Dramatic Tension – Don’t Let Them Go (Part 1)
Clever concepts, genre staples, and rare characters can entice audiences, but without story-long dramatic tension, your screenplay will struggle to keep them engaged. Screenwriting has one rule: thou shalt not bore thy audience. Even Neanderthal storytellers knew that boring a cave full of people meant death (figuratively, we think). Writers strive for audience involvement with every tool […]
How Your Screenplay Characters Perceive Their Truth
Screenwriters should write from a place of truth. Your characters should behave in the same way. But what is truth? Is it simply a logical, intellectual statement that comports to a verifiable fact? Or is truth a malleable judgment that can be influenced by morality, beliefs, cultural norms, personal bias, and emotions. The Greek word […]
Tell Me A Little. Show Me A Lot
A screenplay, or movie script, is more of a format than an art. Good dialogue is individual to each character, but when it’s used as a crutch to explain the plot, the lines become blurred. That’s where an old saying in screenwriting applies: “Show, Don’t Tell.” Al Bloom, screenwriter and owner of Script Reader Pro, […]
10 Most Common Reasons Why Scripts Are Rejected
Whenever a script is submitted to the industry, it is passed off to a reader for analysis. The reader will give the script a “recommend,” a “consider” or a “pass.” And unless it gets a recommend, probably no one else is going to look at it. So how many scripts get a recommend? About two […]
How To Climb Into Your Screenplay (Part 1)
“Before you can write anything, you have to notice something.” – John Irving Once a film script is written, once it is shot and becomes a movie, that is when critics and bloggers get to dig into the material and come up with the story’s overarching themes, what the characters represent, and what the screenwriter […]
