Your character’s most important trait is resilience.

I know. It sounds dogmatic. After all, how interesting could it be if every protagonist in every screenplay had this exact same trait?

Turns out extremely interesting. Here’s why: 👇 -> Resilience is the trait that audiences admire most.

They have a tremendous emotional response to it. It matters to them, and so it should matter to us.

Evoking emotion is our job, and characters that don't give up do it for us.

Do you struggle with character introductions in your screenwriting?

You've read brilliant intros in the past, and it's easy to put tremendous pressure on yourself to be brilliant here, too.

But don't. If it comes, great! But it's more important to be effective.

Here's how: 👇 In a spec screenplay, we are less imparting information and more imparting moments.

We want the reader to feel the same thing the audience will feel when they watch the movie.

It is the overall emotion that counts, and this requires a choice about what you want in that moment.

Too many screenwriters try to tack on a character "arc" to their plot, and so it falls flat.

Don't do this.

Story is transformation. That is the journey itself.

If you're struggling to unify your screenwriting this way, here are three questions to help. 👇 1) What does the character think they want?

What do they think will make them happy? What do they think is going to make them complete?

This is their want in the ordinary world and often the motive behind what they want coming out of Act 1.

In Groundhog Day...

The dramatic question is one of your best tools for story structure in screenwriting.

Two of my primary goals in the "pre-outline" phase of any project:

1) Define the story.
2) Determine the dramatic question.

I do this because...👇 Just about every structural decision I make is determined by one or both.

These two choices tell me what I am trying to achieve. Without them, I have no criteria for why one thing would work better over another.

That's a tough way to write and an even tougher way to rewrite.

I struggled early on with the midpoint in my screenwriting. I knew it was important, but I was still pretty hit or miss.

It wasn't until I understood the midpoint's role beyond just a plot point that I found any consistency.

This is how I utilize the midpoint now. 👇 Like any structural device, the midpoint's job is narrative momentum and emotional resonance.

It helps us avoid a long, protracted second act by emotionally affecting the character and forcing them into a new direction.

It's a trampoline bounce of narrative momentum.

I struggled with Act 2 for years. It was the barren desert where my screenplays went to die.

What changed for me was realizing the role of Act 2 in the story. Embracing this was a huge breakthrough in my screenwriting.

Here is how I attack Act 2 now: 👇 From a pure story perspective:

The job of Act 2 is for the protagonists to earn the spiritual, emotional, and physical tools to answer the dramatic question to the audience's satisfaction.

This is why Act 2 matters.

Populating the world of your screenplay with supporting characters can be intimidating.

I was hit and miss most of my screenwriting career, focusing on too many random things.

I finally found consistency when I learned to ask the right questions.

This is how I do it now. 👇 The first thing for me is to know what story I'm telling.

I define story as "the transformational journey of a human being."

Who changes? And how?

You need this criterion to know whether you're helping or just throwing something up against the wall.

You know a character's description is huge in your screenwriting.

But too often screenwriters let how they THINK a character intro is supposed to go undermine what's really important:

And that is the emotion of the moment. Here's how to fix that: 👇 As always, everyone has their own style. This is just how I approach this question.

More talented writers than me likely do not have to get as deep in the weeds as I do, but as someone who relies on spec scripts, I am looking for any edge I can get.

Defining your protagonist in the first 10 pages can be challenging with everything else that's expected there.

You must hook the reader, make them care, establish genre, etc. It's a lot.

If you're struggling with this in your screenwriting, here are 4 things to think about: 👇 From a story perspective, our job is to define the character's starting point. Physical, emotional, and spiritual.

This is their ordinary world. That does not mean boring.

Do not open with someone waking up.

We want action. Someone WANTS something. And there are stakes.

The complex, dense writing we learned in school will often undermine our screenwriting. It's rarely cinematic.

But writing cinematically is not just visuals. It is also about timing, rhythm, and information.

Here's what I mean. 👇 First, the usual caveat. There are as many styles as there are writers. There is no one way.

For me, I am a believer in the cumulative effect.

My goal is to evoke the emotional experience of seeing the movie. Small things add up over pages to help or hurt that.

Your page count matters. It’s the first thing a reader checks when they open your screenplay.

Is that fair? Doesn't matter. Embrace the challenge.

Here are 8 tactics to trim your screenplay and one sure way to cut 8 pages right now.👇 GUIDING PRINCIPLES.

