The Craft of Scene Writing: Beat by Beat to a Better Script

One thing every movie script, play script, and novel have in common is they are all made up of scenes. While this book is specifically written for screenwriters, any playwright or novelist can also become much better at his or her craft by studying the meaty tips in this book. Every scene, according to the author, is “the smallest unit of a story that is a story in and of itself.” If a writer can master scene writing, whatever genre of writing one is working in will simply be better.

Screenwriter/author Jim Mercurio has a lively, conversational writing style and has structured this book like a good college course in the craft. The author breaks the work into three sections: Fundamentals, Advanced Topics, and The Home Stretch, and each section looks at several specifics such as dialogue, scenes, exposition, and theme in depth and with plenty of excellent examples. Chapters on cinematic writing, rewriting, and voice will help move writers to a new level of professionalism. While this is not an introductory book for beginning writers, it will help writers with some experience to understand how to hone their skills and become the best writers they can be.