Screenwriting Poetics and the Screen Idea

' The Emmerdale chapter is lively, informative and illuminating. ' - John Whiston, Creative Director, Serial Dramas, ITV Studios

' I much enjoyed reading your searching analysis of the evolution of the Nostromo screenplay. ' - A. A. Reeves, Director, David Lean Films

' Fascinating exemplary scholarship on Eliot Stannard. ' - Emeritus Prof. Charles Barr, author of The English Hitchcock

' A rigorously methodical, carefully structured and closely argued explication of a wide-ranging yet particular approach to the field. ' - Steven Price, Journal of Screenwriting 6. 1

' For those of us involved with the teaching of screenwriting or script appreciation, Ian W. Macdonald' s Screenwriting Poetics and the Screen Idea should be required reading for ourselves and our students. Apart from many other excellent qualities, it contains a tremendously useful chapter on the screenwriting manuals, in which he synthesises, with admirable clarity, their various approaches to the prevailing orthodoxy of the three act structure in only 25 pages. Hours of classroom time can now be instantly replaced with one reading from MacDonald! ' - Jonathan Powell. Professor, Media Arts, Royal Holloway. Previously Head of Drama, BBC TV.