- Look to cut scenes, sequences, and chunks of text first. Then, fight over smaller stuff.

- Cut plot before story. The plot can simplified and combined, but necessary emotional beats are more challenging to eliminate.

- No cut is too small to matter.

One of my goals as a writer and a screenwriting teacher is to simplify. How do we get out of our own way and write with confidence?

When the creative energy isn't clicking, we do this through process. The first phase of mine is THE PRE-OUTLINE.

Here is what I do: 👇 Whether you call them processes, systems, or fundamentals, their two main benefits are:

1. They create a consistently high level to your floor.
2. They allow you to diagnose and fix what isn't working.

It's your backup plan when talent doesn't show up that day.

After 28 years of professional screenwriting, I am convinced the most important part of Act 3 is something not enough people talk about.

It is The Sacrifice.

When done right, it should be the most emotionally satisfying moment of the whole journey.

Here's how to approach it.👇 First, definitions:

THE SACRIFICE.

The moment when a character earns ownership of their change by surrendering something they once valued but is no longer aligned with their new worldview.

THE FALL GUY "disappointed" at $28m this weekend. This was due to production and marketing costs, which treated the property as a beloved I.P., which it isn't.

With that, I thought it'd be worth reviewing again the rise of I.P. and marketing as the focus of the studio business. The first thing to understand is that Hollywood has NOT run out of new ideas.

The studio’s preference for I.P. has nothing to do with regurgitating ideas and everything to do with MARKETING.

Few things make your screenwriting more compelling than dramatic tension.

It is one of the most effective tools you have as a storyteller.

Here's how to wield it whenever needed in your writing and where writers often go wrong. 👇 The best way to think of dramatic tension is as follows:

What the audience HOPES will happen.
vs.
What the audience FEARS will happen.

The more immediate the hope and the fear are, the more tension there is.

Screenwriting is scene work. It’s the heart of what we do. Movies are not plot points but a series of scenes and sequences.

Here are five essential questions to guide you through crafting and revising just about any scene: 👇 1. WHAT CHANGE NEEDS TO HAPPEN?

This is the most elemental question of all. Why does this scene exist?

Many ask what needs to happen, but I prefer to ask what CHANGE needs to happen to move the story forward.

99% of loglines miss the most influential factor that will sell their screenplay: the concept.

The concept is the big idea that promises the unique possibilities specific to your movie.

This is how I think about concept to ensure my screenwriting always has one. 👇 Think of concept as the engine that generates whatever genre-specific fun your screenplay is offering.

This "fun" encompasses everything from the dark tension of thrillers, to the laughter of comedies, and the raw emotion of dramas.

There's no telling where a screenplay idea comes from.

Sometimes, it's just a character that fascinates us. Great! But then what?

What do you do with them? Where do you put them? Are they worth an entire screenplay?

Here's a quick process to help figure that out. 🧵👇 As always, this is just one way to do it. Every writer has their own process.

These questions are not meant to be a magic bullet. But they should help you make decisions about what direction you want to go.

Do you struggle with theme in your screenwriting? You're not alone.

Over the years, I've spent way too much creative energy forcing a large, square peg of theme down a screenplay's round throat.

Not anymore.

Here is a more consistent approach. And it's easy.

Yes, easy. 🧵 👇 Needless to say, other writers will have their own thoughts on theme, and treat it differently.

This is by no stretch the only way.

However, I have found this to be simple and effective. This is how I work and what I teach.

I struggled with Act 2 for years. It was the barren desert where my screenplays went to die.

What changed for me was realizing the role of Act 2 in the story.

Embracing this was a huge breakthrough in my screenwriting.

Here is how I attack Act 2 now: 🧵👇 From a pure story perspective:

The job of Act 2 is for the protagonists to earn the spiritual, emotional, and physical tools to answer the dramatic question to the audience's satisfaction.

This is why Act 2 matters.

It's a common screenwriting note: The characters all sound the same!

Writers panic. They play with dialects, speech patterns.

But it's a waste of time.

Because the sound wasn't the problem.

Do this instead and you'll never worry about characters sounding the same ever again: First, most writers have rhythms they like. Patterns. Music in the dialogue.

Sorkin's Lucille Ball would be perfectly comfortable in The West Wing. Mamet is the same. Tarantino. Shakespeare.

Character's sounding the same isn't really the problem.