The Essential Books for Screenwriters - Summer Edition
Looking for the perfect beach read this summer that will also help you gain new insights into the world of screenwriting? Look no further! Librarian (and self-described Professor) Lauren O’Connor shares ten new books in our Essential Books for Screenwriters list, including the best aids for writing your television pilot, understanding an actor’s process, and adventuring into the historic past—and the uncertain future—of Hollywood.
Looking for the perfect beach read this summer that will also help you gain new insights into the world of screenwriting? Look no further! Librarian (and self-described Professor) Lauren O’Connor shares ten new books in our Essential Books for Screenwriters list, including the best aids for writing your television pilot, understanding an actor’s process, and adventuring into the historic past—and the uncertain future—of Hollywood.
If you’re in the Los Angeles area, all of these books are available to read in our Library! If you’re not in LA, you can purchase any of these books via our handy Amazon link. (Note that while we haven’t been paid or coerced into recommending the following books, The Writers Guild Foundation may receive a small commission of sales from any books purchased through the below links. These proceeds go directly towards funding our Library and Archive and our community outreach programs.)
ADVENTURES IN THE SCREEN TRADE by William Goldman
Published in 1983 by master screenwriter William Goldman (All the President's Men, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Princess Bride, etc.), this book remains one of the best memoirs of working creatively in Hollywood. Combing through Goldman's practical wisdom, stories and jokes is a rite of passage for anybody hoping to make movies or TV. The experience gives insight and context to the immortal words, "Nobody knows anything."
ARISTOTLE’S POETICS with Introduction by Francis Fergusson
Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones and The Sopranos didn't invent the tragic hero; neither did Shakespeare, but they all draw on elements presented in one the earliest and most seminal writings on the nature of dramatic storytelling: The Poetics. Here, Aristotle lays out criteria for what makes a good tragedy. Understanding these classical tenets -- like "hamartia" and the unities of time, place and action -- will undoubtedly give you more to draw on in your own writing and character development.
THE BIG PICTURE: THE FIGHT FOR THE FUTURE OF MOVIES by Ben Fritz
Within the last decade and a half, the studio model for making major motion pictures has changed fairly drastically. In The Big Picture, Ben Fritz uses an unconventional method of research (E-mails from the 2014 Sony hack) to chart how and why studios have become increasingly anchored by big franchises and superheroes. For anyone hoping to write movies, this is a great and eye-opening primer to the inner-workings of the entertainment industry.
THE HERO SUCCEEDS: THE CHARACTER-DRIVEN GUIDE TO WRITING YOUR TV PILOT by Kam Miller
One of the most-popular reads in the WGF Library, Kam Miller's The Hero Succeeds is a unique and comprehensive book on how to develop a TV pilot and series on the basis of complex characters. This book is especially helpful in that Miller provides examples of treatments, outlines and pitch documents as well as grids that break down popular TV series.
JAWS IN SPACE: POWERFUL PITCHING FOR FILM AND TV SCREENWRITERS by Charles Harris
Whether you're pitching your story or pitching yourself as the best candidate for a job, one thing is absolutely certain -- pitching is a huge part of writing for film and TV. Finding good information on how to "pitch" can be challenging. It's tough to wade through the bevy of books promising to help you make millions with your story idea. This book, Jaws in Space, helps to clarify the most basic elements of a pitch and how to prepare if you get a meeting.
THE NEGATIVE TRAIT THESAURUS and THE POSITIVE TRAIT THESAURUS by Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi
Great storytelling is predicated on specificity of character. If you're building up your own personal library of writing books, these are great reference guides. Listing out nearly every possible human trait or behavior, these books help tremendously if you need brainstorming help in the development of your heroes and supporting players.
PSYCHOLOGY FOR SCREENWRITERS by William Indick
Audiences demand that film and TV writers create psychologically complex characters with equally complex behavior and motivation. As a writer, you can't meet this demand unless you understand the basics of Psychology. In this book, Indick presents basic concepts like the id, ego and superego and makes them relevant to character and plot development for screen storytellers.
RESPECT FOR ACTING by Uta Hagen
One of the greatest things you can do for yourself as a film or TV writer is to study (or, at the very least, read about) acting. Stories only move forward when the characters do something—"act." Uta Hagen helps to delineate how actors work from a place of drives, needs and objectives—of harnessing instinct and emotion into action. The more you make these principles a part of your own process, the better your writing will be. This book is a great place to start.
Writing the Pilot by William Rabkin
Concise enough to read in a single library visit, Rabkin's Writing the Pilot distills the basic elements of a television pilot into an 82-page credo. It's the kind of book you can read once you finish your pilot, then again after you finish several more drafts. Particular emphasis is placed on identifying and developing concepts that have engines and can generate stories for multiple season.
