(excerpt of article, continued from previous page)

"The basics ARE the advanced.  What's wrong with most screenplays is that they don't follow the basics.  Because they don't understand the basics.  Thousands and thousands of bad scripts are presented to Hollywood every year and I can tell you as a story editor that most of them are bad because their writers don't execute the basics - and in many cases - don't understand WHAT THE BASICS ARE."

"And I'm going to submit to you that YOU probably do not understand the
basics.  And when I am done with this seminar, you tell me if I'm wrong."

Well, ten years and many projects later, I still think he was right.  In this short article, I will give a summarized version of a story editing process that can take three hours, three weeks, or three years - depending on the project and the writer.  It's a process I've observed and participated in with many writers over the last eight years.  It's a process we go through for a period of seven days and nights in the Screenwriters Boot Camp twice a year and then follow with focused story editing in the weeks and months following.