Although his ability to "crack" almost any story into the conventional Aristotelian three acts and continually raise the stakes throughout has made Ronald Bass arguably the most bankable screenwriter in Hollywood, the writer values his structural abilities less than his knack for giving a film "heart" and never hesitates to go for big emotion. The Los Angeles-born Bass began writing at the age of six while bedridden with a childhood illness but initially decided on a more practical career after his college English teacher looked at his novel "Voleur" and informed him it wouldn't get published.