Go Get Some Reading Material

First of all, I strongly recommend that you read “Making a Good Script Great” by Linda Seger.  This book should be required reading for anyone who is interested in screenwriting.  If I was teaching a screenwriting class, and I was only allowed to have one textbook, it would be this book.  That’s how strongly I feel about it.

After that, I recommend “How Not to Write a Screenplay: 101 Common Mistakes Most Screenwriters Make” by Denny Martin Flinn.  Once you are already familiar with the format used in screenplays, this book will help you to understand how to really maximize the effectiveness of your script, and how to avoid any mistakes that might hinder your effort to sell your script, or to film it.  If I was allowed a second textbook, this would be it.

The most efficient way to begin writing that I know of is Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method.  I strongly encourage you to click the link and check out the entire page, but the basic idea is that a snowflake can be a highly complex shape, simplified into clusters of many simpler shapes.  The simple shapes help to create the complex shapes, so by applying this idea to your writing means that you can start your screenplay as one simple idea, and keep adding to it until it becomes a finished product.  The simple idea is the foundation for your entire project, and the idea is to not neglect any of the steps forward, so that you have a solid script from the bottom up.

Now Let’s Get Cracking

Onto your script!  For starters, you want a premise.  A good premise is usually 10 words or less.  The premise will set the stage for everything that you add to it.  The remarkable power of a good premise is that you can use it to convince people to watch your movie.  When they ask you what it’s about, you want to be able to get their attention immediately.  If it takes you a few minutes to explain what your movie is about, you’re probably not going to be able to hold their attention.  Likewise, if you have their attention, they will go and tell other people about your idea, and you want them to be able to remember it, don’t you?

Here are a few examples of premises:

– Star Wars
A young farm boy joins the fight against an oppressive empire and saves a princess.

– Fight Club
Two men build a worldwide organization from the ground up and embrace their masculine roots.

– Memento
A man, who suffers from having no short term memory, must try to figure out who murdered his wife.

– Requiem For A Dream
Four different people run into tragedy due to their individual drug addictions.

With your premise out of the way, you should focus on what the mood of the screenplay will be.  Do you want to uplift your audience, or do you want to leave them depressed?  Do you want a simple, feel-good movie, or do you want to make the audience think?  What is your reason to create?  These are important questions, and the sooner you figure these out, the sooner you can begin asking yourself how you’re going to pull this off.

Don’t Be A Reclusive Writer

Let your friends and family read what you have written.  Ignore the temptation to “surprise” them or to wait until it is completely finished.  The idea here is to make your script as good as possible, and a fresh set of eyes and constructive criticism are invaluable tools that shouldn’t be wasted.  Besides, by undertaking the task of writing a movie, you have made a choice, conscious or not, to open yourself up to criticism, so you might as well get used to it.  And if you can’t take criticism from your wife, mother, or best friend, then are you going to be able to take it from the ruthless internet movie nerds?

Revise, revise, revise!

Understand that you should never settle on the first draft of anything.  Every good movie has been rewritten, sometimes many, many times.  Don’t get too attached to anything you write.   The art of script writing includes the ability to delete scenes and lines that you love in the interest of the greater good.  Sometimes, things that you’d like to include in your story may actually be bogging it down.  With every scene, ask yourself if it is serving a purpose?  Would it be possible for the scene to be deleted without disrupting the story?  If the answer is yes, then you might want to delete it.  Think back to your premise.  Does the scene hold true to your premise, or is it something extra, or even filler?

One thing though, and this is important.  PLEASE try to avoid using cliches.  We have enough of them in mainstream movies.  The un-creative writers of today can’t stop using them.  Let’s put a stop to it… now. 

Also, remember that your script is a blueprint for the director.  It’s the director’s job to figure out how to shoot the scenes, so you don’t need to choreograph every little detail in there.  And you also don’t need to get too artistic either.  Your role as a screenwriter is to put a mental image of each scene in the reader’s head, as if you are projecting the movie into their brain.  If you want to use fancy wordplay, and artistic expression in your writing, then you might consider writing a book instead.

Just Remember To Follow Your Dreams

I believe that everyone who wants to write a script should do so.  All it takes is your brain, some spare time, and a method of writing it down.  Whether you use a notebook or a keyboard isn’t important.  What is important is that you are getting your ideas down, and revising them.  Your ideas represent a lump of clay, which must be placed in front of you, and shaped, molded, and sculpted until it resembles a work of art!  Anyone can do it if they choose to.  If you want to do it, then get started!