About the Book
A SAVVY OVERVIEW... -An essential and inspirational hands-on guide for creating and crafting compelling characters -An invaluable resource analyzing and referencing over 220 Hollywood, independent and foreign films, offering 34 screenwriting exercises, and providing six templates from fictional scripts -Accessible, fun, and thought-provoking screenwriting exercises geared to develop characters in each vital element that comprises a successful screenplay -Learn how to create believable, compelling and gripping characters with distinct characterizations, motivations, and behaviors, and how these people can best drive your plot forward in a meaningful and plausible journey A must-have guide for screenwriters, Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays! will help you make your characters thrive in all the essential elements that comprise a successful script. This book has them all -- from protagonists to antagonists, supporting to dysfunctional characters -- learn how to delve into your people and their plots and subplots, settings, dialogue, and relationships. Whether you are a first-time screenwriter or have written several scripts, Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays! offers inspiration and hands-on tools, guiding you through each critical element of screenwriting, with the spotlight on creating and crafting compelling characters so you can write a savvy screenplay that will sell. THIRTY-FOUR writing exercises designed to help screenwriters unleash ideas, strengthen their characters, and break through stumbling blocks... SIX templates from fictional scripts provide hands on assistance with constructing characters, plus... TWO HUNDRED-PLUS Hollywood, foreign, and independent movies, spanning approximately seventy years, are analyzed and referenced, offering screenwriters specific character-crafting examples to guide them through their writing process. Author of the acclaimed The Savvy Screenwriter: How to Sell Your Screenplay (and Yourself) Without Selling Out!, Kouguell has read the very good, the very bad, and the very ugly screenplays, during her 25 years of consulting and teaching, and working as a story analyst, story editor, and writer for film studios and production companies. As a film industry insider, Kouguell knows what movie executives are looking for in a great screenplay-and as a screenwriter, professor, and script consultant, she knows what types of writing tools really work for her students, and her Su-City Pictures East' clients. When you pitch your project to a film executive -- or a story analyst is reading your script -- these film industry folks are asking and evaluating: Why should I care about your characters? Will an audience care about these characters? Are these characters and the situations they find themselves in (regardless of the genre) interesting, unique, and compelling? The bottom line is this -- if your characters don't ring true and are not fleshed out, your screenplay will be rejected. Give your screenplay the characters they deserve!
About the Author: Susan Kouguell, author of The Savvy Screenwriter: How Sell Your Screenplay (and Yourself) Without Selling Out! (St. Martin's Griffin), is chairperson of Su-City Pictures East, LLC, a motion picture consulting company founded in 1990 that works with more than one thousand international writers, filmmakers, movie executives, production companies, and studios. Kouguell wrote over a dozen features for independent production companies, including voice-over narrations for Miramax. She is the recipient of many grants and fellowships, including the Jerome Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Edward Albee Foundation. Her six short internationally award-winning films (made in collaboration with Ernest Marrero) are in the archives and permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and were included in the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial. Kouguell worked with director Louis Malle on the documentary And the Pursuit of Happiness, and she associate produced Rum & Coke and Where the Rivers Flow North. Kouguell teaches screenwriting and film at Tufts University, and she presents seminars to organizations and universities, including the Writers and Directors Guilds of America, Screenwriting Expo, Scr(i)pt Magazine's seminars, Independent Feature Project, New York Women in Film & Television, Women in Film/Video New England, Atlantic Film & Video Producers Conference in Canada, The New School, New York University, Temple University, Boston University, and Emerson and Hunter Colleges. Kouguell's most recent industry writing includes MovieMaker Magazine's Complete Guide to Making Movies 2010, NOW WRITE! Screenwriting: Exercises by Today's Best Screenwriters, Teachers and Consultants (2011, Tarcher/Penguin) and a monthly Ask the Screenplay Doctor column for NewEnglandFilm.com.
