Crafting Short Screenplays That Connect, 2nd Edition

Introduction: The Power and Importance of Human Connection

For years I gently browbeat my students. “Dig deeper,” I said. “The best stories are about the human heart.”

I wasn’t quite sure what I meant. I knew I didn’t mean that old Hollywood saw—throw in some love interest! I meant something closer to Samson Raphaelson’s remark about Shakespeare in The Human Nature of Playwriting, “[He] is not a realistic writer but he is overwhelmingly real because he reports the hearts of human beings.”

I was teaching dramatic technique—first playwriting in the English Department at Florida State, then screenwriting when the Film School began—rounding up the usual suspects, conflict, crisis, and climax—but I had this nagging sensation that these overlooked ...