Screenwriting

Page #

Quotation

2

A screenplay is an element in a deal.

8

If your story does not have a hook, you are probably wasting your time…

22

Your title is the most important phrase in your entire script.

41-42

There are some essential elements every screen story needs to work dramatically: A main character with a goal we care about, who is risking a lot with at least one but ideally three basic obstacles in the way.

68

Characters exist only to tell your story.

78

Sometimes your character will have a ghost. The ghost is the thing that haunts him…

99

The best screenwriting is transparent. That means that you don’t feel like you are reading a script; you feel like you are watching a movie.

102

If it’s not something you are going to see or hear, then it’s not going to be on the screen.

105

Capitalize things you hear. Noises. Screams. Shouts. They should jump off the page.

107

Crafty screenwriting means finding the outward signs of the inner experience.

117

…get into your scene as late as you can, make your point, and get out as soon as you can.

119

Pacing refers to the speed at which events unfold. In an effective movie, events unfold slowly in the first act, pick up speed in the second act, and move as fast as they can in the third act.

131

…action mostly shows you what happens while, by and large, only words can tell you why things happen or what it means that they happened.

135

It’s always easier and more fun to absorb information when it comes in the form of an argument.

134

Dialog may sound like talk but it is really closer to what we remember people saying rather than what they actually said.

135

We say dialogue is “on the nose” when a character says exactly what’s on his mind without any of the evasiveness of real conversation.