Here's what started the phenomenon: This book has been a best seller for over 15 years and has been used by screenwriters around the world! Blake Snyder tells all in this fast, funny, and candid look inside the movie business. Save the Cat is just one of many ironclad rules for making your ideas more marketable and your script more satisfying.

No one knows the writer's Hollywood more intimately than William Goldman. Two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter and the best-selling author of Marathon Man, Tinsel, Boys and Girls Together, and other novels, Goldman now takes you into Hollywood's inner sanctums...on and behind the scenes for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men, and other films...into the plush offices of Hollywood producers...into the working lives of acting greats such as Redford, Olivier, Newman, and Hoffman...and more.

This revised and updated edition is a complete resource for anyone who wants to write and produce a television drama series or create an original series, as well as for teachers in screenwriting classes and workshops. It leads listeners step-by-step through each stage of the development and writing process, offering practical industry information and artistic inspiration. This edition also takes listeners into the future, engaging provocative issues about the interface between traditional TV and emerging technologies.

Make your story the best it can be on two levels. Hear each superstar teacher present his unique approach to story telling.

Have you written a story with an exciting concept and interesting characters - but it just isn't grabbing the attention of readers or agents? It's time to look deeper into the story beats that create realistic and compelling character arcs. Internationally published, award-winning novelist K.M. Weiland shares her acclaimed method for achieving memorable and moving character arcs in every book you write.

In Dialogue, Robert McKee offers in-depth analysis for how characters speak on the screen, on the stage, and on the page in believable and engaging ways. From Macbeth to Breaking Bad, McKee deconstructs key scenes to illustrate the strategies and techniques of dialogue. Dialogue applies a framework of incisive thinking to instruct the prospective writer on how to craft artful, impactful speech.

Following up his perennially best-selling writers' guide Story and his inspiring exploration of the art of verbal action in Dialogue, the most sought-after expert in the storytelling brings his insights to the creation of compelling characters and the design of their casts. Character explores the design of a character universe: The dimensionality, complexity and arcing of a protagonist, the invention of orbiting major characters, all encircled by a cast of service and supporting roles.

Every aspect of screenwriting is covered with an authority and credibility never seen in any book to come before. Told with honesty, humor, and vulnerability from the real-world perspective of a working, professional screenwriter, Kill the Dog reveals the secrets of what it takes to have a successful career as a Hollywood screenwriter.

Action explores the ways that a modern-day writer can successfully tell an action story that not only stands apart, but wins the war on clichés. Teaming up with the former co-host of The Story Toolkit, Bassim El-Wakil, legendary story lecturer Robert McKee guides writers to award-winning originality by deconstructing the action genre, illuminating the challenges, and, more importantly, demonstrating how to master the demands of plot with surprising beats of innovation and ingenuity.

There are three kinds of feelings when reading a story: boredom, interest, and wow! To become a successful writer, you must create the wow feeling on as many pages as possible, and this requires writing that engages the reader emotionally. In his best-selling book, screenwriter Karl Iglesias explored the working habits of A-list Hollywood scribes. Now, he breaks new ground by focusing on the psychology of the reader.

Author Scott Dikkers will tell you how to write jokes. He’s a master joke writer, founder of the world’s most popular humor site TheOnion.com, number one New York Times best-selling humor author, professional public speaker, and successful cartoonist. In this definitive joke-writing handbook, he'll teach you comedy writing and how to write a joke with a simple comedy-writing and joke-writing formula you can use right now to write your own jokes.

The hardest yet most essential element of writing great fiction is character—specifically, creating a central hero who is relatable, compelling, and worth the audience's precious time. In this entertaining and practical guide, popular blogger, writing coach and screenwriter Matt Bird breaks down what makes characters embraceable and unforgettable, and presents insider tips and tricks for writers of all levels and genres.

Finish The Script! is a screenwriting audiobook for anyone who wants to be a writer. It takes a step-by-step approach and focuses not only on theory but also on the actual writing process. It's a full college course squeezed into audiobook form that will take novice writers from concept through rewrite. Based on actual class lectures and assignments, Finish the Script! is for any writer looking for that extra push and guidance.

There is one sure-fire way of improving your novel fast...You may know the fundamentals of how to write fiction. You may be more than competent in plot, structure and characters. But if your dialogue is dull it will drag the whole story down...Don't sabotage your chances of selling your work to readers or publishers because the dialogue is unexceptional. Dazzle them with what the characters say. How to Write Dazzling Dialogue will give you the tools to do it.

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive - and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet.

Here's what started the phenomenon: This book has been a best seller for over 15 years and has been used by screenwriters around the world! Blake Snyder tells all in this fast, funny, and candid look inside the movie business. Save the Cat is just one of many ironclad rules for making your ideas more marketable and your script more satisfying.

