Since then, publishing books on screenwriting has become an industry threatening to outgrow screenwriting itself. Sometimes those who can, teach. The first book had two messages, both simple, instructive, and liberating. Everyone claims after the fact that they were sure of each hit's success and each flop's failure, but no one really knows beforehand what will work. Yet most fail.
Good screenwriters have to discover the spine of the story and stick to it.
There's nothing wrong with spending hours finding the mot juste to cap off some dialogue, or writing a 50-page biography of every secondary character, but if the basic structure of the story is unsound, the movie won't work. The new book expands on those two maxims. In other words, it's a sequel. Knowing that this can happen even to a two-time Oscar winner is as instructive as anything else in the book. Goldman, as you might expect, slings a good story.