The Screenwriting Sensei by Paul Chitlik (book review)
Paul Chitlik is both a scriptwriter and teacher on the subject. In his introduction, he does confess to working under pen-names. Looking him up in IMDb, he does actually have some genre credits to his name although that shouldn’t be the only influence in wanting to read this book if you want to write a script.
His college classes have been primarily as three workshops but distilled here into practical lessons here into three sections. When you consider American TV series often have writers working as a group, that might be the way to go. Even so, you still need to sell a script to get your foot in the door and the actual writing is really a solitary process. In some respects, the lessons here apply on both sides of the pond, although the script formatting for both is slightly different which isn’t covered here.
When you buy this book, you should consider getting ‘The Art Of Dramatic Writing’ by Lajos Egri at the same time as he references it a lot and you should read in conjunction with this book. If you are planning to be a writer, you really must read a lot as a requisite anyway.
As an experienced writer myself, a lot of the contents of this book are easily recognised. Chitlik points out the basic plot formula and how it is applied in over 300 American films a year. The main difference is the treatment. Primarily, it’s the Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey plot although even he was building it from what was already used. In the second section, there is also some analysis of the very first ‘Star Wars’ film. What Chitlik does differently is go into the plot beats, that is the event that leads to the next in the course of the story for several films. Something I doubt he recognised is the same approach can be applied to normal fiction if you have problems developing your plot or need to produce a synopsis when touting to publishers. The difference with scripts is them being principally script-driven and a lot of rewrites when polishing belying how much work is actually done on them. In the third section, Chitlik pays more attention to how to cut unnecessary things from the scene to make it shorter and avoiding repetitions.
Chitlik points out how much rewriting and tweaking is done. If you’re in the business then you know that the final script is still work in progress up until its filmed and everyone involved having a say. He makes a point that you, as the writer, has to determine how much you take all this in and how much you change things and not have anything set in concrete and unchangeable.
I will make one point about one of Chitlik’s film examples and that is ‘Thelma And Louise’. Americans like their films with a happy ending and yet this one doesn’t, so doesn’t this go against type?
There’s a lot of learning from this book. I can understand the need for writers groups on some levels and discussions over each other’s scripts but Chitlik doesn’t spend any time on the pitfalls. In any group, it’s not difficult to work out who are the better storytellers. It can then be open to egos and rubbishing for the sake of it than being constructive. Learning to be an honest critic is a lot harder. As all the writers are in the class learning, they might not all be at the same level, let alone the same ability. If Chitlik’s actual classes encourages people to get along then it’s an essential qualification if you’re going to end up working in a TV series writers’ room.
Lessons from this book can apply to all kinds of fiction, not just scriptwriting. Reading books such as this might open up other possibilities as well. If you learn nothing else but how to get the beats of a story in the plotting stage resolved than you will have learnt something.
GF Willmetts
August 2025
(pub: Michael Wiese Productions, 2025. 202 page small enlarged paperback. Price: $27.95 (US), £23.00 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-61593-363-1)
release dates: USA – 09 September 2025. UK – 09 October 2025
check out website: www.mwp.com and www.paulchitlik.com
