What goes into writing a great movie script?
Last Updated: 27.06.2025 09:00
Conflict is your power source; without it you have no drama and hence no script.
All rules are made to be broken, but you damn well better know WHY you’re breaking them.
A critical function of storytelling is wish fulfillment. This is why video games are so popular. “That protagonist is JUST LIKE ME.”
Macklemore’s Seattle home reportedly robbed with his 3 children inside - New York Post
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.
Use status to help drive conflict. King Lear/fool. Upstairs/downstairs.
Your primary job is to create situations. Modern actors will fuck up your dialogue, despite whatever your contract says.
Semiconductor Supplier GlobalFoundries to Spend $16B to Boost US Chip Production - Investopedia
Research the facts and then throw away the research.
Maintain a slush pile/idea file. When you are ready to write, choose the best seeds to plant.
Actors give better feedback than writers do.
Tesla’s head of Optimus humanoid robot leaves the ‘$25 trillion’ product behind - Electrek
Audiences are smarter than you think. Something about turning down the house lights makes their IQs go up.
Learn to tell a story orally and not through writing. Try telling your story to a friend.
The DSM 5 is a wonderful character compendium.
How is bestiality wrong, but killing animals for sport or trophies is considered okay?
Write in reverse time. Major characters need to change polarity; minor characters may remain the same at the end.
Primary characters must change polarities. Secondary characters can change less.
Leave holes. Write and unwrite. Put it in, take it out.
The S&P 500 closes at 6,000 as bulls aim for return to record territory - MarketWatch
Only God gets it right the first time. Rewrite everything.
To develop a unique voice for each character, try interviewing your characters.
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.
2025 NCAA baseball bracket: Men's College World Series scores, schedule - NCAA.com
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.
What you leave unwritten is as important as what you write. SUBTEXT.
Make sure to pack enough explosives into the rocket.
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.
A scene should change valence from beginning to end. Up to down, down to up.
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.
NASA’s Webb Telescope Captures a Stunning New View of the Sombrero Galaxy - The Daily Galaxy