Many writers make the huge mistake of trying to write a screenplay from start to finish in a linear fashion. This guarantees problems because in the beginning, you aren’t clear what details need to appear in the end. That means you’ll have to modify the beginning eventually so it matches up with the end.  Rather […]

The worst thing that can happen to any story is that it gets boring because audiences have no idea why they’re watching a scene. Therefore the key to telling a story is to start with a major goal that never gets answered until the end. To keep the story moving forward, you also need minor […]

The purpose of a screenplay is not to tell a story. The real purpose of a screenplay is to grab and hold our attention. Only until it can hold our attention can a screenplay tell a story. One of the biggest mistakes screenwriters can make is to forget the hero of the story. Every scene, […]

The book “Scene & Structure” offers a simple way to start and end a story. To start a story, you must understand who your hero is and what their weakness might be. Then the start of your story is a moment of change where the hero’s life gets turned upside down by challenging that hero’s […]

Often in poor screenplays, characters will gush emotionally about how much someone means to them. However, as the audience, all we hear is that character talking about how much someone means to them. But we don’t actually feel or understand why that person means so much. In “Don’t Worry Darling,” the hero gets all emotional […]

Imagine watching a scene between two people arguing. That by itself is mildly interesting. Then one character mentions the other character’s mother and the second character gets mad. Is this interesting? Not really because we don’t understand why this second character would get mad at this mention of their mother. Now consider the same two […]