Comin thro’ the rye
True story.
J. D. Salinger’s preppy teenage wife plans to murder their infant daughter and then commit suicide in the winter of 1957.
She plans to do it during a trip ... Read on
Woof, woof
Devised by Win Smith around 1933, a storyboard consists of small drawings and captions pinned to corkboard panels.
Preliminary sketches and comic book-like scenarios had been used earlier, but pinning ... Read on
Sums it up
Ken Kobré sums it up
Besides a beginning, middle and end, a good story has a memorable protagonist who surmounts obstacles en route to ... Read on
Walt Disney’s grand tour
In 1935 Walt Disney set off on a major trip around Europe.
It was a grand tour that was to have a decisive influence on the make-up of his treasure ... Read on
It’s actual life — no, it’s drama — no, it’s both
Dennis Lim is on my wavelength when he ponders the nature of the filmed story.
Jean-Luc Godard once observed that every fictional film is a documentary of its actors. Jacques ... Read on
Go tell it to the mountain
Jorge Luis Borges once said that there are only four stories to be told.
A] a love story involving two people
B] a love story involving three people
C] the struggle for ... Read on
All’s well
All’s well that ends up making money.
... Read on
Business executives
Wolves and liars and psychopaths.
... Read on
Everythingisconnected
Yes, really, everything-single-thing-is-connected.
The spaces (and spaces) between things are just illusions.
Look and you can see there’s nothing between things. There’s nothing there.
... Read on
Mastering creative anxiety
Anxiety is a double-edged word.
When you’re creating you’re anxious because you’re creating and then when (for whatever reason) you’re not creating you’re anxious because you’re not creating. Which ... Read on
Let go
If the current Dalai Lama is such a Buddhist why doesn’t he practice the detachment he preaches and let Tibet go?
Why doesn’t he let go of what he wants? ... Read on
Seven seconds
The simplest – and quite powerful – anxiety management technique is deep breathing.
By stopping to deeply breathe (seven seconds on the inhale, seven seconds on the exhale) you stop ... Read on
Silent scream
Feeling tense? Anxious?
Take a cue from an actor. Reduce the experience (because that’s all it is – an experience you can shape) of anxiety before a performance ... Read on
Overcoming creative anxiety
Learn to let go.
Reduce your experience of anxiety is by learning to bring a calm, detached perspective to life and by turning yourself into someone whose default approach to ... Read on
Save the drama for the page
Save the drama for the page or the stage or the screen.
Meet your life more calmly.
... Read on
Our diseases
Carl Jung says we’ve turned our gods into diseases.
Our doctors into priests, our hospitals into cathedrals of miracles.
... Read on
Creative ceremonies and rituals
Creating and using a ceremony or ritual is a simple but powerful way to reduce your experience of anxiety.
For many people lowering the lights, lighting candles, putting on ... Read on
Positive and negative
Stories work better with a real play-off of positive and negative charges.
Something good happens, and then something bad. Then something even better than before, and then something even worse ... Read on
Advice to a floundering journalism graduate
Take Cary Tennis’ advice to a floundering journalism graduate unable to get work.
And then, with the irony that cloaks us against utter nihilism, we think, if only we were ... Read on
The protagonist
The protagonist is the character that suffers the most.
... Read on
Bergen Belsen
Richard Dimbleby at Bergen Belsen, 1945.
There were perhaps a 150 of them, all so thin that their skin glistened like stretched rubber on their bones.
Some of the poor ... Read on
Sound advice
Take Alan Little’s advice on writing for radio
Try to use old words, words that reach into the very core, the very oldest part of the language. They have the ... Read on
How to write a Hollywood comedy
Here’s how the “Dinner for Schmucks” script was crowd-sourced for gags and laughs.
Paramount executives view the 1998 French farce “Le Diner de cons” and basically laugh their asses ... Read on
Notional content
In the most reductionist fashion there’s the holy trinity of structure, character and dialogue; and of course the crucial if more ephemeral notions of authenticity, voice, theme, and ... Read on
Henry Jenkins says it best
Each medium does what it does best – so that a story might be introduced in a film, expanded through television, novels, and comics, and its world might ... Read on
A trapped child
A trapped child is uncomfortable to write, but compelling to watch.
... Read on
Don DeLillo keeps it real
Maria Nadotti asks Don DeLillo a couple of questions about post-modern novels and whether faction will ever get any traction?
