How To Write A Screenplay

There are an infinite number of platitudes regarding the importance of the script to a film, which we won't reproduce here. And in spite of what many people contend, there really is no right or wrong way to write a screenplay.

That said, there are certain useful structures and techniques which provide good starting points. Most stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end - and this is often translated into a screenplay using the three-act structure. We will examine this, and other forms, as well as looking at other tricks to make your script better, but the first thing to bear in mind is this:

Don't get it right, get it written.

An unfinished script is no use to anyone. A completed one, even a first draft is a better place to be. You can then start to pick it apart, examine why it's working, what's wrong with it, what can be added, what can be removed, and ultimately move on to another, hopefully better, draft.

Formatting Your Script

As a writer, the script is the tool of your trade. It might seem frivolous, but presenting your screenplay in the correct format is essential. Partly because if you can't be bothered to do the basics, why should anyone bother to read it, but mostly because the format conventions exist for a reason - to gauge the length of the project.

Different mediums require different formats, and even different studios require different layouts. The easiest way to overcome all of this is to use screenwriting software such as Final Draft. Packages like this provide an excellent aid to the writing process, and release you from the constraints of formatting, allowing you more time to work on the script itself.

Structuring Your Script

If you are not already familiar with the name Syd Field, you soon will be. His books on screenwriting are huge sellers, as are his DVDs and seminars. The structure he outlines is a useful starting point, but it doesn't mean you have to adhere to it strictly, or even at all. Brainstorming your plot and characters in a treatment will help you later, even if you just come up with single sentence plot points. But let's quickly examine Mr Field's thoughts.

As you already know, stories have beginnings, middles and ends. This equates to three acts in a screenplay, each act consisting of a different plot element. So act one deals with the setup, act two centres on the confrontation, and act three is the resolution.

The segue from act one to act two is Plot Point 1, a hook in the action that changes the direction of the story - for example, your hero's daughter is kidnapped. Likewise, the transition from act two to three is Plot Point 2, where something happens to thwart the hero as the end is in site. Maybe he has rescued his daughter, but in the meantime, his wife has been taken.

This is a basic linear plot. If you draw a straight line on a piece of paper, divide it into three, label each section beginning, middle and end, you'll see the three act structure. You'll even be able to draw in the two plot points.

Act one deals with the setup. Here we meet the characters, see them in their normal environment and watch them interact with one another. At plot point one, something happens that takes them away from the norm.

Act two centres on conflict, the essence of good story telling. If the goal your hero has to achieve is far to easily reached, then the journey will feel empty. This is where people overcome hurdles, go through Herculean tasks, or in the case of Hamlet, wrestle with their internal demons. Mr Field outlines the idea of the mid-point, where halfway through act two, the goal of the main character becomes clearer, propelling them towards act three.

Act three works towards the resolution, with any plot threads you have setup being tied up, the goal is reached, and to a certain extent, some basking in the aftermath.

It's most likely you're working on a short film, but the three act structure does still have some relevance. You just have less time to work with. Get in, get going, get out.

The Basics Of Storytelling

While Syd Field's work is useful, and mostly applicable, the best book on the subject is The Tools Of Screenwriting: A Writer's Guide To The Craft And Elements Of A Screenplay, by David Howard and Edward Mabley. (Also, it's well worth getting a copy of the Special Edition set of Panic Room, and listening to the writer's commentary, as David Koepp is in conversation with William Goldman - or anything involving Joss Whedon).

Howard & Mabley also outline the three act structure, but deal in greater detail with other components which will make your writing richer and more effective. Of course, Mr Field does not advocate a paint-by-numbers approach to screenplays, but The Tools Of Screenwriting seems much less cynical, and should sit proudly on your bookshelf next to the dictionary and thesaurus.

The first section of the book deals with the basic elements of storytelling. They don't start with structure, they start by arguing the importance of strong and compelling (central) characters. This, they say, is the essence of "a good story, well told".

"The story is about somebody with whom we have empathy. This somebody wants something very badly. This something is difficult, but possible to do, get or achieve. The story is told for maximum emotional impact and audience participation in the proceedings. The story must come to a satisfactory ending."

This doesn't mean happy, just satisfactory. An excellent example of a film that ends perfectly, though not happily, is Broken Flowers with Bill Murray, written by Jim Jarmusch.

