People's lives are made up of good and baddecisions, histories filled with triumph and pain, behaviors formed from alifetime of experiences -- your characters should be no different. But writingpsychologically complex characters requires an understanding of human behavior.Fortunately, you don't need a PhD in psychology to add complexity to yourscreenwriting. William Indick will help you add psychological depth to yourscript with insights from brilliant psychological theorists like Freud, Jung,and Adler. Get ready to create characters and conflict that will have youraudience begging for only one thing -- more.

The Psychology of Screenwriting is more than an interesting book on the theory and practice of screenwriting. It is also a philosophical analysis of predetermination and freewill in the context of writing and human life in our mediated world of technology. Drawing on humanism, existentialism, Buddhism, postmodernism and transhumanism, and diverse thinkers from Meister Eckhart to Friedrich Nietzsche, Theodor Adorno, Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard and Gilles Deleuze, The Psychology of Screenwriting will be of use to screenwriters, film students, philosophers and all those interested in contemporary theory. This book combines in-depth critical and cultural analysis with an elaboration on practice in an innovative fashion. It explores how people, such as those in the Dogme 95 movement, have tried to overcome traditional screenwriting, looking in detail at the psychology of writing and the practicalities of how to write well for the screen. This is the first book to include high-theory with screenwriting practice whilst incorporating the Enneagram for character development. Numerous filmmakers and writers, including David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch, David Cronenberg, Pedro Almodóvar, Darren Aronofsky, Sally Potter and Charlie Kaufman are explored. The Psychology of Screenwriting is invaluable for those who want to delve deeper into writing for the screen.

In a world awash in screenwriting books, The Science of Screenwriting provides an alternative approach that will help the aspiring screenwriter navigate this mass of often contradictory advice: exploring the science behind storytelling strategies. Paul Gulino, author of the best-selling Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach, and Connie Shears, a noted cognitive psychologist, build, chapter-by-chapter, an understanding of the human perceptual/cognitive processes, from the functions of our eyes and ears bringing real world information into our brains, to the intricate networks within our brains connecting our decisions and emotions. They draw on a variety of examples from film and television -- The Social Network, Silver Linings Playbook and Breaking Bad -- to show how the human perceptual process is reflected in the storytelling strategies of these filmmakers. They conclude with a detailed analysis of one of the most successful and influential films of all time, Star Wars, to discover just how it had the effect that it had.

This valuable book identifies and solves a major problem for writers -- creating characters who are so real they literally jump of the page. Halperin has developed an easy-to-understand, logical system which gives all screenwriters a foolproof and fail-proof method of developing great characters. Writing Great Characters is a book for all writers, from the expert who is looking to polish his techniques to the novice who wants to learn the craft from an expert.

The Science of Writing Characters is a comprehensive handbook to help writers create compelling and psychologically-credible characters that come to life on the page. Drawing on the latest psychological theory and research, ranging from personality theory to evolutionary science, the book equips screenwriters and novelists with all the techniques they need to build complex, dimensional characters from the bottom up. Writers learn how to create rounded characters using the 'Big Five' dimensions of personality and then are shown how these personality traits shape action, relationships and dialogue. Throughout The Science of Writing Characters, psychological theories and research are translated into handy practical tips, which are illustrated through examples of characters in action in well-known films, television series and novels, ranging from Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri and Game of Thrones to The Bonfire of the Vanities and The Goldfinch. This very practical approach makes the book an engaging and accessible companion guide for all writers who want to better understand how they can make memorable characters with the potential for global appeal.

"To make their stories come alive, screenwriters must understand human behavior. Using this book, writers can make Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Erick Erikson, and Joseph Campbell their writing partners. Psychology for Screenwriters helps scribes craft psychologically resonant characters and conflict. You'll learn to create convincing motivation, believable identity development, and archetypes that produce authentic screen moments."-- Cover

I wish I had this book when I first plunged into the screenwriting jungle... Michele Rifkin, writer, Bone Chillers, ABC...