It’s almost July, which means we have half a year to write our next book - or our first!
Next weekend I’m headed to California to launch The Grapevine. You can join us on tour here, where Craig & I and our intrepid photographer will be posting photos, video, and our jet-lagged, sleep-deprived thoughts about our visits to locations from the book - if we manage not to kill each other!
But when I’m back, it’s time to get to work.
I hope you’ll take that mid-year midpoint as the incredible invitation and opportunity is is and commit to writing your book.
I’m not going to name names, but you know who you are and you know I’m looking at you.
When you’ve sat with that overwhelming thought for a while, and can breathe again, the easy but crucial first step I always recommend to my classes is to make a
What are ten movies and books that are similar to the book or script that you are dying to write?
Background by yurgdgiga on Wallpapers.com
These don’t have to be exact matches. In fact, it’s more useful when you start this process to choose a movie in your genre that you know well.
From that list, you’re going to hone in on one movie to focus on to learn the classic pattern of ALL stories, no matter what genre you’re writing in.
But - why a movie? I’m writing a book!
Because movies are an extremely compressed form of storytelling, with the same structure as a book. It is much, much easier to see dramatic structure in a movie than in a book.
I promise you, this little trick will shave years off your writing learning curve.
And admit it - doesn’t learning story structure by rewatching one of your favorite movies of all time sound more productive and way more fun than doomscrolling?
Maybe even doable?
Try it.
This week choose a movie, preferably one that you know well, and watch the first Act - the first 30 minutes or so.
If you’re comfortable enough with the Three-Act, Eight-Sequence Structure to do this breakdown on your own, fabulous! If you feel like it, let me know the movie you choose and let’s talk about it.
Or you can take even easier route and choose to watch and learn from one of the movies I’ve already broken down for you in detail:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Or one of the movies I break down in Stealing Hollywood:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Romancing the Stone
Chinatown
Groundhog Day
The Matrix
Sense and Sensibility
Sea of Love
The Mist
The Wizard of Oz
Four Weddings and a Funeral
You’ve Got Mail
Or if romance is most useful to you, I break down a different selection in Writing Love:
Leap Year
While You Were Sleeping
Notting Hill
Four Weddings and a Funeral
The Proposal
New in Town
Groundhog Day
Sense and Sensibility
Romancing the Stone
Sea of Love
Surely there are enough choices there for you to pick a movie you love and already know fairly well! And if there’s some genre missing - tell me! It takes me weeks to do one of these breakdowns properly, but I am absolutely willing to do it to expand the scope of what I’m teaching. I wouldn’t be doing any of this if I didn’t love it. And, oh right - every time I do it, it makes me a better writer.
So you have your mission for the next couple of weeks, should you decide to accept it.
But also, before I go off on this adventure… I’ve been overwhelmed lately by the whole new universe that opens up when a book finally makes its entrance into the world. It’s something that happens with each new book — but you can completely forget when you’re in the cocoon of creating that book.
I’ve written a little about that here:
And I’d love to hear what movies you all pick to watch for your teaching movie!
—Alex
All content ©Alexandra Sokoloff from Screenwriting Tricks for Authors
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If you’d like to go through the brainstorming and plotting process with direct feedback from me on your story, you have a couple of ways to do that.
The online class— which includes the private feedback, but also more intensively uses videos and written lessons to take you through the set up and writing of your novel or script at your own pace. You can sign up for just one section or all three parts.
You can find all of this material and more, plus ten full Act by Act, Sequence by Sequence, scene by scene story breakdowns in Stealing Hollywood and Writing Love:
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