There are thousands of screenplays registered with the Writers Guild of America every year. Anyone who takes the time to learn the proper formatting or plunks down the cash for a screenwriting program can write a screenplay; it is something else entirely to write a GOOD screenplay. This article will outline the areas a writer needs to focus on to avoid many common mistakes and help them write the best screenplay they can.
You’ve taken a course or read a book, or found a great resource online that has given you instruction on how to format a screenplay, and you are ready to begin. You have your idea written down, you’ve spent time developing it, and you are ready to write it. How do you make sure that what you write is any good?
There is something to be said for talent. To a certain degree, a person either has a talent in a particular field or he doesn’t. Writing is no exception, but the good news is that in addition to being art, writing of any kind (but specifically screenwriting) is a craft, which means it can be learned.
Visual Medium
First and foremost, screenwriting is a visual craft. You are writing in chunks of a story called scenes, each of which has to communicate a number of vital elements to the reader, the director, and ultimately, the viewing audience. Each scene has to indicate who is in it, where it is, when it is and what is happening. As simple as it sounds, communicating these elements in a lean, creative and entertaining way is the challenge.
What’s the point?
Like any story your script has to have a point. Not a moral, per say, but a reason someone is going to put down their hard earned dollars to see your story in a theater. Often this point is defined by the movie’s genre, or vice-versa. Is the story about a man and woman who’ve fallen out of love? Is it about a super soldier facing his nations gravest threat? Is it about a scientist more in touch with his mechanical creations that his family? If you can’t accurately describe what your story is about, you are not ready to write it. Spend time figuring this out before you type FADE IN.
Character
Once you know what your story is about, its time to people it. What characters are going to be carrying out your will in the script? Some or all of them may have come up while you were figuring out what your movie was about, or may have even been the inspiration for the story in the first place. It has been said that there are no new ideas, which could apply to both the point of your story and the characters you create. While this very well be true, you can always tell your story in a unique way. Taking Star Wars for example, the characters of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Darth Vader are all archetypes of classic characters, but it’s hard to deny that George Lucas didn’t put his own stamp on them when he was writing the screenplay.
The Plot
What is the plot? Here is where you really get a chance to shine as a writer. You may have the most memorable character in cinematic history, but if what he does is dull as dishwater your movie isn’t going to see the light of day.
Someone once said to put your hero up a tree and then throw rocks at him. Make life miserable for your protagonist, set up obstacles, and discover how he overcomes them. The obstacles, the solutions, and how the character grows along the way are the meat and potatoes of the story.
Once you have your plot and your characters it is important to define what screenwriting author William Froug calls the “Dramatic Spine of Action.” Your Dramatic Spine is the drive behind the hero’s actions; it is what pushes him along when, without it, he would give up. Perhaps the bad guy is holding his child hostage and he needs to get her back, no matter what he has to do. Perhaps he is a model cop who’s never broken a law in his life, and he now discovers he will do anything to keep his child safe. Here you have a Dramatic Spine of Action that will influence and drive everything your Cop Hero does, and this spine must be evident, even if subtly, throughout the entire movie.
Use note cards
A common tool in writing a screenplay is the use of note cards of any size. Some recommend using colored note cards to indicate plot points (pivotal scenes that indicate a change of direction in the plot) and other significant moments, while others recommend blank cards so that the lines do not get in the way. It all comes down to experimenting with using them and coming up with your own personal preference. All agree, however, on what they are to be used for.
Each note card is a scene; on the top write your slug line, under that write what characters figure in the scene, and finally write a very brief description of what is happening in a scene. For example, if the scene on paper were to look like this:
INT. MOLLY’S KITCHEN - DAY
The dayglow yellow wallpaper in the kitchen is peeling and flaking, as is Molly’s makeup. The CLICKING of a whisk against glass punctuates each sharp stroke as she beats the breakfast eggs. Dean scratches his head and opens his mouth. After a pause, he closes it and watches her beat eggs.
Then your note card would look something like this:
INT. MOLLY’S KITCHEN - DAY
Molly & Dean
THE MORNING AFTER, MOLLY IS MAD, DEAN IS EMBARASSED
The point of being so terse is that you can tell at a glance what is happening in the scene. Some advise numbering the note cards as well; if you do, make sure you write in pencil, because another reason for using note cards is navigation. Once you have written out all your scenes on cards, you can lay them out on a table or pin them to a wall, and see your entire movie at once. Now you can go back and forth, move cards around, and rearrange your movie in ways that work better.
After Note Cards
Once you have made your final decisions in what order everything is going to happen, you are going to want to take your stack of scene cards and start writing. Wait! Taking the time to do the following steps will go a long way to making your screenplay one of the GOOD ones.
Study dialog: Listen to the way people speak, and write it that way. Use contractions, use slang, do whatever the character would do. Just be careful in attempting accents; if the words are too mangled that they make the script difficult to read, you need to do some rewriting.
Read screenplays: There are many resources for free scripts online, and you can find them at your local library as well. Download some of your favorites, print them out and take the time to read them. Pay attention to how they are written, especially at any point you find yourself nodding along or getting excited about what you read.
Watch movies: Even bad movies can teach you things, such as what not to do. Watch as many movies as time and budget allow, and by all means watch them in the theater, where they were meant to be seen. If you can’t do that, at least rent them, but whatever you do, do not watch movies on regular television. By the time a movie has been "formatted to fit your screen" it loses much in the way of pacing and character development, and you loose a chance at a valuable lesson.
The cardinal rule of writing applies as much to screenwriting as any other kind; if you want to be good at writing, the write. Study, read, watch, learn as much as you can, yes. But make sure that you spend more time writing than any of these things, and soon you will have written one of the good ones.
Some great books to further learn the craft of Screenwriting are:
Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, By Sid Field
Screenwriting Tricks of the Trade, By William Froug
Zen and the art of Screenwriting, By William Froug
The Complete Book of Scriptwriting, By J. Michael Straczynski