When you write a screenplay, it’s easy to think it’s the most compelling story int he world. However to an outsider, such as a Hollywood reader or studio executive, the real question isn’t what your story is about but why is it so special in the first place? Identify one unique feature of your story […]
Novices have a common delusion. They believe their first screenplay will be great and all they need to do is keep rewriting it. While any screenplay can be improved by rewrites, there comes a time when you need to move on to your second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth screenplays as well. That doesn’t necessarily […]
The biggest mistake novices can make is writing a screenplay before they know the story they want to tell. Screenplays written this way tend to ramble with no sense of urgency or foreshadowing because the writer is just making up the story as they go along. While this may be fine for novelists, screenwriters must […]
One way notices often write themselves into a corner is to come up with an interesting story and then run out of ideas about halfway through. If they continue, they wind up writing a weak, thin story that nobody really cares about. The secret to planning a story is to make the first half initially […]
When someone gets an idea for a story, they often overcomplicate things. Instead of telling a single story, they rush into telling multiple stories that often have no relevance or relation to each other. The end result is a muddled, confused mess. The key to turning an idea into a story is to realize that […]
The three ways to create conflict are to fight against the environment, to fight against another person, and to fight against yourself. Fighting against the environment is fine, such as in “127 Hours,” which is about a man trapped in a canyon. However, just fighting against inanimate objects is kind of dull. Inanimate objects can […]
In sports, there’s something known as cross training where people practice other types of exercises to help them get better at the sport they want to pursue. For example boxers may jog to increase stamina while swimmers may lift weights to increase arm strength. In the writing world, it’s important to study other forms of […]
Plotting a story isn’t easy so one way to start is to define your beginning and ending. The beginning should be the opposite of the ending so in a typical happy ending, the hero starts out in a dead end life and by the end of the story, the hero is now a happier and […]
There’s an interesting book by Matthew Dicks called “Storyworthy,” which explains how tot ell a compelling story. Although the book is based on the author’s experience as a storyteller in front of audiences, the principles work equally well in screenwriting. One key element of storytelling is to keep upping the stakes in a story to […]
There are two parts to every story. First, there’s the external action such as car crashes, gunfire, and explosions. Second, there’s internal action that involves emotional change. Good movies focus on emotional change but disguise it with lots of action. Bad movies ignore emotional change and just emphasize lots of action. People will watch a […]