What goes into writing a great movie script?

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

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

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

Why does my 5-year-old daughter keep repeating the words 'they will come for us, they will find us and touch us'? I'm quite scared.

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

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

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.

Non adipisci autem repellat fugiat.

Make sure to pack enough explosives into the rocket.

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

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

Can machine learning and AI make programmers obsolete? Can AI make software coding and debugging a thing of the past?

Research the facts and then throw away the research.

Actors give better feedback than writers do.

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

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

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.

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.

Why do wokes use words like "homophobes" when they don't know what that means? Do they realize that no one is afraid of them?

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

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

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.

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

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

The DSM 5 is a wonderful character compendium.

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

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.

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

Is it true that most women like alpha males?