Product Description

The ultimate survival guide, How to Write a Movie in 21 Days takes the aspiring screenwriter the shortest distance from blank page to complete script.

Viki King's Inner Movie Method is a specific step-by-step process designed to get the story in the writer's onto the page. This method guides the would-be screenwriter through the writing of a movie. It answers such questions as:

• How to clarify the idea you don't quite have yet

• How to tell if your idea is really a movie

• How to move from what you want to say saying it

• How to stop getting ready and start

Once you know what to write, the Inner Movie Method will show you how to write it. It also addresses such issues as:

• How to pay the rent while paying your dues

• What to say to your spouse when you can't come to bed

• How to keep going when you think you can't

For accomplished screenwriters honing their craft, as well as those who never before brought their ideas to paper, How to Write a Movie in 21 Days is an indispensable guide. And Viki King's upbeat, friendly style is like having a first-rate writing partner every step of the way.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4204 in Books
• Published on: 1993-12-31
• Released on: 1993-09-15
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Amazon.com
No book can find your ideas for you, but this one provides a great service in helping you discover and develop a story, and to come up with the completed script. King helps you learn to think cinematically, in the language of the movies, and to keep asking the essential questions as they work: What's the story? Who is the story about? Do you care about the characters? Does anyone? King also tries to help you survive not just the structural pitfalls that can derail a script, but also the mental or emotional whirlpools that can prevent any artist from finishing a project.

Maisha Hazzard, Ohio University
"Viki King manages to demystify the art and science of screenwriting. Speaking from the heart and later, spotlighting concepts from the head, Viki King presents tactics that place writing in the unstressed context of nonthreatening time management. The idea of eight, nine and ten minute sessions is wonderfully simple, promisingly adaptive, and joyfully do-able."

About the Author

Viki King is a writer, script consultant, and lecturer. Since 1968 she has written for such prime-time TV shows as Three's Company and Hart to Hart. As a script consultant she has wide clientele of screenwriters. She lectures at the University of California at Los Angeles on the Inner Movie Method and conducts seminars nationally, from New York University and the University of California at Santa Barbara, from Mensa to Lompoc Federal Penitentiary, to the Writer's Guild of America. Ms. King lives in Los Angeles.

Customer Reviews

Best Resource I've ever used for scripts and even short stories. Ever!!
I've read many writing books and this is one that works for any type of writing. With this book, you can write a script or at least a decent rough draft in 21 days. I took a month and was able to do two drafts. One by hand and the other when I transferred the draft to computer. The author's warm and encouraging voice along with the way she breaks the task of writing a longer work are extremely helpful and motivating. I'd recommend this excellent, easy to read text to any of my writer friends and plan to use it in any workshop I give related to writing a script, novel or even a longer short story. The system she provides really works and has lots of application to any genre.
Terrific doesn't cover it.

Practical and motivating
The book does a good job of going over the common blocks to finishing a screenplay and how to overcome them. I love the writing prompts.

I was not able to write a screenplay in 21 days, and the reason is that I did not follow her prompts time line or her suggestion to keep to a random draft (instead of putting all the details and craftmanship later on). However, I did get through the first act and should be done with my random draft soon.

This is a motivating book with lots of useful information. Just be sure to do everything else to help yourself finish what you start: join a screenwriter's group, read screenplays in the genre you are attempting to write, watch movies, go to theater, listen to music, go to the art gallery, exercise, etc.)

Break a leg:)

Good Things In Small Packages
Don't let the size of this book fool you, there is a lot of valuable knowledge locked within its covers. This book leads you along the landmarks of a good film to create the structured path that Hollywood loves. This book helped me to write 2 screenplays that went on to make it into the final rounds of 6 screenwriting competitions. I didn't write them in 21 days, but I did finish them and receive a lot of praise.