HIGHLIGHTS OF THE AUSTIN FILM FESTIVAL & SCREENWRITING CONFERENCE

2016 Awardees panel with Paul Feig, Nancy Meyers, Marta Kauffman during the Austin Film Festival. (Photo by Jack Plunkett)
2016 Awardees panel with Paul Feig, Nancy Meyers, Marta Kauffman during the Austin Film Festival. (Photo by Jack Plunkett)

by Kelly Jo Brick

The Annual Austin Film Festival and Screenwriting Conference gathers professional and aspiring writers together in the celebration of the contribution writers make to film and television.

Attendees had the opportunity to see a jam packed slate of films as well as choose from a variety of panels on the craft, art and business of writing for television and film. TVWriter.com’s own Contributing Editor Kelly Jo Brick, was in Austin as a panelist this year and she brings some top takeaways from the event.

BREAKING IN  read article

The BBC Writers Room has What You Need

by Larry Brody

Here’s a page, just one page, from the BBC Writers Room website. We’ve written about the site before but are showing this pic because we at TVWriter™ think that the Writers Room is one of the most helpful TV writing sites we have ever seen and want to encourage our visitors to get on over there and learn all you can.

And yes, we’re aware of the irony of using an image as a way of helping y’all learn more about using words. As long as we don’t think too hard about the deeper meanings and ramifications.

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Click the pic above to go to the BBC Writers Room Success Story Page!
read article

Peggy Bechko’s World of Novel Writing

by Peggy Bechko

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Now this is a title!

Okay folks, I think I’m going to go back to basics for those writing novels – especially since this is national novel writing month – or NaNoWriMo as it’s called and we’re already well into it with a few of my friends participating.

So, there are lots of people out there who TALK about writing a novel, but then there are the ones who actually do it. Congratulations if you’re one of the later. Then there are people who’ve talked about writing a novel and finally actually do it!  Congratulations to you as well. Bet it feels good.

For those of you who are still kind of getting your feet wet and aren’t really on stable ground as yet. Here are a few things to get you motivated and stay on track. read article

Posts TVWriter™ Wishes We’d Published Instead of These Other Guys

This week’s collection of recent articles from other websites about TV, TV writing, etc., etc., etc. The plan here is for you to click on their headlines and visit the sites and read the posts in full…and is anybody asks, tell ’em TVWriter™ sentcha, okay?

The joys of binge-watching
by Scholars and Rogues

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For the past year I have had some health issues that have taken me out of active circulation—nothing life-threatening, but certainly life changing during the period, and for a little while yet. One of these was a broken bone in my foot that had me sitting in front of the television for a solid six weeks, leg up on the hassock and (for the moment) out of the boot thing they give you these days.

The other stuff doesn’t need details, but it also involved being relatively immobile for long periods. Plus the interesting effects of some of what they put you on these days for various things. For someone with no real health issues since I got mono the summer I was 20 and some back stuff in my 30s, this came as something of a surprise. All of a sudden, I’m getting old. All of this has largely plunked me in a chair in front of the television, for a considerably longer time frame that I would have considered healthy, or laying on the couch with my laptop on wherever your lap is when you’re laying down. So this was a golden opportunity to catch up on stuff, through the joys of Netflix and Amazon…. read article

Peggy Bechko’s World of Suspense

by Peggy Bechko

Suspense.

That’s the key to a good story. Doesn’t matter if it’s a script or a novel. Suspense is what draws the reader/viewer in and holds on tight.

So is creating suspense one of your skills? read article