My Mark: 10/10

A nice way to study how a book (or screenplay is written). Plenty of super useful insights. It is fun to read, useful and even after that, I still like the movie ... He does not!!

The Pitch:

The Story Behind THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE.

If you've read his books THE WAR OF ART and TURNING PRO, you know that for thirty years Steven Pressfield (GATES OF FIRE, THE AFGHAN CAMPAIGN, etc.) wrote spec novel after spec novel before any publisher took him seriously. How did he finally breakthrough?

Ignoring just about every rule of commercial book publishing, Pressfield's "first" novel not only became a major bestseller (over 250,000 copies sold), it was adapted into a feature film directed by Robert Redford and starring Matt Damon, Will Smith, and Charlize Theron.

Where did he get the idea? What magical something did THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE have that his previous manuscripts lacked?

Why did Pressfield decide to write a novel when he already had a well-established screenwriting career? How does writing a publishable novel really work? Taking a page from John Steinbeck's classic JOURNAL OF A NOVEL, Steven Pressfield offers answers for these and scores of other practical writing questions in THE AUTHENTIC SWING.