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Summary: ...and I thought he could really write!
Review: I bought the book from a bookshop after reading the reviews of (mostly) friends and students of Gilles. The reviews of these guys impressed me enough to buy a copy without looking at the content first and still wrapped in plastic. The first chapters' contents were inspiring that I thought not only is he a good teacher but he could really write screenplays. And then I read a spec script he wrote about three astronauts who discovers something on their journey to the moon(included in the last part of the book.)This shattered my respect to the author. The content of the spec script is way outrageous which contradicts what he taught. There are so many writing pitfalls (..and this is just the sequence treatment).A senator -astronaut who after failing to convince the press that he really saw alien during their trip years ago decides to go back to the moon with other astronauts and prove his secret?...Come On! This is supposedly a sold spec script.Pity the Guy who bought it. I'm not surprised it has not been produced yet
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Summary: Finally, a great screenwriting book
Review: I thought this was an excellent book. I've written some screenplays and read other screenwriting books, and this is the best I've read by far. It was fun to read, but it also delivered the goods. It really tells you how to come up with great stories and craft them into a professional screenplay. Most screenwriting books are dull as dirt, and that's why I liked this one so much. I laughed a lot (hey, it was more entertaining than a lot of movies I've seen), but I was also inspired. It's filled with all the important inside information you need to know. Great book!
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Summary: Finally: A Pithy, Practical Screenwriting Guide
Review: I've been a professional journalist and p.r. writer and have read writing guides by the very best. D.B. Gilles' "The Screenwriter Within" is not only informative and entertaining, but as pithy and practical a guide to writing as I've ever read. I think I'll turn D.B.'s book into a screenplay and make millions.
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Summary: Only book like this I ever read that's a pageturner.
Review: I've read a bunch of these self-help screenwriting books. The Screenwriter Within is the only one that I couldn't put down. It's funny and philosophical and made me look at screenwriting in a whole new way. Recommended highly!
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Summary: Totally unique.
Review: I've written two screenplays so far and had trouble with the structure, primarily when it came to the third act. I seemed to run out of steam creatively. I've read Aristotle's Poetics and Joseph Campbell and four other screenwriting manuals that pretty much all said the same thing. The Screenwriter Within says it differently. Gilles makes structuring a story and building a plot easy to understand and, I guess more importantly, easier to undertake. I looked at both of my previous scripts and applied some of the tips that Gilles suggests and realized that the reason my third acts crashed and burned was because my first acts took too long to get started. Instead of feeling happy or at least pleased when I finished my two scripts, I felt defeated. But this book inspired me and motivated me to try and fix one of the scripts. Gilles ends his book with a neat quote that also made me feel writing a good screenplay and even selling it is possible. Highly recommended.
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Summary: No medicinal taste at all!
Review: It's so easy for books like this - filled with information and practical tips -- to be hard to swallow. It can be like taking notes in a lecture hall. But The Screenwriter Within is actually enjoyable reading -- I sat down with it, and found that I'd ripped through the whole book in just a few hours -- and I'd learned (and been reminded of) a lot in the process. Gilles makes his points (and there are many of them) in a fast and funny fashion. I'd recommend the book to anyone starting out as a screenwriter, or anyone (like myself) who's already done some of it, but always needs a good refresher course.
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Summary: hooray at least!
Review: Like a ronin wandering sans master until I found DB's book, I was lost ... but this one is *definitely* a keeper! A witty, breezy style keeps the prose afloat, and his extensive use of personal anecdote and down-to-earth nuts & brass _usables_ rank this amongst the finest screenwriting books I've ever encountered! Bravura, Mr. Gilles! Bravura!
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Summary: This struck a chord with me unlike any of the others
Review: Really inspiring. I was halfway through and felt the muse awaken. His e-mail address is in the back of the book. I contacted him and he was very amenable to answering questions about my script.
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Summary: Watch out !
Review: Stay away of this book. I'm interested in writing in general, and I've read more then 40 books on the subject. This one doesn't have anything that you can not find in other books. It deals with screenwriting in pretty superficial way. Too many stories from D. B. Gilles' personal life and not much about structure, characterization and dialog. Although you can find chapters on these subjects, but when you read them, there is almost nothing inside. I was disappointed. Besides, it seems to me that among the first 10 reviewers at least 7 of them know D. B. Gilles personally (six of them are from N.Y. and so the writer - coincidence ?) and had written their reviews more or less on the same time. In my opinion, they look more like promotions and not like fair reviews.
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Summary: A Writing Down The Bones & Bird By Bird for screenwriters.
Review: The Screenwriter Within took me on a different ride than the other screenwriting how-to books I've read and screenwriting classes I've taken. Not only did it make me laugh at loud, but it made me look at the plotting of a story in a different way. I've taken classes with some heavyweight screenwriters who spent most of the time telling war stories about their own careers instead of actually teaching anything. Gilles is a real teacher.
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