Alternative Scriptwriting

INTRODUCTION * Beyond the Rules STRUCTURE * Structure * Critique or Restorative. Three-Act Form * Counter Structure * More Thoughts on Three Acts: 15 Years Later * Narrative and Anti-Narrative: The case of the two Stevens: The Work of Steven Spielberg and Steven Soderbergh * Multiple Thread Long Form Televisoin Serial Scripts GENRE * Why Genre? (New chapter) * Working with Genre I * Working with Genre II: The Melodrama and the Thriller 11.Working Against Genre 12. The Flexibility of Genre )New chapter) 13. Genres of Voice 14. The Non-Linear Film 15. The Fable: A case study of Darkness: The Wizard of Oz and Pan's Labyrinth (New chapter) CHARACTER 16. Reframing the Active/Passive Character Distinction 17. Stretching the Limits of Character Identification 18. Main and Secondary Characters 19. Subtext, Action and Character 20. The Primacy of Character over Action: The Non-American Screenplay. FORM, TONE AND THEORY 21. The Subtleties and Implications of Screenplay Form 22. Agency and the Other 23. Character, History and Politics 24. Tone: The Inescapability of Irony 25. Dramatic Voice, Narrative Voice 26. Digital Features 27. Writing the Narrative Voice 28. Rewriting 29. Adaptations from Contemporary Literature CONCLUSION 30. Personal Screenwriting: The Edge 31. Personal Screenwriting" Beyond the Edge.

Ken Dancyger is a Professor of Film and Television at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University as well as the author of numerous books on screenwriting, editing, and production. Jeff Rush is an Associate professor at Temple University's Department of Film & Media Arts as well as author of numerous articles on screenwriting and narrative theory.

Praise for the fifth edition: "Screenwriting is about making choices. What Dancyger and Rush reveal so effectively in Alternative Screenwriting is just how many options are possible, how the various available choices work and how different decisions will impact screen storytelling. This book substantially broadens every screenwriters' -creative horizons." -David Howard, USC screenwriting professor and author of The Tools of Screenwriting and How to Build a Great Screenplay." "It's so refreshing to read a book that helps to develop a creative trade like scriptwriting that is written by people who encourage you to differ from the three-act structure and not conform to all the codes that are drilled into us at college. It outlines to us the limitations of common film conventions and dissects mainstream characteristics for structure, dialogue, action, genre, discovery and turning points in a clear and coherent manner. It then teaches us how to be resourceful and take inventive risks to create a more original story that you can call your own and lets you know that there are endless roads for your story to go down... It is perfect for those who get that little itch and sense of disagreement when someone tells you that "you must do scriptwriting this way". With this new edition featuring new case studies on Pans Labyrinth and The Wizard of Oz, it really is a great book to read if you want to keep your story unique, refreshing and rich with memorable characters and themes that will give it a certain emotional weight and show that it was not written by a business man, but by a true story teller."- Raindance.org "Alternative Scriptwriting is invaluable to anyone interested in screenwriting or in directing fiction. Using plain language it demystifies storytelling for the screen, and opens up myriad possibilities for using the cinema with invention, freshness, and imagination." - Michael Rabiger, Professor Emeritus, Film/Video Department, Columbia College Chicago. "Just as