Character and Conflict: The Cornerstones of Screenwriting

by Mark Axelrod

Character without conflict makes Jack Nicholson a dull boy. These two screenwriting essentials are inextricably linked, and in Character & Conflict , Mark Axelrod reveals how to integrate them in a new and refreshing way. Starting with general principles, Character & Conflict takes you step by step through every aspect of generating compelling characters and gripping conflicts. Alluding to the work of Joseph Campbell and others, Axelrod offers extensive insight Unlike in other screenwriting texts, whose authors tend to offer brief examples to support their assertions, Axelrod bores deeply into the scripts of such feature films as Amelie , Good Will Hunting , and Driven , revealing how to craft-and how not to craft-rounded characters as well as the crises that bring them together or set them at odds. With exercises that sharpen the skills of both beginning and advanced writers, examples that pull back the curtains on the writing process, plus Axelrod's theories and experience-honed advice, reading Character & Conflict is like taking an advanced seminar in screenwriting, without ever having to leave your writing desk.

136 pages, Paperback

First published July 16, 2004

About the author

For almost two decades, Mark Axelrod has been the Director of the John Fowles Center for Creative Writing for which he has received 4 National Endowment Arts Grants. He is a two-time recipient of a United Kingdom Leverhulme Fellowship for Creative Writing (University of East Anglia, Edinburgh University), a three-time recipient of the Alliance Française National Writing Award, has written over 20 works of fiction including Capital Castles (Pacific Writers Press, 2000), Cloud Castles (Pacific Writers Press, 1998), Cardboard Castles (Pacific Writers Press, 1996) and Bombay California;or Hollywood, Somewhere West of Vine (Pacific Writers Press, 1994) and Borges’ Travel, Hemingway’s Garage (fc2, 2005) which was published in fall, ’09 in Spanish by Thule Ediciones, Barcelona as Viajes Borges, Talleres Hemingway.