Getting to Know the Basics
I’ve been writing screenplays for many years. Recently I was asked to give a brief explanation on writing a screenplay. Immediately, I thought of Syd Field’s book, “Screenplay, The Foundations of Screenwriting.” Writing can get complex especially if you’ve studied everything written about it, such as “Dramatica” and John Truby's "Storyline."
For years I made sure that I had turning points at pages 29 and 90. At times a cynical Hollywood producer would open my screenplay to those pages and find the turning point and laugh at me. Fortunately, most people who are assigned to read your screenplay don’t actually read it. This should be good news for people who are reluctant to write. The main reason that they don’t read is that they are given so much bad material. It’s much easier for them not to read your screenplay yet write a brief coverage that indicates you have no idea what you’re doing.
So, here are basics of writing a screenplay:
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Make the first 10 pages dynamite. Period. This should be the best stuff you’ve ever written in your life. Exposition should be delivered in these first 10 pages as a really interesting aspect of your story. Remember, exposition is your back-story. It’s the manner in which you subtly drop hints on what’s happened before the story began. This should take up about 1 or 2 inches of page space in your script. Believe me, it’s an art.
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Have a well defined protagonist and antagonist and make sure they have an eventful and well-timed confrontation. These characters shouldn’t simply be stereotypical archetypes, but should be very fully developed and multi-dimensional.
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Drama means conflict. Create a map of the conflict in your story. When you complete your scene outline, make sure that you include the definition of each scene’s conflict. In order to have interesting scenes, it’s important that conflict be organic and real.
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Write your ending first. This gives you a target of where you are going with your story.
- This advice doesn’t hold for European screenwriters. European scripts tend to have lots of loose ends at the story end.
These rules should get you started with a vague map of the territory. Remember one primary rule:
When in doubt, write.