Screenwriting: Inspiration - not motivation - for writing. Ask MetaFilter.

I came across this hugely interesting thread in one of my regular haunts 'Metafilter', a highbrow collaborative weblog, with several contributors discussing Writing in all its aspects, and then up pops a professional screenwriter with a really interesting summary and exposition technique....

'Context: I'm a professional screenwriter. I wrote the movie SYLVIA. The following works for me. I'm not saying it will work for anything else.

Start with three sentences representing the beginning, middle and end of your story.

Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl back.

Woman buys house. House turns out to be haunted. Woman defeats ghosts.

Those are dumb examples but you get the idea.

You already have a finished story. You just need to expand it now.

You expand it by doing the exact same thing.'

Also from the same thread there is mention of a book I had previously never heard of 'Writers Block' - I've included links to that too.

Related links:

Inspiration � not motivation � for writing. | Ask MetaFilter
Metafilter
'The Writers Block' on Amazon.com