I am a high school student and I am wanting to pursue screenwriting in film and television. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I’ve been following an interesting thread of conversation on a writing message board: a debate as to whether or not the practice of writing fan fiction is healthy for an aspiring writer.

By definition: “fan fiction” are stories involving characters from a television series or movie, written by fans and usually printed in underground magazines or on the Internet for other fans to enjoy. This concept is especially popular among fans of science fiction programs, and writers of all skill levels participate. For the serious fan fiction writer, there are even science-fiction conventions which present annual awards for the best-written prose. Stories may range from histories explaining gaps in a particular TV show’s canon (e.g. what has the cast of House been up to between seasons one and two?) to rather silly missives—I once found on the Internet a Star Trek story where all of the characters had been replaced by the cast of Desperate Housewives!

Is fan fiction a healthy exercise? For one, it technically is not a legal exercise, as all television and movie characters are protected by copyright. Since fan fiction is essentially a non-profit enterprise, however, most production companies tend to turn a blind eye to the activity. Rene Balcer, an executive producer of the show Law and Order, once told a fan e-zine that he did not mind the fan fiction based upon his show, and this appears to be the general consensus so long as a writer does not try to sell his/her work.

Having written fan fiction in the past, I can say that the practice as a writing exercise has its pros and cons:

PRO – During my heaviest bouts with writer’s block, writing a story about a familiar character helped loosen the spigot. Once I pondered what would happen if Dr. Sam Beckett of Quantum Leap traveled back in time to M*A*S*H’s 4077th unit, and the result was a 20,000-word story.

CON – Fan fiction can be addictive, and if you devote too much time to the exercise you may find creating original work difficult. If you post stories to the Internet and attract a fan base, you may find yourself writing more to please this small faction of people, and that will take you away from your true calling.

PRO – While writing fan fiction I found my knack for writing smooth dialogue improving.

CON – I also found I tended to use my best “bits” for such a story, leaving the well dry when it came time to write something more serious.

PRO – By posting my fan fiction to the Internet, I was able to attract readers who in turn were led to my website and information about my book. One fan even wrote to say he had bought my book after reading my fan fiction.

CON – I’ll try not to stereotype fan fiction readers, but if you have ever visited an online repository of fan fiction you may notice a majority of stories not only portray scenes people would like to see on their favorite shows, but scenes even HBO won’t show after eleven at night. Some may argue writing fan fiction is not good for the writer’s ego, but reading some of what is posted is certainly not good if you’re at work and the boss sees you! I do write romance that is spicy, but there are lines even I won’t cross.

Should you write fan fiction as a writing exercise? A few years I may have defended its importance, but now I would suggest alternative writing exercises, ones designed to improve your writing skills and help you to become less dependent on ready-made situations. Should the pull to write a story about Agents Mulder and Scully be too strong, however, why not take the opportunity to introduce your own characters? Let Mulder, Scully, Dr. House, and all your favorite characters inspire what you want to write, but make sure the end product is all your own.

I want to learn more about screenwriting and playwriting. Some good resources on the internet ?
I wanna learn but I don’t think I can afford studying it at a University. I wanna try studying it by myself. I am a writer. I wrote a book, Im’preparing to publish the second now, I know a great deala bout literature so I think I can pull this off. Writing a screenplay I mean.

I am looking for some screenwriting books, can you reccomend any?

As a writer, your dream on making it big in the entertainment industry is selling a script and making a movie out of it.

Movies are one of the best forms of entertainment in the world. Since the invention and advancement in movie technology, people were always fascinated on how a movie works.

One of the most important necessities to make a good movie is not the graphic effects you see. You have to know that there have been movies done without much special effects and still won awards and really entertained people.

You have to consider that fact that actors, directors, and even producers have been successful because of one thing. They have been successful because they had a good script to follow.

A script can mean the difference of making a complete movie disaster and also making it big and win awards. If you want to be a script writer, you have to make a movie script that will catch the attention of movie goers. It should be able to entertain the audience and should contain all the necessary things in a movie.

Script writing is not something that only a select few can do, it is something that a regular person with enough imagination can learn, apply and develop. There is even script writing schools available that can help you enhance your script writing skills.

The ever growing demand for movies has made a market for good scripts. If you like to write, you may want to consider writing a script. Script writing can truly be a very rewarding job. If you do it right, you can be sure that you can really make your dreams come true by just writing a script for a movie. If you are successful, you can be sure that you will be in constant demand by the movie industry.

All you need is to have a great sense of imagination, a computer, and a printer.

The first thing you need to do as a scriptwriter is that you should catch the audience’s imagination early. Write a script that will play around with the audience’s imagination. Once you have their attention, it will be much easier to continue with the script. Always make your audience wonder what’s going to happen next.

A good script should get the audience involved as the story unfolds. For example, great heroes in the movies should inspire your audience, and villains should make the audience feel the need to jump onto the screen.

These are some of the things you should always remember when writing a script. At times, you may get stuck. This can be frustrating but getting stuck will mean that you made a mistake somewhere in the script. Review your script, edit it, and move on.

So, if you have a sense of imagination, you can write a perfect script. Who knows, maybe you can make it big in the movie industry. Maybe someday, you might even win an award for writing a great script for a movie.

Always remember that writing a script can also mean hard work. With patience, you will really see that all those hard work will pay off.

Whether you are writing a script for drama, action, comedy, or a thriller movie, you should always remember that the key to writing a good script is by capturing the audience’s imagination.