Notes to Screenwriters: Advancing Your Story, Screenplay, and Career With Whatever Hollywood Throws at You

Screen storytelling is an essentially collaborative process. Writers need feedback but too often the notes they receive stall them and even demoralize them. This book unpacks the whys and what-fors of all the most commonly given notes on scripts, stories, and writers themselves. Coming from the perspective of experienced Hollywood professionals, Notes to Screenwriters offers insightful and concise guidance on the entire storytelling process, as well as what comes before it in the life of the writer, and after it in the marketing of the screenplay. It is a unique blend of classical storytelling principles combined with practical knowledge of the contemporary marketplace. This book is destined to be a resource for every writer who gets past the initial stage of writing a first draft and needs sage counsel for what to do next.

Vicki Peterson is a screenwriter and founding partner of Catharsis (storycatharsis.com), which mentors writers and develops screen projects for various producers. Vicki’s most recent writing projects include television pilots, Mind Over Matter and Alum Rock Ave, which is with Herrick Entertainment. Her feature, Mother at War is with producer Ken Stewart. Her other projects include features, TV specs, and rewrites for production companies, and her scripts have been selected as finalists for several film festivals and fellowships. Vicki is formerly the director of both the Writing for Film and Television Program and Producing and Entertainment Executive Program at Act One, Inc. (actoneprogram.com), of which she is also an alumna. Before that, Vicki was a development executive at Origin Entertainment and Hero Pictures. Vicki got her start in theatre, working at the Tony award –winning La Jolla Playhouse on several pre-Broadway productions.

Barbara Nicolosi is the Founder and Chair Emeritus of Act One, Inc. a non-profit mentoring program for screenwriters and producers in Hollywood. She is a member of the Writers Guild of America-West and has written screenplays for several Hollywood production companies. She has been a development executive, story consultant and script doctor for hundreds of projects as well as a grants panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, and a reader for the prestigious Humanitas Prize for screenwriting. Barbara has been an adjunct professor of screenwriting at Pepperdine University and Azusa Pacific University.