Thursday, October 29, 2009

WRITE A GOOD SCRIPT

Find something to write about, anything, just do it.

If it's humor, make it funny, with interesting characters that have quirky traits, a story that is going somewhere, give it a theme. A plot is good, essential, but give us a theme we're interested in, something we can relate to or admire.

Be the expert, in your area of expertise. You're probably more interesting than you think, but only in certain ways. If you're a stock clerk, I want to know what goes on between the aisles and behind that door that says "Staff Only". I really don't want to read your script or see your film about a guy who builds an incredible weapon we've never heard of before, because we probably heard of it before. And if you just have to write that thing, do your research, lots of it.

Keep the action and description short, I've got an imagination, you know? If I have to draw a diagram to figure out how the "x-machine" looks then you've lost the point of using that as a prop in the first place. Just make it look like an ordinary pen, and when you click it, you're transported in time, I can vision that, plus it's cost effective for production.

Give us some dialogue, meaningful stuff, don't just write it to fill pages, don't waste our time. If you're hurting for material just go somewhere and strike up conversation with a stranger, and annotate their traits, how they speak, what they talk about. People will usually try saying something important, or make an observation that is no new observation, and that alone is interesting or funny-- not in the way they think it is though. We like to poke fun at people in this manner, it's human nature.

Make it a good ending. Some people say that's the hardest thing to do but if you have a good outline you should know where it's going. If you don't know, then tell someone your logline and ask them how they think that would end, because people will usually tell you what they want to hear.

Enough? Good. It's not that hard, is it?

Now go write something, something good.

2 comments:

  1. I always set OUT to write something "good"...what happens afterward is not my fault

    ReplyDelete

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