What goes into writing a great movie script?
Last Updated: 27.06.2025 14:35
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.
The DSM 5 is a wonderful character compendium.
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.
Only God gets it right the first time. Rewrite everything.
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.
What is your favorite underrated movie and why? What makes it underrated? How did you find it?
Research the facts and then throw away the research.
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.
What is your biggest mistake or regret?
Audiences are smarter than you think. Something about turning down the house lights makes their IQs go up.
A critical function of storytelling is wish fulfillment. This is why video games are so popular. “That protagonist is JUST LIKE ME.”
Learn to tell a story orally and not through writing. Try telling your story to a friend.
What's a band that is really popular that you don't like? Why?
All rules are made to be broken, but you damn well better know WHY you’re breaking them.
Make sure to pack enough explosives into the rocket.
Primary characters must change polarities. Secondary characters can change less.
Where in Maine are you most likely to get a dangerous tick bite? - The Portland Press Herald
Your primary job is to create situations. Modern actors will fuck up your dialogue, despite whatever your contract says.
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.
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.
Why does Trump keep blaming Ukraine for getting invaded by Russia?
A scene should change valence from beginning to end. Up to down, down to up.
Conflict is your power source; without it you have no drama and hence no script.
Leave holes. Write and unwrite. Put it in, take it out.
Can both male and female cows be milked? Can bulls also be milked?
What you leave unwritten is as important as what you write. SUBTEXT.
Actors give better feedback than writers do.
Use status to help drive conflict. King Lear/fool. Upstairs/downstairs.
With 2026 World Cup a year away, the USMNT is directionless - Yahoo Sports