What goes into writing a great movie script?

Last Updated: 02.07.2025 12:36

What goes into writing a great movie script?

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

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.

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

Why is it difficult to get a job?

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

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.

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

Why are there so many girls and not enough boys to follow?

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

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

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

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Research the facts and then throw away the research.

The DSM 5 is a wonderful character compendium.

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.

Why do democrats want to believe that Trump wasnt hit by a bullet in the rally? Dont they know that you cant load a sniper rifle with glass intead of bullets?

Actors give better feedback than writers do.

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.

Make sure to pack enough explosives into the rocket.

Does being poor build better character than being born rich?

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

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

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

What are incels doing wrong?

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

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.

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

What is your interpretation of the movie Rocky? What makes it a good film in your opinion?

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

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

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

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