Ken Dancyger is a Professor of Film and Television at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University as well as the author of numerous books on screenwriting, editing, and production.

Jessie Keyt is a writer and Assistant Arts Professor in the Department of Dramatic Writing at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University as well as a story and script consultant for independent filmmakers and production companies in the US, UK, and Europe.

Jeff Rush is an Associate Professor at Temple University's Department of Film & Media Arts as well as the author of numerous articles on screenwriting and narrative theory.

Foreword; INTRODUCTION; 1. Beyond the Rules; STRUCTURE; 2 Structure; 3 Critique of Restorative Three-Act Form; 4 Counter-Structure; 5 The Three-Act Spectrum; 6 Strategies for Plot and Character: Surprise, Triangulation, and Subtext; 7 Multiple Threaded, Long-Form Episodic Scripts; GENRE; 8 Why Genre?; 9 Working with Genre; 10 Working with Genre II: The Melodrama and the Thriller; 11 Working with Genre III: Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges; 12 Working Against Genre; 13 The Flexibility of Genre; 14 Genres of Voice; 15 The Nonlinear Film; 16 The Fable, a Case Study of Darkness: The Wizard of Oz and Pan's Labyrinth; CHARACTER; 17 Reframing the Active/Passive Character Distinction; 18 Stretching the Limits of Character Identification; 19 Main and Secondary Characters; 20 Subtext, Action, and Character; 21 Exceptional but Opaque Characters in Flattened Scripts; FORM, TONE, AND THEORY; 22 The Subtleties and Implications of Screenplay Form; 23 Theatricality on Screen; 24 Tone: The Inescapability of Irony; 25 Dramatic Voice/Narrative Voice; 26 Writing the Narrative Voice; 27 Regionalism vs Commercialism: Kelly Reichardt, Eugene Martin, and Kathryn Bigelow; 28 Adaptations from Literature ; 29 Rewriting; CONCLUSION; 30 Personal Scriptwriting: The Edge; 31 Personal Scriptwriting: The Short Film