What goes into writing a great movie script?

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.

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

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

What are your thoughts on a future where code is represented as a structured model, rather than text? Do you think that AI-powered coding assistants benefit from that?

Make sure to pack enough explosives into the rocket.

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

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

49ers Sign WR Malik Knowles, Place WR Trent Taylor on IR, and Other Roster Moves - San Francisco 49ers

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

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.

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

It sounds like WWE has an explosive angle planned for SmackDown - Cageside Seats

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

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.

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

Four measles cases confirmed in Navajo County, first in Arizona this year - ABC15 Arizona

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

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.

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.

Have you ever seen a woman having sex with a dog?

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

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

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

What’s something you did a lot as a kid that you don’t miss now that you’re an adult?

Actors give better feedback than writers do.

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

Research the facts and then throw away the research.

Bryce Elder gets rocked, Braves lose to Phillies - Battery Power

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

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

The DSM 5 is a wonderful character compendium.