Joss Whedons Guide to Avenging Screenwriting TVWriter.Com ...

Yeah, the title?s a stretch, but?you know.

Joss Whedon?s Top 10 Writing Tips
by Catherine Bray

Joss Whedon is most famous for creating Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its spin-off Angel and the short-lived but much-loved Firefly series. But the writer and director has also worked unseen as a script doctor on movies ranging from Speed to Toy Story. Here, he shares his tips on the art of screenwriting.

1. FINISH IT
Actually finishing it is what I?m gonna put in as step one. You may laugh at this, but it?s true. I have so many friends who have written two-thirds of a screenplay, and then re-written it for about three years. Finishing a screenplay is first of all truly difficult, and secondly really liberating. Even if it?s not perfect, even if you know you?re gonna have to go back into it, type to the end. You have to have a little closure.

2. STRUCTURE
Structure means knowing where you?re going; making sure you don?t meander about. Some great films have been made by meandering people, like Terrence Malick and Robert Altman, but it?s not as well done today and I don?t recommend it. I?m a structure nut. I actually make charts. Where are the jokes? The thrills? The romance? Who knows what, and when? You need these things to happen at the right times, and that?s what you build your structure around: the way you want your audience to feel. Charts, graphs, coloured pens, anything that means you don?t go in blind is useful.

3. HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY
This really should be number one. Even if you?re writing a Die Hard rip-off, have something to say about Die Hard rip-offs. The number of movies that are not about what they purport to be about is staggering. It?s rare, especially in genres, to find a movie with an idea and not just, ?This?ll lead to many fine set-pieces?. The Island evolves into a car-chase movie, and the moments of joy are when they have clone moments and you say, ?What does it feel like to be those guys??

4. EVERYBODY HAS A REASON TO LIVE
Everybody has a perspective. Everybody in your scene, including the thug flanking your bad guy, has a reason. They have their own voice, their own identity, their own history. If anyone speaks in such a way that they?re just setting up the next person?s lines, then you don?t get dialogue: you get soundbites. Not everybody has to be funny; not everybody has to be cute; not everybody has to be delightful, and not everybody has to speak, but if you don?t know who everybody is and why they?re there, why they?re feeling what they?re feeling and why they?re doing what they?re doing, then you?re in trouble.

Read it all

This was first published in 2009, and we found it by a lucky accident while web-surfing the other day. And, no, we?re not about to get snarky with or about anything the Jossman has to say. Because there?s absolutely nothing to get snarky about.

Source: http://tvwriter.net/?p=3026

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Source: http://bond17.typepad.com/blog/2012/07/joss-whedons-guide-to-avenging-screenwriting-tvwritercom.html

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