Customer Reviews
absolute rubbish - By: Jonathan Carr, 07 Sep 2008 
This book is crap.
It annoys me so much when I see the Hollywood hanger-on community
not only making money out of public ignorance but also promoting
themselves as experts. It really is modern commercial evil. Even a humble
mechanic has to provide some kind of guarantee of his work, but a woman
like Linda Seger can dress up personal opinion as valuable teaching & get
away with it. She needs to be called on it by a warrior from the real world
and a tough negative review is one way to begin.
There isn't ONE insightin this book that is worth paying for. Linda Seger
has no understanding of how stories work, why audiences are attracted
to anything, or what makes a movie function. She might as well be saying,
'I really like my convertible because when the roof is down I can feel
the windin my hair.' This kind of comment is not on the same level as
that of the engineer who describes how the body of the car was
strengthened to compensate for the fact that the metal connections
in the roof had been removed.
It is crucial for any serious writer to ignore this book & the kind of
thinking that has produced it. It is dangerous to engage with Linda
Seger's thinkingin the belief that such engagement will produce
better writing. Reject the work of this con artist.
Inavluable - By: Eric Ian Steele, 28 Aug 2008 
Truly great advice for intermediate level writers & above. For those of us who have mastered three-act structure & who understand the importance of character development, this book is a welcome breath of fresh air that can blow the cobwebs out of any dusty old script. With detailed notes on concepts such as the transformational arc & "making a script commercial", Linda Seger deals precisely with what many other books skirt around with woolly phraseology. The most useful feature for me was a very practical "application" section at the end of each chapter. I honestly don't know how I did without this book for so long, as it elevates your writing to a whole new level. Well worth investing in.
Simple guidance that helps a great deal - By: mackem1980, 20 May 2003 
The best thing about this book is that it breaks down the structures & tools foundin a screenplay & gives you enough information to feel confident enough to use them yourself.
The examples are clear & all help to illustrate the point.
I found this book extremely useful both for improving an existing screenplay & starting another.
It does not dictate how to write, but teaches you the tricks of the trade so that you can use themin whatever way you wish.
A superb structural reference manual - buy it.
a great book - By: , 27 Nov 2000 I've only read about five scriptwriting books, butin terms of story structuring this ranks top. Great book.
Ignore the previous review. I don't know what magical scriptwriting bible this person's got but,in terms of story structuring, no book I've read goes into any more depth than this, & all the books I've read got 5 star averages.
Only for Beginners and Not Even All of Them - By: , 03 Apr 2000 I found the content of this book to be far too basic for anyone but an absolute neophyte writer. Writers with some experience will not gain much from the material this book presents. I think anyone who is capable of turning out a good script is way, way beyond the scope of this book.
