What makes a screenplay good

Once Elliot has adopted ET and saved him from the faceless hordes of government, he has to face the "villains" he's hidden him from. During each film we watch as Thelma, Louise and Elliot develop the skills they need to overcome their flaws; the two women need to believe in themselves and each other; Elliot needs to find the tenacity and selflessness within. And here, in the climax, they apply them. Both are classically structured films, where the flaws of the protagonists are embodied in the characterisation of the antagonists, so that in ET, when Elliot overcomes his external obstacle, his internal need is liberated, and when the women renounce society they become we are led to believe emancipated and whole.

A climax can be subverted the Coen brothers' No Country For Old Men kills its protagonist at the crisis point, but it's very much an exception but the effect is akin to Bond running from Blofeld.

Unless it's part of a wider schematic plan it feels wrong — the writer has set up something and then refused to pay it off. The inciting incident provokes the question "What will happen?

It is the peak of the drama. Protagonist faces antagonist — all come together to fight it out and be resolved. But it is also a tying up of loose ends. In a classically structured work there must be a payoff for every set-up, no strand left forgotten.

Traditionally, stories always ended happily ever after, with all action resolved. Either the tragic hero died or the romantic couple got married. As the journalist and author Christopher Booker has observed, a number of significant changes took place as a result of the industrial revolution in the way we tell stories.

As Shakespearean scholar Jan Kott noted: "Ancient tragedy is loss of life, modern tragedy is loss of purpose. Archetypal endings can also be twisted to great effect. The Wire found an extremely clever way of subverting the normal character arc, by brutally cutting it off at an arbitrary point. The death of Omar Little at the hands of a complete stranger works precisely because it's so narratively wrong; it undercuts the classic hero's journey by employing all its conventions up to the point of sudden, tawdry and unexpected death.

In effect, saying this is a world where such codes don't operate, such subversion also has the added bonus of telling us just how the cruel and godless world of Baltimore drug-dealing really works. These building blocks are the primary colours of storytelling.

To a greater or lesser extent they either occur in all stories, or else their absence the missing bit of Omar's arc in The Wire ; the early death of the hero in No Country for Old Men has an implied narrative effect. In archetypal form these are the elements that come together to shape the skeleton of almost every story we see, read or hear. If you put them all together, that skeleton structure looks like this:. Once upon a time a young friendless boy called Elliot discovered an alien in his backyard.

Realising that unless he helped the creature home it would die, he took it on himself to outwit the authorities, win over sceptics and in a race against time, in a true act of courage, set his friend free.

It sounds very simplistic, and in some senses it is, but like the alphabet or the notes on a musical stave, it is an endlessly adaptable form. Just how adaptable starts to become clear when we see how it lends itself to conveying a tragic tale. When we first meet Michael Corleone in The Godfather he's in an army uniform. Every inch the war hero, he explains the nefarious deeds of his father and his brothers to his fiancee, before mollifying her: "That's my family, Kay, that's not me.

As he emerges from the mists of battle, Duncan cannot help but be impressed: "So well thy words become thee, as thy wounds: They smack of honour both. Michael Corleone and Macbeth are both flawed, but their faults are not what are traditionally described as tragic flaws or blind spots. They are, instead, good qualities: selflessness and bravery, and it is this that provides the key to how tragic story shape really works. Tragedies follow exactly the same principles as Jaws or ET but in reverse.

In tragedy a character's flaw is what conventional society might term normal or good — a goodness that characters overturn to become evil in their own way. Historically, critics have focused on the Aristotelian definition of a fatal malignant flaw to describe tragic heroes, but it is just as instructive, I would argue, to chart how their goodness rots.

It's a common trope of liberal American movies in both The Good Shepherd and The Ides of March idealistic patriots find their morals slowly eaten away but it's equally apparent in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall , where Thomas Cromwell undergoes a similar corruption.

It is Cromwell's goodness that corrodes him, his loyalty to Cardinal Wolsey that fixes him on the same tragic trajectory as both Macbeth and Michael Corleone. Furthermore, it's a goodness that is corroded according to an absolutely archetypal pattern. From Line of Duty to Moby-Dick , Dr Faustus to Lolita "good" is a relative concept , there's a clear pathway the characters follow as, in pursuit of their goal, their moral centre collapses.

The initial goals can be good The Godfather or Line of Duty , seemingly innocuous Carmen , Dr Faustus , but the end-result is the same: the characters are consumed by overwhelming egotistical desire.

