Screenwriter Blog Posts

Screenwriting 101: A Practical Guide for First-Time Screenwriters

Just finished your first screenplay draft? This practical guide for first-time screenwriters offers a step-by-step checklist to strengthen your concept, structure, formatting, and rewrites.

Written by

Melody Jackson

Interest A Star With A Great Character Arc

A great Character Arc not only makes a story work, but it’s “acting bait” for a movie star. Every action your main character takes should be toward ...

Written by

Melody Jackson

How To Write a Treatment For Your Screenplay: 7 Critical Tips

Previously I wrote about the great benefits of writing treatments for your screenplays instead of jumping directly into writing the scenes themselves. In case you ...

Written by

Melody Jackson

Why Should I Use the Smart Girls Query Letter Service For My Screenplay Instead of Doing It Myself?

Screenwriters often ask me what the advantage is for using our query letter service instead of doing it themselves since there is no guarantee you’ll ...

Written by

Melody Jackson

How to Write Captivating Script Dialogue

One of the biggest challenges in writing a great screenplay, even for seasoned writers, is writing strong script dialogue. The truth is that if you ...

Written by

Melody Jackson

Is It Better To Market Your Script to Producers, Literary Agents, or Literary Managers First?

Screenwriters often hear “You need to get an agent to sell your screenplay. That’s the only way it will happen.” And because they hear that, ...

Written by

Melody Jackson

Where Are You Going With Your Plot?

Every scene in your screenplay must be doing one or more of three things: revealing character, advancing the plot, or expanding the theme. All three ...

Written by

Melody Jackson

Networking in Hollywood Like the Girl with the Extraordinarily Long Arm

You’ve probably have heard that you need to schmooze in Hollywood, and sometimes hearing this makes actors shudder because they feel it means they need ...

Written by

Melody Jackson

How to Make Dialogue Better in Your Screenplay – Simple Tricks To Be Creative

Nothing kills a good story faster than bad dialogue. If your screenplay dialogue is predictable, if everybody speaks in the same rhythm, or if every ...

Written by

Melody Jackson

WGA Agents List — Writers Guild Of America List of Agents Review

Screenwriters sometimes ask me what I think about approaching the WGA West Literary Agents as a possible way to obtain representation. Theoretically, it's a good ...

Written by

Melody Jackson