I stumbled across a passle of scriptwriter’s blogs recently (because, obviously they link one to another, just like web-tech geeks and roleplayers and comics pontificators), and had a lot of fun reading them. This is probably in part because I like writer-porn (you know, writing about writing, Writer’s Digest and all that crap), in part because they talk about stuff I find interesting (Veronica Mars keeps getting mentioned), and in part because they, umm, write.
John Rogers was my entry point, coming through from Warren Ellis’ blog (John Rogers wrote and directed the unreleased, unoptioned Global Frequency pilot, available now on BitTorrent). His blog is oddly enough the first place I encountered the useful habit of posting an article index.
From Rogers, I found Josh Friedman, who doesn’t post a lot, but whose entire blog is worth reading for pleasure. You’re stereotypes of the neurotic Jewish screenwriter will not only be confirmed many times over, but also used as springboards for some very funny stuff. No, I have no idea what that means. Oh look, here’s one bit I’m going to quote, but go read all the rest:
Now out of both loyalty to the sacred bond between studio and screenwriter and also a serious desire to keep getting hired in this town, I will not give away any of the plot details of SNAKES ON A PLANE. But know this. As the great Sam Jackson would say: There are motherfucking snakes on the motherfucking plane.
—Snakes on a Motherfucking Plane
Now, Friedman is caviar, i.e, rarely posting, and more into the funny anecdote than the writer porn. For the hard stuff, I’ve found Alex Epstein’s nicely-titled Complications Ensue. He’s written a book about screenwriting, so screenwriter porn galore (technical discussion, to those whose eyes glaze over at the mention of scritps and outlines). Here’s a handy index post). I’ve also got The Artful Writer, who writes good writing-porn, with stuff about pitches (there seems to be round of stuff about pitches) and the like, and Dead Things on Sticks, which has opinions and such. Here’s a post from there excerpting the funny bit from a NYT article about a script that is doing the rounds called The Cell, which is a sitcom about four wacky terrorists that get seduced by the joys of American life; The Dead Things on Sticks guy explains that although it’s unproducable, it’s such a memorable idea that it works by getting the writers other work.