There are two kinds of scripts, Matrix scripts and Battery scripts (spoiler alert).
Battery scripts convey information with words. Matrix scripts tell stories with images. The quickest way to make the jump is to start thinking about WITHHOLDING information.
Using The Matrix as an example, because it’s a really good example, the story starts with a guy. Not a normal, everyday guy – this is a guy who fits in the story, a shady guy who’s halfway to the truth already, and then we see some impossible, astonishing, dangerous things happen.
And then we find out what’s going on.
If this great idea was a Battery script, it would start with a flashback to the war, flash forward to a beeping sensor over Neo’s pod, some feverish machines rushing to report that The One is about to awaken, and a flash sideways to Zion, where Laurence Fishburne would brief the team on extracting Neo, some more exposition about watching out for deja vu, and then the red pill/blue pill scene, which would reveal to Neo everything that we’ve known the whole time.
- The Battery script tells me what’s going to happen next.
- I do not want to know what’s going to happen next.
Aim at gradually revealing the truth with images. It sounds really complicated and esoteric, but it’s a leap of faith you have to make, like leaning into your first heelside turn, or dodging bullets.