I wrote my first spec in less than 30 days.

Don’t hyperventilate yet—it wasn’t a feature I specced in less than a month, it was an hour-long TV drama. You should also know, in case you don’t already, that speccing for TV and speccing for film are two totally different terms. For television, to spec is to write an episode of a pre-existing show in order to prove to the world (or at least those who care to hire you) that you can assimilate your style to match that of another show.

It's not just the bane of every screenwriter.  Really the age-old battle of showing vs. telling has been waged by anyone who's put pen to paper in order to try and craft a story.  It's a relatively simple term that describes a very complicated and nuanced concept. Many writers struggle to find some balance between the two ideas, but this becomes even harder in the realm of film.  Since this is a very big issue, and one that most writers encounter I've decided to help, by defining the terms as well as giving examples on how to avoid these issues in the future.

One of my protagonists in one of my several half-baked scripts is temporarily named Anna. Maybe that will be her name, maybe it won’t. Tonight as I read over the pages of the first two acts of Anna’s script, it became apparent to me that I didn’t know this girl at all.

It's all about cadence. When it comes to connecting the writing of a film with the emotion of a film, it's all about cadence.

Via Dictionary.com: Cadence--rhythmic flow of a sequence of sounds or words: the cadence of language.

Who can forget the moment we heard the breathing of Darth Vader when he first stormed onto the screen in 1977; or the gleam off the clean-shaven head of Lex Luthor.  Strong villains are the key to an engaging story and when you sit down to write you script you'll need to avoid a common pitfall when crafting your villains.

I was pondering thoughts on a column here about the general craft of writing, and doing it. Then I saw a friend’s Facebook post: Write what comes naturally.

That’s a good starting point, even if I must say after writing professionally for some 35 years, writing is in some ways an unnatural state. But I think that above thought trumps the largely sagacious and true “write what you know.” After all, sometimes you have to write things you don’t know. And write to discover new things.

Throughout all time, the clashes between altruistic honor-seeking heroes and their self-serving villainous counterparts have been the basis for great storytelling.  Epic legends detailing the exploits from the forces of good and evil have stood the test of time.  Every story ever passed from one generation to the next are built upon these very tales.

The story — it’s the heart of any good film, the first major and ultimate final element that makes or breaks a movie. Duh! We all know that, don’t we? (I’ve seen films that make me wonder….)