Maria Nadotti: Do you approve of their being described as ... Read on
What’s in a cameo?
Carved precious stone in a way to reveal the underlying color from the Italian word cammeo in 13c century which derived from Latin cammæus and perhaps originally from Arabic ... Read on
There’s a story in there
Robert McKee has a simple and clear definition of story.
Story begins when an event, either by human decision or accident in the universe, radically upsets the balance of forces ... Read on
Devil by your side
Sitting down to write a story about a dead man I feel a strange warmth on the back of my neck. It is the devil at my shoulder, ... Read on
Smiling Botox™ faces
All those smiling Botox™ faces, tight and polished and emotion free.
Like empty mirrors.
... Read on
True fiction
It’s not often a book shakes me up like David Shields’ “Reality Hunger”.
Shields’ plea for a literature beyond the confines of plot and character. Beyond the typical novel ... Read on
Blind ambition
Where does it come from.
You’ve made the million dollars. You’ve won the awards. You’ve married the prettiest girl from school (who turned out to be the smartest).
And still you ... Read on
Oh great, a fucking shitty mood
So I’m in an increasingly shitty mood because I haven’t done any writing today.
No, instead of actually parking the ass and dancing the fingers I’ve been prancing around worrying ... Read on
Coming soon
Need to add “BOSCUTTI’S PURE ELVIS” to the menu with a link to join the mailing list to be first to be notified when the serial novel starts on ... Read on
Welcome to the new
All great works of literature either dissolve a genre or invent one.
That’s what Walter Benjamin said. Who am I to argue with that.
... Read on
Push Elvis online
Two ways to extend “BOSCUTTI’S PURE ELVIS” online.
Read and post the chapters online along the lines of podiobooks.
Read and cut the chapters to stills treated to look like dot ... Read on
Why write?
Damn good question.
I’m all for the firsts, for the early adopters.
I’m all for the guys and gals cutting their way to the front. I’m all for ... Read on
The end of imagination?
Is it just me or does the iPad spell the end of imagination?
How clever is to make books electric? To allow publishers to charge a dollar or two ... Read on
Resolve the want at the end of the second act
Paul Joseph Gulino notes that the main tension is not resolved at the end of the picture.
In most cases it is resolved at the end of the second act. ... Read on
Telling the hive mind to shut the fuck up
In the 1990s, Jaron Lanier was one of the digital pioneers hailing the wonderful possibilities that would be realized once the internet allowed musicians, artists, scientists and engineers around ... Read on
No new main characters introduced after Act 1
Richard Walter makes the point that there is no such thing as new Act 2 and Act 3 characters.
You must have at least ten ways to reveal information ... Read on
Doorways, windows, tunnels, bridges and stairs are portals
Each of these whispers a promise of change. Things beyond here are different than where you are.
... Read on
Are novelists entitled to use real-life characters?
Tolstoy musing on (or through) General Kutuzov, or Dumas making a (splendid) villain of Richelieu, or even Shakespeare’s Tudor propaganda.
Virginia Woolf walking through her suicide and the writing of ... Read on
This is a work of fiction
The people, events, and circumstances depicted are fictitious and the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance of any character to any actual person, whether living or dead, ... Read on
Master text
The novel is the master text.
The novel is the word. It’s the show bible. It’s the beginning and, well, not the end.
It’s the central nervous system that ... Read on
Book
How will you build it?
What’s the story? How will you tell it?
What do you want a reader to feel? What do you want them to think ... Read on
Novel novel
We got to speed the plow.
Watching a film costs between ninety and hundred and twenty minutes (or so).
Reading a novel costs a lot more time. I’m ... Read on
Novel soundtrack
How about building a soundtrack right into the novel.
Literally track your eye movements on the screen and pour the appropriate music in underneath the words. As you read ... Read on
Ever present present
Brian Knutson wrote a great piece about how the goddamn web is hijacking your future self.
How when you step in front of the screen with the best intentions in ... Read on
The whodunnit?
Why not the whydunnit?
... Read on
Word up, down and across
If a picture is worth a thousands words, then what’s a word worth?
A thousand pictures? A million sentiments? How many emotions can a thousand words ... Read on
LOS ANGELES – ELEPHANT BAR – NIGHT
PRODUCER
You know Hemingway said the first draft of anything is shit.
DIRECTOR
I’m not sure I should take the advice of a man who blew his head off with his favorite ... Read on
Words on a screen
Everyone is blabbing on about digital slates and ebook readers and electronic print and whatnot.
