The Creative Screenwriter: Exercises to Expand Your Craft

Creativity is becoming increasingly important in an age of advanced audience sophistication. It’s no longer enough to follow standard writing techniques - becoming a first-class screenwriter demands not only a command of craft, but an understanding of how to unleash and harness creativity.

＂The Creative Screenwriter＂ offers a wealth of inspiring writing exercises designed to help you produce better, more exciting scripts. Each essential area of screenwriting is covered in its own chapter, from learning how to build stories and finding good ideas, to deepening characters and experimenting with structure, to enhancing scene writing and improving pitching. Finally, a range of innovative DIY Script Surgeries encourage you to find solutions to common screenwriting problems, such as overcoming writer’s block, managing the rewrite and selling your work.

This is a book to return to again and again. It is a guide for aspiring screenwriters who want to develop a powerful writing practice; a manual for teachers and students seeking discussion and reflection; a bible for professionals wanting to hone their craft and solve script struggles. It will rekindle the creative spark; remind you of why you love writing; and help to express the stories you want to tell - and sell!

Dr Craig Batty is Senior Lecturer in Screenwriting at Bournemouth Media School. He is a screenwriter and script consultant, and has worked on various short film, feature film and television projects. Zara Waldeback is a screenwriting teacher living in Sweden, where she is Head Dramaturg on ＂Writing for Film and Interactive Media＂ at Brobygrafiska Högskolan and specialises in online pedagogy for screenwriting. She freelances as a script consultant, previously worked in development and has worked on many dramas and feature films.