Screenplay: Building Story Through Character

by Jule Selbo

Screenplay: Building Story Through Character is designed to help screenwriters turn simple or intricate ideas into exciting, multidimensional film narratives with fully-realized characters. Based on Jule Selbo’s unique 11-step structure for building story through characters, the book teaches budding screenwriters the skills to focus and shape their ideas, turning them into stories filled with character development, strong plot elements based on obstacles and conflicts, and multifaceted emotional arcs.

Using examples and analysis from classic and contemporary films across a range of genres, from The Godfather to Guardians of the Galaxy, Selbo’s Screenplay takes students inside the scriptwriting process, providing a broad overview for both beginners and seasoned writers alike. The book is rounded out with discussion questions, writing exercises, a guide to the business of screenwriting, in-depth film breakdowns, and a glossary of screenwriting terms.

308 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 24, 2015

About the author

SO EXCITED! 6 DAYS, A Dee Rommel Mystery will be available August 5, 2026. It's the fifth in the series. The series begins with 10 DAYS, then comes 9 DAYS, then 8 DAYS (you see the pattern).

Jule Selbo rises an hour before sun-up, likes the fuel of caffeine, and loves to make up stories. She’s an award-winning screenwriter (Disney, Paramount, Universal, and more, including working with George Lucas on Young Indiana Jones Chronicles for five years, penning Ariel’s Beginning (Little Mermaid and Hunchback of Notre Dame Part Deux and more for Disney, tv shows like Melrose Place, Hercules, Space Above and Beyond and HBO’s Women Behind Bars).

She moved to Maine to write novels and short stories – focusing on her favorite genres: crime mystery and historical fiction. 10 DAYS, A Dee Rommel Mystery (2021) is the first of the award-winning series; it is followed by 9 DAYS. 8 DAYS, 7 DAYS and the new 6 DAYS.

Series’ kudos include: Silver Falchion, CIBA Best Series Finalist, nominations for the CLue Award and Foreward Review Award, Kirkus’ Top 5 Mysteries from Small Publishers and more.

Her historical fiction books include biographies of Italy’s John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) and Laura Bassi (first experimental physicist and first female professor at University of Bologna in the late 1700s). Her Find Me In Florence focuses on the country’s Mud Angels; they helped save priceless artwork and books after the 1966 flood.

Short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Magazine and Thriller Magazine.

Jule would love to hear from her readers!

Reviews

[Chris Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an updated version of her Gardner book, From Idea to Successful Script, and was suggested to me by me screenwriting teacher. Much of the book is filled with general advice which if, you have read other screenwriting books or have any common sense, will be quite familiar and not that useful. The meat of the book is her 11-step story structure, one of the more useful screenwriting paradigms I've come across, due to its focus on character development and flexibility of how much screen time each stage takes. The latter allows for stories to evolve more organically and avoid the prescriptive "X has to happen on page Y" paradigms which lead to movies that feel very cliched. The book includes many examples of applying her paradigm to well known movies, both recent and classic, which is essential for any good screenwriting book.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

The structure of the book is crap. Chapter 1: Idea vs Story. And Selbo writes for whom the book was written. Weird. Than the text will fluctuate between "story" and "screen story". ?? And that story looks pretty much like the treatment. Anyway, too much slogans and stereotype to be of any relevant help. Use it if it's the only book you have access to.