When I left the backroads of Pennsylvania late in 2007 to drive to Los Angeles, I scribbled these words onto a scrap of paper: Ray Bradbury will be my friend and mentor. I didn't know how this friendship would happen exactly, but I knew in my heart that it would....

Hi HuffPost Readers, I'm thrilled to share an excerpt from my new ebook with you. It's titled The Screenwriter's Fairy Tale: The Universal Story Within All Movie Stories:

PREFACE

When my first book Something Startling Happens: The 120 Story Beats Every Writer Needs To...

What, you may ask, does a famous English playwright -- who gained acclaim in London in the early 1600s -- have in common with an American film director who directed his first blockbuster in the 1970s? Well, both use the exact same story rhythm that Mr. Shakespeare and other playwrights...