The book begins with more stories about movies he has been involved with, starting with the period from 1982—when "Adventures in the Screen Trade" was published—to 1986 when he received no movie work. Goldman then tells the unfortunate story of how he became mixed up in the film adaptation of "Memoirs of an Invisible Man", before the saving grace of "The Princess Bride" brought him his first screen credit in nearly nine years. Other adventures are "Misery", "The Year of the Comet" (which he uses as an example of how a movie can become a failure at the script level), "Maverick" (which he uses as an example of the principle that the best scene sometimes needs to be cut), "The Ghost and the Darkness" (which he uses as an example of how ego can hinder a film's production and artistic integrity) and "Absolute Power" (which he uses as an example to illustrate why a movie does not have to be faithful to the book on which it is based). Two films he does not cover are "Heat" (for legal reasons) and "The Chamber", because he did not consider it interesting.