Advanced Screenwriting: Raising Your Script to the Academy Award Level

Arrived in good condition. I have not read the book yet but I'm sure it is worth the money.

This book is the best book I've read on screenwriting. Helps refine one's screenwriting. Very strong examples and clear direction ennabling the reader to critically analyze their own scripts as well as movies. All in all, a wonderful, must-have tool for serious screenwriters.

Book was very dirty, spine has some tears, protective coating is flaking off, and cover is scratched. Content of the book is great though.

Linda Seger's ADVANCED SCREENWRITING makes her the darling of the studios. The darling of the independent filmmakers at that. The book is what I call the collective resources of cultural storytelling for the motion pictures. Every people from various culutres have a unique way of telling their stories. No one tells a villager how to paint what's in their culture. They just paint. They just do sculpture the way they know how to sculpt. They draw the way they draw. Everyone's art is different. A MUST READ!

Clear, concise, easily read. The information is fantastic and stimulates one's mind to new directions and ideas to improve one's script! A must read for everyone.

Lot's of subtlety

I'm not familiar with Linda Seger's other books, but she does go on quite a bit about previous material she has written in "Advanced Screenwriting". It turns me off a bit when authors want to plug themselves to death in their other books - I mean, why can't we separate from what we've already written or else sell both books as a package - but I'm almost at the end of this, and I have to say I did find it quite insightful. I'm attempting a draft of a screenplay I'm really excited about writing and I really wanted to raise my game this time around, but while I feel I do have the fundamentals down pat, I still don't think I feel confident enough to attempt it based on just this book. She offers quite a lot of advice and tips, which are great, but in the end I feel like... wow, where to start? I do like the topics covered and I like that she uses recent films versus older films as reference, but I feel like she dwells too much on her other book "Making a Good Script Great" (which I don't have). Ah well. Still good. Also, FAR too many typos to be believed in this book. It distracted somewhat after awhile. I really was taken aback. I want to ask her editor... "What's up with that??"

Linda Seger is unquestionably one of the brightest and most precise screenwriting consultants and teachers in the business. ADVANCED SCREENWRITING fine-tunes the practically perfect path so carefully defined and so well marked by Linda in her other essential books on screenwriting, MAKING A GOOD SCRIPT GREAT, THE ART OF ADAPTATION and CREATING UNFORGETABLE CHARACTERS... leading us even deeper into the enchanted forest of excellent screenwriting. Seasoned screenwriters will do well to be reminded of those almost mystical elements that inhabit well-crafted films and beginners will find it a finishing course--though having been a big fan, student, and professional who has benefited by Linda's script consultation on more than one major film I urge newcomers to get the entire Seger Screenwriting Library to insure they get the most from ADVANCED SCREENWRITING. When writers submit material to our production company we ask whether they've read Linda Seger. If they say "no" we urge them to, "go back, read her books, re-write their script and then resubmit." That way we know we won't be wasting our time reading a script that needs more work and structural discipline and the writer can be confident that they are giving us their absulut best shot.

This book has an awful title: do not expect to read it and your next draft to be at award level (whatever that really means). However, there are some useful insights into improving your script when you're looking to go beyond the structurally focused books which are ten a penny. It's worth reading. There is a minor but woeful analysis of MULHOLLAND DRIVE, but it doesn't spoil things.