Month: August 2015

5 Secrets About Hollywood Writing

We won’t fool around here. Let’s just say that the article below is a must-read for everyone who comes to TVWriter™. Yeah, that means you too, working writer visitors. Get your professional secrets while they’re hot:

willrogersonhwoodwriters
Hey, if we really thought this was true, would we be running the article below? Of course not, hehehehehe…

by Eric Barker

Thanks to the internet, people are reading and writing more than ever. But is it me, or does it seem like the quality of that writing has gotten worse?

However, this can be a good thing. These days, solid writing really stands out. It can be a competitive advantage in anything you do. read article

Kurt Vonnegut on How to Plot

vonnegut's journey

Vonnegut always had an unerring instinct that enable him to cut across cultural norms and present his thought, feelings, and dreams in new ways. In this video, he gives an under-5 minute chalk talk about how to structure any fiction you write, in any medium. We’ve talked about this before but just found the video of him actually presenting it.

For those who have had it up to here with the, you know, “hero’s journey:”

The Best Film About Writers Ever Made is…?

Crave Online’s staffers pick their favorite films (they call them “movies” cuz they aren’t as pretentious as we are) about writers. We would’ve done the same thing here at TVWriter™, but, you know – we don’t have much of a staff. And this particular topic reminds us that we’re so green we don’t really know all that much about what it’s like to be writers either.

Yet.

Why is this guy under his desk? He's got a damn Selectric, for chrissakes!
Why is this guy under his desk? He’s got a damn Selectric, for chrissakes!

by William Bibbiani

Writers are often told to “write what you know,” and so it makes a lot of sense that so many books, movies, plays and TV shows are about writers. But writing is a difficult experience to express visually, and even more difficult to dramatize to those who may not write themselves, and so many movies about writers – like, it must be said, many movies in general – suck out loud. read article

Are These the Top 25 U.S. Film Schools?

usc

The staff of the Hollywood Reporter has chosen what it believes to be the 25 best film schools in the U.S. We at TVWriter™ may argue a bit about the order in which they’re ranked here, but all in all, this is a solid list of colleges and universities that can give you, the student, the best possible grounding for a TV or film career.

Here’s the Top Ten on the list, from “best” to, um, “less best,” we suppose: read article

More TV Questions and Answers for and from LB

This picture perfectly captures my writing process. And my mental age when I write too.
This picture perfectly captures my writing process. And how old I feel while I write.

by Larry Brody

Related questions from a TVWriter™ visitor who needs answers.

Actually, she demands answers, as in this particular questioner re-sent her questions when it took me more than two days to respond. You’re a tough one, lady. Which means you’ll probably go far.

Now where were we? Oh yeah: read article