Category Archives: Screenwriting

Podcasts Taught Me Everything I Know

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podcast

I love podcasts. I’ve learned more from free podcasts than I did from a $200,000 college education. There’s a podcast for literally every topic under the sun. Actually, there’s about twelve for every topic under the sun. A podcast can be broad or extremely specific. It’s basically radio on-demand. You listen to exactly what you want, exactly when you want to. And it’s completely free–except for the Audible and Stamps.com commercials that sponsor just about every podcast, though you can skip over them, anyway. While there are some podcasts I listen to for pure entertainment value, I listen to many more podcasts to learn. Continue reading →

The Inception of My Screenwriting: Or the Movie that Made Me Want to Write Movies

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Inception

With the recent release of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, I thought I’d look back at the filmmaker’s career— and mine. Ever since The Prestige, a new Nolan film is an event in my life. He is the single-most influential writer/director on my own writing, and the film of his that has had the greatest impact on me is Inception. Continue reading →

How to Learn the Art of Screenwriting for Free

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adaptation

My first introduction to screenplays was through my college screenwriting class. My professor was helpful in teaching me the basics like three-act structure, and I applied it by writing two short films. A college education is naturally quite expensive, but it wasn’t until a couple of years after college that I really learned how to write feature-length movies. I didn’t pay private script consultants or attend expensive conferences and seminars. I basically taught myself everything there is to know about screenwriting, and I learned it all essentially free of charge. Here’s how I did it: Continue reading →

Why I Started This Blog

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me-writer-big

1. Because I used to blog.

I began my writing career with a blog (Nova News) about my college basketball team, the Villanova Wildcats. The blog started as a project for a class in college, but I continued it long after the class ended— four years in total. I wrote at least one blog post for every game, which was twice a week for the entire season. Maintaining the blog built my writing habit, and more importantly, it taught me that writing could be fun. Continue reading →

Legos Taught Me to Write

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Lego movie

I saw The Lego Movie recently, and besides teaching me that “everything is awesome,” it reminded me of my childhood playing with Legos. I was an avid collector and loved building the sets then later playing with them. Unlike the child in the movie, I generally followed the instructions, but just like him, when I played with my Legos, I created elaborate stories with the figures and settings. Continue reading →

My Writer’s Origin Story

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A lot of writers say they’ve dreamed their entire lives of becoming a professional writer. They always knew writing was what they were meant to do. This was not the case for me. I didn’t write creatively as a child, and I didn’t really enjoy reading that much either. For most of my life, I had no idea what I wanted to do. Continue reading →