Too many writers think scenes should give information to the audience. This winds up creating “information dumps” where scenes exist for no other purpose than to tell the audience what’s going on. In the old days of stage plays, actors (often portraying a maid and a butler) would appear on stage, talk to each other […]

Novices often make the mistake of trying to write a full-length screenplay, which is like learning to walk by trying to run a marathon. You can do it but it’s far simpler to build up your stamina by starting with short scripts instead. A short script essentially represents a single scene that tells a complete […]

A scene represents a building block that tells part of your overall story. That means the first element of a scene is to move the story forward. To do that, a scene must move towards a specific goal. The achievement (or failure to achieve) this goal then moves the story forward. In “Star Wars” there’s […]

Given a choice between a good idea poorly written or a mediocre idea expertly written, Hollywood will choose the good idea every time. That might seem unfair until you realize that without a good idea, an entire story is meaningless. “The Shawshank Redemption” is considered one of the best movies ever made, yet it bombed […]

Study every scene you read and every scene you write. Notice that memorable scene form your favorite movies stick with you because they’re interesting and evoke a strong emotion in you whether it’s fear, laughter, love, or something else. Scenes don’t exist solely to move a story along. Scenes exist to play with the audience’s […]

Nothing should ever come easy to your characters. They should struggle against their environment, other people, and themselves at all times because conflict is the heart of every story. When writing a scene, think of how to make everything work against your characters. To make the environment work against your characters, think of how to […]