Needing Your Help On What Book To Buy

[aussiegoonie]

Hello hows it going.
Now i was wondering what books are best to buy from this site.

This is the only australian site for me to buy books from without buying over the internet.

Now i was wondering if you's could help me on what books you know are good or really help you on Screenwriting.

Here is the link.

www.cinemarket.com.au/books/index.html

Thankyou.
Bye

[dpaterso]

Can't help you on which book to buy, everyone has their own likes and recommendations, hopefully someone else will come along and give you theirs...

Just asking, since it's related, have you been reading screenplays to get a feel for them? Plenty of freebies await you on www.script-o-rama.com and www.script-fix.com to name but two sites. Ignore me if you're already aware and reading.

-Derek

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DOUBLE OR QUITS appearing in Issue 5 of SDO Detective

[aussiegoonie]

Yeh i have been reading alot of scripts but going to some online screenplay sites i find it hard to get original screenplays as most are the shooting scripts what have the camera angles etc in them.

Do you know of a site on what has original screenplays to download ?
Thanks.

[James Wilde]

Needing Your Help On What Book To Buy

So what's wrong with buying over the internet?

Don't personally know any of the books on the list you posted. Know of some of them though.

If you decide to change your mind about the internet, I spent a rainy day in Barnes & Noble recently and came out with three books:

(The Writer's Guide to) Writing Your Screenplay by Cynthia Whitcomb

Screenwriting for Dummies by Laura Schellhardt

(The Writer's Guide to) Selling your Screenplay by Cynthia Whitcomb

The first one is very good and I come back to it time after time. It's not (much) concerned with formatting. I think formatting occupies about 3-4 pages. It's concerned with the creative process of writing with particular reference to screenplays. LOTS of useful stuff and Whitcomb has a good cv. Actually you could apply much of what she writes to any kind of fictional writing.

I like her spine/heart/mind approach to writing. Build the skeleton/give it your heart/let the brain tidy it up.

The second one I bought partly for fun - always wanted a xxx for dummies book - and partly because it has more information on formatting in general - not just where the margins should be but thoughts on slug lines, general presentation, tips and tricks, etc.

The third one I bought because a) I thought it might be useful to actually sell my screenplay when I had gone to all the trouble of writing it and b) since I had given Whitcomb the benefit of the doubt when it came to writing my masterpiece, I would not be consistent if I didn't assume she knew what she was talking about.

Can't remember now but I seem to remember that all three were under the twenty buck mark (American bucks, of course).

And then there's the remark that someone made - I think - in here: remember, all these people are making their fortune writing books about screenwriting, not making their fortune screenwriting. For pretty much that reason I spent my time putting on one side books of the type 'how to write an oscar-winning script in one easy lesson' and tried to find books which would help me hone the craft which I have chosen as a hobby and maybe help me turn it into a career.