Everyone seems more than happy to pour words that have been written for one medium ... Read on
What if there is no heaven?
What if after you die you wake up in the same house you lived in?
With only the people you know to have been bad living around you. ... Read on
List three world events that happened during your screenplay
Juxtapose these events to define the plot and make the story more concrete. Play off the real to create something more real.
... Read on
Don Simpson’s bedside table
Mount up the empty peanut butter jars, empty jelly jars, empty wine bottle, corkscrew, scripts and whatever else is lying around beside his king size bed to form a ... Read on
The Super Olympics
It’s time for the future of sports.
I’m tired of these half-assed athletes who aren’t prepared to go all the way for their sport.
I want super human achievement. If ... Read on
What is the protagonist’s fatal flaw?
What is the one trait the protagonist keeps repeating over and over (with less and less success) until they realize they need to react in a different way to ... Read on
Don’t dodge the mistakes
The mistakes are not just part of the story. They are the story.
The obstacles, fuck ups, twists, objections, problems, doubts, concerns, blunders, slips, trips and falls. Even ... Read on
Stop thinking
Start writing. (You know, let those fingers play that keyboard.)
... Read on
Consider how the cultural context of any story can be another character
Consider how in Michael Curtiz’s “Casablanca” the German invasion of Paris functions like a character – a villain or catalyst to push the lovers apart, and later how the ... Read on
Problem > complications > third act resolution
Don’t make it hard on yourself. Keep it simple.
Open with a problem the protagonist wants to solve then load up one damn complication and dilemma after the other ... Read on
La dolce sette
There are many theories about Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” and the number seven.
They say Fellini used the seven deadly sins as a rough outline, that he set it ... Read on
You’ll be reborn
“Fellini: I’m a Born Liar” is a 2002 French feature documentary written and directed by Damian Pettigrew.
It’s based on Federico Fellini’s last interviews filmed by Pettigrew in Rome in ... Read on
An erotic scene
Federico Fellini directs an erotic scene from “Fellini Satyricon”, shaping the performances of three beautiful young actors with his hands, caressing the air as he croons instructions to first ... Read on
Nonna
So I’m writing and thinking and jotting and sketching and scening and toying and playing with Fellini and my nonna calls from Italy.
And I scramble to find my Italian ... Read on
How Felliniesque
Federico Fellini died in Rome on Halloween Day, October 31, 1993.
He left the world a more interesting and beautiful place. He is greatly missed my many people around the ... Read on
Nino’s secret
After Nino Rota’s funeral in the little church of Sant’Agostino in the centre of Rome, Suso Cecchi d’Amico asks Federico to come home with her “as a witness.”
She has ... Read on
Nineteen forty-six was a jubilee year for the movie industry
Marc Norman recounts that the boys were home, were dating girls; three-fourths of the American population – minus the very young, the old, the ill, and the incarcerated – ... Read on
Poetic neorealism
Federico Fellini went from neorealism to a kind of poetic neorealism to a very honest look on society.
In all, the influential film director made 23 films including “Le Notti ... Read on
LOS ANGELES – BEVERLY HILLS – ROMANOFF’S RESTAURANT – 1948
Writer-Director Billy Wilder is lashing into his chocolate soufflé, laughing. Producer Samuel Goldwyn is gently shaking his head, smiling and sharing his chocolate soufflé with his wife, Frances. ... Read on
Rather than ruination
Marc Norman remembers that Jerry Wald and the Epsteins, twin brothers Phillip and Julius, went back to mid-1930s New York. Wald was writing a column for a New ... Read on
Ahhh, the quieting of the mind
I notice that before I sit down to write a quick story, I seem compelled to perform a series of meaningless task loaded with meaning.
I’m worrying because I need ... Read on
Fellini never liked to watch his own films
“When I’m forced to see one of my own movies, I feel the same discomfort as when I catch a glimpse of myself in a store window, a large, ... Read on
Keeping secrets
Make sure every character has a secret they want no one else to know. Especially whoever is in the scene with them.
Make the secret enlarge the theme, make it ... Read on
Consolidate my thoughts
Consolidate my work and the myriad (aggh, did I just say that) of projects
Edit them. Jesus, you know how to edit.
Cut out the stuff you don’t want.
... Read on
A story in every drop
Inciting incident > progressive complications > crisis > climax > resolution.
