adventures in screenwriting (I think that's the title) by William Goldman
also anything by, Syd Field, Viki King, Linda Seger...

My opinion though is that not one book will do it for you...wouldn't hurt if you have the time and inclination to do a good script analysis course at a recognized acting school...or books about Stella Adler's method and script interpretation...

I gotta second "Rebel Without a Crew." Not a scriptwriting book per se, but a very inspirational book nonetheless. It's a "toilet book" around here, where it sits on a bookshelf in the bathroom.

Additionally, I liked ALTERNATIVE SCRIPTWRITING

The old three act format was created to suit the needs of live theater [to change the scenery, but not too often].

Filmmakers thought three acts still worked great for Character-Conflict-Conclusion, and it certainly has for a long time.

Today though, there is a pandemic of ADD and ADHD among audiences worldwide, so another paradigm is useful to reduce the risk of losing their attention.

Chris Soth advocates writing 8 "Mini-Movies" to tell a 2 hour story. Quite refreshing I think, and it can be a lot easier to write this way too.

I liked the other books mentioned here, except I haven't read "Alternative Scriptwriting". I am yet to see a bad book from Focal Press though, so I'll check this out.

Course books like these are great to understand the concepts, but after that it is absolutely necessary to read the best real, produced scripts to get a feel for what to do.

If you are writing any kind of dramatic dialogue, you owe it to yourself to get the screenplay for the original "Lethal Weapon".

Shane Black was 22 when he wrote it, and the very, very jaded professional script reader who received it at the studio is rumored to have picked up the phone after just reading the first few pages, screaming "We must get this script!!"

It is immediately apparent why, you can see for yourself...

Shane got $250,000 for Lethal Weapon (in 1987!), and graduated to getting $4M for The Long Kiss Goodnight.

Stephen King's "On Writing" is a fabulous book and a very detailed look into his writing styles and how he forms his story ideas.

I teach Syd Field's course in the high school I teach in as well as use Idiot's Guide to Screenplays - great book that delves into film production as well as storytelling.

cheno