Drama on drama Book

It covers characters in Films, Novels and even Ads. Full of helpful quotes from screenwriters and novelists.

Not as dense as her Making Good Script Great, there are many "this writer traveled to Africa to research his character and that writer lived among the Amish to understand them and that writer..." And so on but they are all interesting nonetheless.

It also discusses how characters are detailed in novels because that is still applicable. The book is bit boring especially that I have just finished MGSG, nothing radically introduced that wasn't mentioned in MGSG but here it is in more details. Or at least it is the case for me, since some of what is mentioned on how to create a character seems natural/trivial, to me at least.

"Attitudes conveys opinions, the point of view, the particular slant that a character takes in a certain situation. They deepen and define a character, showing how a character looks at life."

On discussion of villains, there is the villain as victim (reaction) and villain as self-serving agent (action). I believe most of villains in superhero movies are victims/reaction. They are always portrayed as victims of society and mockery throughout their childhood as I've noticed from films I watched before. Is it because these movies are directed to youngsters, I've always wandered. Also in superhero movies there are the I-want-to-rebuild-the-world-for-the-better end-justifies-mean kinda villains, so does this cover the self-serving/action villain?

Writing Dialogue chapter was very helpful for me, I miss many skills in this area especially subtext. Good thing I have her Writing Subtext book which I'm going to read as soon as I finish this one. Robert Anderson quote in page 169 (beginning of 171 too) is so me. "In writing the dialogue I can discover things I didn't know about myself", this is what actually makes me love to write.