’S LOWER INTESTINE You know the ones. You will have seen them countless times whilst watching movies, TV dramas, sitcoms, documentaries and even short films, web series, sketches, YouTube reviews etc. Lots of Bang2writers ask me how to format these. Well, it’s pretty simple. You just need to write: SUPER: [Caption you want to put in] Apparently, ‘Super’ is short for ‘Super impose’. This… Read More »FOCUS ON FORMAT – When To Use Captions

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5 Ways To Stand Out In The Script Pile

One of the top searches on B2W is ‘How to get an agent or manager’ – so if this is you? Then make sure you check out this brilliant initiative from Coverage Ink! They’re a US company that offers quality screenwriting reports – I should know, ‘cos B2W reads for em (and so, incidentally, does B2W sistren Write So Fluid). What I love about Get Repped Now is that it’s a win-win situation for writers: get that feted CONSIDER, a bona fide literary manager will check out your writing … But even if you don’t,  you get a detailed script report… Read More »5 Ways To Stand Out In The Script Pile

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1 Wrong Belief That Is Destroying Your Scene Description

Did you know? The one craft element Bang2writers struggle with – probably more than anything else, in fact – is (wait for it) … … Scene description.  WTAF! I hear you say. Surely character and structure are more problematic?? Well yes, I’ll give you that – especially when we’re talking HOLISTICALLY. But when we’re talking about looking at elements IN ISOLATION – as in literally looking at the page in front of us, in order to try and improve our actual screenwriting craft generally – then it’s scene description all the way that causes the biggest headaches for writers of ANY… Read More »1 Wrong Belief That Is Destroying Your Scene Description

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The ONLY 3 Things You’ll Need For Great Writing

So, fresh off my Live Script Edit at LondonSWF 2017, I’m going to be talking about WRITING CRAFT today. By ‘craft’ I mean the actual mechanics of writing – what’s physically there on the page. I always think of writing craft as something we BUILD, kind of like a wall or house – we lay the foundations first, then pile one brick on top of the other, until we get to the top and finish. As writers, somewhat unsurprisingly, when it comes to craft we’re judged by what is on the page (or not, as the case may be). From… Read More »The ONLY 3 Things You’ll Need For Great Writing

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Top 5 Screenwriting Mistakes Writers Make

Screenwriting shouldn’t be that hard. You have a story, and you turn it into a script. You just have to follow a precise format that’s easy to read. Unfortunately, it’s a bit more complex than that! The script has to paint a picture for the reader. If you want to get it on the desks of producers, directors, actors, and all other important people in the process of making a movie, you have to make things right. Everything starts by critiquing your own work. No matter how good you are, you’ll still notice mistakes when you’re careful enough!  We’ll list… Read More »Top 5 Screenwriting Mistakes Writers Make

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INFOGRAPHIC: All About Dialogue – A Periodic Table

So, I’ve written A LOT on this blog about how writers obsess over their dialogue and why they shouldn’t. This is because too often, writers fall in love with their dialogue and end up telling the story via talk alone. Nooooooooooo! However, if you writers *are* going to obsess on dialogue, then you could do a lot worse than finding out exactly what dialogue really IS. Shockingly, many writers don’t differentiate their characters’ speech patterns enough, so what they *think* is cool and interesting, is actually samey and boring to read. If we consider a book like The Maze Runner… Read More »INFOGRAPHIC: All About Dialogue – A Periodic Table

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10 More Writer Fails (And How To Avoid Them)

Two of the most searched Google terms on this blog are, ‘writer mistakes’ and ‘writer fails’, so I thought I would take a look at you actual WRITERS and what you might doing to kill your screenplay dead. Ready?? Brace yourselves you lot … ‘cos here’s how you’re MURDERING your chances! 1) By … Waiting for inspiration Novelist W. Somerset Maugham said (though some attribute it to Peter De Vries and other writers) “I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.” I love this quote (whomever said it) because it gets straight to… Read More »10 More Writer Fails (And How To Avoid Them)

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How To Write Tight And Visual Scene Description

Get Visual Every screenplay needs to be VISUAL. Basic advice yes, but you’d be surprised how many scripts lack that visual quality!As a script reader, I’ve noted on this blog many times that both ACTIONS and VISUALS are lacking from about 90% of spec screenplays. Check out this GREAT case study from novelist Victoria today on making the leap from prose to screenwriting … ACTUALLY  her words of wisdom are useful to ANY screenwriter IMHO! Be sure to bookmark this page. Enjoy! So. You’re a novelist and want to expand your skill set to include screenwriting. Very cool. Should be just… Read More »How To Write Tight And Visual Scene Description

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Top 5 Screenplay Format Mistakes

How’s your screenplay format? Screenplay format gets a bad rap and is often conflated with writing craft. Whilst sometimes the two things DO cross over, this post will deal predominantly with **how** your script looks ON THE PAGE. Continuing in the Top 5 Mistakes series, I’ll be concentrating on screenplay format today. (I’m assuming your layout, spelling, punctuation and grammar are awesome already. If not, you can check here: 10 Common Errors In Your Writing You Need To Fix Right Now.) Ready, then? Let’s go … 1) Overly long sluglines (aka ‘scene headers’) A slugline or scene header in a… Read More »Top 5 Screenplay Format Mistakes

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3 Steps To Reader Proof Your Screenplay

Reader-Proof Your Screenplay I always recommend Bang2writers reader-proof their scripts. Whilst there are no rules in this screenwriting malarkey, but there are best practices. It should be noted I am talking principally about writing CRAFT here. (There are also lots of format niggly pet peeves that really wind script readers up, which is why I list them all HERE). But what do I mean when I say writers need to reader-proof their script? More, next. STEP 1) Wanted: Good Stories, Well Told First things first. If we want to beat the gatekeepers, it’s very simple. We have to give the… Read More »3 Steps To Reader Proof Your Screenplay

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