5 Simple Formatting Rules That Make Your Screenplay Look Professional If you’re using Final Draft, Scrivener, or WriterDuet, you’re already ahead of the game. Such software tools take care of margins, alignment, and proper indents—essential elements that can make or break your script’s readability. Still, formatting isn’t just about software; it’s about understanding what the … Read more
Reservoir Dogs: How the Opening Scene Tells the Whole Story — and its Lessons for Screenwriters Men in suits chatting about Madonna, tipping culture, and the meaning of a Madonna tune. It seems talky, possibly aimless. Underneath, however, the scene tells us everything we need to know about each character. Let’s explore how the first … Read more
Five Lesser-Known Techniques to Write a Scene OK–we get it. Your protagonist enters the scene with a goal, runs into an obstacle, must face a dilemma, and then makes a decision. That basic framework (GODD) is solid, but it’s also the minimum viable product. To wit: knowing how to play Chopsticks doesn’t make you Glenn … Read more
Eavesdropping 101: Listen in Cafés to Improve Your Screenplay Dialogue Too often we’re told to “write realistic dialogue.” That’s no excuse to transcribe everyday speech verbatim. If you did that, it would sound like shit. Real conversation is rambling, fragmented, repetitive, and often painfully dull. Screenplay dialogue, on the other hand, is compressed and alive … Read more
How to Develop Character Backstory (Without Spoken Exposition) One of the cardinal sins of novice screenwriting is the “info dump”—that moment when a character halts the story to say, “When I was a child, my father left me, and I’ve had trust issues ever since.” This is precisely when the audience yawns and reflex-checks TikTok. … Read more
Five Great Car-Based Dialogue Scenes—and What They Teach Screenwriters Most car scenes in movies suck. They’re static, filled with bad exposition, and often used as cheap transitions between more “important” locations. Screenwriters sometimes rely on movement or weird scenarios to make dialogue feel interesting—a strategy given the memorable name “The Pope in the Pool” by … Read more
Successful Morning Routines for Screenwriters: Writing Before the World Wakes Up Inspiration doesn’t always strike on a schedule—but deadlines and distractions arise at any time. In an industry driven by both creativity and productivity, the elusive “perfect writing routine” can provide much-needed consistency. Naturally, many screenwriters identify as night owls, including me. In fact, there’s … Read more
Five Lesser-Known Romantic Comedies — and the Lessons They Teach Screenwriters Today From the sharply-scripted screwballs of the ’30s to the high-concept, cloying, hyper-PC Netflix hits of the 2020s, the genre has continually evolved—and not often for the better. Many contemporary rom-coms sell because apparently someone–teenage girls?–will always watch them. They are plodding, paint-by-number plots, … Read more
Three-Act vs. Five-Act Structure: How Story Shapes Screenwriting Whether you’re writing a superhero epic or a dialogue-heavy indie drama, the underlying architecture of your script matters just as much as your characters and themes. Without a coherent structure, your story lacks rhythm, progression, and emotional payoff. In screenwriting, the two primary narrative frameworks are the … Read more
7 Proven Ways to Level Up Your Screenwriting Skills The craft of screenwriting is a lifelong education. Mastering it doesn’t happen overnight—it happens page by page, scene by scene, and draft by draft. Screenwriting is storytelling in architecture. Your screenplay is a blueprint–it’s not a completed work–yet this blueprint must evoke emotion, reveal character, advance … Read more
