Screenwriting Tips

clear writing, story elements, storytelling - March 13, 2019

Is Your Story Clear? Lessons from Our Children

Clarity of storytelling in screenwriting is easy to ignore. It’s deceptively difficult to master. Story clarity often means the “boring” stuff. Ethan Hunt must recover the Rabbit’s Foot, etc. One thing we’ve noticed at ScriptArsenal is that a lot of the scripts we’re reading are rich in the “exciting” stuff (action, dialogue, world-building) but sometimes the basics of story are left vague or softly defined. Once you have children, you spend a LOT of time watching children’s cartoons. My daughter loves THE CAT IN THE HAT, for instance. In every single episode, in the first scene, the characters lay out the episode’s...

Writing Truth: What Screenwriters Can Learn from Documentaries

A common adage of certain true stories is, “You couldn’t make this stuff up.” But in screenwriting, ideally, your stories should feel as true as real life. And real life, as the greatest documentaries often show, is complicated. Let’s look at some examples from recent outstanding documentaries. Bing Lui’s documentary MINDING THE GAP was recently nominated for Best Documentary Feature for the 91st Academy Awards. On the surface, it seems like a documentary about a bunch of skater kids. The film gradually morphs into a treatise on domestic abuse. And those skater kids? They are either victims of that...

Where Can I Sell My TV Pilot?

Selling a TV pilot may seem like a more mysterious process than selling a feature film screenplay. TV has more gatekeepers than feature film, and while there are some success stories coming out of independently-produced television, there isn’t that massive infrastructure in place for indie television that there is for independent film. For the most part, if you’re making a TV show, you have to do it within the established system. In 2019, writers are going to be advised again and again to write for television. The opportunity is there. The amount of buyers has gradually increased, and we’re living...

Script Openings: A STAR IS BORN

Opening your script in a way that hooks the audience is an existentially important factor for all screenwriters. Especially at the earlier stages of your career, having that great hook into the script is likely the difference between the person on the other side of the table (a development executive, agent, manager, producer, director) putting the script down or reading on. The recent film A STAR IS BORN (nominated for eight Oscars this year) has an incredibly compelling first half hour. It easily could not have. Bradley Cooper is on record as saying that close friends of his urged him...

What is “Voice” in Screenwriting? How to Stand Out From the Crowd

“Voice” is a term that gets thrown around a lot in screenwriting. Ask enough agents and managers, and eventually you’ll hear that they’re looking for a “fresh voice.” But what does that really mean? The FX TV series ATLANTA is a great source to look at for this question. It has an extremely particular “voice.” It’s funny, dramatic, often in the same scenes, and has a bizarre sense of humor, sometimes even a surreal one. In episode 8 of Season 1, “The Club”, Earn, Paper Boi, and Darius go to a nightclub together. Darius has previously talked to Earn about...

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Screenwriting Tips RSS

Is Your Story Clear? Lessons from Our Children

Writing Truth: What Screenwriters Can Learn from Documentaries

Where Can I Sell My TV Pilot?

Script Openings: A STAR IS BORN

What is “Voice” in Screenwriting? How to Stand Out From the Crowd

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