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Summary: Great overview of the screenwriting process.
Review: I am working on my first script, and the info in this book gave me a lot of great tips on how to improve a script's structure and content. Also gave great overview of the actual format and punctuation that is expected in today's scripts. This book will be a big help in helping me finish (and eventually market) my script!
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Summary: I hope the paper it's printed on is recyclable...
Review: I bought this book mainly because I needed a screenplay format guide, and this is the first one I found. If a format guide is all you're looking for, this will do. If you want useful advice, you'd better look elsewhere.His "workbook" will help you write the very same fomulaic stories he claims you shouldn't write. That's because his workbook IS a formula; it's not much more than a series of checklists. He outlines a formula for writing commercial screenplays, and then tries, unconvincingly, to demonstrate how some well-known movies conform to his outline. This is completely backwards. These movies were not written using his methods, but rather his "steps" describe some parts of the movies, and only on a very broad level. If you want to liberate the ideas you have inside of you, don't limit youself by following Trottier's book. Try reading "Zen and the Art of Screenwriting," by William Froug. Without mentioning names, it refutes Trottier's ideas, and offers a much more practical and organic approach to writing a screenplay. Says Froug, "The blunt truth is that no professional screenwriter writes with 'steps' in his or her head." Well, this book is full of steps, and any decision to climb them is a decision to embark on the facile but futile journey into nothingness.
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Summary: Overdue at the library
Review: I checked this one out at the library and by the time I returned it, it was well over 90 days late. Don't let this happen to you. Just buy the thing to start with. The book contains a lot of wonderful information that any aspiring screenwriter needs. Curiously, however, the examples that Trottier provides of his own writing are bland and seem somewhat in opposition to what his bible preaches. Still, a helpful resource if you skip his examples.
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Summary: The BEST book I've ever read on screenwriting
Review: I have read many books on screenwriting, but this has to be the best. Buy it! It will be the best money you have ever spent on a screenwriting book...
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Summary: General content is great, but format'd have been better
Review: I love author's language and his way of explaining things to the reader. It really works. The overall content of the book is very useful. But, I can't say the same thing about its format. This book is big and not in an "easy-to-use" style. I think it should have had "easy-to-use" reference format, since it is a "Screenwrites's Bible". It really is one of those books, that you have to refer over and over again, while you are in a process of writing. Also, the author does not give much info about how to market/sell your work; he only points out quite obvious things and general directions in regard to the subject. Despite the flaws, this book can really help you to start out.
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Summary: Examples, no simplistic worksheets
Review: I own this book, and it's terrible. Many of the so-called examples are extraordinarily simplistic. The likes of which I'd not seen since grade school. No joke! And, perhaps most remarkably, there are no real worksheets given to help write. A far better choice for beginners is The Screenplay Workbook: The Writing Before the Writing, by Jeremy Robinson and Tom Mungovan. It will give you a much stronger set of story creation tools, including some excellent worksheets on plot structure, and has plenty of worksheets to start your writing. But whatever you do, avoid The Screenwriter's Bible.
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Summary: 3rd Edition only improves!
Review: I recently read the 3rd edition of this book and must say that this book only improves if you can believe that. Over 120 pages have been added including an entire new book on the Spec Style that takes the reader through pages of one of Trottier's purchased screenplays. He now uses examples from many new movies like GOOD WILL HUNTING, TITANIC, THE TRUMAN SHOW, and many others. He even uses examples from movies that haven't actually been produced yet, only purchased, to show what he means by high-concept loglines. The single best book available on screenwriting!!
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Summary: An indespensible guide...
Review: I recommend this guide two levels. Firstly, it's an excellent guide for beginners. If you need to know formatting, etc, this is exactly what you're looking for. Secondly, it makes an excellent reference to have nearby while writing. It's only a matter of time before you get stuck on something, and this guide is sure to get you out. I bought 6 other how-to's on this subject before I found this one, and I sure wish I had found this first.
Rating: 
Summary: Great place to start
Review: I was already a writer before tackling screenplays, so I was not looking to this book for advice on how to write. I needed help with the dos and don'ts of the screenplay format and that's exactly what I got. "Elements of Style" it isn't, but there are many good tips about how to handle characters and story in the screenplay form. If you are a new writer or a slave to prose, this will help. The book helped me understand the differences between the scripts you read in script libraries and the spec script you want to write and sell. I found out that even my latest upgrade for Screenwriter 2000 software includes by default things that are not format-appropriate for spec scripts. How much time and trouble did that little tidbit save me? [price]bucks very well-spent.
Rating:
Summary: Valuable
Review: I'm not a big fan of books that claim to teach people how to write. However, this book deals with formatting issues that many people who have never written a screenplay will be confronted with and it answers their inevitable questions succinctly. If you aren't new to screenplay format, this book will probably not be incredibly useful to you (though it might have the odd answer to the odd question); but if you are about to begin your first journey into the world of the screenplay, this book will prove to be very valuable.
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