Some Advice for the Screenwriter

Ever thought you'd like to write a movie? Then you may be interested in hearing some advice from people who've been there:

"If it's a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on." -- Alfred Hitchcock

"The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take half of that little out and still preserve an effect of leisure and natural movement."
-- Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep)

"I think part of being a good screenwriter is being as concise as possible." -- Eric Roth (Forrest Gump)

"If the story is constructed properly, then the ending should be inevitable, but not predictable." -- Lawrence Konner (Star Trek VI, Beverly Hillbillies)

But keep your expectations down, folks. Very few screenwriters get to be famous (as can be attested by the fact that you may not recognize all the names in this blog post)...

"Scriptwriting is the toughest part of the whole racket, the least understood and the least noticed." -- Frank Capra

"The honors Hollywood has for the writer are as dubious as tissue-paper cuff links." -- Ben Hecht (Notorious, His Girl Friday)

And remember this...

"It’s an accepted fact that all writers are crazy; even the normal ones are weird." -- William Goldman (The Princess Bride, Butch Cassidy)