How To Write A Screenplay
How To Write A Screenplay
How to Write a
Screenplay – The
Perfect 30-Step Guide
You daydream about Tina Fey and Amy Poehler making fun of
you as you sit in the front row at the BAFTAs or Oscars.
Don’t worry!
We’ve all been there, and Industrial Scripts is here to help. If
you follow the 30-steps below, you’ll discover that bragging
about your finished screenplay is a much better way to annoy
your friends.
Warning: many Spoilers ahead.
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3
STAGE #1: PLANNING YOUR SCREENPLAY
Brainstorm ideas
If you’ve thought about writing a screenplay before, you
probably have tons of ideas floating around in your head
constantly. That’s great!
In fact, if you don’t already have one, I recommend carrying a
notebook around with you so you can keep track of all your
ideas.
Where would we be if Vince Gilligan had forgotten to scribble
down “Chemistry teacher cooks meth to pay for cancer
treatments” in his idea journal?
If you don’t have any ideas yet, you’re lying. There are ideas
everywhere, and you probably already have a few in the back of
your head.
Sit down with your laptop, pen and paper, or vintage typewriter
and start brainstorming ideas. Write whatever comes into your
head, just get those ideas down on paper and explore them.
Learn which ideas grab you, which ones you feel you could do
justice, and which ones the world needs to see. If you need
inspiration, read newspaper articles and novels or use your own
experiences to get you started.
Remember that you are writing for a visual medium and let your
imagination run wild.
Get feedback
Once again, share your logline and treatment with others. They
will help you spot any plot holes and provide ideas to improve
your story. Remember, just because one person says something,
it doesn’t mean they’re right. But if more people say the same
thing, it’s probably worth strongly considering their point.
Create a step-outline
A step-outline is significantly more detailed than a treatment. In
a step-outline, you create a list of the scenes in your screenplay
and a brief summary of what will happen in each of them.
Index cards
Another way to help you plan out your story is to transfer your
step-outline onto index cards. On each index card, you should
write a scene heading and a summary of the scene.
These cards can be color-coded to indicate what act the scene is
from, which character is leading the scene or anything else that
might be helpful to you.
Once you’ve finished your index cards, you can lay them out on
a large table or floor (or pin them to a corkboard) in the order
you think the scenes should occur.
From there, feel free to move the cards around and see if they
really are in the right place in your story or if there are any
scenes that are unnecessary or missing.
Act I
Act I should roughly cover pages 1 to 23 for a 90-page
screenplay (comedy) and pages 1 to 30 for a 120-page screenplay
(drama).
Inciting Incident
The inciting incident is an event that occurs that propels your
protagonist into the events of the story and disrupts their
ordinary world. In HARRY POTTER AND THE
PHILOSOPHER’S STONE, this is the moment when Harry
receives his letter to Hogwarts.
Resistance to calling
Often, the protagonist or hero will be unwilling to give up the
comfort of their world for the unknown. They may turn away
from their calling.
In a romantic comedy such as BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY,
this could be the protagonist (Bridget Jones) and her future love
interest (Mark Darcy) getting off to a bad start when they first
meet each other.
For another example, in THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO
THE GALAXY, Arthur Dent, the protagonist, makes it very
clear that he has no interest in going anywhere because he’s
afraid that construction workers will demolish his house to build
a bypass. The irony being that the Earth is about to be destroyed
by a Vogon Constructor Fleet in order to build a Hyperspace
Bypass.
No turning back
At the end of the first act, something occurs that prevents the
protagonist from truly rejecting his or her calling. No longer can
they wait around and enjoy the comforts of their ordinary world.
The hero must move forward and enter a ‘new world’ and face
the challenges that will entail. This moment is also called the
“lock-in.”
Act II
Act II is the longest act and should cover pages 23-66 for a 90-
page screenplay and 30-90 for a 120-page screenplay.
Act III
Act III should roughly cover pages 66-90 for a 90-page
screenplay and pages 90 to 120 for a 120-page screenplay.
Final obstacles
Even after the climax, there are often still residual problems that
the protagonist must solve.
In PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE
BLACK PEARL, Captain Jack Sparrow is arrested and
sentenced to death after he stops Barbossa. The final obstacle
that Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan must overcome is saving
their captain’s life.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be quite so dramatic; it may be
something as simple as having left dinner in the oven, and your
characters have to race back to stop it from burning the house
down!
However, this final obstacle is normally quite significant for
showing how your protagonist has changed from the beginning
to the end.
Going back again to STAR WARS, the final obstacle Luke must
face is the trench-run that is key to destroying the Death Star.
Earlier in the film when he was trying to master the Force, Luke
Resolution
At the end of the third act (and the end of your story), loose
ends are tied up and the protagonist deals with the outcome of
the climax. In the hero’s journey, this is known as “the return,”
when the hero returns home with his goal completed.
In THE GODFATHER, the resolution is that Michael
Corleone lies to his wife, proving that he has become the man
he never wanted to be, the successor to his father.
Occasionally, like in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, the
filmmakers may deliberately leave a loose end untied; Clarice
Starling has caught Buffalo Bill, but no mention has been made
of Hannibal Lecter since his horrific escape. Then in the closing
scene, he phones Clarice; the scene serves to remind you that
Hannibal the Cannibal is now once again at large…
The rewriting process will take a while, but be patient and stay
determined. The first draft is nearly always too dialogue-heavy,
but you’ll find that as you rewrite, you need less and less to
effectively tell the story.
Scenes that were filled with clunky exposition – i.e. telling your
story through speech rather than showing through action – fade
away into tight, set-pieces that drive your character forwards to
their goal.