Movies tell stories differently than novels, which tell stories differently than stage plays and television shows. Here’s how they differ.

Movies tell stories visually. Watch a movie with the sound turned off and you can often follow the basic conflict of a movie even if you don’t know the specific details. When writing a screenplay, you must always think visually to grab and hold an audience’s attention. Actions speak louder than words because dialogue is often secondary to what the characters do rather than what they say. 

Novels tell stories through the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of one or more major characters. When you read a novel, the author immerses you into the story through sensory experiences: what the hero sees, thinks, feels, hears, smells, and sometimes even tastes. (Sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste.) 

Stage plays tell stories through dialogue. Close your eyes when watching a stage play and you can often follow the story just through sound alone without ever seeing the actors or the set. That’s because physical action in plays must be kept simple to appear within the limited space of a stage. If you want to sharpen your dialogue writing skills, study stage plays.

Television shows closely mimic movies by focusing on visual action, yet they often borrow elements of stage plays through limited variety of locations (often due to budget constraints). This forces teleplay writers to emphasize dialogue like playwrights. The key to a successful television show is to create a problem that the hero constantly struggles to achieve but can never resolve. This provides the foundation for creating multiple stories (episodes) that can sustain a show through several seasons.

Although movies, novels, stage plays, and television shows are all different, they share common story elements. At all times, every part of the story must grab and hold an audience’s attention. Flip through a novel, stop at a random page, and start reading. If the novel fails to capture your attention at a random point, it will likely fail to hold your attention from the beginning as well.

You can judge movies, television shows, and stage plays the same way. Jump to a random point in the middle and even though you may not fully understand the story or who the characters may be, any random point in a story should grab and hold your attention. If a story fails to do that, the entire story likely won’t grab and hold your attention either. 

Here’s another way to tell the difference between a good and a bad story. Study the opening scene of a story and compare it to the ending scene. The opening scene should foreshadow the main conflict that drives the entire story from start to finish. The combination of the opening scene and the ending scene should define the beginning and end to a single story by highlighting the change in the hero’s world.

In the movie “Rocky”, the opening scene shows the hero (Rocky) fighting in a dingy arena. Then the ending scene shows Rocky fighting in a packed arena for the heavyweight championship of the world. The beginning and ending scenes clearly show that the entire story is about Rocky going from an unknown to having a shot at fighting the current heavyweight champion of the world (Apollo Creed). 

In the novel “1984”, the opening scene shows the hero (Winston Smith) defying his dystopian government (known as Big Brother) by writing in a diary. Then the ending scene shows whether he succeeds in defying the government (he does not). 

In the stage play “12 Angry Men”, the opening scene shows twelve strangers in a room to decide the fate of a man accused of murder. Then the ending scene shows whether they decided the man was innocent or guilty.

The opening scene must tell us the main conflict of the story (what the hero wants). Then the entire middle of the story must show the hero struggling to achieve that singular goal foreshadowed in the opening scene. Finally, the ending scene must show us whether the hero succeeds or not. (Did the hero get what they wanted?) 

Study story structure in movies, novels, stage plays and television shows and you’ll see these common elements appear time and time again. By knowing the basic structure of a story, you can create and write your own great story. However, if you remain ignorant of common story structure elements, you risk wasting your time writing a flawed story that could have been so much better if you only knew what’s missing.

That’s the purpose of the 15 Minute Movie Method, which gets its name because a two-hour, 120 page screenplay should tell a new mini-story every 15 minutes. Although you can use the principles of story structure to write a screenplay, novel, stage play, or teleplay, this website focuses exclusively on screenwriting. 

During my own journey pursuing screenwriting, I collected notes from books I read about screenwriting and from studying movies, sometimes watching up to three movies a day. Then I created this website to share my thoughts and help others who also wanted to master the art of screenwriting.

After a while, I collected my best blog posts and organized them into books. “Story Starter” is meant to help you get started writing a screenplay. “The 15 Minute Movie Method” is meant to help you structure your screenplay once you get started. “Writing Scenes for Screenplays” is meant to help you write great scenes because if you can’t write a compelling scene, you will never be able to write a compelling screenplay either.

I also created a Udemy course called “How to Write a Great Script in Final Draft 13”, which focuses both on how to structure a story as a screenplay and how to use the various features of Final Draft to help you write your screenplay. 

What you’ll discover is that no matter how much you may learn about screenwriting from books or classes, it will never be enough. What you also need is feedback from other writers so they can tell you what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong. Feedback is crucial because without feedback from other writers, you’ll never know how people are responding to your writing and what you need to change.

Join a writer’s group, share scripts, and learn from each other. More importantly, don’t write full-length screenplays (at first). Just as you wouldn’t train to run a marathon by constantly running 26 mile marathons, so you should practice screenwriting by writing short scenes (5-10 pages in length).

By writing short scenes, you can get far more practice than if you tried to write multiple full-length screenplays. Try writing short scenes that tell a complete story in different genres such as horror, romance, action, drama, or comedy. The more practice you get writing short scripts in different genres, the faster you’ll progress as a screenwriter. 

Short scripts are also easy to share with others. Nobody has time to read and comment on a full-length screenplay but everyone has time to read and comment on a short script. When you can write compelling short scripts on a consistent basis, that’s when you’ll know you’ll be able to start tackling a full-length screenplay. Until you can write a great scene, you’ll never be able to write a great screenplay.