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There’s the usual you hear about screenplays, formatting, structure, turning points ect. Not that those aren’t important, but sometimes you have to take a step back and make sure your story serves more than just the skeleton of the plot. Here’s some points you want to make sure you keep in mind as you go through the writing process. The very first point is also the most important: Have fun writing!
Getting an Idea
Both the easiest and hardest thing to do is finding that nugget of an idea for your story. It’s not even something that can be taught, but it is something you can teach your own brain!
Write
Simply, just start writing! It doesn’t matter what you write just start writing. Maybe it’s something you noticed today, maybe it’s just you rambling on about nothing. A great thing to starting writing about is something that makes you angry, that’ll usually get you passionate, confrontational and fired up on all cylinders. A good story has passion and conflict, so it’s a great place to start.
Brainstorm
I’m a fan of mind-mapping. I usually use it as a way of breaking down an idea into smaller components. In the case of a plot, you can take, lets say the historical case of the Titanic and break that off into romantic, tragic, hubris and class-struggle. You can then branch those off into sub-categories (eg. romantic -> romeo & juliet, fairytale love story, etc.) My favorite free mindmapping tool is Bubbl.us if you’re interested in checking that out. Another great one is FreeMind.
Another way of using mindmaps is to flesh out your characters in the same way. For example, Bob is cold, an alcoholic and a womanizer. Womanizer -> his mom left when he was young after squandering all his father’s savings, sees women as using and manipulative. Alcoholic -> his father became an alcoholic when Bob’s mom left, like father like son.
Starting
A few writers can just sit down and off they go. Most can’t and that’s why the 3 act structure is so popular, it gives you a throughline to string your entire story on. But before you go outlining start with this:
Write a Logline
If you can’t explain what your story is about in one line, don’t outline yet. Without a logline, your story can go off the rails, it’s a great device to keep you on track.
Outline in Color
Here’s a great tip for when you’re outlining, color code it. Each color represents a different aspect of your script, either action, love, exposition and comic relief. If there’s a big block of any one of the colors, the script is off balance.
Dialog
Good dialog is hard to write. The key thing to keep in mind is that what the characters are talking about aren’t what they’re talking about. Confused? Don’t worry, here’s a selection of tips to help you!
Natural and Unforced
If your characters speak like they’re out of the Star Wars prequels, WARNING! Real people use contractions and skip words all together. Replace cannot with can’t and do not with don’t. You don’t have to do this everytime, but it’s a great rule of thumb. Another one is to try and remove as many words from the beginning of every line as possible so, for example, Joel: “He could have killed him”, Rebecca: “It’s not in his nature” becomes Joel: “Could’ve killed him”, Rebecca: “Not in his nature”.
Streamline your Dialog
The best dialog is no dialog. Two people locking eyes on each other says way more than “I love you”, but your characters are going to need to say something at some point in time in the film. The trick is to get them to say the least amount possible. If you need to have a character explain something, try to break it up by another character interupting or having it happen during an action scene.
What Dialog Does
Dialog has 4 functions: Firstly, it reveals character. Who does he like or dislike, what his upbringing is, etc. Secondly, it helps advance the plot through explanations or decisions. Thirdly, characters use it to explain the past and fourth, it’s used to articulate feelings that can’t be visually conveyed. If your dialog doesn’t fit into at least one of these catagories, cut it! It doesn’t serve the story!
Subtext
Now that we’ve gone through all that, remember, the best dialog does all of the above in the subtext. What a character says and what they imply are two different things. Example time! Lets say Jane is interested in Cody but doesn’t know if he’s seeing anyone, the one thing she won’t do is ask him outright. Real dialog beats around the bush generally and in this example she may ask him where he lives and he responds with downtown. She’ll ask him if it’s expensive and he’ll respond with yes, but he splits it with his roommate Joe. While it’s not definitive, she at least knows that he doesn’t live with a girlfriend and may still be available. A bit more prodding around and she may discover he is in fact single. This also falls under the “if your characters speak like they’re out of the Star Wars prequels, WARNING!” rule.
Action Slugs
Action slugs, the name says it all! Action! This is where you tell the reader what happens next.
Action Happens
If there’s one rule I want everyone to learn, it’s that whatever is happening on the page, it’s happening now and it’s immediate. Don’t speak in a passive voice or in the past-tense, it happens now! BOOOM! Don’t be afraid to add in a BOOOM! CRASH! or SMASH!
Properly Formatted
I could write a thousand pages of how to properly format a script, but as I’m already a thousand words into this post I’ll keep it a little bit simpler: get Celtx or Final Draft. This is a start as there’s a whole bunch of details into writing a script, but getting software will help dramatically to begin with.
Streamline your Action Slugs
Just like your dialog, you want to remove as much superfluous wording as possible. The more you explain, the more you’re likely to confuse your reader and really, no one reads a giant paragraph of text. Less is always more when screenwriting!
No Camera Direction
You’re job isn’t to place the camera and director’s hate seeing “George sits down at the desk and takes out a pen. ECU: pen writing on paper as he signs his name”. First of all, that’s the director’s job and secondly, you’re writing in a passive voice which is boring! The good news is that you can still imply an ECU: pen writing on paper by placing spaces inbetween the slug lines. This creates more whitespace (which readers love) and tells the director what you had in mind.
George sits down at the desk. He picks up a pen.
The pen hits the paper and his signature pours out on to it.
Now, I didn’t say there was an extreme close up in this example, but you can see how I implied it.
Re-writing
Remember, great scripts aren’t written, they’re rewritten!
Cut, Cut and then Cut Some More!
Cutting out all the crap, plot threads you dropped and bad dialog are easy. The hard part comes when you cut out your favorite lines and scenes because they don’t serve the story. This is really hard but remember, if it doesn’t serve the story then it shouldn’t be in there. You can always save that scene for another script so at least keep it handy!
Making the Dialog More Natural
One of my favorite techniques is to go through the script, scene by scene, and read the dialog into an audio recorder. Then I’ll go through it again except this time I’ll paraphrase all the lines with whatever comes to mind. Lastly, I’ll take notes as to what needs to be said in the scene and I’ll improv the whole scene. From those 3 recordings I’ll pick and choose the best lines. As weird as this sounds, I’ll also create different accents or dialects for the characters, this helps me create unique voices for each character.
It’s All About the Story
To wrap it all up, remember everything you do in a screenplay must serve the story. Each moment must simultaneously forward the plot, character and theme as well as make the audience want to know what comes next. The final bit of advice I can give you is to read as many great screenplays as you possibly can and write until your finger tips fall off!
Have any great tips? Leave them in the comments!
