5 Star – Love it
4 Star – Read it
3 Star – Use it
2 star – Query it
1 star – Bin it
Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach. Paul Joseph Gulino
This book claims that movies can be broken down into sequences: typically eight. As a tool-book, it is genuinely useful. The writing’s a bit heavy-handed though and the author tends to over-complicate things: Telegraphing. This is also known as pointing or advertising. Right…that’s that cleared up then.
Writing Sitcoms. John Byrne & Marcus Powell.
This is the only book I’ve read that is dedicated to writing sitcoms. It’s very basic but there’s nothing wrong with that. The settings and scenarios section is excellent. I even found myself reaching for my highlighter. The only down-side is the glut of cringe-worthy jokes from Byrne and Powell.
Raindance Writers lab: Write and sell the hot screenplay. Eliot Grove.
This is well worth buying, if only for the section on selling your screenplay. It is all here; from copyrighting material, to pitching ideas, right through to making the all-important deal. Better still, Grove is so slick that it makes you feel cool simply by association.
Aristotle’s Poetics for Screenwriters. Michael Tierno.
Aristotle’s poetics is probably where all this screenwriting theory started. Unfortunately, there are now many books that expound his theories in a form far more relevant to the 21st century. It’s like Yahoo…before Google came along. Tierno does a grand job in de-constructing the wise man’s musings though.
Writing the Romantic Comedy. Billy Mernit.
Mernit has an encyclopedic knowledge of Rom-Coms. The examples he uses may be somewhat dated but this should definitely be on your reading list if you are considering writing one of your own. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl back again. If only real-life relationships were that simple…
The Naked Jape. Jimmy Carr & Lucy Greeves
Not a screenwriting book, but useful all the same. By deconstructing jokes, Carr and Greeves teach you how to write them too. There’s also a gag on each page, including this gem from Demetri Martin: “Employee of the month is a good example of how somebody can be both a winner and a loser, at the same time.” I concur.