Screenplays: how to write and sell them

A few years ago, when I was delivering a workshop on creativity at the London Screenwriters' Festival, three men walked out. As they left, one of them mumbled something along the lines of, 'This is ridiculous ... creativity's got nothing to do with screenwriting.' Maybe it was the way I was pitching it - though I'd only been talking for about five minutes - but creativity and screenwrit ing not connecting? Being creative having nothing to do with screenwriting? Well, actually, this is a view that many people have. But it's wrong. Screenwriting is creative writing. It's perhaps got more of a business slant to it than other kinds of fiction, but it's still creative writing. And it's through developing creativity that a screenwriter can make a film leap from being formulaic to formidable