Top Secrets: Screenwriting

by Jürgen Wolff (Editor)

A collection of interviews with ten successful screenwriters, discussing their inspirations and motivations, and their techniques for characterization, plotting, and dialogue

342 pages, Paperback

First published January 25, 1993

About the author

Jurgen Wolff is a writer and creativity and writing coach who divides his time between London and Southern California. He has taught at the University of Southern California, the Academy for Chief Executives, the University of Barcelona, the Pilots Project, and workshops around the world.
He has written nine books including “Your Creative Writing Masterclass” (Nicholas Brealey Publishing), “Creativity Now!” (Pearson), “Marketing for Entrepreneurs” (Pearson), “Focus: the power of targeted thinking” (Pearson), “Your Writing Coach” (Nicholas Brealey), “Do Something Different” (Virgin – foreword by Sir Richard Branson).
He has written more than 100 episodes of television, the feature film “The Real Howard Spitz” starring Kelsey Grammer, the miniseries “Midnight Man” starring Rob Lowe, two TV movies starring the Olsen Twins, been a script doctor on feature films starring Eddie Murphy, Walter Matthau, Michael Caine and others. He created the animated series, “Norman Normal” (56 episodes) and co-created the series “Lukas” (39 episodes). He teaches screenwriting at the Raindance Film Festivals and in workshops around the world.
He is a NeuroLinguistic Programming practitioner, a certified hypnotherapist, and has studied improvisation with The Groundlings in Los Angeles and Keith Johnstone in London.
He is currently writing “Reptile Nations,” a novel for Young Adults.
His other sites include:
www.yourwritingcoach.com (which includes bonuses to the book);
www.creativitynowonline.com (which includes bonus materials for the “Creativity Now” book);
www.focusquick.com (with bonus material for the “Focus” book);
www.timetowrite.com;
His writing blog is at www.timetowrite.blogs.com, where he posts most days with writing news and tips.
- See more at: http://jurgenwolff.com/about/#sthash....

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a solid screenwriting book. I give it points for variety and for getting in-depth interviews with real, working screenwriters. The book has 11 chapters, one per writer. Each chapter contains an introduction to the writer's work, the interview with the writer, an outline of the writer's best known screenplay, and an excerpt from the screenplay selected by the writer.

The writers included here are Michale Blake (Dances With Wolves), Jim Cash (Top Gun), Stephen De Souza (Die Hard), Mary Agnes Donhue (Paradise), Nicholas Kazan (Reversal of Fortune), William Kelley (Witness), Todd W. Langen (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost), Tom Schulman (Dead Poets Society), S.S. Wilson & Brent Maddock (Short Circuit), and David Zucker (Naked Gun). Some of these scribes have not gone onto huge success after their big-name flicks (I don't think Tom Schulman has written any hits since his Robin Williams vehicle, for example). Others I did not bother looking up.

The ones I found most interesting were Blake (even tho I did not really like the movie), Rubin, Schulman, and strangely enough, the guys who wrote "Short Circuit". This could be a good teaching tool - a teacher could show the video, then assign the relevant chapter as reading.