What goes into writing a great movie script?
Last Updated: 28.06.2025 04:53
All rules are made to be broken, but you damn well better know WHY you’re breaking them.
Only God gets it right the first time. Rewrite everything.
Don’t direct from the page. Everyone, from the director on down, wants to be part of the process of making movies. Let them do their work.
Why do people say "tall, dark, and handsome" when they actually mean "tall, white, and handsome"?
Make sure to pack enough explosives into the rocket.
Your primary job is to create situations. Modern actors will fuck up your dialogue, despite whatever your contract says.
What you leave unwritten is as important as what you write. SUBTEXT.
Your Apple Watch Is About to Get a Pretty Cool New Ability - Yahoo
Outline everything. Use story beats. Keep character’s mouths taped up, until they absolutely MUST speak. Write the script and the dialogue at the last minute, after you’ve revised the hell out of the outline.
Research the facts and then throw away the research.
A scene should change valence from beginning to end. Up to down, down to up.
Quantum embezzlement is hiding in known one-dimensional materials: Study - Interesting Engineering
Cut everything that is not a payoff, or a setup for a specific payoff. “Omit needless words.” Think about the sparseness of joke telling, or Grimm Brothers.
Write in reverse time. Major characters need to change polarity; minor characters may remain the same at the end.
To develop a unique voice for each character, try interviewing your characters.
What are the psychological reasons behind an extreme obsession with another human being?
Learn to tell a story orally and not through writing. Try telling your story to a friend.
The DSM 5 is a wonderful character compendium.
Conflict is your power source; without it you have no drama and hence no script.
Mets place Mark Vientos on 10-day IL, option Max Kranick in flurry of roster moves - SNY
Audiences are smarter than you think. Something about turning down the house lights makes their IQs go up.
Actors give better feedback than writers do.
Primary characters must change polarities. Secondary characters can change less.
Mario Kart World dev comments on why non-Mario characters aren’t included - Nintendo Everything
People choose what to see based on the high concept. Make sure to deliver an ending consistent with the high concept -- it is what the audience paid for.
Get up there yourself. Be in a movie. Take some acting (not writing) classes. Learn how a trained actor approaches a text. Learn why actors take roles. They do as much if not more than the writer does.
Maintain a slush pile/idea file. When you are ready to write, choose the best seeds to plant.
S&P 500 to Soar on Fading Tariffs Impact, Analysts Say - Barron's
A critical function of storytelling is wish fulfillment. This is why video games are so popular. “That protagonist is JUST LIKE ME.”
Leave holes. Write and unwrite. Put it in, take it out.
Use status to help drive conflict. King Lear/fool. Upstairs/downstairs.