My father was a screenwriter, but he was also a novelist.
Every adaptation requires that the screenwriter make difficult choices - and in particular, difficult cuts.
When I was a screenwriter, I was doing it for mercenary reasons.
A screenwriter heard me read from my novel 'The Wishbones' when it was still in progress and mentioned me to some producers in Hollywood. They called, and I told them I had a novel in my drawer about a high school election that goes haywire. They asked to take a look, and my life changed pretty dramatically as a result.
Even though I am in this weird position of being a semi-recognizable screenwriter, which isn't that common, at the same time, I'm not an actress. I'm pretty isolated.
Screenwriter Flacco nicely evokes the aftermath of San Francisco's 1906 earthquake in his fiction debut, a novel of suspense.
With a screenwriter and with the actors there is always an environment of trust. You can say anything, all your secrets, and you know that it won't get out of that room.
I'm an affluent screenwriter and all that - I'm a known screenwriter, but I'm not in the fraternity of the very, very major people. I would say a guy like Ernie Lehman, William Goldman, and a few others are quite a cut above.
If you want to be a screenwriter, take an acting class to get a sense of what you're asking actors to do. Learning other skills will help you communicate with people and respect what they do.
You are the executive director and screenwriter of your life.
When a novelist or screenwriter is looking for a subject, the element he's seeking is conflict. Conflict makes drama. Conflict produces great characters and memorable scenes. So war is a natural topic.
As a screenwriter I'm often writing in genres where there have been thousands of movies; whereas when I direct movies they tend to be in between genres. They tend to have a little bit of a genre to them, but they're really about the people, and they're people we haven't met before.
No one should feel sorry for a successful screenwriter.
If you want to be a great director, be a great screenwriter.
I've been a screenwriter for twenty-five years. Every one of my books have been optioned for movies and I have written a few of those screenplays.
Being a good television screenwriter requires an understanding of the way film accelerates the communication of words.
It's really hard as a screenwriter, you feel like you have a vision and then you turn it over to a director and you have to let it go.
I always loved movies, but I never thought I would presume to be a screenwriter and definitely not a director.
When I was really young I didn't know that there was such a thing as a screenwriter. I wrote stories.
Being a screenwriter is not enough for a full creative life.
