By Patrick Charsky
In the history of textbooks about screenwriting, Screenplay: Writing the Picture by Robin U. Russin and William Missouri Downs ranks among the best. In fact it might be the best. It is more authoritative than Syd Fields’ Foundations of Screenwriting and updated and more current than Paul Lucey’s Story Sense. It is a toss up between Story Sense and Writing the Picture about which book is the better textbook about screenwriting. Screenplay: Writing the Picture is one of the best, most recent books about screenwriting accessible to both beginners and professionals.
This review will consider why Writing the Picture is so highly recommended on the internet and among teachers of screenwriting. Furthermore, it will talk about how it’s the most recent textbook about screenwriting, its use of contemporary films to illustrate it’s points and its introduction of source material for further study. Finally, this review will examine any shortcomings the book may have. It will also consider who the book will most appeal to.
Russin and Downs are a famous pair of writing teachers who have written extensively. Writing the Picture is their masterful text about Screenwriting. They have also written a book about playwriting called Naked Playwriting. Robin Russin is a produced screenwriter and playwright. He has many degrees and teaches Creative Writing at UC Riverside. William Missouri Downs is a playwright, director, screenwriter, and author.
Screenplay: Writing the Picture is full of great information. Its chapters flow with suggestions about how to write, format, and sell screenplays. Right from the start Writing the Picture brings the reality of Hollywood to the novice screenwriter. The book talks about screenplay development and how a screenplay will end up in front of a reader who will judge the screenplay before it gets to someone with the power to greenlight the script. Russin and Downs make clear the reality of screenwriting; that you may slave away for months or years to write a great screenplay only to have it read and discarded in a matter of hours by a reader.
Particularly good is the section about Story Structure. Writing the Picture emphasizes the importance of structure in screenplays. According to Russin and Downs, Hollywood executives and independent producers are always looking for a new way to structure screenplays. The chapters about structure delve into the history of dramatic structure from Aristotle to more contemporary writers like Joseph Campbell and Chris Vogler who revolutionized screenplay structure with their ideas about the influence of myth on stories.
Writing the Picture is an extraordinarily erudite book that uses many recent examples from film history, like James Cameron’s The Terminator, to illustrate its points which are well made. The book is excellent because it is authoritative and an exceptional reference for a writer who is writing the first draft of a screenplay or who is rewriting a script. Its chapters about Marketing the screenplay are informative and very helpful for someone contemplating a dive into the business of screenwriting. It’s chapters about the basics of writing a script are also valuable to a beginner or as a refresher to a veteran.
Russin and Downs give off great advice about sending out screenplays, finding an agent, scheduling a pitch meeting, and how to copyright a screenplay. All of this may seem accessible through some google searches, but Russin and Downs cover everything a novice would want to know better than any internet writer. It also addresses important questions like should a screenwriter move to Los Angeles? Or New York City?
As a Screenwriter myself the book talked about methods of writing that I found extremely helpful. The chapter about using notecards and about how many sequences there should be really got me thinking about planning my next screenplay. Some writers eschew using notecards, but for a beginner it is an easy way to organize and plan a screenplay before writing. It is a useful method, perhaps more useful than writing a treatment, because most writers will get stuck.
In the crowded marketplace for screenwriting books, Writing the Picture is the most recent, best textbook on the market. To my knowledge the only comparable book is Paul Lucey’s Story Sense. The big difference between the books is that Story Sense uses mostly films from the 1980’s. It’s information, structure, and advice are very similar to Writing the Picture.
The major drawbacks of Writing the Picture is that it lacks information about the streaming revolution that has taken over the movie business. The style of writing is very academic which suits its purposes. This book is definitely not a memoir about screenwriting like Millard Kaufman’s Plots and Characters. Yet it is better than Syd Fields’ book Foundations of Screenwriting. Field touches on some topics but doesn’t come close to Russin and Downs’ exhaustive knowledge about the screenwriting game. Writing the Picture doesn’t sugar coat Hollywood in any way. As it states in its introduction, this is a no nonsense book. That may be true and it surely deflates the egos of many who aspire to screenwriting success.
The book is ideal for a College screenwriting course. It is also great as a reference tool and secondary source about screenwriting topics like dramatic structure, how to create a “World” for your screenplay, and types of conflict in screenplays. I would recommend the book to serious students and practitioners of screenwriting. It is a heavy book with challenging chapters. Yet it holds the keys to writing a great screenplay.
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