Write a book this year!
Screenwriting Tricks for Authors
I’ve done some housekeeping this week and compiled a full list of links to craft posts — in order! —that will live at the top of the Screenwriting Tricks for Authors Substack, with the hopefully inspirational title:
Write a Book This Year!
This page of links follows the format of the Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workbooks, chapter by chapter, in order, with links to expanded posts and videos. You can use it with one of the workbooks or just follow the links.
For those of you who have just signed up (thank you!), the writing workbooks Stealing Hollywood and Writing Love came out of the Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workshops I’ve taught for almost twenty years, now (!) throughout the US and internationally — and the film story structure class I taught in the film department of Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles.
I developed the workbooks as a step-by-step course in writing to help authors of any level write and sell books and level up their careers, all in the most fun way possible: by using the structure techniques and storytelling tricks of their favorite movies.
And yeah - it all works for screenwriters, too!
This Screenwriting Tricks for Authors Substack is a place for me to go further — to do an even deeper dive into the concepts and material of the workbooks, to analyze new movies and TV that I think are great examples of these concepts and storytelling techniques, and to interact with other writers in person (kind of!) - something we just don’t do enough of since the pandemic.
If you start from the beginning of one of the workbooks, or this list of posts and videos, and work through to the end, there is a very good chance that you will have written a book at the end of the year. Hundreds of writers I’ve worked with have done it.
Commit to just fifteen minutes a day. Seriously —
15 minutes of writing per day equals a book in a year.
I post new material on this Substack just about every week (with exceptions lately for ongoing world cataclysms).
And I’m always here to answer any questions you have, and happy to take suggestions of movies and TV that will help you write your book or script - just leave it in the Comments!
I know the world feels perilous right now. But we’re all readers and we know what a refuge a book can be.
It’s a million times more true when your refuge is the book you’re actually writing.
I hope this year is the year you write that book!
—Alex
SCREENWRITING TRICKS FOR AUTHORS
Introduction:
PART ONE: STORY STRUCTURE
1. The Master List and Master Lists Book
2. What's Your Premise?
3. First, You Need an Idea
4. What KIND of Story is It?
Story Patterns: A Star is Born (Daisy Jones & the Six, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Babylon)
5. The Three-Act, Eight-Sequence Structure
6. The Index Card Method and Structure Grid
7. Act One
Inciting Incident/Call to Adventure: Something Has To Happen, Immediately
Theme and Image Systems: VIDEO
8. Hero/ine, Protagonist, Main Character
Hero/ine’s SPECIAL SKILLS or SUPERPOWERS
Hero/ine’s GHOST, WOUND or CORE TRAUMA
Hero/ine’s GREATEST NIGHTMARE
Hero/ine’s INNER and OUTER DESIRE
Hero/ine’s CHARACTER ARC
Protagonist Case Study: Jake Gittes. Chapter 9, Stealing Hollywood
10. What Makes a Great Villain?
Chapters 10 & 11, Stealing Hollywood
11. Villains, Part 2: The Forces of Antagonism
12. Act Two: What’s the PLAN?
13. Elements of Act Two, First Half
Act II: Part 1 Elements - VIDEO
Midpoint
The MIDPOINT Game Changer - VIDEO
14. Elements of Act Two, Second Half
Your Act II Climax: The Dark Night and the Dawn
(ALL IS LOST and the REVELATION)
15. Elements of Act Three
16. What Makes A Great Climax?
17. Story Elements Checklist
Stealing Hollywood - Chapter 17
18. Narrative Structure Beat Sheet
Stealing Hollywood - Chapter 18
19. Act Climaxes: Breakdowns and Examples
20. Story Elements: Questions and Prompts
Act II: Part 1 Questions & Prompts
Act II: Part 2 - Questions and Prompts
Act III: Essential Elements & Useful Tricks
All material ©Alexandra Sokoloff, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors.
Get the workbooks:
Stealing Hollywood ebook, $3.99, also available as print workbook
Writing Love ebook, $2.99
Need more help? The Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workshop is available online, as a self-paced course with all the videos, assignments, movie breakdowns and personalized feedback you need to get that book written next year. In three parts, and you only pay for what you use.
One-on-one coaching also available in The Writers’ Room.
Subscribe to the Screenwriting Tricks for Authors YouTube channel for fifteen minute doses of craft to elevate your writing right now!
I'm glad I didn't miss your blog. It is really interesting! Thank you!
I am not a professional writer, I came to many things intuitively myself - more than 80%. Apparently, many years of experience reading the classics of the genre did not pass without a trace. In addition, those who have read my novel unanimously claim that "the texts are very cinematic". This got me thinking, purely theoretically for now, about writing a script based on the first books in the series. This is what caused the special interest in your materials. Hopefully, over time, I will have questions for you. Although, perhaps, some already exist. But for now, thank you again!
Great to have all of this in one place. Thank you!