What goes into writing a great movie script?

Actors give better feedback than writers do.

Maintain a slush pile/idea file. When you are ready to write, choose the best seeds to plant.

A critical function of storytelling is wish fulfillment. This is why video games are so popular. “That protagonist is JUST LIKE ME.”

What can I do after 18 cops raided my home, without a warrant, seeking a person who didn't live there and wasn't there, and also went through all of my stuff? The person wasn't on the lease, and they didn't see him enter.

Write in reverse time. Major characters need to change polarity; minor characters may remain the same at the end.

What you leave unwritten is as important as what you write. SUBTEXT.

Get up there yourself. Be in a movie. Take some acting (not writing) classes. Learn how a trained actor approaches a text. Learn why actors take roles. They do as much if not more than the writer does.

I'm very sick. 72 years old. I thinking I'm losing my mind. My dead friend told me it's going to be okay. I could feel him. There is more…I don't know what but more.

Make sure to pack enough explosives into the rocket.

Don’t direct from the page. Everyone, from the director on down, wants to be part of the process of making movies. Let them do their work.

Learn to tell a story orally and not through writing. Try telling your story to a friend.

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To develop a unique voice for each character, try interviewing your characters.

Your primary job is to create situations. Modern actors will fuck up your dialogue, despite whatever your contract says.

All rules are made to be broken, but you damn well better know WHY you’re breaking them.

People Are Being Involuntarily Committed, Jailed After Spiraling Into "ChatGPT Psychosis" - Futurism

Conflict is your power source; without it you have no drama and hence no script.

Primary characters must change polarities. Secondary characters can change less.

People choose what to see based on the high concept. Make sure to deliver an ending consistent with the high concept -- it is what the audience paid for.

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Use status to help drive conflict. King Lear/fool. Upstairs/downstairs.

Only God gets it right the first time. Rewrite everything.

Cut everything that is not a payoff, or a setup for a specific payoff. “Omit needless words.” Think about the sparseness of joke telling, or Grimm Brothers.

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Audiences are smarter than you think. Something about turning down the house lights makes their IQs go up.

Leave holes. Write and unwrite. Put it in, take it out.

Outline everything. Use story beats. Keep character’s mouths taped up, until they absolutely MUST speak. Write the script and the dialogue at the last minute, after you’ve revised the hell out of the outline.

Where did Kamala Harris learn how to change positions so quickly? Did she learn it from working in the world's oldest profession?

A scene should change valence from beginning to end. Up to down, down to up.

Research the facts and then throw away the research.

The DSM 5 is a wonderful character compendium.

What is your best and worst childhood memory? What was your biggest fear as a child?