The Screenwriters' guru guide

Don’t know your Aristotle from you Aronson? Jamie Sherry provides a quick guide to who’s who among the advice-givers.

Aristotle

Basically the Grand-daddy of Story. Aristotle was writing about structure, character and action (in a Greek Tragedy context) 2,300 years before Lumière even picked up a camera. Poetics is arguably the most potent weapon in a screenwriter’s arsenal.

Pros : Aristotle’s writing on the completeness of plot and character (overcoming obstacles) and beginning, middle and end structure is as relevant today as it was in the 4th Century BC.

Cons : His writing is concerned with poetry and linear, real time stories. Naturally he does not have much to say about screenwriting directly.

Linda Aronson

Screenwriting books seem to attract Linda’s and Aronson is one of at least three (along with Seger and Cowgill). Screenwriting Updated: New (and Conventional) Ways of Writing for the Screen delves into the murky world of contemporary unconventional script techniques. An illuminating introduction into new forms of film writing that challenges us to keep up with the innovators.

Pros : An award-winning screenwriter, playwright, and novelist, one gets the sense that Aronson is drawing on her writing to inform her books.

Cons : Perhaps a little too focussed on the modern and innovative and not enough on the classic screenplays that underpin and influence how we write today.  

Ken Dancyger

Dancyger’s Alternative Scriptwriting (written with Jeff Rush) offers an insight into films that try to break away from mainstream narrative structure and go beyond the predictable three act structure. His follow-up work Global Scriptwriting offers the idea both of universality amongst screenwriters as well as how the classical form can be informed by cultural values.

Pros : Global Scriptwriting is a treat of a read, going in-depth into the many voices and stories that are told away from the meddling hand of Hollywood.

Cons : Alternative Scriptwriting is perhaps not as radical as it could be. A comparison of the two Stevens (Spielberg and Soderbergh) does not necessarily represent the two extremes of storytelling.

Syd Field

Really the first person to take Screenwriting to task and pull it apart as a craft that can be taught and learnt. Screenplay stands as a seminal text on the process and art of screenwriting and his seminars and workshops have spawned a thousand copy-cats.

Pros : Field’s writings are accessible and detailed. The Screenwriter’s Problem Solver is a great tool when caught in a writing jam.

Cons : People often find his books to be repetitive and perhaps too simplified and basic. If you do not like screenplay structure broken down into thirty page chunks then his books will be like nails down a chalk board.

William Goldman  

The screenwriter’s screenwriter before Charlie Kaufman was out of nappies, the writer’s caustic and sarcastic damning of Hollywood is a real treat for the film fan. Adventures in the Screen Trade and Which Lie Did I Tell? are informal yet practical guides to writing and the system from someone who has been there and back (his mantra being ‘Nobody knows anything’ and ‘Screenplays are structure’)

Pros : This is the man that wrote the screenplays for Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, All The President’s Men and Marathon Man. That should be enough.

Cons : Goldman does not write ‘how to write’ books and if that is what you are looking for you should go elsewhere.

Robert McKee

Get into a conversation with a group of screenwriters for more than thirty minutes and it is guaranteed that the achievements and failings of McKee’s highly influential Story will be discussed ad nauseam. A divisive character, the bushy eyebrowed guru’s bombastic lecturing style will forever be immortalised in the Jonze’s Adaptation. McKee is also known for writing episodes of the classic 70’s Columbo spin-off Mrs. Columbo.

Pros : Story is constructive reading. There is a depth to his analysis of screenwriting that is hard to argue against.

Cons : His work can be rather impenetrable for the novice. Also, impassioned shouting does not necessarily mean you are right.

Dr. Linda Seger

Seger has been prolific on the screenwriting book front, publishing five respected books including Screenwriting and Filmmaking: Making A Good Script Great, Creating Unforgettable Characters. Her books tend to challenge the writer to think as creatively as possible about their craft using concepts such as nonlinear and metaphorical thinking as well as tapping into the unconscious mind.

Pros : Her writings are diverse, focussing on adaptation, collaborating and the role of women in film and television.

Cons : Writers may find her style of writing too new-agey in style with not enough pragmatic advice on screenwriting as a tool to tell stories. She refers to her other books incessantly.

Christopher Vogler

Vogler’s The Writer's Journey uses the writings of psychoanalyst Joseph Campbell to examine screenwriting from a mythical perspective. A detailed focus on the stages of "the hero's journey" within mythic structure, Hollywood seems to have embraced this method of mining the universal features of Myth and Folklore when telling story.

Pros : When reading Vogler you get a sense that storytelling is part of a grand tradition that is bigger than the sum of the parts, a communal experience which can be invigorating.

Cons : He has been criticised for being too influenced by Campbell’s Hero With A Thousand Faces, a book that his critics seem to prefer.

This article first appeared in the Guild's magazine, UK Writer (Autumn 2005).