This is a step-by-step guide for the beginning screenwriter from the original idea through the completed-and marketed-motion picture script. It tells how to plan and organize the screenplay, how to develop characters, how to write dialog, how to prepare the script, and how and where to submit it for sale.

Also included are interviews with well-known film professionals (Ernest Lehman, Robert Evans, Delbert Mann, Frank Rosenfelt, Michael Zimring, Gene Wilder); excerpts from actual scripts; a glossary of terminology; and a list with addresses of agents. The authors have had experience both in creative writing (films, short stories, and novels) and in business.