Overview

Christina Kallas argues for and sets out a genuinely original and creative approach to writing for the screen. This textbook aims to excite the imagination, inspiring and dramatizing stories with thematic richness, emotional depth and narrative rhythm. Structured like a screenplay, the book moves through the pre-credit sequence to the epilogue, interweaving theory, practice and case studies. Kallas combines an awareness of the history of dramatic writing with a very practical focus on how to find ideas and develop them. Supported by innovative and inspiring exercises that enable writers to create stories out of emotions and images, this book is challenging, motivating and essential reading for anyone interested in screenwriting.

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9780230221406

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Reviews

'Smart. Thorough. Insightful. Kallas has an authoritative understanding of creative issues, historical issues, and the intellectual issues about screenwriting and covers them with a sense of the head and the heart of the subject. Filled with exercises, analysis, and thoughtful discussion, the book is an important addition for anyone wanting to learn more and write with more emotional depth.' - Linda Seger, script consultant and author of Making A Good Script Great 'A great screenplay is worth its weight in gold - not just to its author, but also its producer, director, actors and, most important of all, its ultimate audience. Creative Screenwriting is a great place for any screenwriter to mine for treasure. It's filled with insights, alternatives, stimulating exercises and springboards for your imagination.' - David Howard, Founding Director of the Graduate Screenwriting Program at USC and author of Tools of Screenwriting 'This book is long overdue - it finally exposes the emperor's new clothes of narrative screenwriting. The exaggerated emphasis on the narrative structure in screenwriting analysis is both misguided and tyrannical. It is the emotional journey that matters, not the narrative - as most moviegoers would tell you. The narrative is needed only as a skeleton to hang the real stuff upon, and Christina Kallas' insightful book provides a rare glimpse into the real stuff - the viewer's emotional journey and the way for the writer to provide for it.' - Milcho Manchevski 'A most erudite, encyclopedic and wise synthesis of the craft of screenwriting, which both novice and seasoned writer would do well to investigate. A fascinating overview of notions of drama and techniques, ancient and modern which should open writing horizons, and redefine the craft of screenwriting, inject it with the life, philosophy and emotional wisdom it increasingly lacks.' - Jeff Gross, novelist, film director and writer of some forty screenplays

'Smart. Thorough. Insightful. Kallas has an authoritative understanding of creative issues, historical issues, and the intellectual issues about screenwriting and covers them with a sense of the head and the heart of the subject. Filled with exercises, analysis, and thoughtful discussion, the book is an important addition for anyone wanting to learn more and write with more emotional depth.' - Linda Seger, script consultant and author of Making A Good Script Great 'A great screenplay is worth its weight in gold - not just to its author, but also its producer, director, actors and, most important of all, its ultimate audience. Creative Screenwriting is a great place for any screenwriter to mine for treasure. It's filled with insights, alternatives, stimulating exercises and springboards for your imagination.' - David Howard, Founding Director of the Graduate Screenwriting Program at USC and author of Tools of Screenwriting 'This book is long overdue - it finally exposes the emperor's new clothes of narrative screenwriting. The exaggerated emphasis on the narrative structure in screenwriting analysis is both misguided and tyrannical. It is the emotional journey that matters, not the narrative - as most moviegoers would tell you. The narrative is needed only as a skeleton to hang the real stuff upon, and Christina Kallas' insightful book provides a rare glimpse into the real stuff - the viewer's emotional journey and the way for the writer to provide for it.' - Milcho Manchevski, writer-director of Golden Lion winnder, Academy-Award-nominated Before the Rain 'A most erudite, encyclopedic and wise synthesis of the craft of screenwriting, which both novice and seasoned writer would do well to investigate. A fascinating overview of notions of drama and techniques, ancient and modern which should open writing horizons, and redefine the craft of screenwriting, inject it with the life, philosophy and emotional wisdom it increasingly lacks.' - Jeff Gross, novelist, film director and writer of some forty screenplays 'This book would be useful for anyone who has ever experienced the cruel mistress that is writer's block. Even though Kallas is specfically writing about screenwriting here, you can take the advice about generating creattivity from this book and apply it to any kind of writing or anything that is creatively based.' - Film Matters

Author Information

CHRISTINA KALLAS is a screenwriter and producer and President of the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe (FSE). She is the artistic director of the Balkan Fund and teaches screenwriting at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin and at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

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