Contents
Screenwriting Basics
How to Come Up with an Idea for Your Screenplay
How to Determine Your Audience
How to Create Characters
How to Write Dialogue
How to Create a Plot
Act I: The Setup
Act II: The Confrontation
Act III: The Resolution
How to Structure Your Story
How to Format Your Screenplay
The Screenwriting Process
After the Screenplay
Is Written
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The Screenwriting Process
Once the preparation process is over, you’re ready to start the execution process and put all that planning on paper.
The First Draft
The first draft is the stage in which you dump all your planning, outlining, and ideas onto paper. Writing is a personal process, and approaches vary. Here are a few tips.
- Find the time to write: Keep disci-plined by working writing time into your schedule. Set a certain number of writing hours a week and stick to it. Try for at least three pages a day, five days a week (so that it’ll take about 40 working days to write your first draft).
- Keep moving: Maintain momentum by writing consistently. Use your outline or cards as a guide, but allow yourself the freedom to cut scenes or come up with new ones. And remember, now is not the time to revise. Just keep moving through your story.
- Don’t procrastinate: One way to deal with procrastination is to indulge it and get it out of your system. Another is to force yourself to write anything, even if it’s gibberish. The key is to acknowledge and accept that you’re just avoiding writing.
Revision
Revision is the process of rewriting and fixing the aspects of your screenplay that don’t work. Don’t try to tackle all the issues at once, as that can be overwhelming. Instead, divide your revisions into three stages, each with a different focus:
- First-stage revision: Read your first draft all the way through without marking it up. Think about the big picture. Did you choose the right protagonist? Is your story headed in the right direction? Be open to changes—even big ones.
- Second-stage revision: Cut and add scenes, rewrite scenes that aren’t working, and trim the screenplay to fit into the page parameters. Think from the audience’s point of view. Do the scenes contain the right information? What feelings are you invoking in them?
- Third-stage revision: Buff out any surface scuffs. Cut unnecessary dialogue, turn vague statements into specific details, and use more descriptive verbs (such as “plops down” instead of “sits,” or “trudges” instead of “walks slowly”).
Feedback
At some point, you need to get outside feedback on your script. Feedback can provide a helpful perspective: other readers can pick up on gaps in logic or character inconsistencies that you don’t notice. But feedback can also be dangerous due to its subjectivity. Some tips to remember are:
- Don’t show your work to others until you’re a few drafts in: As a general rule, establish your own agenda for the story before others come in and try to change it.
- Choose a few trustworthy people: Don’t give your script to just anyone. Select your readers carefully. Make sure you respect (though you don’t have to agree with) their taste in movies. Make sure they’re genuinely interested in reading your screenplay.
- Filter advice: It’s your script, and you need to do what’s best for the story. You don’t have to implement every change suggested to you. Stay true to your vision, but listen to and think about others’ reactions.
| Acknowledgments & Disclaimer |