It seems impossible to understand how, with only eight notes in an octave, we don't simply run out of music. But just as tones give rise to semi-tones and time signatures, tempo and style alter content, so we start to see that a simple pattern contains within it the possibility of endless permutations. Feed in a different kind of flaw; reward or punish the characters in a variety of ways; and you create a different kind of story. What's more fascinating perhaps is just why the underlying pattern exists, and why we reproduce it whether we've studied narrative or not.

One of Follows biggest findings was in separating scripts by genre. While historical-based screenplays often would score higher, the real finding was that inside each genre there were individual ingredients that readers were looking for.

So far example, look at the two charts below. The top chart shows the categories Screencraft readers are asked to grade, and how those characteristics correlate to a scripts overall score when looking at all 12, scripts. But note in the second chart how that correlation shifts when evaluating Sci-Fi. I would say on page 5 or 6. I mean, in the first 10 minutes, you can predict the ending.

Give your story some mystery. One way Quentin Tarantino does it is by writing without knowing the end. This tip might be hard for practical people to learn, especially those who went to film school where you were taught to outline the entire movie.

If you can only see the next five pages ahead, you put yourself in the same position the audience is. You are leaving the movie as unpredictable as the hateful 8 or Jakie Brown.

Some writers overwrite by staging everything before we get to the first piece of dialogue. Before the main character even walks through the door. Enter the scene by having whatever is happening already happening and leave before everything is finished. This tip is another tactic to keep your screenplay interesting to read. Beginning a movie with a flashback is impossible. Flashbacks are only used if otherwise, the audience will not understand.

If you keep that thought as an enteral rule, you will never overuse or misuse them. Using flashbacks for a stylistic choice is confusing and nonprofessional.

The story is inclusive of everything. The actions of the characters can give you intentions faster than speaking. David Mamet, a playwriter, screenwriter, and director, once said that characters are only habitual actions made up throughout 90 pages.

I made this bad habit in the past before I realized it was terrible when I gave actor instructions. These will be ignored by the director and producer anyway, and they add unnecessary words to your screenplay. Remember, the actor is a filmmaker in their own right. Leave it up to them to figure out what the character will do. They will go hang out with firefighters and copy their mannerisms if they are playing firefighters.

The only time this will be forgiven is if the action is needed to tell the story. What is the suspense of disbelief? Movies, in general, are unbelievable.

This idea of extreme conflict could be between two characters in a romantic comedy or rom-com as they call it. They are what takes a novice or average screenwriter and makes them stand out among the crowd of tens of thousands. Below we'll explore eight of these qualities in detail and showcase how attaining and honing these qualities will make any screenwriter better, and hopefully many more, great. The ability to see your stories through the mind's eye before placing any word on paper.

Too many writers simply write page to page, plotting out the movie, and make choices strictly to get from point A to point B and beyond. The great writers can SEE the movie already from the perspective of an audience.

Better to tell them "Write what you love," as far as genre, atmosphere, and what you love to see in the movie theater. But as far as vision goes, best to say "Write what you can see. It takes time to get to this stage, but screenwriters need to be confident in their work.

Writers will always have various forms of self-doubt, but in order to have a career in screenwriting you need the ability to go into a conference call or meeting room, know your story, know your strengths, and be able to communicate on an equal level — rather than looking up with nervous puppy eyes to the executives and powers that be.

Ego will get you nowhere. You need to be someone an executive or producer wants to work and collaborate with — not battle with. So throw away your books written by Joe Eszterhas. That's not what Hollywood wants. They want someone confident in their own work, so they know they can ask for what they need and trust you to deliver the goods. Plain and simple. If you are someone that can absorb notes from producers and studios and understand that in the end, you are hired to do a job, and then find a way for those notes to work within the confines of your own writing wants, you'll be one step ahead of most.

Know when to choose your battles. Know when to back off and accept what you've been given. Understand that film is a collaborative effort and while the whole process truly starts with the written word — beyond the spark of the concept in one's mind — it most certainly does not end with just that. In short, be someone they can work with and someone that they want to work with.

Know that you're not always right and that others can improve your work. And even when you think what they want is not something you agree with, be able to roll with it anyway and make their notes work.

You will fail. You WILL fail. You will fail more than you prevail. Even the most successful screenwriters in past and present have failed more than they have prevailed. If you don't have thick skin, you won't make it. If you can't take notes from others on your writing, you won't make it. If you can't take a hit, get up, brush yourself off, and then do the same over and over and over, you won't make it in this profession. You need to be able to deal with the "sure thing" deal with a studio falling through at the last minute because of some lame reason that has nothing to do with you.

You need to be resilient and have the ability to get back on your feet and jump through the fire again and again until you make it. Sometimes you need to be resilient for years — a decade.