Ruth Atkinson is a Los Angeles-based script consultant and story editor with over 25 years of experience in the film/television business. Ruth has story edited and consulted on many features and short films that have won awards and been distributed internationally including Little Orphans, which received the Borsos Award for Best Canadian Feature at the Whistler Film Festival, Death of a Ladies Man starring Gabriel Byrne, American Black Film Festival and Atlanta Film Festival winner Curtis, AFI … Read More about Script Consultant & Story Editor
Services
If you've landed here you are likely looking for feedback on a screenplay you've written. Or maybe you're a director or production company and you've got a piece of material you are interested in developing. Either way I'm here to help you develop your script. As a script consultant and story editor with experience working in all aspects of film and television, from development to distribution, and having read well over 2000 screenplays, my script analysis will ensure your script is … Read More about Services
Test Your Story Concept
I recently taught a webinar for The Writers Store on Story Development. In it we talked about the importance of testing your story concept before you end up like Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation lost in a sea of notes and pages with no idea how to move forward. What you want to do is find […]
Secondary Characters
Imagine Bridesmaids without Megan (Melissa McCarthy), Her without Samantha, The King’s Speech without Logue, or The Dark Knight without The Joker. These movies simply wouldn’t be the same without these well-crafted secondary characters. While it’s easy to see what role the protagonist plays in the story secondary characters are often given a backseat and left […]
Breaking a Story
Everybody has their own way of breaking a story or finding the shape of a narrative. One of the ways I use when I’m working with writers or working on my own stories is a variation of something Steven Pressfield (The War of Art) calls The Clothesline Method. You can find it here. The basic […]
Talking Theme
Back in the day when I had a desk job in development I routinely took home 20-25 scripts to read on the weekend. This was in addition to my weekly read. Part of the reason I did this was because we had a ton of submissions to get through and also because I’d just moved […]
Now Playing
The writers I work with are having so many success stories it's hard to keep up with the all the accolades. I'm so proud of all their hard work and it's wonderful to see it paying off. Here are some highlights: Whistler Film Festival Screenwriters Lab alum Agam Darshi's feature debut DONKEYHEAD was picked up by Ava DuVernay's Array Now and is on Netflix! Writer Felicia Pride and director Angel Williams' first feature Really Love is on Netflix following screenings at SXSW and AFI Fest … Read More about Now Playing
