There's no stopping these Pocket Essentials. First it was all guides to Hitchcock and Woody Allen and now they're offering to teach you how to make your fortune as a scriptwriter. This little book is in fact a neat concentrated journey through accepted screenwriterly wisdom. The author himself lectures on the subject, which only comes to grate slightly in the 'exercises' peppered throughout. The breezy handbook format requires a light and readable style, and thankfully Costello manages this despite the sometimes dense, term-heavy subject he's wrestling with. There is, to be sure, precisely nothing new here (three-act structure, check; worshipping at the feet of American Beauty (1999), check; 'Nobody knows anything', several checks) but it works admirably as a sprint through territory padded out to considerable length - and expense - by other manuals and courses. All this and you get change from four quid, so it's a boon to cash-strapped beginners.
Points and techniques are well illustrated with quotes from a variety of wise sources and enlightening example films. In fact, it's no fault of Costello's that the biggest failing here is just how reductive scriptwriting 'rules' seem when laid out so plainly. It feels unpleasantly like a recipe - one part solid structure to two parts questing protagonist plus a dash of twists and reversals. This hard-faced cynicism is the dominant tone of scriptwriting manuals. Of course, scriptwriting is merely the art of storytelling in collision with brutal modern-day market forces, and such pursuits are always resistant to being disciplined and shaped; hence, presumably, the joyless 'get used to it and get over yourself' attitudes on show here. But the concrete rules are broken to bits on a regular basis by many wondrous films. (No-one ever seems to have taught David Lynch the rules, thank God; he even produced an esoteric, three-act breakdown of Mullholland Drive (2001) when it was released, presumably just to take this piss.) On the other hand, the majority of movies that stick rigidly to the formulas are only fit for the bargain bins in Blockbuster. It's not the place of a handy guide like this to attack the orthodoxy, but it's as guilty as anyone of speaking in hushed tones of scriptwriting authorities like Robert McKee and Syd Field. Put it this way: your kitchen's flooding. Would you rather have it fixed by someone who's written extensively on plumbing or an experienced plumber? And how many Robert McKee screenplays can you name?
The creatively suffocating nature of some of the ideas contained herein will surely produce some fantastic work provided upcoming writers decide to bugger inventively with the accepted wisdom rather than stick to it. Thankfully Costello hints as much, and for now this guide is a cheap and cheerful way of learning the ropes before going out on a limb.
Reviewed by Andy Murray
