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If finding an agent the “normal” way is not working for you, a good way to get your work read and possibly “discovered” is by submitting it in one of the many screenwriting contests that now exist throughout the world. A mention to a production company that your script has been selected as one of t…

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman offers a good example of taking dialogue from a play and using it as an opportunity to see an incident as it happens. There is a scene in which Willy Loman approaches his boss, the son of the man he has worked for for nearly thirty-five years. His “American dream…

A scene is written in a master shot, or specific shots. A master shot covers a general area: a room, a street, a lobby. A specific shot focuses on a specific part of the room—a door, say, or in front of a specific store on a specific street. The scenes from American Beauty are mostly presented in m…

F. Scott Fitzgerald is a perfect example. One of the most gifted novelists of the twentieth century, Fitzgerald came to Hollywood to write screenplays. He failed miserably—he tried to “learn” camera angles and the intricate technology of film, and he let that get in the way of his screenwriting. No…

Notice how the one line of action, showing the house, from living room to kitchen to bedroom to the outside, is a continuous line of action, but illustrated with four different couples, giving the impression that Carolyn has been showing the house the whole day. This single line of action, showing …