Welcome Biz Books!

Since 1996, Biz Books has been helping people make their creative dreams come true for stage and screen people of all stripes. One walk around their Gastown store shows that Biz Books is a special place. Aspiring screenwriters can browse film and theatre scripts, peruse screenwriting software, and mingle with friendly, helpful staff. Biz Books is a thriving necessity in the stage and screen world and West Coast Screenwriting, still in its infancy, is proud to team up with them as a promotional partner.

Hollywood Screenwriter: A Great Entry-Level Screenwriting Program.

Last time I browsed Biz Books, I had a special need: because I was to write in three countries at different computers and would not have a laptop with me, I wanted a piece of screenwriting software that I could apply to several workstations, without buying several expensive copies. I also needed one that could do everything needed to format a script to industry standard, but did not need the advanced tools found in Final Draft and Movie Magic Screenwriter 2000. The staff recommended Hollywood Screenwriter, also by Write Brothers (MM Screenwriter 2000). You can copy Hollywood Screenwriter onto many different computers! Because you need the non-copyable cdrom in the computer before the software will function, there is no danger of piracy. At around CAN$70 for the program, it’s a steal anyway. Perfect. Now, I travel with a cdrom and a data traveler. I no longer need to account for my laptop when my baggage is being weighed on Europe’s luggage-stingy low-cost airlines.

It also occurred to me that Hollywood Screenwriter would be a great program for new screenwriters: people willing to invest a little doing it right, but not yet sure how far they can go in the screenwriting biz. Or, screenwriters who don’t want to pay a lot!

If you live in Vancouver, you can visit Biz Books at 302 West Cordova Street (at Cambie) or you can browse their web store at www.bizbooks.net



For more information on screenwriting workshops: www.westcoastscreenwriting.com

How and Why our Workshops are Better!

Imagine yourself having paid over $500 to sit for a weekend with a couple of hundred others, hearing great info... but with little chance of getting specific help for your own project. That's the normal experience at weekend screenwriting 'workshops'.

Now imagine sitting with only eight or nine others, being team-taught by two professional writer/teachers. Imagine telling your emerging story, or shaping your idea into a screenplay, firing questions about your project, helping mold the weekend so that all get frequent help with the specific challenges in each individual developing script... and having paid about half the price.

If the second 'imagining' excites you more (as it should) then you are the type of new or emerging screenwriter who excites the 'teacher persona' in both Brian and Keith.

Our team-teaching is unique in style, our ability to help a maximum of nine people with stories at different stages is unique in content, our price unique in high-quality professional workshops.

That's why our workshops are unique and more effective.

Go to

www.westcoastscreenwriting.com

and sign up for one already!

Ten things to do… or not to do with dialogue

Stephen King in Danse Macabre, his wonderful book on writing horror novels, notes that he feels confident writing narrative, just fine about writing description, but terrified when writing dialogue… Shoot, that’s half our job. Ok. So here are just a few pointers to help avoid the pitfalls and create ‘real’ conversations.

Please remember:

1) People often speak in fragments. Right? Thought so.

2) Many people repeat themselves, say the same thing again, sometimes in different ways… right... right.

3) With the above two tips, keep in mind that dialogue is character-specific. If all your people speak the same… chances are you have a boring screenplay. Isolate 20 lines of dialogue from each of your major characters and see if they are interchangeable. If so… probably NOT good.

4) Dialogue is a great way to indicate educational level, social status and temperament.

5) Dialogue is a great way not only to share thoughts, feelings, ideas, plans and intentions but also to hide them, to drop ‘half-hints’, to say one thing while the action line tells us what the character is really thinking, feeling, etc.

Please forget about:

6) Characters ‘sharing’ knowledge they already share: “You remember when our mother died ten years ago today?” One character telling another something the character receiving the information already knows, ranks as one of the clunkiest ways of creating exposition. Ever!

7) OTN dialogue. Linked to the above tip, ‘On The Nose’ dialogue says EXACTLY what we are supposed to know: “It’s eight o’clock. Bert is supposed to arrive in five minutes.” Deal with dialogue exposition through hints, gradual revelation, or (since a movie is a story told in pictures) write a scene that shows what we need to know.

8) Telling the actor how to say the line in a parenthetical… e.g. (wryly). The situation and the character’s behaviour in it should give a reader or an actor all the clues they need to “interpret” what is really meant.

9) Overwriting an accent or a dialect: “Jaysus Morphy, begorrah, look ye now.” Give us a feel for the particular region or social status of a character, but don’t overdo it. A few well-placed idioms and the reader’s imagination will soon take over.

10) Getting it right the first time. Read your dialogue out loud… to yourself, or if you’re feeling brave, to a close friend. You’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll hear what needs to be changed!

Oh, and that dialogue exchange you, “Sort of think might not be quite there yet”. You’re right. It isn’t. So rewrite it already… before you’re tempted to send it to some producer who agrees with you, then bins your baby!