Kindle Notes & Highlights
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April 21 - May 17, 2019
There’s no universal template for writing a screenplay.
The midpoint is important because it’s where your story turns.
The final act of your screenplay is really about your hero’s inner transformation,
REMEMBER IT！
a series of smaller goals
Oh, and goals? They shouldn’t be limited to your protagonist. They should extend to every character in your screenplay. The love-interest should have a goal. The best friend should have a goal. The villain should have a goal. The more people you have going after things, the more characters will clash with one another, and that’s when it gets fun! Clash equals conflict and conflict equals drama and drama equals entertainment.
Every scene you write, the characters in that scene should have a goal.
Find out what the primary character wants in the scene (his/her goal), and let the dialogue evolve from that.
If you’re just sitting your characters down to see what they’ll say to each other, however, expect a lot of bored readers. Scene goals focus (and therefore streamline) dialogue.
So if your dialogue is weak, look for things you can setup before the scene to bring the dialogue to life.
The key is identifying the force that will get in the way of your character’s goal and building the scene around that.
Had the stakes been higher in the scene, the dialogue would’ve been richer and more suspenseful.
Just give one character something they’re hiding and the subtext writes itself.
Get to know your characters. The more you know, the more specific their dialogue will be, and the more real they’ll seem.
It comes down to this: Who cares if your hero achieves his goal if we don’t care about your hero??
Coming up with compelling, identifiable and memorable characters is one of the hardest things to do in screenwriting.
one of the easiest ways is to make them “likable.”
A fatal flaw is your character’s defining weakness, the thing that’s held him back his entire life, and when it comes down to it, the thing that makes him human.
Once you establish a fatal flaw, you can execute your character’s transformation over the course of the story, culminating in them overcoming that flaw.
The fatal flaw is the cornerstone of character depth, so you definitely want to include one if possible!
One of the easiest ways to explore a character is through the people around him, or more specifically, via the relationships he engages in.
all backstory in your screenplay must be story-relevant.
The secrets we keep define our private side, the side we don’t allow the world to see. This side is often more interesting than the side people do see, which is the reason you should know your characters’ secrets.
Secrets are like the jalapeño poppers of character depth: they can really spice things up.
Characteristics, quirks, clothes, personality traits, vices, grooming
damn right
having a theme in your screenplay keeps the thousands of variables in your story in the same orbit.
Obstacles are really one of your best friends as a screenwriter because the more of them you throw in, the more interesting your story tends to be. If the journey’s too easy, we’re gonna get bored.
make it as invisible as possible.
The best screenplays never feel like there’s any exposition.
Characters don’t go after things (goals) without a purpose. There must be a motivation behind their pursuit.
one’s motivation must match the stakes of one’s pursuit.
a key plot-related event occurs.
But it could just as easily be the weather, as is the case in the movie, The Perfect Storm.
Audiences LOVE irony.
Irony is your best friend. Use it wherever you can!
伏笔和揭示。
dramatic irony was when one character in a scene was aware of something that the other character was not. I’m going to expand that definition. Dramatic Irony is when the audience is aware of something that one or all of the characters are not.
Making sure your protagonist is likable is one of the easiest ways to rope in a reader.
If the consequences to your protagonist’s actions aren’t big enough, we’ll lose interest in him/her quickly. If the consequences of a scene are weak, we’ll lose interest in the scene quickly.
The scene agitator introduces a distracting element that makes things a little (or a lot) more difficult for your hero.
Always have them doing shit.
If you want your popcorn movie to become a classic, we need to make an emotional connection with your main character, and the easiest way to do that is to give them a fatal flaw.
Without a bonding scene, we never get the sense that the characters know or care about each other.
Payoffs work best when you’re showing, not telling
Avoid urgency during the “Discovery Phase”
If you’re going to write a sci-fi script, keep it simple
having a character verbalize the theme of your script
POWER TIP - MELODRAMA = MONODRAMA - As Stacy Menear, one of my favorite young writers, told me, “melodrama” is really “monodrama.” In other words, it’s “hitting the same emotional beat over and over again.” The best films are the ones that take you through a range of emotions. So with Stand By Me, we’re happy (they’re singing songs), terrified (Sick Balls!), exhilarated (barely escape being hit by a train), and sad (Gordie dealing with the death of his brother). Make sure to mix up the emotions in your script. Avoid monodrama!
Clarity is the key to great action sequences -
Here’s a tried and true method: follow the death with a quick 1-2 page mourning scene. After that, throw your hero into danger. The mourning shows they care and the danger tricks the audience into forgetting about the death.
