Writing Craft & Showbiz Career Info
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Highest-grossing director in history. Most-thanked person in Oscar history. An actual word in the Oxford English Dictionary. And that's just the bits we can measure....
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Published 11 hours ago
It’s been an uneasy start to summer. Ticks are legion. The weather is unpredictable. The Iran war drags ludicrously on. Inflation is rising faster than ever. SpaceX, Anthropic, and Open A.I. are about to go public, which will cause ....
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Published 16 hours ago
Joy Williams wrote that one of eight essential attributes of the short story is “An animal within to give its blessing.” When I first came upon this wisdom, I was on the seventh draft of my debut novel Kitten, about...
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Published 18 hours ago
Join our next class! 12 Things You Should Know Before Writing A Screenplay (June 20th) - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/12-things-you-should-know-before-writing-a-screenplay-tickets-1990839616886?aff=oddtdtcreator Our two new books... STORY QUESTIONS: How To Unlock Your Story One Question At A Time - https://payhip.com/b/ZTvq9 and 17 Steps To Writing A Great Main Character - https://payhip.com/b/kCZGd WATCH 'SITE' TRAILER https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV8fZvBVPLU An accomplished WGA screenwriter, feature director, producer and Emmy-recognized editor,...
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Published 1 day ago
Round two of our Best of the Best Books Reading Challenge ?is underway with 50 of the greatest summer novels of all time!? | Lit Hub Helen Bain follows in Sylvia Plath’s footsteps from Paris to Wellesley.| Lit Hub Biography...
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Published 2 days ago
Join our next class! 12 Things You Should Know Before Writing A Screenplay (June 14th or 20th) - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/12-things-you-should-know-before-writing-a-screenplay-tickets-1990839616886?aff=oddtdtcreator Our two new books... STORY QUESTIONS is currently 10% off! - https://payhip.com/b/ZTvq9 and 17 Steps To Writing A Great Main Character - https://payhip.com/b/kCZGd John Vorhaus is best known for his comedy-writing classic, The Comic Toolbox: How to be Funny Even if...
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Published 3 days ago
All About Interrogation Scenes Interrogation scenes can be exceptionally powerful in our stories. They can be tense, adding to cause and effect, escalating the story towards the showdown. They can also be the moment one character – on either side of the table! – can move from one state of being to another (whatever that… Read More »How To Write An...
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Published 3 days ago
If literacy is in decline, why are bookstores booming? “Bookstores are filling a social void.” | Lit Hub Bookstores Korean poets and their translators pair poetry collections with K-pop albums. | Lit Hub On Translation Did you know the Mayflower Puritans...
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Published 3 days ago
It’s spring in Prague and as I write my desk is covered in pollen. Morning bees browse around my window, foraging for materials. I was recently translating some verses of Virgil, Book IV of the Georgics, which is dedicated almost...
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Published 3 days ago
I analysed 4,690 director credits across 4,203 movies to examine how the age of film directors has shifted over nine decades of cinema....
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Published 4 days ago
Discomfort with “unlikeable” female characters may reflect readers’ own biases and have little or nothing to do with the quality of the writing....
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Published 4 days ago
Join our next class! 12 Things You Should Know Before Writing A Screenplay (June 14th or 20th) - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/12-things-you-should-know-before-writing-a-screenplay-tickets-1990839616886?aff=oddtdtcreator Our two new books... STORY QUESTIONS is currently 10% off! - https://payhip.com/b/ZTvq9 and 17 Steps To Writing A Great Main Character - https://payhip.com/b/kCZGd 0:00 - Intro 3:15 - Interview Begins 10:25 - Albert Grossman 16:58 - John Fogerty 26:07 - CEO...
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Published 5 days ago
The partnership with a game company will release a series of works set in the world of the popular party game Blood on the Clocktower....
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Published 5 days ago
The large US Christian publisher has announced Seed & Sparrow, an imprint for picture books and board books for ages newborn to eight....
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Published 5 days ago
The business book publisher is launching the Works in Progress series, a series of handbooks for people in the early stage of their careers....
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Published 5 days ago
It will publish board and picture books “built for play” for readers ages newborn to 10....
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Published 5 days ago
Not only must nonfiction books offer solutions, they must also share the promise being made—the emotional outcome the reader will achieve....
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Published 6 days ago
Join our next class! 12 Things You Should Know Before Writing A Screenplay (June 14th or 20th) - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/12-things-you-should-know-before-writing-a-screenplay-tickets-1990839616886?aff=oddtdtcreator Our two new books... STORY QUESTIONS is currently 10% off! - https://payhip.com/b/ZTvq9 and 17 Steps To Writing A Great Main Character - https://payhip.com/b/kCZGd After beginning his career as a graphic artist, Ron quickly realized his true passion was storytelling. That realization...
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Published 7 days ago
I pulled the tax returns of every US film festival I could find, going back a decade, to work out how much of their income comes from filmmaker fees....
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Published 7 days ago
Our two new books... STORY QUESTIONS is currently 10% off! - https://payhip.com/b/ZTvq9 and 17 Steps To Writing A Great Main Character - https://payhip.com/b/kCZGd Trevor Newlin was born in Longview, Texas. The town where Matthew McConaughey attended high school. Trevor started his acting career on stage. Originally wanting to be a paleontologist, his theater director suggested to him that he should...
