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"The screenwriter is one of the very few most important people in the process of making a film."
--Ron Bass, screenwriter
"Writing is like brain surgery;
you can't fake it."
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Questions to Ask Yourself when considering if your script is ready to be sent out into the world "TIPS" TABLE OF CONTENTS:
The essence of screen story is conflict. Consider: is your script built so that it crackles with conflict, and again more conflict? Your hero or heroine's driving need can be either exterior or interior--and ideally it's both--but conflict springs from characters other than your hero who pursue powerful opposing desires of their own. Have you conceived the strongest possible opposing force for your hero, then personified that force in the form of a worthy nemesis who throws obstacles in your hero's path, and so provides ever-mounting conflict? Can you clearly state what your hero or heroine wants, and what they must struggle through to get it? The "want" needs to be specific and tangible. It should imply an end-point by which time your hero either gets the "want," or looses it forever--or, realizes it was the wrong thing to want all along. In other words, every movie story needs a finish line and clear resolution. Have you created plot twists and turns in your story where the unexpected happens? Does your conflict contain character growth? Does your story go somewhere, mean something?
In large measure, screenwriting is structure. Both commercial screenplays and more artistically inclined scripts need to be shaped into three acts. Have you brushed up on your structure? The trajectory of a rising dramatic action requires a clear set-up beginning (act one, usually 20-30 pages), confrontation middle (act two, 50-70 pages, the hardest part), and a resolution end (act three, 10-20 pages.) Can you point to the place in your script where act one becomes act two, and then the spot where act two ends and act three starts? Would it be useful to you to re-read some of the books on screenplay structure by Michael Hauge, Robert McKee, Syd Field, and others? Have you included your "obligatory scene," that must-have moment in act three when the hero and nemesis face each other down and go at it either verbally or physically to settle things between them once and for all? Does dramatic tension continue to increase as the pages are turned? Screen stories can be big or small in scope, but the goal of film storytelling always remains the same--to create rising emotion in your audience. Is your script structured to reach the feelings of those people watching in the dark? Is it shaped to elicit strong emotion?
One of the true pleasures of screenwriting is the opportunity to create whole, breathing human beings out of nothing more than words and paper. But once you've created your hero, one common script problem that arises is that the hero/heroine becomes a passive central character. They sink into the background of their own scenes while other people take action and do the talking. Ask yourself--does your hero pursue his passionately desired goal through personal actions, efforts, and willpower, or is the outcome of your story determined by other characters and by coincidence? Is your lead in charge of her own scenes, driving the action forward and making difficult personal choices, or does your hero tend to be a mere observer to the behavior of others and have things done to them, rather than by them? Remember that each and every character in your screenplay should be a composite personality made up of physical, sociological, and psychological influences. Are your characters well-rounded and fully fleshed out? Is their behavior a result of who they are on the inside, or are their actions driven merely by the surface needs of the plot?
Good screenplays contain good dialogue. Strong dialogue is lean, easily spoken, generally has no more than two or three lines per speech, and it does not use lots and lots of parentheticals telling actors how to act. Meaning should be found in and under the dialogue itself, and should not need to be explained parenthetically. Powerful dialogue possesses the qualities of fine music--with a rhythm and melody. It projects character attitudes and conflict. It offers up exposition very sparingly, and often imparts meaning through subtext and by implication. Successful dialogue conveys the personality of the character speaking, so that all characters don't sound alike. And rather than explaining people, good dialogue subtly reveals the inner truth of human beings. Genuinely fine dialogue is hard to write. But have you given it your best and most considered shot?
A standard movie scene is usually from 1 to 4 pages long and is the basic unit with which powerful motion pictures are built. A strong scene has a beginning, middle and end, just like the whole film--but the "beginning" of a scene is extremely short and establishes the conflict as already physically and dramatically in motion. The major part of a scene, the middle, allows the audience to experience the increasing tension of ever-shifting power in the relationships of the characters. A scene ending is then quite short, only partly resolving the situation, so that it leaves us with burning story questions yet to be answered. Those urgent questions build suspense and drive us forward into the next scene. Movies move, and so therefore must scenes. Have you done your best to avoid strings of static, "kitchen table" conversations, and pointless "how-are-you-I'm-fine-how-are-you" chit-chat of the kind that creates dead space in scenes?
Audiences go to the movies not merely to watch other people experience emotion, but to experience emotion themselves. They go hoping to be swept up in feelings, to laugh and cry and gasp and ponder. An audience connects emotionally with a movie by bonding with the central character, feeling an empathy for the star, which leads to identification. Identification allows the audience to project themselves into the central character and leap aboard the movie adventure. The hero/heroine becomes an emotional stand-in for every individual in the audience. At the start of your movie, whether your lead is fully sympathetic or not, have you done everything you can to help an audience empathize and identify with their plight? If your script is a drama, have you also included some laughs along the way to modulate the emotion? If you've written a comedy, are there tense, serious moments as well, to put the laughs in emotional perspective? And in all genres--are the stakes just as high as you can possibly make them? High stakes mean strong emotion.
VISUAL AND CINEMATIC STRENGTHS Whether the action of your story takes place entirely in one closet, or spreads itself across a galaxy far, far away--as a screenwriter you must consider the visual aspects of your tale. Films convey the development of character and story through action. It's also required that the scenes portraying this active behavior keep evolving and changing visually. Is the progress of events in your script visually well-balanced? Do exteriors come after interiors? Are intimate scenes followed by wide open vistas? Does the camera see interesting things? Even MY DINNER WITH ANDRE, a movie about two men who sit in a restaurant and talk for two hours, possesses a subtle filmic design. The restaurant in the background of this picture flows through a cycle of action and resolution that echoes and frames the increasingly tense and meaningful conversation taking place in the foreground. Great thought and care went into the "look" of this film--all the more so, perhaps, because of its limited visual scope. Will cinematographers be eager to shoot your screenplay? Will an audience be able to experience your tale visually, or is it still more of an event for our ears than our eyes?
To have any chance out in the professional world, your screenplay simply MUST look professional. That means it must be perfectly formatted, written in Courier 12 point font, and completely without mistakes in spelling (unless it's in colloquial, phonetically spelled dialogue). Work hard to get rid of all useless or redundant words including many pronouns, "ly" words, "ing" words, passive verb forms, and as often as possible stay away from any declension or form of the verb "to be" ("is"). Your whole script should be written in the present tense. Learn screenplay format, and stick to it religiously.
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