Tag: creative writing

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How to Effectively Combat Writer’s Block and Fear of the Blank Page

When writer’s block hits you, it hits you hard. For some, it happens often, for others rarely. But the impact is hard no matter the frequency. Staring at a blank page for hours on end, or looking into the computer screen hoping for inspiration to strike.

The only solution to combat writer’s block is hard work. There is no secret magic place where all the inspiration is waiting for someone to bring it to light. But, for a writer struggling with writer’s block, it seldom helps to hear advice like “You overcome writer’s block by writing.”

There are two techniques which together can help you ward off writer’s block and never to fear a blank page again. Enter Ernest Hemingway and Steven Johnson. Good old Papa and one of the best non-fiction science writers of our generation.

>> Read the entire article on The Writing Cooperative

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Writings

Lethal Weapon — How to create character depth in mainstream action movies

How screenwriter Shane Black and director Richard Donner created a landmark action movie of the 80s by injecting a bit of humanity into the story

Martin Riggs is crazy. Not just your usual kind of crazy. He’s CRAZY. “Jumping off the top of a building for fun” kind of crazy.

A story about a family man cop partnering up with a loose cannon ready for the mental asylum is not a unique story in itself. Mismatched partners is a movie trope as old as movies themselves, but Lethal Weapon have managed to stay relevant and watchable decades past its original premiere in 1987

One of the reasons why Lethal Weapon has captured our attention for so long is the amount of depth there is to the characters. Depth? In an action movie from the 80s? With Mel Gibson? Yes, depth.

>> Read the entire article on Medium.com

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Writings

Kickstart your creative writing — Use the proven structure of mainstream Hollywood screenwriters to outline your story

So, how do you go about writing a screenplay for a feature length movie? Or any longer story for that matter?

You do one thing: Outline. Outline. Outline…. and… outline.

I know that many big-time novelists and screenwriters don’t outline at all. The Coen brothers have said in numerous interviews that they never outline, but for the rest of us, I truly believe that outlining is the way to go.

The classic books on screenwriting by Syd Field, Michael Hauge, and Christopher Vogler all talk about the need for structure to your story. Here, I’ve tried to summarize their wisdom and mix it all together to come up with a fundamental structure for storytelling.

It has worked really well for me and has always kept my writing on track and moving forward.

Why is structure so important to a story?

Stories, like music, almost always follow some kind of rhythm or harmony. I’m no musician but I can clearly hear if a piece of music is out of tune.

Creativity — music, storytelling, paintings — need to follow some form of structure. There must be a plan to the madness. If there is no structure, everything is muddled together and becomes noise.

Stories that don’t follow a structure often feel rushed, or flat and boring or, as is most often the case, become hard to follow.

Read the entire article on Medium.