Each scene is it’s own film.
It’s own story.
... Read on
Scene analysis
Step One: Define conflict (what’s the text and subtext?)
Step Two: Note opening value (is it positive or negative?)
Step Three: Break the scene into beats (does the behavior clearly change?)
Step ... Read on
Feel the fear
H. P. Lovecraft is afraid.
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
Write what you’re afraid ... Read on
No text without subtext
No text without subtext (for the pleasure of insight).
For the underscore.
... Read on
Conflict the scene
From inner conflict to personal conflict to extra-personal conflict. From you to them to beyond you and them.
Make the conflict complex on all three levels. In each ... Read on
Kiss my assonance
Assonance is the refrain of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences.
It’s when Robert Louis Stevenson would hear the crumbling thunder
When Edgar Allan Poe would ... Read on
Pry open the gap
What’s the opposite of that? How far can you go in the scene?
If you were the character in these circumstances, what would you do?
There’s an action then a reaction ... Read on
The story climax is the crowning major reversal
When meaning slips from your fingers before your very eyes.
When meaning tumbles and turns and becomes a new emotion. A revolution in values from positive to negative, or ... Read on
Love yourself and do the work
You can make yourself anxious in all sorts of ways.
The answer is not to make yourself even more anxious.
The answer is to love yourself and, out of ... Read on
From reacting to creating
Type out the word reacting.
That’s write. Just type it out – r – e – a – c – t – i – n – g.
Think ... Read on
Mockingbird
In the movie, Ewell spits on Atticus, but never overtly threatens the children.
He does it with a look, not dialogue. When it’s visual, it’s stronger for the audience.
You don’t ... Read on
Each character must want something badly, very badly
But what they need is different to what they want.
What they need is what they get in the end.
... Read on
Action speaks louder than words
William M. Akers asks a good question.
Do we learn about your characters by what they do – not through dialogue?
A man beats his wife, cries and says he’s sorry, ... Read on
Wobbly skates
William M. Akers tells a great story about “Rocky”.
Stallone’s script called for Rocky and Arian to finally go on a date. He’s asked her out and she’s refused, but ... Read on
Sudden death
Harry Houdini sure knew how to draw a crowd.
The easiest way to attract a crowd is to let it be known that at a given time and a given ... Read on
The opponent is the hero’s agent of change
William M. Akers makes the case.
Without the opponent, your hero will never evolve to what they need to be.
At the beginning of your tale, your hero is in a ... Read on
Hi, I’m you’re antagonist, how can I serve you today?
Think about how often the antagonist actually drives the story.
No Darth Vader, no exploding planets, no dead Auntie and Uncle, no need for Luke to get a move on.
No ... Read on
Shading characters
Give a character an unexpected characteristic that shadows some future action.
Give a character some darkness, some area where no one dares go.
Make that darkness what the character must shine ... Read on
Begin with the end in mind
What’s the most satisfying ending? No, no , not the crane up into the sky as they drive off into the sunset. (Although, yes, I admit, a ... Read on
The angel, Gabriel, appears more often than you . . .
The angel, Gabriel, appears more often than you might think, telling us that we are pregnant with a new form of life that we should accept and trust.
... Read on
A notorious movie producer grapples with his demons as he struggles to
make a film he is proud of. Based on an award-winning screenplay. It's
a wild wide ride. Try and hang on. Available free online for a month
as we prepare for publication.
An increasingly paranoid Elvis flees Graceland on a bizarre quest to meet President Nixon before Colonel Parker hauls his ass back to Memphis. Based on a true story. (Honestly, we've got the pictures to prove it.) To be published as a serial novel online. With a new chapter each day. Text, audio and video.
All bow down to F. Scott Fitzgerald. The original story is beautiful but the film versions to date don't do it justice. Think the writer Nick Carraway is the hero of the story and Gatsby the metaphor for America?
Do you have any idea how many news shots and stories don't make mass media because some addled-headed celebrity glitzed the paparazzi? Want to see what you missed last year? Day by day?
Amazing photographs cut to real music. 
Explore the mindset that compels a man to murder. Delve into the roles of memory, media and medication in contemporary society. With a little street justice thrown in. Arresting first independent feature inspired by both literature
and film history. Based on an ominous story by Guy de Maupassant and a seminal film by Fritz Lang. 
Based on the classic Tao Te Ching (Book of the Way and its Virtue). Time to turn on the enlightenment.