1. A clear setting
when and where does this story take place? Lock that in your very first slug line.
INT. South Essex College - Day
2. Describe the setting
When people read your script, they probably won't know the environment you're talking about. Describe it in a couple of short, sharp sentences.
INT. South Essex College - Day
Busting, busy, full of fashionably dressed teenagers. Chrome and glass surfaces gossip fills the air.
3. Introducing the characters
Throw in a couple of vivid details to make the reader picture the character in their head.
Kayla Frost, 19 - Stick-thin, looks like she might snap at any moment. Her Levi's might be faded, but her eyes burn fiercely under a gothic mop of hair.
4. Naming your characters
Make sure each character's name different, and looks different when written down.
Give each character a surname, too. If they've only got a first name, this comes across as an incomplete identity.
5. Conflict
Not only should your screenplay be based on a wider conflict of some kind, but each charter should also have internal conflicts that they are dealing with.
Doubts, insecurities, unfinished business. None of us glide through life without stuff boiling away inside, and your character shouldn't either.
6. She's filled with secrets
Giving your characters secrets, whether big or small, enables you too pick away layers and keeps your viewer interested along the way.
7. Keep it consistent
make sure that you keep your character consistent in background and behaviour.
If Dave is an ex-con with a violent past, make sure you keep his behaviour consistent
8. Dialogue stuff: sentences
People don't speak in complete sentences, nor do people speak alike.
You need to let your character dictate where the punctuation goes. Gaps, pauses, unfinished sentences.
Try recording people speaking and listening to it back.
9. Stay away from the nose
The phrase "on the nose" refers to dialogue that states too clearly what a character is thinking without thinking it through their personality and agenda.
If Dave tells his closest friend "I want to be a policeman" chances are that it won't play as well as having the application forms falling out.
10. Keep it unpredictable
When Princess Leia tells Han Solo "I love you" in The Empire Strikes Back, the scene is most predictable for the most memorable response "I know"
You want dialogue to flow, but you need to rethink predictable exchanges. Throw away the first response you think of. Throw away the second one to, maybe the third.
11. Keep it varies
Does a character even need a response verbally in a statement?
If someone says "goodbye" to them, do they need to speak it in return? Couldn't they wink?
Once again predictability is you enemy
12 First Line
The first line speaks should sum up an aspect of their personality.
If you're introducing a party animal like Stifler from American Pie his first line wouldn't be something mundane.
Your character gets one chance for a first impression.
13. Language = life
Make sure your characters dialogue reflect their life experience
To a 70 year old English professor won't speak the same way as a 25 year old football player.
A character born in 1960 will speak differently to one born in 1990
Make sure their dialogue reflects this.
14. Double Hyphen
Has one character stepped on another's line? Cutting them off?
The traditional way to show this in a script is with a double hyphen
Wife
You know I would never
15. Fresh slang
Why not make up your own slang? Using the latest words, phrases and cultural references will date your script extremely quickly.
Writers like Joss Whedon make up their own phrases and drop these in the script "What's the switch" meaning "what's going on" originated in Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
An audience won't know the difference between a slang phrase you've made up and one they've never heard before but they certainly notice dated phrase. You dig, man?
16. MIx dialogue and action
If life, stuff happens all at once. Peopl don't stop talking because a bus is about to explode, the bus explodes mid sentence.
Don't be afraid to have action and dialogue crash into each other because things in real life don't happen in a neat order.
17. Don't tell me what I've seen!
If Debbie's head just exploded, the viewer does't need James to tell them.
"Debbie's head just exploded"
They already noticed. Eliminate dialogue that narrates action.
18. No place for closed question
If you've got a question which leads to a yes or no response in your dialogue get rid of it
They stop the dialogue dead, and the audience can anticipate a response.
Replace them with open questions, to let your characters personalities shine through.
19. Misunderstandings
Characters should be misunderstand and misinterpret each other just as they do in real life.
It gives you great opportunities for conflict and comedy, it also makes the dialogue read as more authentic.
20.Style stuff: present tense
Always keep your action descriptions in the present tense.
You need the action to unfold in the present to unfold the page.
21. What not to include
The action descriptions you should not include:
thoughts
hopes
backstory
Anything that can't be shown visually
If you want to include these things show them through events or dialogue.
22. Keep it clear
"The Father of the bride, who runs a pizza restaurant" this is ambiguous
who sells pizza?
the Father or the bride?
Compare to "The bride, whose father owns a pizza restaurant"
Keep it clear. The less ambiguity, the better.
23. OH MY GOD
Using ALL CAPITALS in your action descriptions signifies something important. Its a way of making the more important elements pop when someone reads the script.
The building EXPLODES
Don't use it too much, it ruins the point of using it.
24. Keep it punchy
Break long sentences and keep your descriptions as vivd as you can.
25. Write first then edit
This script won't be as punchy, exciting and engaging as possible on the first draft.
Your mission on the first draft is to get it written.
Second, third, fourth, and fifth drafts are the opportunity to make your screen play everything it can be.
