What goes into writing a great movie script?

A scene should change valence from beginning to end. Up to down, down to up.

All rules are made to be broken, but you damn well better know WHY you’re breaking them.

Maintain a slush pile/idea file. When you are ready to write, choose the best seeds to plant.

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Don’t direct from the page. Everyone, from the director on down, wants to be part of the process of making movies. Let them do their work.

A critical function of storytelling is wish fulfillment. This is why video games are so popular. “That protagonist is JUST LIKE ME.”

Audiences are smarter than you think. Something about turning down the house lights makes their IQs go up.

Autism and ADHD have distinct brain connectivity signatures, study finds - Medical Xpress

Use status to help drive conflict. King Lear/fool. Upstairs/downstairs.

Actors give better feedback than writers do.

Cut everything that is not a payoff, or a setup for a specific payoff. “Omit needless words.” Think about the sparseness of joke telling, or Grimm Brothers.

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Write in reverse time. Major characters need to change polarity; minor characters may remain the same at the end.

Leave holes. Write and unwrite. Put it in, take it out.

Your primary job is to create situations. Modern actors will fuck up your dialogue, despite whatever your contract says.

Why do atheists demand that everyone must accept their own self-definition? Is that any different from demanding others must accept their choice among 87 genders or be labeled as a bigot?

Primary characters must change polarities. Secondary characters can change less.

Make sure to pack enough explosives into the rocket.

People choose what to see based on the high concept. Make sure to deliver an ending consistent with the high concept -- it is what the audience paid for.

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Conflict is your power source; without it you have no drama and hence no script.

To develop a unique voice for each character, try interviewing your characters.

What you leave unwritten is as important as what you write. SUBTEXT.

What factors have contributed to the decline in popularity of high fantasy books in the modern age of technology and popularity?

Get up there yourself. Be in a movie. Take some acting (not writing) classes. Learn how a trained actor approaches a text. Learn why actors take roles. They do as much if not more than the writer does.

Outline everything. Use story beats. Keep character’s mouths taped up, until they absolutely MUST speak. Write the script and the dialogue at the last minute, after you’ve revised the hell out of the outline.

The DSM 5 is a wonderful character compendium.

How can I fall asleep fast at night?

Only God gets it right the first time. Rewrite everything.

Research the facts and then throw away the research.

Learn to tell a story orally and not through writing. Try telling your story to a friend.

How do people move on so quickly? I’m still sprung over someone I was dating and he found someone else so fast. I feel hurt because I’m still head over heels over him while he’s out enjoying his life with someone new