Marshall Thornton

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Marshall Thornton has an MFA from UCLA in screenwriting. He spent ten years writing spec scripts and has been a semi-finalist or better in the Nicholl, Samuel Goldwyn, American Accolades, One-In-Ten and Austin Film Festival contests. As a novelist, he writes the Lambda Award-winning Boystown Mysteries. The eight book series follows the cases of a gay detective in turbulent 1980s Chicago. Marshall has also been known to write the occasional romantic comedy. You can find him online at marshallthorntonauthor.com. You can follow him on Twitter: @mrshllthornton

Posts by Marshall Thornton 42 results

What to Expect from a Writer’s Strike

What Would a Strike Mean To New Screenwriters? Hard to say. It’s easier to figure out what it doesn’t mean to new screenwriters than what it does. We're here to help you navigate this possible strike.

Blurbs and Loglines and Synopses… Oh My!

One of the most dreaded tasks of screenwriting is writing about your work. You’ve just spent months or even years crafting your screenplay. You’ve whittled it down to a lean mean one hundred and two pages and now you’re asked to cut it down to a one or two-page synopsis, or a single paragraph blurb or, worst of all, a single sentence ...

5 Tips for Writing Visually

Of course, films are visual. That’s not news. Screenplays, though, aren’t always very visual and they really should be. The more you use visual techniques in your script the easier it will be for people to see your script as a movie and for it to eventually to become one. Here are five ideas for writing more visually.

How to Write a Great Query Letter

From time to time all aspiring writers have to face the dreaded query letter—whether you’re looking for an agent or a manager you’re going to have to bite the bullet and write those letters. While this may seem like just a boring business letter, it’s actually a time to show off your talent as a writer and your understanding of the business.

The Road To Oscar: Best Original Screenplay

The hardest thing to write and get made these days is an original script. Here are the five nominees for Best Original Screenplay and a bit about how their screenwriters got the films made.

The Road to the Oscars: Best Adapted Screenplay

How do you go from dreaming of being a screenwriter to one day waking up an Oscar nominee? Here are brief biographies of this year’s nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay to help answer that question.

Five Great Holiday Films and How to Copy Them

Holiday films are the hallmark of American cinema and that means they are a genre worth analyzing and ... if you can, lifting a few story points as well.

How to Write an Entrance (and Sometimes an Exit) in Your Screenplay

One of the best strategies to get a script sold is to tailor it for a bankable actor. That means you have to make sure your main characters grab attention from their entrance to their exit. ScreenwritingU shows you how to do it.

Five Myths of Being a Screenwriter

So, you want to be a screenwriter? Congratulations. Becoming a screenwriter is the most incredible, challenging, rewarding, disappointing, exciting, rollercoaster ride of self-discovery you’ll ever take. Here are 5 myths about the most mazing career in the world.

What Can You Learn From Reading Classic Screenplays

Classic screenplays can teach you story structure, they can teach you technique, and they can help you draw conclusions about why certain aspects of story have gone out of fashion, why some remain, and why others should make a comeback.

What Can You Learn From Reading Produced Screenplays

One bit of advice that writers are always given is: read, read, read. For screenwriters that advice is sometimes: watch, watch, watch. But only watching movies, and not reading scripts, can be a real mistake. Reading screenplays, particularly of movies you respect, can be an invaluable experience.

Good Shows About Bad People: Five Tips to Writing Wonderful Terrible Characters

Normally, we spend a lot of time trying to make our characters likeable—or tearing our hair out when people say they’re not. So, how do you handle your characters when you don’t exactly want your audience to like them? How do you make them watchable and compelling? Here are five tips to doing just that.
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