After reiterating the three act structure, they then move on to the world of story. As a basic element of storytelling, this relates to the central character. The specific world of the story comes from the nature of the protagonist, and from the storyteller themself. Most of what is relevant or irrelevant in the story world comes from who the central character is. A well constructed world should not be interchangeable with another story, even if they share geography and/or time. The world of The Godfather is very different to the world of Moonstruck.

In order to better realise the three act structure, bear in mind the notion of the Protagonist, Antagonist and Conflict. The protagonist is your central character (usually) - not to be confused with a Hero. This is the somebody who badly wants the something. The Antagonist is the person, or thing, that stands in the way of that goal, thus creating the dramatic conflict.

The antagonist can often be another character - take The Terminator for example - but can also be the internal struggle of your protagonist. Hamlet is his own antagonist. To enrich your story, it can help to have both an internal and external antagonist. In Jaws, Sheriff Brody is pitted against the shark, but is also wrestling with his own demons, his fear of water and his desire to not fight the shark.

"An internal conflict in a story with an outside antagonist helps make the protagonist a more complex and interesting human being."

This raises the compelling question that faces any screenwriter: How do you show an audience what is going on inside a character?

An audience needs to glimpse the inner lives of the characters. They need to see their hopes, fears, aspirations, desires and torments. The easiest way to do this is through dialogue, but this risks making your character boring and confessional. Show, don't tell. In War Of The Worlds, Tom Cruise's character Ray is an anti-hero, a man terrified and on the run from the rampaging invaders. He never says he is scared, we witness his actions, motivated purely by fear, and infer the deeper meaning that he wants to protect his family. This is called the subtext. Subtext is the meaning an audience infers from the juxtaposition of action and dialogue. If we see a character lie to another, we understand better their motivation.

And so we come to objective and subjective drama. Objective drama is something that is dramatic without a need to know the characters - i.e., a huge explosion, or a ship sinking. Subjective drama arises when we know more about our protagonist. Say he can't swim, the boat is sinking, and he chooses to swim down and rescue someone, thus causing him to lose a grip on his final goal. This is infinitely more compelling.

It also adds to an audience's involvement within the story they are watching. This brings us to Howard & Mabley's final basic element of storytelling, The Power Of Uncertainty. This doesn't mean trying to work elaborate twists into the plot, it simply means engaging an audience through the use of Hope versus Fear. If all of the basic storytelling elements are in place, we hope the protagonist can achieve their goal, but fear they cannot.

"This then is the logical extension of audience participation in a story: The audience sympathises to some degree with a character, it knows what may or may not happen and has taken a vested interest in one outcome or the other (by hoping and fearing), and it truly believes that either outcome is possible."

So, before moving on to more specific screenwriting tools, the basic elements of storytelling can be summed up like this:

 Compelling characters we care about.
 A goal we are interested in because the characters care about it.
 A beginning, a middle, and an end.
 A well constructed story world.
 A protagonist, the antagonist, and conflict.
 Subjective drama.
 The Power of Uncertainty.

The Tools Of Screenwriting

Howard & Mabley then move on to expand their thoughts to cover the specifics of an effective screenplay. For a film to work well, they argue that the Protagonist must have one clearly defined objective. More than one means that screen time must be used to set-up and resolve every objective, thus diluting the drama.

"A screenplay is like a suspension bridge, with one end anchored in what the protagonist wants, and the other end anchored to the disclosure of whether or not he gets it. A bridge that forks in the middle, with branches leading to two different destinations, can never be structurally sound."

The objective must also throw up obstacles, or arouse oppostion in order to create conflict. And the nature of the objective should clearly define the audience's attitude to the protagonist. Heroic goals create heroes, and so on. The protagonist and the objective should be closely identified in our minds, so it is impossible to consider one without the other. Ray in War Of The Worlds wants to save himself and his family.

Conflict isn't just characters shouting at one another, or physically brawling in the street. "Conflict is actually created not by histrionics and excessive behaviour, but by a character wanting something that is difficult to get or achieve." If you'll forgive another example from War Of The Worlds, when Ray is trying to feed his children with a simple peanut butter sandwich, they keep throwing up obstacles in his way until he lets the moment get to him.

And it is Obstacles that provide another very important element of screenwriting. Without them, there would be nothing stopping our character achieving their goal. Easily overcome obstacles make for weak storytelling, while insurmountable ones remove the notion of uncertainty.

The three elements above all provide the Premise and dictate the Opening of the story. The premise is the protagonist and his goal versus the antagonist and the obstacles which lead to the drama and the audience's emotional response. Therefore, choosing where to open your story should be based on the premise. There's not much point in David Koepp opening Panic Room at the start of Meg's marital difficulties, or War Of The Worlds ten minutes after the invaders have died. These would both be very different stories with very different premises.

