Writing Screenplays That Sell: A Comprehensive, Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Saleable Screenp - Softcover

Hauge, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0070270686 ISBN 13: 9780070270688

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1988

Synopsis

For more than twenty years, Writing Screenplays That Sell has been hailed as the most complete guide available on the art, craft, and business of writing for movies and television. Now fully revised and updated to reflect the latest trends and scripts, Hollywood story expert and script consultant Michael Hauge walks readers through every step of writing and selling successful screenplays. If you read only one book on the screenwriter's craft, this must be the one.

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Reviews

If you've got a half-finished screenplay in the drawer, these two unflaggingly optimistic additions to the how-to literature will make you want to dig it out and get to work. Aimed at beginners, both are by academics who not only teach the subject, but are professional screenwriters themselves. In agreement on most of the basic points, each gives a solid discussion of the craftcharacters, story development, etc.and industry; lays out the all-important details of format; then tells how to market the finished product. Hauge's volume is a detailed manual offering a step-by-step methodology, a scriptual analysis of a hit film, The Karate Kid , and handy chapter summaries. Walter's is more general and breezily written. Both authors argue that screenwriting is a developable craft rather than an art and stress the overpowering need for strong-willed commitment to achieve success. They also agree that, despite all the high-paid, well-established hacks, especially in TV, if you don't have talent, perseverance, imagination, and some luck, you're in the wrong field. For those libraries that can buy only one more title in this crowded field, Hauge is the preferred choice. Two other recent books are Jurgen Wolff and Kerry Cox's Successful Scriptwriting, Writer's Digest, 1988; and Ben Brady and Lance Lee's The Understructure of Writing for Film & Television, Univ. of Texas Pr., 1988. The latter seems aimed at replacing Brady's Keys to Writing for Television and Films as the standard college text. Ed.David Bartholomew, NYPL
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0070270686
• ISBN 13: 9780070270688
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 314