Table Reads with Bonnie: Sharpen Your Craft with a Live Reading + Feedback

Want to hear your script come to life? Bring your scenes—up to 5 pages of a screenplay or 3 pages of prose (novel/memoir) to this interactive workshop for a live table read! We’ll cast roles on the spot and read your work out loud, followed by direct, constructive…

Read more

https://catalyst.voyagemedia.com/projects/revision/

Received!

Here’s draft 1.1 of the Cold Open. I’m trying out Fade In, so there is a notice about that on the top of every page. Sorry about that. I worked on characterization on this draft. Here it is: https://catalyst.voyagemedia.com/?attachment=13461&document_type=document&download_document_file=1&document_file=1190

If you’re hoping your book might someday become a film or television series, your pitch doesn’t begin when a producer opens your query letter or reads your synopsis. In many cases, it begins a few seconds later, when they look up your book on Amazon.

I do this constantly.

When an author approaches me about an adaptation, one of the first…

Read more

Thank you @bonniesolomon I just downloaded “Fade In” and it’s working properly. I had trouble with Final Draft a year ago and have been manually formatting in word since. “Fade In” is much more intuitive so far. And saves formatting work like you mentioned. Thank you!

Whether you are writing an audio drama, feature film, or TV series – what FURIOUS (the new hit Hulu show) has done is worth studying.

FURIOUS, in theory, is “playing the hits”. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:

*A serial killer

*A cop

*They’re really two sides of the same coin

*”We’re not so different, you and I” is arguably a line…

Read more

Yes, sounds like a good plan!

Great to have these summed up so succinctly.
I have 3 of these software types but only use Writer Solo for now, mainly because the top-row formatting options have prompting icons that make it easier to learn as I go. Apparently I can upgrade to Duet easily later, and if I open/import a saved .fdx draft, my Word version activates a Final…

Read more

Audiobooks have moved well beyond being a nice extra for authors. For many readers, they’re now the preferred way to experience a book. People listen while commuting, exercising, cooking, traveling, cleaning, or winding down at the end of the day, which means an audiobook can put your work in front of readers who might never sit down with the…

Read more

https://catalyst.voyagemedia.com/?attachment=13419&document_type=document&download_document_file=1&document_file=1176

Updated Scene One (from updated Opening Sequence) to incorporate feedback: Contextualise the protagonist, get her or someone chatting, add texture to the opening, clarify what the audience is looking at, and make it clearer the air show is a happy family event.
The fighter jet concerns were also addressed but are after this scene.

Document…

Read more

Okay, thanks for the feedback!

Ben Affleck was interviewed and asked, after having a career renaissance, what he was doing differently? He said he was just working much, much harder.

It’s easy to forget now. But there was a time when Ben Affleck’s career was on life support. He’d suffered through a string of flops, most notably the ironically named film PAYCHECK.

He was the…

Read more

Great Piece of information.

A query letter session would be really helpful. As I’m just a couple months away from querying literary agents. Thank you Bonnie!

Here is my 5-page segment of Gem of the Andes, a tv miniseries pilot. A reclusive young woman, Lila Winters, living in old, creepy Spurwink Manor, finds a ring holding a mystic pink emerald. She is suspicious of all men, but finally comes to trust a detective, Amzi Darrow, so they can return the ring to its rightful owner in Peru. They also fall in love.

This post is for book authors interested in pursuing trad publishing. In order to submit to those publishers, you’ll need a literary agent. And in order to get one, you’ll need a query letter.

A query letter has one job: make a literary agent want to read your book. It’s a sales pitch, an introduction, and a miniature demonstration of your…

Read more