After collapsing at work, sous-chef Kelly Matlock retreats to her sister's home in Virgin River where she meets Lief Holbrook, a widower, and as romance blossoms between them, Lief's stepdaughter's antics threaten to tear them apart.

It is New Year's Eve, 1952 in Los Angeles. Private Investigator, Aloysius Archer, is dining with his friend and rising Hollywood star, Liberty Callahan, when they're approached by Eleanor Lamb, a famous screenwriter, who would like to hire him as she suspects someone is trying to kill her. A visit to Lamb's Malibu residence leaves Archer in no doubt of foul play when he's knocked unconscious entering the property, there's a dead body in the hallway...

Believing she is realizing her dreams when her sitcom is bought, television writer Ruth Saunders finds her happiness threatened by demanding actors and executives as well as an unrequited crush on her boss and her septuagenarian grandmother's upcoming wedding.

A has-been writer drafts the story of his life, and quite possibly his death. Once celebrated, Aleister Bain is now a whiskey-soaked, washed-up Hollywood screenwriter. Secluded in a sleazy hotel, he's desperately struggling to finish a script, with no success. But in this noir-esque thriller, truth is stranger than fiction and the chain-smoking Bain abruptly finds himself at the center of an investigation into the murder of a prominent politician's...

Focuses on: What makes a great idea, regardless of genre or whether it is a high or low concept ; what makes an idea a high concept ; the three requirements of a great idea that create interest, excitement, and fascination ; techniques to energize any concept, including soft-sells ; four ways to excite your ideas ; and testing your concept at the emotional level.

Can you fall in love like they do in the movies? It's Evie Summers's job to find out. Because if she can't convince her film agency's biggest client, Ezra Chester, to write the romantic-comedy screenplay he owes producers, her career will be over. The catch? He thinks rom-coms are unrealistic and he'll only put pen to paper if Evie shows him that it's possible to meet a man in real life the way it happens on the big screen. Cynical Evie might not...

After film exec Hedda Chase pulls the the plug on a film project initiated by one of her predecessors, the screenwriter decides to stage his script's ending and casts Hedda as the victim.

Introduction / by Barbara Morgan -- 1. Inspiration. A conversation with Randall Wallace -- 2. Story. What makes a great story : a conversation with Bill Wittliff ; Steven Zaillian on where the story originates ; Peter Hedges on crafting story ; Lawrence Kasdan on story and theme -- 3. Process. A conversation with John Lee Hancock ; Sacha Gervasi on getting started ; The basics with Nicholas Kazan ; Advice from Bill Wittliff ; Anne Rapp's writing routine...