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Published 9 days ago
If ever a movie was the victim of unfortunate timing, it was SpaceCamp (1986), a summer genre film released forty years ago. Specifically, the Harry Winer film premiered just five short months after the space shuttle Challenger disaster occurred. As you may recall, Challenger was destroyed 73 seconds into its flight on January 28, 1986 because of a problem with a solid rocket booster....
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Published 9 days ago
It’s easy to ignore weak sentences because they’re usually grammatically correct. They don’t get flagged by grammar checkers, and they’re easy to skim past while you’re writing. But during editing, certain sentences start to stand out because something feels slightly off. Maybe it’s too wordy, the idea feels flat, or it’s harder to read than… The post How To Fix...
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Published 9 days ago
Your Story’s Promise To Your Target Viewers Or Readers Most spec screenplays don’t have a strong opener Instead, they open with generic scenes that could belong to literally any story. Yet *produced* movies and TV shows tell us exactly what we’re in for from the very first moments. All we have to do is really… Read More »How Your Story’s Opening...
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Published 10 days ago
Join our next class! 12 Things You Should Know Before Writing A Screenplay (June 7th, 14th, or 20th) - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/12-things-you-should-know-before-writing-a-screenplay-tickets-1990839616886?aff=oddtdtcreator Our two new books... STORY QUESTIONS: How To Unlock Your Story One Question At A Time - https://payhip.com/b/ZTvq9 and 17 Steps To Writing A Great Main Character - https://payhip.com/b/kCZGd MASTERCRASH: A Crash Course In Spoof Comedy https://mastercrash.com BUY THE BOOK...
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Published 11 days ago
I crunched the numbers on 2,756 films to see if there is a connection between how audiences and critics rate them and the cast’s star power....
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Published 11 days ago
This debate has been going on for years, and libraries have limited leverage, but new state bills have started to push the envelope....
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Published 12 days ago
The University of Florida Press is launching Warrington Press in partnership with the university’s college of business....
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Published 12 days ago
More than 600 brick-and-mortar, pop-up, and mobile bookstores were added in 2025, many of them reflecting the growth of romance and romantasy....
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Published 12 days ago
A panel at this week’s US Book Show offered insightful perspectives from a BookTok influencer and a publisher’s director of digital marketing....
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Published 12 days ago
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Published 12 days ago
Our two new books... STORY QUESTIONS is currently 10% off! - https://payhip.com/b/ZTvq9 and 17 Steps To Writing A Great Main Character - https://payhip.com/b/kCZGd Matt Harry has been writing since he was 10 years old. He learned to make movies at the University of Southern California, which was the closest he could get to attending Hogwarts in the real world. He...
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Published 13 days ago
If you use AI editing tools to correct your writing, does it mean it could be flagged as AI-generated? That’s a question many writers are now asking as AI becomes part of everyday correcting, editing, and proofreading. The answer isn’t straightforward because correcting writing, rewriting text, and generating content are three different processes. In practice,… The post Do AI Editing...
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Published 13 days ago
When building a character, roles can be efficient shorthand—hard-boiled detective, dutiful nurse—but the best characterizations require going deeper....
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Published 13 days ago
Our two new books... STORY QUESTIONS is currently 10% off! - https://payhip.com/b/ZTvq9 and 17 Steps To Writing A Great Main Character - https://payhip.com/b/kCZGd Corey Mandell is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter who has written projects for Ridley Scott, Wolfgang Petersen, Harrison Ford, John Travolta, Warner Brothers, Universal, 20th Century Fox, Fox 2000, Fox Family, Working Title, Paramount, Live Planet, Beacon...
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Published 15 days ago
Once you’ve finished writing, the next step is deciding where to publish your work and which platform best matches your goals as a writer. Today, there are many different ways to publish, whether you write articles and essays, short stories, poetry, or novels. If you’re new to online publishing or exploring alternatives, you’ll quickly find… The post You’ve Written It:...
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Published 15 days ago
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Published 16 days ago
Our two new books... STORY QUESTIONS is currently 10% off! - https://payhip.com/b/ZTvq9 and 17 Steps To Writing A Great Main Character - https://payhip.com/b/kCZGd Blake Ridder is a filmmaker, writer, director and actor, born in Shanghai and raised in the United Kingdom from the age of nine. He began acting in 2017, then wrote and directed his first short a year...
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Published 17 days ago
A new video from me, under The Film Data Scientist banner, examining the long-term decline of sexual content in mainstream cinema....
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Published 17 days ago
Feel like you’re stalling? If you feel like your screenwriting career is stalling, you’re not alone. The past ten years have created huge problems for the industry. Screenwriting circa 2026 is more challenging than it has ever been. Industry pros have left in record levels, with those that remain telling me it’s the worst they’ve… Read More »Why Your Screenwriting Career...
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Published 17 days ago
Potential readers can step inside your book’s world via brief, text-based, choose-your-own-adventure-style stories made with online tools....
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Published 18 days ago
Our two new books... STORY QUESTIONS is currently 10% off! - https://payhip.com/b/ZTvq9 and 17 Steps To Writing A Great Main Character - https://payhip.com/b/kCZGd Nick Morton has produced nearly 30 movies / tv series which include RAY (Jamie Fox, Regina King, Kerry Washington), SAHARA (Mathew McConaughey, Penelope Cruz, Steve Zahn) and COOPER'S BAR (Rhea Seehorn). Nick is also a standup comedian,...
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Published 19 days ago
