One of your greatest weapons as a writer is your ability to observe. People, places, objects, atmosphere, snippets of dialogue – they’re all material. But observing well in public is no easy task. Imagine: you’re at a diner, and you notice a couple a few tables over. They don’t speak, yet their silence is eerily comfortable, as if they’re conspiring together. You're taking in their subtext when... BAM, the woman shoots you a scathing look. Why? You stare! So, how do you go from open-mouthed gaping to cloak-an-dagger espionage? You must learn the art of indirect…

Everyone who's seen Goodfellas is intimately familiar with the iconic long take that follows Henry and Karen from the city street to the main room of the Copacabana. On the page, the scene plays out on a very basic level: Henry goes here, then they go here, this happens, then they're here. There's no descriptors, no camera movements, no helpful direction from the script in any way and yet on the screen, without a single line of written dialogue, we're fully indoctrinated into the world of Henry Hill in both tone and theme as experienced by Karen. In this entry, I'll…