The Complete Book of Screenwriting

by J. Michael Straczynski

Book Overview

To survive and thrive in the fantasyland that is show business, you need to know the realities of writing and selling. J. Michael Straczynski learned these realities the hard way. With his help,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0898795125
• ISBN13: 9780898795127
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Writer's Digest Books
• Length: 424 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

All Purpose

Scriptwriting is a great all purpose review of both the creative and business sides of writing for TV, movies, animation, radio drama, and the stage. Straczynski is the perfect authority to write on these subjects, having garnered success in all those fields. The book is a how to manual, with plenty of examples to follow. It also traces out the business side of selling what you write. Straczynski writes in a personable style, but pulls no punches. He helps a potentional writer separate his dreams from reality without crushing one's ambition. This book has been used in colleges as a textbook and upon reading it, yu'll see why. It's a handy reference tool that I have thumbed back through scores of times over the last 3 years. I give it the highest praise. It should be the starting point for anyone serious about writing in the performing arts.

The Writer's Bible...

I will spare You the same comments as the other reviews, as we are all in agreement that this book is incredible. There is a business that any writer must deal with, and JMS tells You how to go about it. Without this knowledge, You will *never* get hired. Also, JMS challenges the reader to not simply go around telling others, "I'm a writer." Rather, he wants You to have discipline and write whenever You have a moment's time to do so. There are a lot of talkers, and then there are those who succeed by hard work, discipline, an understanding of how the business works, and perseverance. I would highly endorse this book over other books that are simply made to take Your money, not unlike many of those scam writers' workshops who tell You the winning "formula" to a great work. JMS has paid his dues, written hundreds of scripts, and has worked as an Executive Producer for many successful shows. So please don't waste Your money on a fly by night writer who has never succeeded herself, but listen to the honesty and sincerity of a man who wrote this book under the premise that he wished he had had this book when he started. Best of luck to You all.

A book on writing that's not a stupid "how-to"?

HELL YES!This book gives you *suggestions* for story and structure, without cramming some step-by-step stifling "guaranteed" method down your throat. JMS's advice is open-ended and encourages you to strike out on your own and write unique, one-of-a-kind scripts that are completely yours. No Syd Field type "paradigm", no top secret formula that the author claims can be found in ALL successful movies (or TV shows or cartoons or plays...)--No BS!But what this book does best is function as a reference for a wide variety of script formats and styles, from television to radio to the stage to the screen (even cartoons are covered). The book gives you ideas on how to market your particular script, helps the reader to decide what kind of story he'd like to tell or what kind of script he'd like to write, even gives you some ideas of what to expect depending on your choices. (You even get solid guidelines on what producers and professional readers expect the script to look like, right down to page margins.)No scriptwriter should be without this book. It is crammed full of refreshingly useful and relevant information, it's funny, it's no-nonsense, it's fun to read, and it makes you want to sit down and get writing.Let the "wannabes" read something like "How to be a Megarich Screenwriter in 24 Hours" or "PROVEN Hollywood Secrets". But if you're serious and not dumb enough to expect the road to be easy, check this book out.

Scriptwriting, or the Tinseltown FAQ?

Salted with script excerpts and script layouts in equal measure, THE COMPLETE BOOK OF SCRIPTWRITING is written with humour and a prose style which makes it almost as easy to read as fiction. It even includes the award-winning Babylon 5 script, "The Coming of Shadows" as an appendix. But is it an effective textbook? The book covers the areas of film, screen, radio, animation and stage play scriptwriting in detail. It will show you how to develop a script in each genre from original idea through synopsis, then outline, to first draft, demonstrating at each stage who you'll be dealing with on the production side, and what you should expect to receive in payment. The pitfalls and the cynical traps some companies use are well signposted. A significant failing, though, is that it does not cover as much of the art and technical aspects of scriptwriting as one might like - jms, as he's universally known on the Internet, seems to have the approach that the best teacher is practice. He devotes much more space to the layout of scripts (crucial to acceptance), their development and their marketing, with many anecdotes to illuminate, entertain and illustrate. This is all very well, but layout and marketing details are local to the US. If you are intending to live in L.A. and write for the local market, this book is essential reading. If you live or work abroad, you may find the scriptwriting tips in the Complete Book a little incomplete for the cover price, although many Babylon 5 fans have bought it simply for the full episode script at the back. None the less, this is a very well-written book (as one would expect from jms). It is not remotely starchy - unlike many books for writers - and it covers areas of scriptwriting which most other tomes on the subject fail to address, or at least in such detail. If you need to learn from scratch how to write, or to write a script, you'll find plenty of books already out there. But if you need a guide through the almost inpenetrable jungle of L.A., jms is your man, and the Complete Book is your map. Jon Green (jonsg@pobox.com

Ever dreamed of writing for Hollywood? Get this book!

J. Michael Straczynski's The Complete Book of Scriptwriting is a real breath of fresh air when it comes to learning how it *really* works out there in Tinseltown. Straczynski covers it all: Movies, Television, Animation, Stage and Radio scriptwriting...and, just as important, *marketing* your script! The book is written in an easy, conversational style that's very readable. (I finished the book in a weekend!) It's obvious from the outset that this is a book that's going to tell you the way things really are, instead of some kind of snow job. If you really have the "burn," says Straczynski, your options are almost endless...and here's how to explore them realistically. I found the book extremely informative.