Crafting Short Screenplays That Connect

Crafting Short Screenplays That Connect, stands alone among screenwriting books by emphasizing that human connection is as essential to writing effective screenplays as conflict. This book will show you how to advance and deepen your screenwriting skills, increasing your ability to write richer, more resonant short screenplays.

Crafting Short Screenplays That Connect, Fifth Edition, stands alone among screenwriting books by emphasizing that human connection, though often overlooked, is as essential to writing effective screenplays as conflict. This ground-breaking book will show you how to advance and deepen your screenwriting skills, increasing your ability to write richer, more resonant short screenplays that will connect with your audience.

Award-winning writer and director Claudia Hunter Johnson teaches you the all-important basics of dramatic technique and guides you through the challenging craft of writing short screenplays with carefully focused exercises of increasing length and complexity. In completing these exercises and applying Johnson's techniques and insights to your own work, you will learn how to think more deeply about the screenwriter's purpose, craft effective patterns of human change, and strengthen your storytelling skills.

This 20^th Anniversary Edition features 11 short screenplays, including Academy Award winning Barry Jenkins' (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk) luminous short film, My Josephine, and an accompanying companion website that features the completed films and additional screenplay examples. The book has also been expanded and updated to include two new award-winning screenplays Killer Kart and The Great Wall of Vicky Lynn. and a brand-new chapter exploring the use of genre in the short film. An absolute must-have resource for students of screenwriting.

COMPANION WEBSITE

PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION: THE POWER AND IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN CONNECTION

PART 1 Preparing to Write the Short Screenplay

Chapter 1 Connecting to Purpose

Chapter 2 Connecting to Self

Chapter 3 Connecting to Genre

Chapter 4 Connecting to Process

Chapter 5 Connecting to Collaboration

PART II Aspects of the Craft

Chapter 6 Story and Screenplay

Chapter 7 Character

Chapter 8 Structure

Chapter 9 Dialogue

Part III Five (Not So) Easy Screenplays

Chapter 10 The Discovery

Chapter 11 The Decision

Chapter 12 The Boxing Match

Chapter 13 The Improbable Connection

Chapter 14 The Long Short Screenplay

PART IV Eleven Screenplays That Make It Look Easy

Chapter 15 Chillin' Out

Chapter 16 The Great Wall of Vicky Lynn

Chapter 17 Killer Kart

Chapter 18 Intercambios

Chapter 19 Underground

Chapter 20 Tough Crowd

Chapter 21 Kosher

Chapter 22 My Josephine

Chapter 23 Lena's Spaghetti

Chapter 24 Cool Breeze and Buzz

Chapter 25 Slow Dancin' Down the Aisles of the Quickcheck

Conclusion

APPENDIX A Available Screenwriting Software

APPENDIX B Films and Television Series Referenced

APPENDIX C Further Reading

NOTES