STORY AND DEATH
Yes, it’s a cheery one. At the risk of being extremely depressing, I have been thinking, for various reasons, about death quite a lot recently. And that led onto thinking about the connections between death and story. I went to a funeral last week – not someone who I was close to – an […]
ONE DAY INTRODUCTION TO SCREENWRITING COURSE March 22nd
ONE DAY INTRODUCTION TO SCREENWRITING COURSE London Saturday March 22nd I’m delighted to be running this one day course for the first time for 2 years and I am now taking bookings. Please see all the information and testimonials on the course page on my website – One Day Introduction to Screenwriting – Philip Shelley, […]
CHANNEL 4 SCREENWRITING COURSE 1ST WEEKEND FEEDBACK
Hi There, This fortnight I look back at the 1st weekend of the 2025 CHANNEL 4 SCREENWRITING COURSE, which we held at C4’s offices in London over the weekend of Jan 18 & 19. The weekend consists of a series of talks, q&a’s with some brilliant people from the TV drama industry – representatives […]
SCREENWRITING THE BOOK – NOW PUBLISHED!
Hi There, SCREENWRITING THE CRAFT AND THE CAREER by PHILIP SHELLEY Please excuse this 2nd newsletter about my book, published yesterday Thursday January 23rd – it’s important to me and I hope will be very useful to you. In two weeks time I will move onto other matters! It was very exciting to finally get […]
RANDOM MUSINGS ON SCREENWRITING & STORY
Hi There, And Happy New Year! My newsletter returns with some random musings about storytelling for the screen – TROPES & MYTHS I really enjoyed this question and answer from RICHARD LINKLATER’S Q&A in The Observer New Review on November 24th – ‘There’s a line early on in your latest film (HITMAN): “Hitmen don’t really […]
SCREENWRITING – THE CRAFT AND THE CAREER by PHILIP SHELLEY
Dear All, SCREENWRITING – THE CRAFT AND THE CAREER by PHILIP SHELLEY https://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/screenwriting Following up on last Friday’s newsletter teaser, I’m delighted to be able to share with you that I have written a book about screenwriting which will be published by Nick Hern Books on January 23rd 2025 – and as of today Dec 5th is […]
A TEASER & SOME RECOMMENDATIONS
Hi There, This fortnight – a teaser and more recommendations. TEASER! I’ve been reading a LOT of these (teasers) in the scripts submitted for the 2025 Channel 4 screenwriting course and here is one of my own. I’ve been working on a particular, personal project for the last couple of years which is finally about […]
WRITING ABOUT WRITING – SOME RECOMMENDATIONS
Hi There, This fortnight – some recommendations of writing about writing. I’ve recently read these excellent books – LIKE BROTHERS by Mark and Jay Duplass Part memoir and part instructional book for budding filmmakers and writers. If you know anything about the Duplass brothers’ body of work, you will be interested to read this and […]
THE PROFESSIONAL SCREENWRITER
Hi There, It’s blindingly obvious that the most important thing for budding screenwriters is your writing – your ability to tell a story compellingly and entertainingly. But my experience working with so many writers over so many years has taught me that your all-important talent at writing is nothing without the other less writing-focused facets […]
BIOPICS
BIOPICS It seems to me that BIOPICS are one of the hardest genres to nail. There are just so many pitfalls to avoid with this – extremely well-worn – genre. Some of those pitfalls – Name-dropping / name-checking. By which I mean the trope where famous names are dropped into the conversation – and the […]
