Logo

What goes into writing a great movie script?

Last Updated: 30.06.2025 02:04

What goes into writing a great movie script?

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.

Your primary job is to create situations. Modern actors will fuck up your dialogue, despite whatever your contract says.

Leave holes. Write and unwrite. Put it in, take it out.

Over 46,000 Grafana instances exposed to account takeover bug - BleepingComputer

Research the facts and then throw away the research.

All rules are made to be broken, but you damn well better know WHY you’re breaking them.

The DSM 5 is a wonderful character compendium.

How Long Will It Take To Connect All Of Australia In Death Stranding 2? - Kotaku

What you leave unwritten is as important as what you write. SUBTEXT.

Make sure to pack enough explosives into the rocket.

Actors give better feedback than writers do.

Thoughts on an 8-1 Rangers win - Lone Star Ball

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.

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.

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 are the consequences of being addicted to something? Is it considered wrong to have an addiction?

Use status to help drive conflict. King Lear/fool. Upstairs/downstairs.

Conflict is your power source; without it you have no drama and hence no script.

Write in reverse time. Major characters need to change polarity; minor characters may remain the same at the end.

4.5 billion years ago, Jupiter was 2.5 times its current size, scientists discover. - Stewartville Star

A scene should change valence from beginning to end. Up to down, down to up.

To develop a unique voice for each character, try interviewing your characters.

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.

7 Surprising Home and Garden Mistakes That Could Be Making Your Allergies Worse - Yahoo

Learn to tell a story orally and not through writing. Try telling your story to a friend.

Maintain a slush pile/idea file. When you are ready to write, choose the best seeds to plant.

A critical function of storytelling is wish fulfillment. This is why video games are so popular. “That protagonist is JUST LIKE ME.”

Why do Democrats never produce a good argument for why Trump was a bad president?

Audiences are smarter than you think. Something about turning down the house lights makes their IQs go up.

Primary characters must change polarities. Secondary characters can change less.

Only God gets it right the first time. Rewrite everything.

Earth’s Energy Imbalance Is Growing at Terrifying Rates—Scientists Are Sounding the Alarm! - The Daily Galaxy