Writing the Fantasy Film : Heroes and Journeys in Alternate Realities

Rating:
Summary: Excellent guidance for writing fantasy
Review: "Writing the Fantasy Film" covers everything from character development and plotting to spells and religion. The author brings the magic in the enterprise of writing to life. This book will find a place next to Joseph Campbell's "The Hero's Journey" on my writer's bookshelf.

In addition to the overall high quality of the book, it genuinely shines in the particular information and techniques. The end-of-chapter exercises can truly enhance the abilities of a writer and therefore, the perfection of any fantasy script. The chapter on scripting battle scenes is worth the price of book alone. If you're working on a fantasy script, make sure you pick this book up.

Dan Rahmel
Author: "Nuts and Bolts Filmmaking"


Rating:
Summary: An epic look at how to make your fantasy story enchanting
Review: 'Writing the Fantasy Film' is one of those books that takes all the obsession of a D&D fanatic and combines it with the more traditional habits of the screenwriter.

Though there is no substitute for shear creative genuis, Writing The Fantasy Film, brings novice fantasy writers more than just one step closer to creating thier own 'Lord of the Rings'.

Whereas other 'how to' books talk about structure, formatting and gramatical pitfalls, this book does not. Instead, it chooses to focus on the elements that make a fantasy story a fantasy story. Though it does touch on the tranditional thoughts and theories of characters such as the anti-hero, reluctant hero, the evil friend, and comic relief, the book expands on them adding genre specific archetypes like 'the captive magic maker', and 'the witch'.

In simple detail, the book guides a new fantasy writer through all the rigors of harnessing the truly epic scope that a fantasy script can often encompasses, refining those concepts and finally weaving a tale so grand and imaginative in scale that it leaves the reader, and ultimately the audience, in absolute awe.

With chapters devoted to the purposes and proprietors of magic, possible religions, political structures, geography, creature construction (which the author refers to as 'beasties') and at least a dozen more fantasy specific segments, this is the book beat about writing in in the genre.

Being a fantasy screenwriter myself and a fan of the genre in general, one would think that I would be biased towards such a book. However, it is the opposite that is true. Knowing as much as I do about the genre and having read popular books such as the 'Dragonlance' and 'Stones of Shannara' series of books when they first came out, instantly makes me skeptical of any writer who claims to have knowledge of, let alone understand the meaning behind, fantasy writing.

Happliy, I admit that I'm no longer skeptical about 'Writing the Fantasy Film.' It has easily encompassed, and embraced, the mythical lore that is the astoundingly magical world of fantasy.

I would recommend this book to any fantasy writer regardless of thier experience level with the genre as the author as obviously shown her love and understanding of what it takes to write the fantasy film.

Tony Machin
www.tonymachin.com