On writing a feature screenplay in 21 days

IntroductionDuring an otherwise unoccupied stretch of this past summer, I spent three weeks churning out a fully-fledged, honest-to-goodness screenplay, using Viki King's How to Write a Movie in 21 Days as my guide. I was eager to delve into this book, for it occupies the exact creative niche I long sought. There are plenty of screenwriting books that teach craft and theory (Syd Field's Screenplay, David Trottier's The Screenwriter's Bible, and Blake Snyder's Save the Cat!, to name a few). And great resources like Script Slug and Script Hive are available that collect produced screenplays for you to study. But these all fed into skills I already possessed; my entire Ph.D. came from digesting literary/narrative theory and analyzing exemplary texts/films, after all. What I really needed was help with establishing a plan of attack – the strategy for producing text in an unfamiliar genre, and what challenges to expect along the way. King's book addressed that perfectly. It's all about…