Two decades after its groundbreaking debut, millions of fans worldwide remain enthralled with the incredible exploits of Joss Whedon's Buffy Summers as well as Angel. Now, go behind the scenes of these legendary series that ushered in the new Golden Age of Television, with the candid recollections of writers, creators, executives, programmers, critics, and cast members. Together they unveil the oftentimes shocking true story of how a failed motion picture became an acclaimed cult television series.

Most fans of The Simpsons can distinguish Lenny from Carl without checking their hands. But only real fans recall the Eastern European equivalent of The Itchy & Scratchy Show, know the name of Barney Gumble's submission to the Springfield Film Festival, and have road tripped to the World's Fair in Knoxville. 100 Things The Simpsons Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die is the ultimate resource for true fans, whether you comprehend at a Ralph Wiggum or Lisa Simpson level.

More than 15 years after its premiere, Grey’s Anatomy remains one of the most beloved dramas on television and ABC’s most important property. It typically wins its time slot and has ranked in the top 20 most watched shows in primetime for most of its 17-season run. It currently averages more than nine million viewers each week. How to Save a Life takes a totally unauthorized deep dive into the show’s humble start, while offering exclusive intel on the behind-the-scenes culture, the most heartbreaking departures, and the more polarizing plotlines.

Nicolas Cage is many things, but love him, or laugh at him, there's no denying two things: You've seen one of his many films, and you certainly know his name. But who is he, really, and why has his career endured for over 40 years, with more than a hundred films, and birthed a million memes? Age of Cage is a smart, beguiling book about the films of Nicolas Cage and the actor himself, as well as a sharp-eyed examination of the changes that have taken place in Hollywood over the course of his career.

From a veteran culture writer and modern movie expert, a celebration and analysis of the movies of 1999 - arguably the most groundbreaking year in American cinematic history.

A teen idol at 15, an international icon and founder of the Brat Pack at 20, and one of Hollywood's top stars to this day, Rob Lowe chronicles his experiences. Never mean-spirited or salacious, Lowe delivers unexpected glimpses into his successes, disappointments, relationships, and one-of-a-kind encounters with people who shaped our world over the last 25 years. These stories are as entertaining as they are unforgettable.

When Nicholas Meyer was asked to direct the troubled second Star Trek film, he was something less than a true believer. A best-selling author and successful director, he had never been a fan of the TV series. But as he began to ponder the appeal of Kirk, Spock, et al., he realized that their story was a classical nautical adventure yarn transplanted into space and - armed with that insight - set out on his mission: to revitalize Trek.

Warren Littlefield was the NBC President of Entertainment who oversaw the Peacock Network’s rise from also-ran to a division that generated a billion dollars in profits. In this fast-paced and exceptionally entertaining oral history, Littlefield and NBC luminaries including Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Kelsey Grammer, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow, Julianna Marguiles, Anthony Edwards, Noah Wylie, Debra Messing, Jack Welch, Jimmy Burrows, Helen Hunt, and Dick Wolf vividly recapture the incredible era of Must See TV.

From two-time Academy Award winner and screen icon Geena Davis, the surprising tale of her “journey to badassery”—from her epically polite childhood to roles that loaned her the strength to become a powerhouse in Hollywood.

When his satirical musings in a college newspaper got him discharged from the Air Force, it became clear to Walt Williams that his destiny in life was to be a writer - he just never thought he'd end up writing video games, let alone working on some of the most successful franchises in the industry - Bioshock, Civilization, Borderlands, and Mafia, among others. Williams pulls back the curtain on an astonishingly profitable industry that has put its stamp on pop culture and yet is little known to those outside its walls.

Much has been written about the storied New Hollywood of the 1970s, but while Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola were making their first classic movies, a parallel universe of directors gave birth to the modern horror film - aggressive, raw, and utterly original. Based on unprecedented access to the genre's major players, New York Times critic Jason Zinoman's Shock Value delivers the first definitive account of horror's golden age.

In this essential guide to acting, internationally renowned directing coach Judith Weston demonstrates what constitutes a good performance, what actors want from a director, and what directors do wrong. She also goes over script analysis and preparation and how actors work, and she shares important and helpful insights into the director/actor relationship.

John Ortved's oral history is the first-ever look behind the scenes at the creation and day-to-day running of the television phenomenon known as The Simpsons, as told by many of the people who produce it.

In a career spanning five decades, Nick Nolte has endured the rites of Hollywood celebrity. Rising from obscurity to leading roles and Oscar nominations, he has been both celebrated and vilified in the media; survived marriages, divorces, and a string of romances; was named the "Sexiest Man Alive" by People magazine; and suffered public humiliation over his drug and alcohol issues, including a drug-fueled trip down a "long road of nothingness" that ended in arrest.