Read 'My top 3 screenwriting books' at http://www.SellingYourScreenplay.com.

I got this question the other day via Twitter: “What are your 3 top books for screenwriters?”

I’m currently reading Save the Cat by Blake Snyder.  While it’s not in my top three (yet) I highly recommend it.  As someone who sold many spec scripts, Blake Snyder has a great sense of what it takes to write a marketable screenplay.  It’s much more than the usual babble on three act structure and gives the reader a practical nuts-and-bolts approach to writing a script that has a good chance of selling.

But if I had to recommend just three books to screenwriters they would be (in order of importance):

1. Syd Field’s Screenplay.  I doubt there’s anyone in Hollywood who’s sold a script and hasn’t read this book.  It really teaches the necessary basics about how to structure a screenplay.  You can read my review of it here: http://www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/screenwriting-books/syd-fields-screenplay/

You can buy a copy of it from Amazon.com by going here: http://www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/links/amazon/71

2. Lajos Egri’s The Art of Dramatic Writing . As a compliment to Screenplay I would also recommend Lajos Egri’s The Art of Dramatic Writing.  While The Art of Dramatic Writing was written for playwrights, it’s a great foundation for writing compelling drama and every aspiring screenwriter should check it out.  I wrote this review of it here: http://www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/screenwriting-books/lajos-egris-the-art-of-dramatic-writing/

You can buy a copy of it from Amazon.com by going here: http://www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/links/amazon/72

3. Jack London’s Martin Eden.  Everyone who wants to be a professional writer should read Jack London’s Martin Eden.  It’s a sad but poignant tale about a man obsessed with making a living from writing.  While it’s in no way directly related to screenwriting it is a sobering look at some of the problems you will face as a professional writer and the struggle to get there.  The first time I read this book was shortly after I had sold my first screenplay, Dish Dogs. About half way through the book Marten Eden sells his first bit of writing, unfortunately it gets horribly rewritten.  I was in the process of seeing my own first bit of writing get horribly rewritten, too.  Martin Eden thought that after he got his first sale things would start to get easier for him.  He was horribly wrong and the struggle continued.  I have sold and optioned several screenplays since my first sale and I can honestly say it doesn’t get easier.  Many beginning screenwriters have the misconception that all they need to do is sell just one script and then everything will open up for them.  This is not usually the case.  Mostly it’s Martin Eden’s work ethic and unrelenting commitment to being a writer that I find inspiring.  It’s hard to imagine anyone not succeeding if they put forth the sort of effort that he (and probably Jack London, too) puts forth.

You can buy a copy of it from Amazon.com by going here: http://www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/productlinks/amazon/Jack+London+Martin+Eden

Read 'Syd Field’s Screenplay' at http://www.SellingYourScreenplay.com.

Nearly 30 years after it was written Syd Field’s Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting; A step-by-step guide from concept to finished script is still considered a must read for all aspiring screenwriters.  It was one of the first books recommended to me by a producer after I sent him a half-baked query letter and it really helped me in my screenwriting development.

Field’s main contribution to screenwriting is clearly defining the three act structure into a concise paradigm.  I read somewhere that this “groundbreaking revelation” wasn’t a revelation to people in the industry, in fact the 3 act structure has been around for literally thousands of years, but he spends so much time talking about it in his book that it becomes very clear just how important this really is to writing a Hollywood movie.  The main thing you will get out of this book is how to structure your screenplay into the three act structure, or the ‘paradigm’ as he calls it, with a plot point at the end of the first and second acts.  Much has been written about the paradigm since and many people have tried to expand upon it, but there really isn’t a lot more to it then what Field covers in his book and most of the expansion on it that I’ve read usually overly complicates something that isn’t that complicated.

Field spends enough time on all the other aspects of screenwriting including basic formatting, character development, writing dialogue and he uses enough real examples that after reading this book you should basically understand the mechanics of how to write a screenplay.  Actually writing a great screenplay will takes years of practice but this book really does serve as a launching pad for anyone who’s ever wanted to write a screenplay.

You’ll want to see the movie Chinatown before you read this book (if you’ve seen it, watch it again) as he draws a lot of his examples from it.  You will want to read the Chinatown screenplay, too, so you can really dig into the syntax and pacing of a good screenplay and follow along as Field talks about it.

Field’s second book, The Screenwriter’s Workbook, is pretty good, too, and I actually found it a bit more easy to use as it’s a workbook for writing your script and goes through the process step by step always keeping the paradigm in mind.  It covers a lot of the same ground that’s covered in the first book but I think it’s worth reading, too.

Click here to buy Syd Field’s Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting; A step-by-step guide from concept to finished script from Amazon.com

Click here to buy Syd Field’s second book, The Screenwriter’s Workbook from Amazon.com.

Click here to buy the DVD of Chinatown from Amazon.com.

You can view the screenplay for Chinatown in for free here:

http://www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/wp-content/uploads/screenplay/scripts/chinatown_screenplay.txt