Alper Cagatay

After nearly five years of not really writing anything I’ve spent the last few months trying to get back into the mindset for writing. To do this I’ve been reading a lot of different screenwriting books, lot of the time these function in the same way a self-help book does in that the books encourage you to write and make you feel better about yourself-they’re good for your self-esteem. For me it’s a good way of keeping my mind focused on writing as well as challenging me to come up specific scenes and dynamics for a story.

They can get very addictive and you have to be careful that it doesn’t turn into a form of procrastination. It’s easy to think that by reading about screenwriting you’re helping your script and in many ways you are, but if I’m brutally honest with myself, I know that the only way to really help my script is to actually take active steps in devising and outlining the story-preparation is really important but ultimately you have to begin the daunting task of actually writing the thing.

Here are some of the books I’ve been reading recently: