Found this on youtube after searching "writing horror scripts", a tactic which has found much gold amongst the much greater amount of chaff:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIuQIV3yRuM

Also been researching a lot on writing for movies in general, as this is the medium our audiences are most familiar with. So my thought is "what can we borrow from this other medium to make our magic stronger?", especially as we are ALL story tellers in one form or another.

With this in mind check out this clip on crafting sequences within a three act structure screenplay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwrS-_tzefo

Hopefully, you folks get something out of this.

Brynmore(20)14

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5D60t2VvfM

And this one just for fun:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoGIyAtCJ-k

Don't forget parts 2 and 3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f5mRG-2VBg

Robert McKee Discusses Values of Horror Stories - A very interesting 2 1/4 minutes on what makes horror horror.

I will definitely have to check these out. Great finds. Thanks for sharing!

Nice findings, thanks for sharing.

I found it useful to read a book about movie script writing in how to structure a show and the stories.

It's great you posted about this. I've been to three Robert McKee seminars. (Story, Comedy & Horror) He travels around the world giving them. I found them worth every penny.

http://mckeestory.com

If you are serious about understanding "story" and script. In my opinion, it is an invaluable source of information. - Especially the three day "Story" seminar. You will never watch a movie the same way.
I believe it could be also a wealth of inspiration for the bizarre / story performer. (Especially when you consider things like image systems that permeate a film.. the same philosophy can be applied to a live performance / setting.

I was reading Prof BC's Dopps manual last night and reached the part where he wrote about scripting the evening / story for a Dopps presentation. I again was reminded how important it is to understand the structure of
good story telling.

A subscription to McKee's storylogue looks like it could be gold for a bizarrist who can't attend the seminar in a timely fashion.

There is a multipart series on Gothic Writing, preview here:

http://www.storylogue.com/docs/lessons.html?documentId=902

Dopps owners might find the insight into Poe's work useful.

Great quote "the most haunted house is the human mind"

And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

$20 a month or $200 a year for access to the entire backlog of work from 2010 to now.

I think this might be my next "magic related" purchase. Unlike many props and effects I have purchased, I can see this benefiting me for a lifetime.

Brynmore, thanks for posting. Very interesting/useful info.

I've found the following books to be very useful when developing my performance scripts:

Story, by the aforementioned Robert McKee

Danse Macabre, by Stephen King

TH1,

I have Danse Macabre on audiobook. I listened to it three times in a row, and still feel the need to revisit it. His other book On Writing was great too.

Story, I shall have to get. Thanks for the link.

I've written a bit for genre television, and I've found the most important thing to remember, whether it's horror, sci-fi, or fantasy, is that you should be coming up with a story and not just a scenario. Too often writers spend all their energy inventing the most outlandish, fantastical scenario for their characters while forgetting that the character's story, the way they deal with this scenario, is almost always more important than the scenario itself.

The audience doesn't relate to situations, they relate to the characters dealing with those situations.

I think this is particularly important to remember in genre writing, when the temptation is ever present to do something totally insane that you couldn't get away with in more mainstream storytelling. That's not to say you shouldn't press yourself to be creative and original, only that it's vital to keep the emotional arc of your characters in the forefront of your mind at all times during the writing process. Uniquely horrific events alone don't frighten people, it's relating to the characters and therefore being able to imagine these events happening to themselves that truly scares people. Just my thoughts based on my own, admittedly limited, experience.

Mickturbo,

I think you make excellent points. In my witch themed show, I made a decision to base it onmthe experience of one particular witch. I could have gone with talking about the witch trials in general, and the many victims, but once read something about people finding it easier to connect with a single individual as mass suffering overwhelms us. That is why charities talk about one starving child in Africa and how we can change that life, where they used to talk about the thousands of starving children in Africa.

Brynmore

This is interesting too

http://www.grahammasterton.co.uk/rulesofwriting.html

Thank you Curator. I shall enjoy reading that article later today.

Good article with some funny moments. Love the bit where Masterton urges restraint in writing sex scenes, and careful use of metaphor and simile. The example is gold:

'It reminded her of a well-trimmed stick of celery being pushed urgently into a warm Camembert dip.'

:)

Excellent resources. Thanks

Update:

Story by McKee is as good as advertised. So much goodness to absorb. It is to the storyteller, what a bloodbank is to a starving vampire.