So after a brief depressive episode that took away my will to read, I'm gonna read a few comic books:
Kannas by Hanneriina Moisseinen,
Kyllä eikä ei by Ville Ranta,
and Howl by Allen Ginsberg and Eric Drooker.
After those I'm going to finally start the third and final volume of Välskärin kertomuksia by Z. Topelius.

Hum. The book should sport runes at the beginning of the book, in the title page. But maybe not all editions have that?. Also a map should appear with some runes written on it.

I have this book edition and don't see any runes.

To be fair, a lot of screenwriting books already go into formatting and it's not too difficult to get to grips with if you have Final Draft or Celtx because the software makes it so easy to do.

I'd really recommend reading some screenplays to get an idea of how formatting works (also reading screenplays is always useful for anyone wanting to get into screenwriting). Usually modern screenplays are more accurately formatted to today's standards. You can use websites like ScriptSlug to download recent (and classic) screenplays as PDFs (some of my recent favourites to read after watching them were Lady In The Van, All Is Lost and Blackkklansman). Some screenwriters might format a little differently to others (for example some still write "CUT TO:" whereas others don't) but honestly reading scripts is a good way to understand formatting. It's not too complex. Hope that helps :)

I'm reading the book 1984 by George Orwell.

It does help indeed! Thanks a lot. I am saving your recommendations! =)

One things that strikes me is how in some films things end up being rather different than what comes in the script. I remember reading the script for my beloved The Thin Red Line and Terrence Malik did change things a lot, IIRC. On the other hand, it is impressing how sometimes the work of all the people involved end up creating great images from what initially was a humble scene, as written on paper. To name one, the conversation in the brig at the beginning of the film.

On the other hand, sometimes a good writer can end up with a script and a movie that gets way better than the source material. For The Full Metal Jacket, I never read the script, but did read the (semiautobiographical) novel that it was based on. Kubrick IIRC saw the potential, then got the original writer, Michael Herr and himself working on the script. They ended up with this magnificent movie.

Another, rather different example, with the same result: Planet of the Apes. The result was way better than the original novel! (IMHO)

So rather often good writing and film making can improve things a lot... Hats off to scripters :)

The Custom Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World
by Lewis Hyde

"Polska Zbrojna" 11/2020 :)

Oh definitely! Terrence Malick is so fascinating because his films can be so drastically different to the screenplays, but also because he seems to follow his own rules for many of his films. There's still some structural points that are recognisable (the inciting incident is always apparent, that's the event that serves as a catalyst for the narrative, and there's always a turning-point that means a character is unable to return to a previous point, forcing them to act) but Malick seems to do his own thing too. Some filmmakers are definitely like that, and really you don't necessarily need to follow the three-act structure so rigidly as some of the books might have you believe, but it serves more as a useful guideline to follow that, when the writer is more experienced, they can also alter and flaunt it how they like.

Ooh I love finding adaptations that are better than the source material. Maybe kind of obvious, but I feel Jaws, The Godfather and Psycho were all much better than their source material. I also think American Psycho worked better as a film than a novel (although my opinion of the film is a little mixed). The more I've struggled and spent time to write my own scripts, the more respect I have for other screenwriters :D

I am trying to feel “updated” all the time, and now, I am not reading but listening to audiobooks on psychology and business training. Actually, from time to time, I return to old good classic books and detective stories. They reload my brain

Go Go Penguin.

Man Made Object

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsmJYqw_Evw

OOPS, this was for the What are you listening to thread... *facepalm*

I just started reading Sigmund Freud's The Unconscious as it was recommended to me by one of my lecturers. I'm only a few pages in so far - and I thought I'd try The Unconscious as it isn't a very long read - but at the moment I'm finding it quite exhausting! I'm going to stick with it as I need to take notes, so I'll see how I handle it.

I've just started The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, the last short story collection by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the famous private detective.

Indeed. For adaptations that are better than the source material, I like the expression "earned in translation". Of those mentioned, I can vouch for The Godfather novel/movie. The novel is good enough (Mario Puzo is a reliable writer). The movie is really good...

Very interesting commentary about film/narration structure and Malik's The Thin Red Line. Indeed, it can be argued that traditional structure makes narration easier to grasp by the audience. Some reviewers agreed that TTRL is a film that requires the spectator to be active, not passive. The viewer has to engage with the film and put their mind at work. It is the opposite of a film were you can just "sit back and relax", to quote a track from the BSO ;-)

I really love when a writer knows their chops well enough as to leave well-trodden paths and rules-of-thumb because they do know that is what the work requires. Some years ago this came up in a conversation about Cormac MacCarthy.