Rewriting Secrets for Screenwriters: Seven Strategies to Improve and Sell Your Work

by Tom Lazarus, Scott Frank

Every screenwriter needs to rewrite—more than once, probably many times—to make the story work and then to make a sale. And then again later on, to please producers, studios or stars. Tom Lazarus--author of "Stigmata", among other scripts--is a working screenwriter and professor at UCLA extension. In this book, he's distilled his own experience and that of other screenwriters into a system. SECRETS OF FILM REWRITING will teach writers how big scenes-track transitions-plot corrections-add new information-pass through for dialogue-do an "on the nose" rewriteHugely valuable to first-time screenwriters and to grizzled veterans of Hollywood pitch wars alike, SECRETS OF SCREENPLAY REWRITING is larded with humor and attitude as well as information. Its anatomy of a screenplay rewrite breaks down the book's lessons into their practical application—a must for anyone looking for a break in the film business.

256 pages, ebook

First published April 1, 2007