581 - A Guide to Good Writing
Scriptnotes Podcast
John August
4.8 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 3 January 2023
⏱️ 83 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
John and Craig (and Aline!) discuss the elements of quality writing in this collection of craft conversations.
As we work on the Scriptnotes book, producer Megana Rao has been collecting wisdom from the archives to write an introductory chapter to define good writing. In these segments we cover how to find your voice, spot confidence on the page, and actively watch films.
In our bonus segment for premium members, John and Megana discuss the Scriptnotes book and rumors of upcoming industry strife.
Links:
- Scriptnotes Episode 239 – What is good writing?
- Scriptnotes Episode 76 – How screenwriters find their voice with Aline Brosh McKenna
- Scriptnotes Episode 432 – Learning From Movies
- Sign up for Scriptnotes Premium to listen to the episodes sampled as well as the entire archive. Use promo code ONION to save $10 on annual subscriptions.
- Dangers of Elite Projection by Jarrett Walker
- Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion by Gabrielle Blair
- Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
- Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
- Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
- Aline Brosh McKenna on Twitter
- Craig Mazin on Twitter
- John August on Twitter
- John on Instagram
- Outro by Martin Kubitzky (send us yours!)
- Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao with segments by Stuart Friedel and edited by Matthew Chilelli.
Email us at [email protected]
You can download the episode here.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome. My name is John August and this episode 581 of Script Notes. A podcast |
| 0:07.2 | about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the show, what's |
| 0:11.4 | this? Why? It's a clip show. Producer Megan Arrow is working on the fourth coming script |
| 0:15.6 | notes book and has found three vintage script notes segments which Greg and I try to answer |
| 0:19.8 | the question, what is good writing and how does one do it? Megan, I can tell us what |
| 0:24.8 | segments you have picked and more importantly, why? Okay, great. So I picked three segments |
| 0:30.5 | that sort of talk about the components of good writing and what elements need to be there |
| 0:36.9 | and what immediately turns you guys off as signals of things you don't have confidence in the |
| 0:42.9 | writer in. So we start with episode 2.39 which you guys recorded in March of 2016 and you guys |
| 0:51.1 | talk about what good writing feels like. Alright, so I suspect that we were talking about good |
| 0:56.0 | writing involves an element of surprise confidence. It's not just the words you choose to describe |
| 1:02.4 | the story but how much we believe that you are telling the story that want to keep turning the |
| 1:06.5 | pages on. It's interesting because you guys talk about how these elements function on a sentence |
| 1:10.7 | level but also structurally so you talk about how you want to surprise and delight your readers |
| 1:15.6 | in scene description but also with a plot twist at the end of act 2 or whatever. So it's cool |
| 1:22.0 | to see how good writing, that sort of DNA exists in every aspect of a screenplay. Cool, great. |
| 1:29.2 | So that'll be our first segment. What's the second segment we'll listen to? |
| 1:33.8 | So the next one is episode 76 called House Screen Riders Find Their Voice with Alene. |
| 1:39.1 | And so that one was recorded in February of 2013 and so you guys are a little bit younger but you |
| 1:45.6 | know really consistent in some of the advice that you give. And so it's interesting because you guys |
| 1:51.5 | talk to each other about your perceptions of each other's voices and you kind of talk about |
| 1:56.1 | your impressions from the first time reading each other's scripts too. Yeah, it's interesting because |
... |
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