William Goldman Books
William Goldman (1931–2018) was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He won two Academy Awards for his screenplays and is known for works such as 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' and 'The Princess Bride'.
Known for: Adventures In The Screen Trade: A Personal View Of Hollywood And Screenwriting, The Princess Bride
Books by William Goldman
Adventures In The Screen Trade: A Personal View Of Hollywood And Screenwriting
This book is a memoir and guide by screenwriter William Goldman, offering an insider’s look at Hollywood and the craft of screenwriting. Combining anecdotes from his own career with practical advice, ...
The Princess Bride
What makes The Princess Bride endure is not simply that it tells a wonderful story, but that it tells that story while winking at the reader the entire time. William Goldman’s novel is at once a fairy...
Key Insights from William Goldman
Part One – The Industry: How the Machine Works (and Breaks)
Hollywood loves mythology—the cigar-chomping producer, the visionary director, the misunderstood genius in his lonely garret hammering out scenes that will one day be studied in film schools. But if you actually live here, you learn fast that these are just masks. The movie business is, above all, a...
From Adventures In The Screen Trade: A Personal View Of Hollywood And Screenwriting
Part Two – The Craft: The Architecture of Storytelling
Once we get past the machinery of the industry, what’s left is the thing that made us fall in love with movies in the first place: story. Hollywood may be unpredictable, but storytelling itself has a shape, rhythm, and internal music that never changes. In this section, I take apart those structures...
From Adventures In The Screen Trade: A Personal View Of Hollywood And Screenwriting
Beauty, Pride, and Unnoticed Love
Love often begins before we are wise enough to recognize it. At the start of The Princess Bride, Buttercup is a farm girl of extraordinary beauty, but her beauty has made her vain, impatient, and a little careless with other people’s feelings. She spends her days commanding the farm boy, Westley, to...
From The Princess Bride
Separation Reveals the Depth of Love
We often learn the value of something only when it is taken away. Once Buttercup understands that Westley’s “As you wish” has always meant “I love you,” their bond becomes immediate and absolute. Yet almost as soon as their love is named, it is threatened. Westley leaves to seek his fortune so that ...
From The Princess Bride
Kidnapping, Pursuit, and Hidden Agendas
Adventure becomes richer when no one is exactly what they first seem. The novel’s central action begins when Buttercup is kidnapped by an unlikely trio: Vizzini, a criminal mastermind convinced of his own brilliance; Inigo Montoya, a master swordsman driven by revenge; and Fezzik, a giant whose grea...
From The Princess Bride
Westley Returns Through Reinvention
Survival sometimes requires becoming someone new without losing who you are. The revelation that the man in black is actually Westley gives The Princess Bride one of its most satisfying turns. Believed dead, Westley did not simply escape disaster; he transformed himself by inheriting the identity of...
From The Princess Bride
About William Goldman
William Goldman (1931–2018) was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He won two Academy Awards for his screenplays and is known for works such as 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' and 'The Princess Bride'.
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William Goldman (1931–2018) was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He won two Academy Awards for his screenplays and is known for works such as 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' and 'The Princess Bride'.
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