Six tomes for every screenwriter’s library, a novel-writing guide and two novels written by Now Write! Screenwriting contributors in the last few years. – Laurie
SCREENWRITING CRAFT & BUSINESS
The Screenwriter’s Bible: A Complete Guide to Writing, Formatting, and Selling Your Script, 5th Edition, Expanded & Updated by David Trottier
Silman-James Press, 2010
One of the most popular, authoritative, and useful books on screenwriting, this is a friendly guide through the Hollywood morass. The new edition offers expanded coverage of dialogue writing and character development, the latest in proper screenplay format, a new section on jumpstarting your career, new advice on creating and delivering pitches and much more.
Mind Your Business: A Hollywood Literary Agent’s Guide To Your Writing Career byMichele Wallerstein
Michael Wiese Productions, 2010
A former Hollywood literary agent explains the secrets of maneuvering in the world of Hollywood screenwriters. This book includes chapters on the agent-client relationship, how to network successfully, how to write the right query letter, and more.
Story Maps: How To Create a Great Screenplay and Story Maps Booster Pack #1 by Daniel Calvisi
Act Four Screenplays, 2011
Learn the secrets to writing a great screenplay from a major movie studio Story Analyst. Master the structure and principles used by 95% of commercial movies by studying detailed breakdowns or “Story Maps” of several recent and classic hits in all different genres.
Rewrite: A Step-by-Step Guide to Strengthen Structure, Characters, and Drama in your Screenplay by Paul Chitlik
Michael Wiese Productions, 2008
Professional screenwriters know that the rewriting process is what separates the money-makers from the neophytes. This illustrated, step-by-step guide shows the process of re-writing and why it is so essential.
Your Screenplay Sucks!: 100 Ways to Make It Great by Will Akers
Michael Wiese Productions, 2008
A lifetime member of the Writer’s Guild of America who has had three feature films produced from his screenplays, Akers offers beginning writers the tools they need to get their screenplay noticed.
Novel Writing
The 90 Day Novel: Unlock the Story Within, 2nd edition by Alan Watt
The 90-Day Novel Press, 2010
Get the first draft down quickly! The 90-Day Novel is a day-by-day guide through the process of getting the first draft of your novel onto the page. The 90-Day Novel was workshopped at LA Writers’ Lab over three years and has helped hundreds of writers complete their work. Some of Watt’s students have gone on to become bestselling authors and win major literary awards.
NOVELS
Death by Sunshine by Allison Burnett
Writers Tribe Books*, 2011 (*Alan Watt’s new micropublishing company)
B.K. Troop is an aging, erudite, chemically imbalanced, gay, alcoholic novelist living in Manhattan. His life is turned upside down when he is invited to Los Angeles to adapt one of his novels into a screenplay. Soon after his arrival, B.K. is thrust into the heart of a mystery that only he can solve.
Whirly Bird byWesley Strick
Amazon Kindle edition, 2009
Spring, 1980. A fugitive from justice flees L.A. for Europe. As Duncan Hull tries to stay one step ahead of Interpol, a pair of CIA operatives comes to suspect he’s an opposition agent, sent abroad to disrupt the imminent Delta Force rescue of U.S. hostages from our Tehran embassy. What follows is a blackly comic collision of cultures, motives, secrets and lies.