If you boil down what makes a script readable, you get one adjective: fresh. It is impossible to overstate that most scripts are like most other scripts, because most writers write what they’ve already seen in exactly the way that they’ve seen it. Stretch yourself as a writer. Be personal. There is an undiscovered country…
Read moreUseful Confessions #2
I endlessly rewrite as I write. As in, read the whole thing three times, write a little, reread, go back, read, rewrite, reread the whole thing, write a little. It takes me as long to write one draft as it takes other people to write three or four or nine. It does come out highly…
Read moreYOU WRITE LIKE WE’RE BOTH IN THE GIFTED CLASS
GIVING NOTES TO YOUR FRIENDS
HOW TO END ACT TWO
READING 48 PAGES OF SETUP
HOW DOES STRUCTURE WORK?
Structure happens when every scene in your script is a step up the ladder to a cathartic final conflict.
Read moreIf you find that a point cannot be made without narration, it is virtually certain that the point is unimportant to the story … The audience requires not information but drama. David Mamet (On Directing Film) True fact. You can get by on a hell of a lot less information than you think you can….
Read moreThis is how a visual piece of emotional action happens in a script. There are some words, but the characters and their emotions are not expressed in conversation. Something huge happens, and it’s something we watch, rather than listen to. Little Miss Sunshine was written by Michael Arndt.
Read more5 STAR ESCALATION
Escalation keeps the story interesting. To succeed, an individual escalation should be well set-up as the thing we hope doesn’t ever happen. Then when it happens, we know the most shit has just hit the biggest fan. Rinse, then repeat until the end of act two.
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