All the posts by Jody Medland
Now that we’re in 2016, there will be an awful lot of writers walking around with a spring in their step, believing this will finally be their year. While I applaud the enthusiasm, I am also fully aware of how many writers I’ll meet over the next year that will feel the industry hasn’t given them a fair shot.
Nobody is more sympathetic to this view than me. I have honestly felt ready to “make it” …
Note: This is an analytical review which, by its very nature, includes spoilers.
I watched Danny Collins with quiet optimism because rarely do I regret watching an Al Pacino film, and Annette Benning is an actress I’ve always keenly admired. I was also a big fan of Crazy, Stupid Love, so with Dan Fogelman at the helm as writer / director, my interest was definitely spiked. At the back of my mind, though, I knew this …
Of all the questions I receive, this has got to be the most common and so I thought I’d write an article I can usher people towards in the future.
…
You need to forgive me for pointing out the obvious in this post, but you’ll be amazed how many times I cover the following points with new writers who insist they want to create their own book covers, yet when I receive their design, the fundamentals have been overlooked.
The book cover is, in many ways, the most important part of your book as it’s what will drive its sales. There’s just no getting around it. If people …
FROM THE PROLOGUE ALONE I could tell that the story would embrace utter randomness. It would seek it out and toy with it, almost defiantly so, proving that anything could be funny if written the right light.
Through the booze soaked mind of Alan Blair – our wayward hero – we are encouraged to see the world through his slightly skewed view, whose humorous opinions made me wonder if its initial charm could compensate for its …
Whether you’re writing books, plays, musicals or screenplays, it’s vital that you master the fundamentals of a scene. I mean, that does without saying, right? After all, your work is essentially a long list of scenes, so if your individual scenes have something missing, how will your finished product be any different?
There’s one small problem. Writing a noteworthy scene is incredibly difficult. If you pull someone off the street and ask them to write a …
A couple of notes before you read this article:
*I’ve referred only to films and not books in this blog because I feel it’s easier to make an example of characters whose arcs take shape over just 90-pages.
*In the off-chance you haven’t yet seen some of these films, there are potential spoilers for The Rock, Rocky IV, Star Wars, Warrior, The Impossible, The Dark Night, 8mm, Unbreakable and X-Men.
Now, let’s begin.
To be truly absorbed in a story, we need …
Whenever I speak to somebody who has deep rooted aspirations of becoming a writer, it’s never long before they ask me this question and I’m going to be quite a little controversial here.
I don’t believe in writer’s block.
This isn’t me trying to be clever or insinuating that I have a stronger creative mind than those who claim to suffer from the dreaded “block of writing.” Far from it!
I simply feel that “writer’s block,” as a …
A very big hello and thank you so much for taking the time to visit this page.
As I’ve been shouting it from the rooftops I’m fairly certain you will know that my first paperback novel was released this summer. Whenever I hold a book signing I tend to read this to the attendees and they say it really helps set the tone for what they feel is an intriguing story, and so I thought it would …
There’s writing screenplays, and there’s being a screenwriter.
The difference is that anybody can write a screenplay. I learnt my craft by writing dozens of them. However, they never went anywhere because they were rife with errors and not in any way industry friendly.
Being a screenwriter is more about the art of knowing who you are writing for and having a clear, concise, realistic plan of how you intend to get it to them. The difference …