#102 - Condensing Ideas

Titles, Pitches, and Broad Strokes

This moment would be less memorable if he had 23 words for Ben.

Less is More (but also Less)

• All Killer, No Filler - David Perell explains how maple syrup, Einstein, and Picasso show why art and ideas need to be compressed to be their best.

• One Word Per Story - Francis Ford Coppola shares how each of his films uses a single word as a guiding principle.

• The First Writing Readers See - The site NY Book Editors offers suggestions for how to title your book. Margery Bayne suggests ways to use allusions and material inside a story to inspire its title.

• Imagine You Saw A Great Movie - In Scriptnotes Episode 55, John and Craig describe how to condense a script down to pitch it.

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Likes & Retweets

Esther Zuckerman @ezwrites

Nora Ephron adding the whole paprikash bit by hand to the When Harry Met Sally… screenplay

Greg Gallant @GallantGreg

Writing for network TV is a lot of hearing, like, "we can't have the character drink a soda and then frown 2 scenes later, or Pepsi's lawyers will have us executed," then you watch an ep of 30 Rock where they say everyone at Wells Fargo is a pedophile,

David H. Steinberg @DavidHSteinberg

The other screenwriting apps may be better, but Final Draft gets you. It understands the mind of the writer. So with its patented Active Crash Technology™️ only Final Draft gives writers the tools they need to do what they love: avoid writing!

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In Case of Emergency: Stop Talking

If your hero could only say five words, what would they be?

That’s a question posed by one of the cards in the Writer Emergency Pack, a deck full of ideas to help get your story un-stuck.

The card “Stop Talking” wants you to focus on what your audience can see and hear to help drill down to the essential action you’re writing.

You can find out how to get your deck at the Writer Emergency site!

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Previously on Inneresting…

In case you missed it, in last issue’s most clicked link Danika Ellis shares how Lord of the Flies was intended as a targeted satire, not a condemnation of all humanity.

Other Inneresting Things

• Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation shares its list of upcoming free monthly virtual film screenings.

• Gabe Bullard celebrates the elegiac excess of the Guns N’ Roses video for “November Rain.”

• The Web Design Museum presents a timeline of the major milestones in web design from 1990 to the present.

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And that’s what’s inneresting this week! If you’re new to us, welcome! We hope you’ll subscribe and join us again next week.