I was recently asked to review a new screenwriting book that will hit the shelves (digital and otherwise) in August, 2012. The book, Screenplay Form and Structure, is composed of posts taken from a private online forum discussing such concepts as audience bonding, the proper use of scene cards, and marketing strategies.
The book is edited by Alan von Altendorf and built out of posts from over a dozen contributors, some of whom are clearly students of screenwriting looking for their first big break and others who seem to have years of experience in the industry, though none of the main contributors have IMDB pages — not a great sign. I decided to give the book’s contributors the benefit of the doubt, because (1) options and uncredited rewrites don’t show up on IMDB and (2) you don’t have to be an outwardly successful screenwriter in order to be an excellent teacher. Just look at Robert McKee and Syd Field.
Screenplay Form and Structure has a scattering of useful tidbits and ideas, but overall the book is, ironically, lacking in useful structure. The forum format translates to conversational entries that can build upon each other, but too often includes page after page of contributors building up each other’s egos without providing the reader with any sort of useful instruction. Quite often throughout the text the contributors disagree with each other or fail to understand each other’s points. These conflicts sometimes lead to further elucidation on a topic, but more often than not made me wish the editor had picked up his red pen much more often when collecting these posts into a teaching text.