The bulk of the story sits in the second act, and this is where we find the Main Tension and Culmination. The main tension is the body of the conflict during the second act, which is resolved at the culmination point. Here, a new tension is created, which basically causes us to ask "What will happen now?". This then, propels us towards the Resolution of the story.

So, in Panic Room, the main tension of the second act is "Will the burglars get into the Panic Room?" The culmination comes when Meg leaves the safety of the room to get an insulin shot for her daughter, and the burglars lock themselves in. Thus, the conflict in the third act becomes "Will Meg save her daughter and how will she defeat the invaders?" At its resolution, these questions are answered, and we briefly see that mother and daughter are looking for a more modest apartment.

The resolution most often encapsulates the Theme of the story, or the writer's point of view towards the material. The theme is rarely overtly imposed upon the piece, but makes itself manifest anyway. E.T - The Extra Terrestrial, is thematically about belief in the child-like sense of fantasy, The Godfather is about power, while One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is about freedom.

And while film allows the writer the freedom to move through time and space, there must be what Aristotle called the Unity of action. This is why most films have a single central character, because the pursuit of their objective provides this unity. So, the story is the sequence of events that happen to the character as they head towards their objective.

This is probably self-evident and requires no Exposition. However, there will be information you must give to an audience to help them better understand the story. Scenes of exposition, inexpertly handled, become tedious, and slow down the pace. The characters already know these things, so there's no real need for them to voice them, other than to inform the audience.

"Exposition can usually be made more engrossing if it is revealed in conflict ... [it] then becomes a sort of by-product of a scene that is dramatcally interesting in itself."

Information giving should also be delayed as long as possible. If the exposition can be dripped out, hinted at, and then expressed overtly at a moment of high tension, then all the better. Another useful way to deliver it is with humour through conflict. This brings a flat scene to life, and hopefully reveals something more about our characters.

It also adds to the Characterisation. Not to be confused with characterisitics (ie, the physicality), characterisation is informed by the main objective, and the means employed to attain it. Many facets of the character's personality will stem from the pursuit of their goal. Every character will have their own agenda (and none will know they're peripheral to the main story of course), and it is when these agendas clash and characters are forced to reveal their inner selves that is the essence of characterisation.

On a similar note, the Development of the Story means that each scene we see must in some way promote the audience's hope or fear that the protagonist will reach his objective. And ideally, this hope versus fear must intensify as the plot progresses.

"In drama, as in life, we attempt the easiest solution first and try to put off the most difficult or unpleasant solution to any given problem ... Often the first recourse is to deny that there is a predicament, and the second is to ask some authority figure to solve it for us ... Only when those alternative solutions fail do we try to face the problem head on, to reason with it ... or make it go away. In a film, when all the alternatives have been eliminated except the one that is most difficult for our protagonist, the audience is completely focused on an either/or situation."

Dramatic Irony is when the audience knows something that a character does not. This adds to the audience's participation in a story. But it means that you need to reward that participation. At the moment of revelation, when we discover what the character does not, the writer is then oblidged to create a moment of recognition - when the character becomes aware of what we already know.

"Revelation and recognition go right to the heart of what makes drama; without them a story becomes more narrative than dramatic."

That's not say the surprise twist has no place, of course it does, but this has to be handled very well indeed. Alfred Hitchcock eloquently espouses the difference between surprise and suspense. If a group of characters sit around a table, and neither we nor they know there is a bomb under it, there is only one major moment of surprise - when the bomb explodes. But if we know the bomb is there, but the characters do not, the participation is increased, and the moment can be played for maximum suspense - maybe their knees keep knocking it slightly as they shift in their seats.

Other tools to heighten audience interaction are Preparation and Aftermath. A scene of preparation is when a character braces for an upcoming dramatic scene. The montage sequences in the Rocky films serve this purpose. Thus, the aftermath comes immediately after the dramatic scene - Rocky calling for Adrian upon his defeat. Using preparation by contrast is often very effective too. An increased feeling of hope can often precede the delivery of bad news for example, or vice versa.

