Story and storytelling -- The story -- The telling of the story -- Building stories -- The creation of drama -- Foundations -- Carpentry and craftsmanship -- Time and storytelling -- Basic dramatic structure -- What is drama? -- The three acts -- Sequences -- Crucial moments -- Subplots -- The classical screenplay structure -- Beyond classical dramatic structure -- The single unbreakable rule of drama -- Anything but classical screenplay structure -- The limits of classical, the beginnings of revolutionary -- How to shake up classical structure--and why -- Writing and work strategies -- Before the first draft -- The first draft -- After the first draft.

Acclaimed USC screenwriting teacher David Howard has guided hundreds of students to careers in writing for film and television. Drawing on decades of practical experience and savvy, How to Build a Great Screenplay deconstructs the craft of screenwriting and carefully reveals how to build a good story from the ground up. Howard eschews the "system" offered by other books, emphasizing that a great screenplay requires dozens of unique decisions by the author. He offers in-depth considerations of: characterization; story arc; plotting and subplotting; dealing with coincidence in story plotting; classical vs. revolutionary screeplay structure; tone, style, and atmosphere; the use of time on screen; the creation of drama and tension; crucial moments in storytelling. Throughout the book, Howard clarifies his lessons through examples from some of the most successful Hollywood and international script-oriented films, including Pulp Fiction, American Beauty, Trainspotting, North by Northwest, Chinatown, and others.