love that personal hell!

In the middle of this book, the author describes what he calls the personal hell exercise, where characters face what (everything we know about them suggests) is their worst fear or horror. So my personal hell exercise has always been writing, and this is ironic because I'm trying to establish myself as a writer of short stories and screenplays. But writing is so difficult, no one can know who hasn't tried to make a living doing it. So I appreciate this book more than I can say. Brian MacDonald, who has so much movie and television work to his credit, has managed to produce an invaluable cookbook for screenwriters that reveals the methods that have kept stories in motion in all-time favorite movies. He also offers one of his own screenplays to show how it all ties together. It's a short book, and I have it bookmarked now so I have it on hand whenever I need it.