Imagine story where a man wakes up, drives to work, does his job, and goes home. If nothing out of the ordinary happens, this scene would be boring. To make a scene interesting, the end of that scene must change a character’s life dramatically from the beginning. In “Good Will Hunting,” a mathematics professor posts […]

One way to outline a story is to focus on the beginning and ending scene because these two scenes represent bookends. The beginning scene foreshadows the ending. In “Star Wars,” the opening scene shows Darth Vader attacking Princess Leia’s starship. Then the ending scene shows the Death Star attacking the rebel base where Princess Leia […]

Far too many writers write boring scenes. The most common problem is they try to mimic reality, but reality is mostly boring. Nobody wants to see two characters talking about the price of gas if that has nothing to do with the story. Never mimic reality. Always strive to deliver an experience, not mimic real […]

Never write realistic dialogue because realistic dialogue is boring. Just record a typical conversation and play it back. Real dialogue is boring precisely because it lacks a direction and purpose. So if you want to write realistic dialogue, just write dialogue that has no direction and purpose and you’ll wind up writing a lousy screenplay. […]

There’s a huge difference between a great movie and a bad movie. In a bad movie (“Argylle”, “The 355”, “Madame Web”) scenes feel completely separate and isolated from one another. What happens in one scene has no relevance to what happens in a later scene. This creates an effect like a car starting over and […]

Here’s one way to write a boring scene. Try to mimic real life and write a scene that duplicates real life such as trying to find a parking spot. The reason why real life is so dull is because it rarely poses problems that we must overcome. So if you want to write scenes that […]