Brian Herskowitz talks about How to Write Screenplays and his book “Process to Product” (2014)

Brian Herskowitz talks about How to Write Screenplays

Check the book out here https://amzn.to/3iZJv3Z

DO YOU WANT TO LEARN HOW TO WRITE A SCREENPLAY?

Interview Summary

Brian Herskowitz is a screenwriter and producer and has many credits to his name including Tour of Duty, Tio Papi, Hercules, scifi and horror movies, and a documentary on domestic violence. He teaches screenwriting and he talked to me about creating a screenplay. This is the first episode in a short series on screenwriting.

0: 45 – Brian talks about why people should and can write for screen.

2:35 – Brian talks about how some great novels fail in film.

3:15 – Brian talks about why people try to force novels on to the screen.

11:47 – Brian talks about research based and experience based screenplays.

12:40 – Brian talks about Raiders of the Lost Ark and the importance of research.

18:22 – Brian talks about maintaining internal realism in a screenplay.

20:27 – Brian talks about writing for movie like video games.

23:11 – Brian differentiates between doing short and feature length films.

25:50 – Brian talks about writing for mini-series and shows.

30:25 – Brian talks about shorts on youtube and vimeo.

33:03 – Brian talks about people who want to write a very visual script and about getting information to the audience.

36:13 – Brian talks about the best ways to get into writing screenplays.

41:52 – Brian talks about the premise of a screenplay.

45:28 – Brian talks about he breaks down a premise.

47:23 – Brian can be found at brianherskowitz.com

Links of interest

https://amzn.to/3iZJv3Z

https://www.brianherskowitz.com/

Contact Information

For more “Full Contact Nerd” please follow me at crisalvarez.com, on Facebook at CrisAlvarezFCN, on youtube at Cris Alvarez on twitter @CrisAlvarezFCN, on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi, and on Apple Podcasts / Google Podcasts / Stitcher / Spotify for the podcast. Please see historyrabbithole.com for a list of my dozen or so blogs and podcasts. You’re sure to find something you like.

Guests: Brian Herskowitz

Host: Cris Alvarez

Check the book out here https://amzn.to/3iZJv3Z

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Melanie R. Anderson and Lisa Kroger interview about Horror and Speculative Fiction – “Monster She Wrote” (Quirk Books, 2019)

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Melanie Anderson and Lisa Kroger discuss horror and speculative fiction — Melanie Anderson / Lisa Kroger horror and speculative fiction

Melanie R. Anderson and Lisa Kroger discuss Horror and Speculative Fiction

Interview Summary

Check the book out here https://amzn.to/31nsZDK

Melanie R. Anderson and Lisa Kroger have both extensively studied speculative and horror fiction. They’ve written a few books together on the subject and they recently won the 2020 Locus Award for non-fiction for Monster She Wrote which explores female authors of horror and speculative fiction. They also won a Bram Stoker award for the book. We spoke about the subject and the book writing process.

0:41 – Lisa talks about how she and Melanie wrote a book on female horror writers.

2:02 – Melanie talks about previous projects they did together on ghosts and spectrality.

3:48 – Melanie talks about they structured the book.

6:36 – Lisa talks about their struggle to cover a broad scope of literary history.

8:48 – Melanie talks about female use of pseudonyms in horror fiction.

11:48 – Lisa talks about women not having to hide their identities.

14:51 – Lisa and Melanie talk about the nationalities of the women they included in the book.

16: 45 – Lisa talks about 19th century female horror literature.

19:11 – Melanie talks about 19th century ghost stories and why so many female writers wrote horror.

24:00 – Lisa talks about female writers mixing violence, gore, and sex

27:45 – Melanie talks about gore in horror.

32:47 – Lisa talks about a scandalous Margaret Cavendish story she really likes.

35:30 – Melanie talks about author Dion Fortune.

37:28 – Melanie talks about how religion affected the writing these women did. Lisa talks more about Manfrone.

41:39 – Melanie talks about she did the research for the work.

44:55 – Lisa talks about how she added to her horror reading list and how some writers seem to have disappeared completely.

48:28 – Lisa talks about horror comic books.

49:47 – Melanie talks about the joy these authors took in their work.

53:36 – Lisa talks about the writers who she felt touched by.

56:26 – Melanie talks about Gertrude Barrows Bennett and Jewelle Gomez.

58:59 – Lisa talks about the Gilda stories.

1:01:20 – Lisa and Melanie talk about writing the book and getting it published.

1:07:48 – Lisa is at lisakroger.com and on twitter @lbkroger and on instagram @lisa_kroger. Their podcast is knowfearcast and monster she wrote podcast and @monsterwrote on social media.

1:09:25 – Melnaie is at melanieranderson.com and on instagram @melanieranderson7.