Making a Good Script Great: Revised & Expanded

351 Pages·2010·1.83 MB·English

by  Seger

“Rx for ailing screenwriters: Read this tonight and call me in the morning.” —
Tony Bill, Actor-Director-Producer, Producer of The Sting
“Linda Seger has written quite simply the most brilliant and useful book on
screenwriting that I have ever seen.” —William Kelley, Academy Award-
winning Co-Writer, Witness
“Linda Seger’s updated Making a Good Script Great is an invaluable tool for
beginning writers, as well as a go-to manual for seasoned professionals. I plan to
keep it very close at hand.” —Fern Field, Producer, Monk
“The first edition of Making a Good Script Great is sufficiently timeless, but
perfectionist Dr. Linda Seger makes “great” “greater” and even sensational in
this edition.” —Dr. Lew Hunter, Writer-Producer and Screenwriting Faculty
Chair Emeritus, UCLA
“Making a Good Script Great clarified for me what a great screenplay should
be. After I read it…I was ready to go. Like a great script, it is clear, concise, has
great dialog, and is a compelling read. In a crowded market, this one is
essential.” —David Gleeson, Writer-Director, Cowboys & Angels and The Front
Line
“A must-read for every writer, beginning or professional.” —Barbara Corday,
Co-Creator, Cagney & Lacey
“If they handed out Olympic medals for books on screenwriting, Linda Seger
would take gold every time. As if her classic, pioneering text Making a Good
Script Great wasn’t already good enough, she’s written a new edition and in so
doing has, predictably, brought us another winner. As perceptive, lucid, reader-
friendly and eminently practical as all her writing, the third edition of this old
friend arrives refreshed, invigorated and bang up-to-date with a wealth of
examples from contemporary films and a range of new material… If you’ve read
previous editions you’ll find the new spin Seger achieves thought-provoking and
inspiring… If you’ve never read Making a Good Script Great, you have a great
experience ahead. You’ll find a resource you’ll return to across your entire
career. When in doubt, see what Seger has to say. Compulsory reading for
novice and veteran alike.” —Linda Aronson, Author, Screenwriting Updated
and The Twenty-First Century Screenplay
“There have been many books on writing, but none that have the depth and
accessibility of Linda Seger’s. It’s a marvelous book for producers and
executives as well as writers.” —Renee Valente, Producer, Blind Ambition and
Love Thy Neighbor
“An invaluable tool for the working writer.” — Richard Walter, Screenwriting
Faculty Chair, UCLA
“Making a Good Script Great is the quintessential go-to book on rewriting your
screenplay. Though not limited to just the rewrite process, it also teaches how to
organize yourself prior to putting pen to paper and offers practical hands-on
tools to identify problem areas once your screenplay is written. We recommend
it to all our students and feel it is the right game plan for writers, executives, and
producers to tackle the ever elusive writing process.” —Rona Edwards and
Monika Skerbelis, Authors, I Liked It, Didn’t Love It: Screenplay Development
from the Inside Out
“A classic that guides you through the specifics of writing, revising, and
polishing your draft into a commercially viable project. Sensible, thorough, and
empowering!” —Dave Trottier, Author, The Screenwriter’s Bible
“Making a Good Script Great is the gold standard of screenwriting books, a
must-have … Linda Seger has surpassed her own standard with this latest edition
that includes not only the basics, which she covers so well, but also new
information and examples. Use it and you can raise the standards of your script
and go for the gold.” —Pamela Jaye Smith Power of the Dark Side, Inner Drives
“Whether you’re on your first script or your tenth one, screenwriting can be such
a bumpy and solitary road. But the journey certainly can be made much
smoother with the latest edition of Making a Good Script Great.” —Kathie Fong
Yoneda, Author, The Script-Selling Game
“MGSG is one of those books that does what it says—it enables any writer to
improve. Linda makes the difficult seem achievable.” —Julian Friedmann,
Literary Agent and Editor of TwelvePoint.com (formerly ScriptWriter
magazine)

Other books by Linda Seger:
Creating Unforgettable Characters
The Art of Adaptation: Turning Fact and Fiction into Film
From Script to Screen: The Collaborative Art of Filmmaking (coauthored with Edward Jay Whetmore)
When Women Call the Shots: The Developing Power and Influence of Women in Television and Film
Making a Good Writer Great: A Creativity Workbook for Screenwriters
Advanced Screenwriting: Raising Your Script to the Academy Award Level
And the Best Screenplay Goes to ... Learning from the Winners: Sideways, Shakespeare in Love, Crash

Copyright © 2010 by Linda Seger
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without permission from the publisher.
Acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reproduce the
material indicated: MCA Publishing Rights for excerpts from Back to the
Future, copyright © Universal Pictures, a division of Universal City Studios,
Inc., courtesy of MCA Publishing Rights, a division of MCA, Inc.; MCA
Publishing Rights and Peter Benchley for excerpts from Jaws, copyright ©
Universal Pictures, a division of Universal City Studios, Inc., courtesy of MCA
Publishing Rights, a division of MCA, Inc.; Paramount Pictures excerpts from
Witness copyright © Paramount Pictures; Columbia Pictures, Don McGuire,
Larry Gelbart, and Murray Schisgal for excerpts from Tootsie.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Seger, Linda.
Making a good script great / Linda Seger. -- 3rd ed.
p. cm.
“1st Silman-James ed.”--T.p. verso.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-935247-01-2 (alk. paper)
1. Motion picture authorship. I. Title.
PN1996.S384 2010
808.2’3--dc22
2009051981
Cover design by Arthead, adapted from first edition cover design by Hal Siegel.
Printed and bound in the United States of America Silman-James Press
1181 Angelo Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210