The Wordplayer site has a good anecdote about why it’s important for screenwriters to stay active throughout production:
I’m on the set less than a minute and I see Miss Improvise, in costume, her makeup being touched up, all ready for the first master shot. She’s supposed to be dead. Dead for at least twenty pages.
Definitely worth a read. Check it out here.
This site is run by screenwriter John August. Mostly, he answers reader-submitted questions about the craft, but occasionally he goes on tangents that run far afield of writing and filmmaking. You'll also find info on past, present and future projects.
For photos, blurbs and uncomfortable self-promotion, you can check out his Facebook fan page.
If you have a question about screenwriting or my movies that hasn't been answered, by all means ask. There are a few guidelines to follow.
There are more than 900 articles on the site. You can find category archives at the bottom of every page.
Articles
March 8th, 2005 at 2:29 pm
It’s a great story, but I don’t think it’s from Terry; there are two oblique references to the writer being female.
March 8th, 2005 at 3:17 pm
Good point. The post came from “the Authority on Everything,” which I assumed was Terry — but probably isn’t.
I changed the entry to fix this. Thanks.
March 8th, 2005 at 4:39 pm
Wordplayer rocks! The best place on the web for aspiring screenwriters to get an idea of what they’re getting into… once they break into it. Too bad those guys are too busy to post new articles. Thank god for John!
March 9th, 2005 at 1:56 pm
All i get from that shared-link is a “403-Forbidden” pop-up.
Now, it’s really amazing to find how truly collaborative such information can be but i might have an illicit code preventing me to access that site or a technical browser flaw dumped without my knowledge directly to my PC by a hacker!
I’m not debugging savvy enough, maybe… but since WordPlayer.com is everywhere and “somehow” public, is anybody else blocked and if so, would anyone here help me?
Anyhow, their own feedback forms aren’t replied to.
March 9th, 2005 at 2:06 pm
Wordplayer is surprisingly non-standard. For a long time, you couldn’t get to it through Safari. Try Firefox, I guess.
March 10th, 2005 at 9:44 pm
Well, that’s odd. I actually installed FireFox and now, T&T’s reference site is loading in it. Still, what went wrong with the Mozilla set-up or miscellaneous “prefs” or “defaults” is beyond comprehension. Tampering occured with some privacy settings or i’d been able to access their site normally since last October. I seriously think some hacker plugged some wise code either in the registry or even patched an illicit program to PREVENT me from posting there. I’ve sent a report to mozilla.org and i expect them to fix that sort of security issue. Otherwise anyone can ruin the flow of information without us even knowing about it. Thanks for the suggestion John, it worked “somehow”. Consider me on a hunt for the browser’s flaw, until found!
March 14th, 2005 at 2:14 pm
I can’t get into this link at all, or even the Wordplay forums. Firefox and Safari on a Mac give me “connection refused when attempting to connect to 127.0.0.1″, Firefox on a PC gives the same, IE on Mac and PC gives me a standard page cannot load thing - I’ve tried it on 2 other machines. Am I doing something wrong here? Can someone post a copy of the text somewhere so I can read it? I’m going crazy here…
March 15th, 2005 at 7:01 am
Forget it, must have been my router or something - just tried it at work, and it loaded up fine. Bizarre.
April 28th, 2005 at 7:19 pm
Hi John, I’ve been visiting your site for a few months now since I’ve seen it on IMDB. You have a tremendous amount information on here that helps a ton. And I wish I would’ve known about that poll you took, I too am 21 year old college male. What’s the deal with that? I’m currently working on a script that I am extremely happy with and I can’t wait to see just how far it goes. I have a few questions. 1. What type of screenwriting program do you use, and what typer of education do you have. 2. When submitting a screenplay is it wise or necessary to have it coprywrite protected before sending. 3. What is the best way to submit a screenplay coming from a total newcomer. Anything you can tell me i know will be coming from a proffesional who cares about his fellow writers. I love this site, It’s a useful tool to anyone interested is these types of things. Thankyou
Ryan
May 16th, 2005 at 1:56 am
I’m guessing Max wrote this, yes?