Screenwriting : Screenwriting books question by Hunter Huiet

I used David Trottiers The Screenwriter's Bible - several editions are available on Amazon. I tried several other books - but this one was the best. Don't worry about the amount of editions available, as most cover the same basics. Another great one that I always have on my desk is "Your Screenplay Sucks, and 100 ways to make it great!" by William m. Akers. This one is good to have, but more valuable once you learn formatting have a finished draft. While there are pro and con arguments - "Save The Cat" by Blake Snyder was helpful to me with act structure. I don't use a lot of what it preaches now; but it was good in helping me with pacing. In the end, these teach basics; you add your own style. Hope this helps!

For starters, Trottier's The Screenwriter's Bible is #1. Others will become valuable to you as your knowledge grows - most assume that you have a basic understanding (you'll get that from The Screenwriter's Bible).

Here's my recommended book list

The obvious choices are "Save the Cat," by Blake Snyder, and any of Robert McKee's books. Full disclosure, read Save the Cat, have not read any of McKee's books. Ultimately story structure ends up being all the same. That being said, I recommend the "StoryMaps, How to write a great script" by Robert Calvisi. It's an ebook, but it maps out additional plot points beyond the usual tentpole ones which I felt was very helpful.

Watch this video. It will introduce you to the fundamentals:

https://vimeo.com/427431800

Anatomy Of Story really is fantastic overall, Save The Cat is excellent if you've written traditionally but need to figure out how to properly go about developing a screenplay, Robert McKee's Story is awesome for the nuts and bolts.

As for formatting, The Hollywood Standard by Riley, is essential as well as cleverly named.

Into The Woods by John Yorke. It gives you the fundamentals of storytelling without a paint-by-numbers approach. Gives great examples too. I found Story Maps to be helpful too.

None. Read scripts not books (and I have written two).

Here is my logic.

Consultant reads scripts. They develop an idea. They write a book. You read a book. You develop an idea based on their understand, not based on the great script.

Or, you read scripts, develop your own ideas and become unique.

Just a suggestion. Remember. a recipe is meant to make the same dish over and over again.

Its not specifically about screenwriting but The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth are two incredible books about story theory, structure and character development.

If you have Kanopy available (via the library) there are some great screenwriting courses available like Screenwriting 101 taught by Angus Fletcher, PhD..plenty of others too

Writing Screenplays That Sell by Michael Hauge is a great starter book. It was my first many MANY years ago.