Foreword

This book is simply the best single resource on screenwriting available.  I had the benefit of Sheila Gallien's insights on every script I wrote for six years: from Apollo 13 to Cast Away, with four or five others thrown in for good measure.

Her advice was always clear, direct, and to the point.  It was always grounded in rock-solid principles of story-telling.  She helped me see what I had done wrong, and how to make what I had done right even better.  That is a rare gift.

Other books have been written on the how-to's of screenwriting.  None give the writer such an insider's view on how to trouble-shoot your own script.  It's like being given the best toolbox in the business.

Above all, it's specific.  Dip into it any time you know you can make your screenplay better and you're not quite sure how.

Or better yet, browse through it when you're stuck and in the depths of writer's despair.  It's so shrewd and pointed and wise in the ways not only of screenwriting, but life itself, that at the very least it will make you laugh.  And I wager it will send you back to your script inspired, with renewed determination.

Having this book is the next best thing to having Sheila reading over your shoulder. And it doesn't get any better than that.


--William Broyles, 2004