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Writing the Killer Treatment: Selling Your Story Without a Script |
Author: Michael Halperin
Published: 2002-02 |
List price: $14.95
Our price: $10.17
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As of: December 01st, 2008 01:35:46 PM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Doesn't explain how to write a treament
This is a lousy book and spends the entire time explaining why you need to create a treatment and how important treatments are in the entertainment industry, but does not actually teach you how to write one. Very disappointing. The sample treatments included were very unhelpful as well.
No Treatment at All
The title promises to instruct one on how-to write an exceptional script treatment. Yet, like most books of the Hollywood how-to genre, story elements are stressed. Though Mr. Halperin may or may not be "the foremost authority on screenwriting in America," one thing is for sure: you will not find one example of a "killer treatment" in this book. No, you won't even find one fraction of a decent treatment. The only example of the writing of this difficult to define style of storytelling sales document in the book begins: "Dark, threatening clouds loom over jagged snow-covered peaks casting ominous winter shadow on the river." A.K.A. the "It was a dark and stormy night..." opening gambit. I find treatments the most troubling and perplexing form of writing required in the motion picture business. For me, the last piece of the four major forms: log line, synopsis, treatment and script. The one form I have not yet come close to being able to execute with any aplomb. I bit the bullet and bought the book hoping to at last gain some insight into how I might improve. There's nothing in here you haven't read in other screenwriting how-to books, but even more egregious you won't even find a good treatment, or part of one, as an example and an inspiration.
Let its title not fool you!
When I am writing a script, I use about 80% of the time making a good treatment, since it is what will allow you to have everything well-tied when the proper screenwriting comes at the final stage. This book will not teach you to write a good treatment. In 90 pages, it deals about general issues of screenwriting, such as adaptations, story development and structure, but never in a deep way. It just generalises in its treatment recommendations, never giving clear rules, goals or advice. Furthermore, half of it talks about TV issues, which are far from filmmaking ones. The remaining 80 pages are just a filler: interviews, a sample treatment and references on movies cited. There is still not a good book about treatments out there.
 How to Sell Your Script -- Then Write It!
Writing a solid treatment is something rarely -- if ever -- taught in writing courses. This is a great disadvantage for screenwriters, because having the ability to write a compelling treatment could make the difference between getting your foot in the door -- or getting the door closed in your face.
At the very least, mastering this writing form can help writers flesh out their material and pitch it to prospective buyers BEFORE they write the script, allowing them to get feedback and make changes to a 10-15 page document versus a 100-120 page one.
There are few books on this very important topic, and Michael Halperin has written one that belongs in every writers library. If you don't understand what a treatment is for, how it is used, or how to create one, you will after reading this book.
And if you plan on writing for TV, this book is a must. With it's many examples of how to write treatments for TV -- episodic and long-form, it will cut your learning curve in half!
Very, very thin
Not much here to help novices and certainly not for anyone with the vaguest idea of how scripts "work." Very skimpy with examples. There's so much "nuts-and-bolts" knowledge that's necessary to create a good script or treatment, and this book provides little of it.
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