Inspirational Screenwriting. The #1 Screenwriting Course!

Movies are often given the green light and money because of story and movie stars. Your lead, your protagonist, needs a strong clear character that is both multidimensional and flawed. This will attract that star. Your protagonist is the key to a great story. Love your protagonist and the audience will too.

That character in opposition to your protagonist is the antagonist. The antagonist should be stronger than your protagonist as to add a layer of anxiety, urgency, and intensity to your story. Also known as a “heavy,” this good vs. evil dynamic will drive the conflict organically. Give us a great heavy and you have a great movie.

Tone, vibration, feeling, texture, and energy are established immediately with your opening images. This will certainly ground your audience in the world and the journey they are about to venture on. Close your eyes and breathe. What images do you see and feel for your movie?

Going from the ordinary world to the extraordinary world is the moment in your movie that alerts the audience to a special world soon to come. This is very important as it is the calm pond getting a rock thrown in and your inciting incident is the ripples.

This is the point in your movie vital to your movie. Without this moment your movie does not exist. This is the moment that changes the entire trajectory of life as this movie has known thus far.

The consequences of your page 17 are reflected on your page 30. Cause and effect, action-reaction, energy in motion has no turning back now. This is now full on cinematic, dramatic, story world.

Breathe… This is the first false epiphany that gives your audience a breather and a false sense of security that all is well in paradise. This goal has a reasonable chance of being accomplished for your protagonist and his or her quest.

This is the midpoint and tent pole of your movie as all is supported by this moment.It is when your lead character, the protagonist, goes from passive to active in his or her destiny as does your antagonist. The old self dies (metaphorically) and the new self is born.

Inhale, inhale… exhale…Okay, this is the second false epiphany where your audience now is convinced that your protagonist will triumph. It is a false sense of security that will soon be shattered.

Ouch! This is the big gloom. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong in all plausible areas of your protagonist’s life. This is the true dark before the dawn. The audience feels that your lead is farthest from their goal then they’ve ever been.

If this where a symphonic concerto would have the crescendo to punctuate the piece in grand fashion. In all successful screenplays we hit our emotional highpoint and exit our movie! Yes, it is okay to leave the audience waiting for more.

All great scenes are sculpted and peppered with perpetual conflict and obstacles. Enter a scene late and exit a scene early to keep the audience curious and desperate to want to learn what happens next.

This is really character ascension in the fact that your protagonist is progressing in their evolution toward their destiny. The best characters in movies change for better or worse.

Group your character dynamics and story lines to make writing more manageable. To better manage multiple character dynamics you can simply outline the progression of just those scenes involving just those character groupings. Then once outlined, write just those scenes. Then when all is done, edit it all together with seamless transitions.

All movies come down to good news followed by bad news increasing with intensity and stakes as it progresses. Timeframe is the overall time period that your movie takes place over. Time lock is that time honored cinematic device that gives your movie a sense of urgency based on a deadline.

This is a cinematic device that tells your audience who we care about in your movie and who we do not. Always have one or multiple petting the dog moments.

Writers write, great writers re-write and create the stories that speak to their soul. Contribute to the world and the world will reciprocate. You can do this! We all look forward to your movie.

Write on!