Review
"Alex Epstein brings a screenwriting pro's honesty, skill, and expertise to a field otherwise crowded with how-to-write quacks." --John Badham, director of Saturday Night Fever



Book Description
The most innovative and creative screenwriting book yet, from an author who knows first-hand what it takes to get a movie made.

Based on an award-winning website hailed as "smart enough for professional screenwriters and accessible enough for aspiring screenwriters", Crafty Screenwriting is the first book not only to offer a successful screenwriter's tricks of the trade, but to explain what development executives really mean when they complain that the "dialogue is flat," or "the hero isn't likeable." Fresh, provocative, and funny, Alex Epstein diagnoses problem that other screenwriting books barely address, and answers questions they rarely ask, like "Why is it sometimes dangerous to know your characters too well before you start writing," or "Why does your script have to be so much better than the awful pictures that get made every day?" As a development executive who has accepted and rejected countless screenplays, and a produced screenwriter himself, Epstein can take you into the heart of the most important question of all: "Is this a movie?" A crucial book for anyone who has ever wondered what it takes to get their movie made.



About the Author
Alex Epstein has worked as a development executive, screenwriter, and television story editor for more than a decade. He has helped develop projects with directors such as Richard Attenborough and John Badham.


Excerpted from Crafty Screenwriting by Alex Epstein. Copyright © 2002. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One HOOK What’s a screenplay? Good question. After all, if you’re going to write one, you ought to know the answer. Right? You probably already know an answer. A screenplay is writing intended to be turned into film. It’s a hundred-odd pages held together by brass brads, in which you have written down whatever you want the audience to see and hear in your movie. If it gets made, the director will come up with a whole new vision, the actors will change your dialogue, the editor will concoct another way to order the scenes, and it won’t be "your movie" any more. That’s okay. A screenplay is not a complete work. It is not intended to be appreciated on its own. If a movie were a building, a screenplay would be the blueprint. Nobody settles down in front of a roaring fire with her beloved, a bottle of Chianti, and a nice blueprint. Nobody takes a couple of good screenplays out to the beach — outside of show business, anyway. That means there is no point writing a screenplay if it isn’t going to get produced. We all know that, somewhere in the back of our minds, but most of the thousands of screenplays I’ve read in ten years as a development executive were never in any danger of being made into a movie. From the moment the writer conceived them, they were doomed. They may have been well-crafted or poorly crafted, but they were all missing what they needed in order to get made. This book is about writing movies that get made. Not just popular movies. Art films get made, too. Writing a screenplay that will make a brilliant movie is a good part of writing a movie that will get made, and that’s what most of this book is about. But that’s not all of it. So it’s important to understand what else a screenplay is, if you’re going to go to all the trouble of writing one, because if you don’t, the odds are you’re wasting your time.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Based on an award-winning website hailed as "smart enough for professional screenwriters and accessible enough for aspiring screenwriters", Crafty Screenwriting is the first book not only to offer a successful screenwriter's tricks of the trade, but to explain what development executives really mean when they complain that the "dialogue is flat," or "the hero isn't likeable." Fresh, provocative, and funny, Alex Epstein diagnoses problem that other screenwriting books barely address, and answers questions they rarely ask, like "Why is it sometimes dangerous to know your characters too well before you start writing," or "Why does your script have to be so much better than the awful pictures that get made every day?" As a development executive who has accepted and rejected countless screenplays, and a produced screenwriter himself, Epstein can take you into the heart of the most important question of all: "Is this a movie?" A crucial book for anyone who has ever wondered what it takes to get their movie made.

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