Do you want to know how to write a screenplay? How do you write a script that people will want to read? What qualities does it need to have?
Here is a list of some of the important aspects you need to think about when writing that killer script:
- Originality.
- Opening with a bang.
- Believable characters.
- Emotion.
- Real dialogue.
- Pace.
- Trim the fat.
Now let us look at these in more depth:
Originality
What is this story? Are zombies taking over the world? Is a super-spy taking on mastermind criminals? What about high school kids dancing and singing? Is your story original? Now, this is a big ask as originality is hard to do. Most stories are familiar in some form or other due to mythical and legendary archetypes, legends and outlines. Heroes and villains, ghosts and demons pervade our unconscious. It’s in our DNA and race memory from all those years of sitting round a camp-fire eating woolly mammoths drizzled with berry juice.
Most new stories fit into a pattern of sorts. This is fine. We are never going to run out of new ways to construct stories. But how do we add new elements, twists, differences that give us something fresh? That depends on you and your idea. Just don’t do a rehash job but try and bring your own voice to whatever story you are telling. Everyone has a unique perspective and has experienced the world in a singular and original way since birth, so use that.
Open with a bang
Let’s imagine for a moment that by some stroke of luck your 90 pages have landed in the lap of a producer who can make it happen. None of his or her lackeys are available to read it as they’ve all been fired due to the economic crisis or moved to Bollywood or into the porn industry. So now the boss is about to read your script. Will they read a page or two at the beginning? Maybe a few pages more? Will they go to the middle read some there or maybe flick through, getting an idea about the script and whether it is worth spending more time on? Perhaps they will just flick to the back page and read the ending.
The key is to grab them in the first few pages. This will engender a small amount of latitude and goodwill which will raise expectations and keep the producer motivated, hoping to find some more good stuff. So if you can, open with a bang. That means drama, violence, emotive situations; anything that will engage a reader. Of course, with such a great start, you will have to keep up the standard up all the way through!
Believable characters
Is it a cartoon? Well, even a good cartoon has believable characters that are ‘believable’ within their own world. That is the world we buy into and we will only buy into it if we feel these people and characters are realistic. Let’s say you want to write a gangster film. Do you know any gangsters or does everything you know about gangsters come from watching gangster films? In this case, I’ll bet that the final film won’t be very good or original. What if you don’t know about aspects of your character’s lives? Whatever your subject, a little bit of research can go a long way. Research is easier than ever to do now thanks to the god-like presence of the search engines. There are no excuses for failing in the quest for believability. Believability comes through three-dimensional characterizations that have strengths, flaws and everything in-between. Make sure your important characters are fully fleshed out. Following on from this is:
Emotion
We need to care about someone, anyone. An audience or viewer or reader wants to be engaged in a story. This cannot happen through events or action sequences alone. It can only happen through characters that we care about. A character whether they are good or bad, hero or anti-hero, must engage our emotions and our feelings. It can be a character that we dislike or love to bits. They just have to make us feel something! Aim for this in your story and you are half way there. Real emotion can come through:
Real dialogue
Make it real by transplanting how you would speak with people you know in real or imagined situations. This doesn’t mean put in ever ‘um’ and ‘err’ or every one speaks with your local accent. It means remembering that real people are feeling something all the time when they are interacting with other human beings. They don’t necessarily say what’s on their mind either, in fact they hardly ever do. A lot of things are left unsaid. Are you writing a cartoon? If not then avoid cartoon-ish, clichéd and one dimensional dialogue.
Pace
Readers want to turn the page. Is your script dawdling like a fat, limping tortoise when it should be up and running like a hare with a jet pack? Pace is created by organizing your scenes in the right order and increasing the energy of the story toward the climax. Cut dialogue that isn’t needed. Cut all superfluous description. Let the readers’ imagination do the work spurred on by your brief but highly efficient and perfect scene setting. Don’t be tempted to put in any film or stage ‘directions’ it’s a mistake; they are not needed at all and can be added later.
Trim the fat
Get rid of scenes that don’t need to be there. They may be great scenes on their own or perhaps part of another story altogether, but if they don’t move the story forward in any way – they must go. If you were writing a novel you might be able to leave them but you’re not writing a novel. A screenplay must always be ‘efficient’. Unnecessary scenes will only slow you down, like carrying extra baggage when running a marathon. Often there are scenes which may have had a point in the early draft stage but now just fester and lie there doing nothing and all you want to do is say ‘hey get the f**k out of here, I’m working my ass off and you’re doing nothing!’ Be strict with every scene that you have written.
Bear in mind these tips and you should be on the way to writing a killer script.