Short Films ─ Writing the Screenplay

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Every award-winning short film begins life with a clever idea, a good story, and a screenplay. Here Patrick Nash analyzes the process of writing short film screenplays and gives advice on story and structure, plot and pace, generating ideas, screenplay format, dialogue and format, and character design. He helps readers ensure that their writing will be fresh by discussing common cliches and stereotypes; conflict, obstacles, and stakes; eliciting emotion; and how to hook the viewer. The specifics of loglines, outlines, and synopses are also covered, as well as rewriting, length, practicalities, and budgets. The book also includes a number of award-winning scripts and interviews, advice and contributions from their award-winning screenwriters and a discussion of the benefits to writers of writing short screenplays.

Patrick Nash is an award-winning writer of both short and feature length screenplays. An award winner in Hollywood's Page Awards and a runner up in the British Short Screenplay Competition and BBC's Tony Doyle Awards among others, he has worked on short films and short film selection panels and juries with the Oscar accredited Foyle Film Festival, the UK's only Academy accredited film festival.