Take a trope character. We’ll use The Distraught Mother for this example. She will weep, insist, fall to pieces. You see a distraught mother, a primal instinct takes over, nothing is important anymore except fixing this problem immediately. Coincidentally, people who get what they want by means of manipulation know this. So do screenwriters. Trope…
Read moreHOW TO CONFLICT
Never AND. Always OR. Real dramatic conflict gives the protag a choice. This OR That. Success OR Failure. Save the mother OR the child. Capitulate to the antagonist OR get shot. Conflict that has a lot of options is not real conflict. The protagonist is free to save the mother AND the child only after…
Read moreLET’S TALK ABOUT OTHER KINDS OF STRUCTURE
There are some. I leave it to Linda Aronson to explain how they work, because I can’t fit it in a gif. Except this one. And I get really down on writers starting out with big ambitions about complicated structure because, frankly, it’s hard enough to do one protagonist and one linear storyline to good…
Read morejackieinspired: Yeah, a fullmetal heart Your screenplay in a nutshell.
Read moreEVERYONE KNOWS IT’S WISH FULFILLMENT
I don’t want to embarrass anyone, but It has to be said. Some scripts reek of “Superhero Me”. Not that the protag has super powers, but they’re quick with a comeback, they don’t make mistakes and improbably attractive people hit on them a lot. If everyone in your script admires how cool the protag is,…
Read moreTHE OPENING IMAGE IS ORIGINAL
TONE SHIFT
Radical tone shift is disorienting. If you find your voice halfway through, dedicate a rewrite to making the first half tonally complementary.
Read moreTHE OPENING IMAGE IS ORIGINAL
The Cats I Have Seen Saved
Found footage of my cat. Fade out. Poe’s Law infers that there is no way for me to know what the pie chart looks like for Ironic Cat-Saving vs. The Book Said to Save a Cat on This Page vs. Cats Saved by Coincidence vs. Other, but it is not an SRS I’m talking about….
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