I tend to get hung up on character and structure and story a lot. You know, those things that “supposedly” make your script better. I don’t often get into the nitty-gritty, the smaller details that, when added up, really make an impact on your script. Which is what inspired today’s article. Here are 10 small things you can do to improve your screenplay right now. Enjoy!
1) Cut out the least important character in your script. See, here’s the thing. We’re character whores. We love adding people to our scripts, even if it doesn’t make sense. We just think, “Another character. Yay!” The problem with this is that we all of a sudden have a bunch of characters who don’t matter. So here’s a simple tool to help you. Find the least important character in your script and get rid of them. You’ll feel better afterwards. I promise.
2) Eliminate the 3 scenes that have the least to do with your plot. Writing pointless scenes is an epidemic. Even top-level professionals do it. I just read a 3-page scene the other day where our hero meets a really fun character, who disappears afterwards and is never seen again. Why, then, do we need that scene in the movie? Get rid of your three most irrelevant scenes right now. You will send me an e-mail within the week and offer me cookies for this. I guarantee it.
3) Combine 6 scenes into 3 – Combining scenes is a power skill that will turn your script into a lean and mean power machine. Do you really need two separate scenes for your hero asking the girl out to the prom AND applying for a job? What if the girl he’s asking works at the store he’s applying for a job at? Now you kill two birds with one stone! Take six scenes and find a way to combine them into three.
4) Twitterize your paragraphs. Look at every four-line paragraph and see if you can cut it down to 3. Lean scripts are just easier to read. And I’ve found that with a little creativity you can take most long paragraphs and make them a lot shorter. So just go through your script and everywhere you have a four line paragraph, get it down to three. You can do it!
5) Give every character in your script either a memorable introduction or a memorable description. Easy-to-forget characters are a time-honored tradition in amateur screenwriting. Don’t be a part of that tradition. The best way to make your characters memorable is to make them stand out when we first meet them. Do this by showing them doing something interesting, or have that kick-ass description that makes them immediately visible in the reader’s eye.
6) Stop being derivative. Go through every scene in your script and ask yourself (honestly) if you’ve seen that scene before in another movie. If you have, change it. Find an angle, even if it’s tiny, to make it feel fresh. One of the biggest problems with amateur scripts is that they feel too similar to stuff we’ve already seen. This is an easy way to prevent that.
7) Take your three heaviest exposition scenes and find a way to SHOW that information rather than TELL it. For example, instead of a character telling someone their girlfriend just broke up with them, show them burning all her pictures.
8) Simplify your writing. Stop trying to impress us with your hundred-dollar words or Pulitzer-Prize-worthy prose. Scripts are about understanding what’s going on. Just tell your story simply. You still want to add some flavor, but where I see scripts go south is when writers over-flavorize their description. Get complex with your plot. But keep your writing simple.
9) Place your character in un-obvious locations. Too many writers have their characters talking in coffee houses, restaurants or living rooms. Because these settings are boring, we’re bored reading them. Spice up your locations. Maybe the characters are fixing the satellite dish on the roof while talking. Maybe they’re at a drag race. Maybe they’re at a puppy daycare. Have fun with your locations. They’re going to spice your scenes up.
10) Never EVER cheat your margins (both horizontal and vertical). It took me awhile to figure out why – all else being equal – some scripts read slower than others. It’s because the writers cheated their margins. They fit more words onto a line and more lines onto a page, usually by invoking the old Final Draft “tight” formatting tool. Good God never do this. I’ll be sitting there feeling like I’m on page 20, look up and see I’m on page 10 and, besides being pissed off that the script is taking forever to read, wonder how that can be. On almost every occasion, I check the margins and, sure enough, the writer’s cheating.
