Contents
Screenwriting Basics
How to Come Up with an Idea for Your Screenplay
How to Determine Your Audience
How to Create Characters
How to Write Dialogue
How to Create a Plot
Act I: The Setup
Act II: The Confrontation
Act III: The Resolution
How to Structure Your Story
How to Format Your Screenplay
The Screenwriting Process
After the Screenplay
Is Written
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How to Come Up with an Idea for Your Screenplay
The first step in writing a screenplay is to come up with an idea. Ask yourself this question: What would I want to see? If you’re brainstorming for original ideas, consider:
- Your own experience
- Something you’ve observed in the world
- History or current events
- Your imagination
Once you’ve come up with a general idea, it’s important to define your premise, controlling idea, and setting.
How to Establish Your Premise
The premise is the inspiration for the story. It poses the question, “What would happen if . . . ?” For instance, the premise for the film Thelma & Louise is, “What would happen if two ordinary women became outlaws and were on the run for their lives?” Your premise should be only a few sentences long at most. Following are a few ways to establish your premise:
Research
If you want to write a convincing and believable story,
research your subject matter first. You can learn more about your subject through:
- Textual research: Information from books and articles
- Live research: Information gathered straight from the source, such as interviewing jockeys for a screenplay about the history of horse racing
Originality
Originality stems from the way the story is told, not necessarily what it’s about. Nonetheless, to avoid frustration later on, it’s always good to check whether your exact story, or something very similar, has already been made into a movie. Do a keyword search on the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) or check the category index of the annual book Videohound’s Golden Movie Retriever, both of which contain listings of virtually every movie ever released.
Adaptation
Since the creation of an original story can be daunting, beginning writers are sometimes tempted to use an already-existing story as the basis for a screenplay. This is called adaptation. Novels, plays, short stories, articles, comics, historical events, or even real people’s lives can be adapted into screenplays. Adaptation is challenging, though, as it requires you to compose a new creative work while maintaining the integrity of the source material.
If you want to adapt someone’s story or idea, you must first obtain or secure the legal rights to do so. Find out whether the rights are available by contacting the author, agent, and publisher. If the rights are available, consult an entertainment lawyer. For more about the legal and creative issues surrounding adaptation, see Richard Krevolin’s How to Adapt Anything into a Screenplay.
Establish Your Controlling Idea
If your premise answers the question “What would happen if . . . ?” then your controlling idea answers the question “Why does it matter?” The controlling idea is the story’s theme, or its ultimate meaning. Sum up your controlling idea in a single sentence and make sure it describes how and why the character transforms throughout the course of the story.
Establish Your Setting
Setting is the time and place in which the events of your screenplay occur. Over the course of your screenplay, your characters most likely will inhabit many different settings. But to flesh out your idea, it’s important to pinpoint four general aspects of the world that you’re creating:
- Period: The point in time. Is your story set in 2056? During the Renaissance? In the present day?
- Duration: The span of time. Does the story span a day? A week? Three years? Four centuries?
- Location: The physical surroundings. Is your story set in New York? China? At a ski lodge? Outer space?
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