150 Ways to Write Like a Professional Screenwriter

Screenwriter Eric Heisserer may be best known for writing movies such as 2010's A Nightmare on Elm Street reboot, and this year’s Lights Out and early awards contender Arrival. But in addition to his screen work, he has authored comic books (the Shaper series), short stories (one of which, Hours, he adapted and directed as a feature film starring Paul Walker), and candid, information-packed tweets on the subject of screenwriting (@HIGHzurrer on Twitter).

And, though not his biggest claim to fame, he's also written a hidden gem of a book called 150 Screenwriting Challenges that deserves much more attention.

150 Screenwriting Challenges is less a “how-to” guide, and more a collection of specific exercises to help screenwriters develop and hone their skills. The challenges target dialogue, character and scene work, and include prompts for generating story ideas, and a category of challenges called “Finishing Touches” that Heisserer says he tries to complete for each draft of a screenplay.

As he writes in the "How To Use This Book" section:

“I have never been a fan of books on screenwriting. They’re either too academic, too steeped in formula, or full of armchair analysis that sounds deep at the time but later you wonder, 'How the hell does any of that help me to actually write?' I can’t stand those books. This is not one of those books.

What follows is a series of challenges I developed for my own self-improvement, and now they’re all in one place for easy access. So let’s get to work.”

And that’s exactly what you’ll find in these pages: practical exercises that you can tackle one by one for some hands-on skills sharpening or work through an entire section when you want to focus on improving a specific area of your writing.

Interspersed with his own personal anecdotes to help explain how particular challenges came to be or why they are included, the exercises don't feel like theory-based fluff. Instead, they're immediately applicable to your own writing.

At under $5 USD, it’s easily a worthwhile investment that you’ll reference again and again. Get Eric's book here.

>> And don't miss the in-depth interview with Eric Heisserer on The Q&A podcast!