The Essential Books for Screenwriters - Inaugural Edition
Welcome to our inaugural edition of The Essential Books for Screenwriters! Our Library team has hand-picked books they recommend for screenwriters.
If you’re in the Los Angeles area, all of these books are available to read in our Library! If you’re not in LA, you can purchase any of these books via our handy Amazon link. (Note that while we haven’t been paid or coerced into recommending the following books, The Writers Guild Foundation may receive a small commission of sales from any books purchased through the below links. These proceeds go directly towards funding our Library and community outreach programs.)
Welcome to our inaugural edition of The Essential Books for Screenwriters! Our Library team has hand-picked books they recommend for screenwriters.
If you’re in the Los Angeles area, all of these books are available to read in our Library! If you’re not in LA, you can purchase any of these books via our handy Amazon link. (Note that while we haven’t been paid or coerced into recommending the following books, The Writers Guild Foundation may receive a small commission of sales from any books purchased through the below links. These proceeds go directly towards funding our Library and community outreach programs.)
THE PLATINUM AGE OF TELEVISION: FROM I LOVE LUCY TO THE WALKING DEAD, HOW TV BECAME TERRIFIC by David Bianculli
This book isn’t so much a writing instruction manual, but rather a history of television with special attention to how the small-screen landscape has evolved since its beginnings. It provides an essential framework and vocabulary for anybody wishing to create a TV series. From reading it, you gain a sense of how certain types of shows—like the medical drama—evolved from Dr. Kildare and Ben Casey to St. Elsewhere then ER then Grey’s Anatomy. You can’t push a medium forward unless you know where it’s been. You can’t be innovative in your storytelling unless you understand the elements and tropes at your disposal. This book gives you a sense of how others have pushed the boundaries of the television form and gives you seeds for how you might do that too.
THREE USES OF THE KNIFE by David Mamet
This thin little book is an uncompromising, bullshit-free examination of how drama is an essential human practice that helps us to organize and make sense of our lives. Mamet provides the magnifying glass for which to closely examine your own life. You’ll learn that everything has significance you can use in your storytelling. It’s one of my favorite manifestos on writing. You learn you have one job to do when you set pen to paper: TELL THE TRUTH.
THE WOMAN IN THE STORY by Helen Jacey
This is a rare how-to screenwriting guide written from the female gaze as opposed to the male one. It’s an eye-opening study of female characters and archetypes. It calls attention to the ways we’ve neglected and mis-written female characters for decades, but it assists us in our efforts to push past stereotypes and clichés to make all of our characters more multi-dimensional. The book even offers instruction on how to stand-up for yourself when an executive or note-giver wants to soften or diminish your female characters. Whether you think you do or not, you need a book like this.
THE WRITERS: A HISTORY OF AMERICAN SCREENWRITERS AND THEIR GUILD by Miranda Banks
If you really want to feel connected to the WGA and to the film and TV writing profession, The Writers will help you to better understand the ground on which you stand and the circumstances that led to a screenwriters’ union being formed in the first place. In this book, Miranda Banks explores the history of screenwriters fighting for fair compensation, credit and treatment in Hollywood and beyond, which is what the WGA still does today. More than that, she draws on a wealth of archival materials that can be found in the WGF Archives.
THE WRITER’S JOURNEY: MYTHIC STRUCTURE FOR SCREENWRITERS by Christopher Vogler
Joseph Campbell’s writings about “The Hero’s Journey” have provided a backbone for much of Hollywood’s storytelling for decades. The Writer’s Journey distills Campbell’s often dense teachings into simple concepts and examples very easily digestible by the average screenwriter. The most useful part of this book is its exploration of ancient character archetypes. In defining these archetypes, Vogler helps you make sure every character serves a distinct and useful function in your story. Screen and television writers are modern-day mythmakers. This book provides not only a great first step toward understanding myths more intrinsically, but also helps you to connect your own storytelling to the primal practice of mythmaking.
WRITING FOR EMOTIONAL IMPACT by Karl Iglesias
There’s nothing more vital for writers to understand than emotion. Writing for Emotional Impact is essential reading as it offers something truly valuable: Insight into how our emotions work. Having trouble making your character appealing on page one? This book provides copious tactics for how to get a reader invested in your script at every level. More importantly, if you bring your own emotions to the table, it will help you to understand what you care about and are moved by, therefore inspiring you to rein in your own taste and storytelling impulses – the importance of which, again, cannot be overstated.