Working in a similar way, the use of Plants and Payoffs increase the participation of an audience. Maybe an early scene shows our protagonist's fear of snakes, as in Raiders Of The Lost Ark. At the moment when Indiana Jones finally finds the Ark, he has to wade through a chamber full of thousands of snakes to reach his goal. Heightening the tension still further, incidentally, the Ark is intercepted by the Nazis and Indy is locked in with his worst fears. This Payoff only works because the Plant has not been made too overt - it came at the culmination of the dramatic opening sequence, almost as a throwaway gag.

In a sense Plants and Payoffs work as a form of Elements Of The Future and Advertising. They work to keep the audience looking forward, anticipating, even if they are not aware of it. However, advertising and elements of the future overtly make us think ahead, make us ask what will happen and what might happen. Advertising is simply that - an advert for an upcoming event - be it a wedding, a sports event or a showdown. We begin to wonder about the event, and when it comes, our expectations can be met or surprised.

"Elements of the future were first delineated as storytelling devices by Frank Daniel. They are hopes and fears of the characters ... which also encourage the audience to look to the future of the story."

Will Rocky go the distance with the World Champion, or will he be shown up as he fears? Will Luke escape the monotony of farm life and fight with the rebel alliance?

All of these tools of screenwriting: objective, conflict, obstacles, premise, opening, main tension, culmination, resolution, theme, unity, exposition, characterisation, development of the story, dramatic irony, preparation, aftermath, plants, payoffs, elements of the future, and advertising; should be in place before you even write the first FADE IN of your script.

Writing The Script

Novice writers often claim that too much pre-planning, too much forethought, hinders their spontaneity. But more likely, having no structure or framework upon which to hang your scenes will have an adverse effect on your writing. By outlining your story, step by step, you actually free up your creativity to focus on the particulars of a scene. If you know what needs to happen, when it needs to happen, and what will happen as a result, there's more scope to explore as you write, without having to worry about the bigger picture.

Within each scene, be aware of the difference between Activity and Action.

"If there's lots of running around with no conflict between the characters, it means there is no dramatic action."

A screenplay is not really about its dialogue. While characters do, and necessarily need to talk to one another, their dialogue is ultimately less important that the actions they take.

"The effective screenwriter thinks of the actions of the characters and how they should be seen by the audience. This is the heart of dramatic writing."

Action and activity therefore, are not the same thing. An activity is something the character might be doing in a scene, perhaps fishing, swimming, drinking, sleeping. Thus, an action is activity that has a purpose. Maybe, a keen swimmer uses that skill in pursuit of a goal.

Usually well executed actions are visual. Show, don't tell. Shakespeare doesn't have his characters talk about the conflict between the Capulets and Montagues, he shows them duelling in a street brawl. In Panic Room, Meg doesn't constantly ask her daughter if her diabetes is coming on, she is shown silently fussing over her sugar intake, or checking her levels, when nary a word is spoken.

"The weakest scenes are the ones in which dialogue is expected to carry all of the dramatic weight by itself."

So the best Dialogue comes when it is an expression of action, or expressed within action, either as a means to highlight it, or as a means of juxtaposition. A husband telling his wife how much he loves her, as his lover hides in the bedside closet, uses the dialogue to oppose the action. It creates dramatic irony, develops characterisation, and increases conflict. In fact, good dialogue often arises out of these things, and should effectively move the story forward.

And don't forget, you're writing in a Visual medium. That doesn't mean you should dictate the blocking of shots, but you should give visual clues as to how the action should be framed. Write master scenes, and draw attention to what should be focused upon. "Maggie slices the onions, increasingly erratically, as tears begin to stream down her cheeks," is much better than "Mid shot, Maggie cuts the onion. Cut to: Close up of the knife, cutting the onions, getting more erratic. Cut to: MCU of Maggie's face, crying."

Also, these visuals can enrich the action. In the above example, perhaps Maggie is trying to kid hereself she is not upset. She has been fretting about her flat, avoiding reminders of her dead lover, and as she chops the onions, she lets the tears come, after all, it's only the onions.

Here, the scene of chopping the onions dovetails into the previous and hopefully following scenes. The Dramatic Scene is a micro version of the screenplay. It has a protagonist (not always the actual protagonist, but someone who wants something), the obstacles, action, conflict, and of course, a beginning, middle and end.

"A scene at its simplest is Somebody wants something badly and is having difficulty getting it. The somebody is the person who owns the scene, the want is the objective, and the difficulty is the obstacle."

So, when you have written everything down, constructed your plot brilliantly, fleshed out your characters, given them great dialogue, revealed them through action and conflict, and everything is just perfect - rewrite it.

Now that it's written, get it right.

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