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 Goes Where? How to format a screenplay.

So, why do you need to read up on formatting? It’s all taken care of, right, with all these new computer software programs to do the work for us? Well, not exactly. Here are five things you need to be considering when formatting your screenplay.

What is a screenplay?

What is a screenplay? Seems like a fairly easy question. Webster’s Dictionary defines a screenplay as “A script for a film including dialogue and descriptions of characters and sets.” Which is true. Except, of course, it's much more complicated than that.

How to write a successful screenplay: Five things to consider before you even begin

Before you start writing your next script, here are five important things to consider about Hollywood, the market and your writing style.

Should you rewrite for free?

Very often in exchange for an attachment, a producer will ask you to write changes to your script for free. And, if they bring on a director or an actor you’re doing it again. This can go very well…or it can go badly. Should you do it? Maybe. Here are five rules to help you decide.

The 5 Best Screenplay Adaptations From Novels

From the Pages of a Book: Five Successful Adaptations When I was in film school at UCLA, the head of our department, Richard Walter, gave a lecture in which he asked the question, “What does a screenwriter owe the original material?” Immediately, he answered his own question, saying “Nothing!” While this is a great point—as a ...

Winning the Read: Five Tips to Make Your Story Shine Through

You know the story you want to write. You’ve learned the formatting rules for writing a screenplay. You’ve drafted and drafted and drafted. And, now you want to make sure that when your spec script gets read, everyone loves it. How does that happen? I can hear you in the back row saying, “I wrote a good story. I don’t need to do ...
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