Would you ride a rollercoaster that never rose up or dipped down, but just took you on a ride along a flat surface? That would be boring. Yet that’s how too many screenwriters write scenes. The typical boring scene is about something happening but whatever happens is of no consequence. For example, imagine a woman […]

Too often, screenwriters try to come up with an original plot that surprises audiences. Here’s he truth. Most stories recycle the same plots. If you spend all your time trying to come up with original plots, chances are good you’ll fail. After centuries of story telling, most plots are fairly simple. Just look at the […]

Watch any mediocre or bad movie and the story will often feel forgettable and flat. That’s because the screenplay simply focuses on ending the story without any type of emotional resolution. The ending may not be bad, but it’s nothing special. As a result, the entire story winds up being forgettable. Here are the three […]

For too often, novices write scenes in their screenplays that serve exactly one purpose: to provide exposition. That creates a boring scene because the entire screenplay is written with these exposition scenes with a handful of interesting scenes telling the real story. Think of a chain. A chain is only as strong as its weakest […]

Here’s what most novices do wrong. They come up with a great idea and then they start writing their screenplay. About halfway through, they run out of ideas and they either abandon their idea or create a series of unconnected scenes to finish the story off in a haphazard manner that feels forced and has […]

If you’ve ever been on a roller coaster, you know that you start at the bottom, then climb the biggest hill possible before diving down to the bottom again. Roller coasters are fun precisely because they take you through the ups and downs. How much fun would a roller coaster be if it was flat […]

The original “Twilight Zone” series always had a problem. They never had enough money to create each episode. As a result, they had to get creative with what they had and write stories within those limitations. One day, Rod Serling noticed that a studio had a mockup for an airplane interior laying around that they […]