This article explores academic and industry perspectives on the use of dialect, slang, and historical language in screenwriting. It offers a chronological overview of major screenwriting manuals' treatment of dialect and slang (or lack thereof) 1946-2020. It then presents survey data of 53 currently-practicing screenwriters' views on working with…

Designed to guide students through the process of writing a film script, this book is an analysis of eight classic screenplays and one novel written in cinematic style, which may serve as models for screenwriting. Each chapter in the book, except the last, is devoted to one script emphasizing a certain aspect of screenwriting. The focus is on how…

Based on the Screenwriting 434 graduate-level seminar at the University of California Los Angeles, this book guides readers/students through every step of the screenwriting process by putting them through the actual writing of an original script. Chapters in the book are: (1) Ideas; (2) The Two-Minute Movie; (3) Building Your Characters; (4) The…

The last of four related manuals describing the goals and methods of an established developmental theatre project at the University of Colorado, this manual discusses the processes involved in selecting and adapting scripts for specific audiences. The manual suggests ways to cut longer plays for school audiences, methods for organizing parts of…

Information on creative writing programs was collected from 1042 out of 1200 American colleges and universities contacted. The following data is presented in tabular form: (1) undergraduate academic status of creative writing; (2) graduate status; (3) offering of a course or courses covering the "core" or basic literary genres of short story,…