Screenplay writing is interesting and exciting and if you truly have a relationship of love with motion pictures then screenplay writing might just be the thing for you.
While a portion of screenplay writing is definitely about technicalities and expertise, screenplay writing in general is something that everyone can get into.
In fact, screenplay writing is so popular that some of the biggest names in the industry have started their career in movies and TV series with screenplay writing.
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This is in fact one of the largest industries in the entertainment market with a growth rate that is always above 10%.
This means that starting a screenplay career can be a very wise choice for you if you are looking for stability and if you are really passionate about writing scripts.
However, there are a few basic and important things you must always keep in mind before you write scripts.
This will help you pen down entire scripts even if you have never tried script writing before. So, here are the 10 important tips for script writing for a beginner attempting a screenplay for the first time.
10 Simplest Things to Remember for Screenplay and Script Writing
Study The Format and Structure
You can start a screenplay straight away but there are a few technicalities that you should study and understand because understanding them falls under the basics of scriptwriting.
The thing about screenplay writing is that it is different from writing a novel and it is even more different from writing a short story.
When you adventuring into the world of script writing you need to understand things like scene headings as well as action lines and other technicalities that professionals usually use and actors and familiar with.
However, the technicalities we are talking about might be different depending on the industry and even the country and that is why you need to study the localised jargon used for script writing.
You can do this quite easily with the help of guides.
Read A Lot of Examples
If you are doing script writing for the first time and you are not confident about things then the simplest way to gain confidence and familiarity with this art is to look at examples.
Every famous movie and TV series in the world has its screenplay online and sometimes there are extended interviews of the writers talking about how they accomplished it.
Reading the examples will not only help you with structure but it will also help you in understanding the format as well as the pacing and even the tonality.
Another important aspect of screenplay writing is dialogue flow.
This is because if you do not have the correct flow then it will never seem natural and looking at examples will help you a lot with that.
Use Characters from Your Life
If you are planning your first screenplay and you just want very realistic characters that are true to life and have no loopholes and provide a very organic experience, the simplest solution is to take them from your life.
In life, we meet a lot of people and some of the best scriptwriters in the world get inspiration from the people they meet in life and these can be friends and acquaintances or even associates or anybody else they know.
The best way to do something organically is to take and keep the organic aspect as much as possible and not fix something that’s not broken. Taking inspiration from a real-life character is not only going to save you a lot of time in imagination but it will help you so much with the character creation.
You can use any part of them provided that they are not a very famous character like a famous actor or someone else people can identify straight away unless you want them to.
You can utilise everything about them or you can take individual elements from their persona like speech patterns and little quirks in their behaviour.
Start With a Powerful Opening
A powerful opening does not need to be epic; it does not need to reach a conflict or climatic situation. It just has to be memorable and dramatic enough to get the attention of the audience.
In order to understand this, let us look at an example and it will help you understand what we are talking about.
If you watched the pilot episode of “Breaking Bad” then you probably still remember the opening.
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If we go back to the example of the pilot of “Breaking Bad” then the opening is about the primary and the secondary characters in a desert in a precarious situation and it is things like this that make the audience wonder how did they end up in the situation.
You can utilise the shock factor in this aspect or you can even utilise things like an emotional hook in order to directly connect the readers or viewer with the character.
Audience engagement is not just about surprise in them but it is about making them connect with the story through emotion or curiosity and you must choose either of them or even both if you want.
Never Skip the Outline
If you already have a little bit of experience in writing and that can either be script writing or even writing a story then you might be confident enough to skip the outline.
You might even be someone with a good level of experience in story writing and that might help you with the confidence to not care about the outline.
But you should never skip the outline because the outline will provide a roadmap for you and it will set things in perspective and is so much better than not having an outline.
If you are not an absolute professional with decades of experience in the screenplay industry then you should always start with an outline. If you are an expert then you are probably not reading this blog.
The outline does not really have to be extremely detailed but will still help you keep track of important elements throughout the storyline from the character development to scenes and plot progression and much more.
Study Editing and Draft Revisions
Rome was not built in a day and you will not be satisfied with your script on the first try and that is why we recommend editing and script revisions in multiple drafts.
Editing is one of the most crucial things you can understand and learn and editing is something very technical and something that you should spend some time understanding.
Editing is where the magic actually happens and while you can finish your script in a record time but editing is where everything comes together and where you organise stuff and where you replace stuff.
You can learn editing online and their excellent guides to specifically learn screenplay editing and you can even subscribe to paid courses or free ones online that will help you understand the essence of screenplay editing.
Screenplay editing is a little bit different from conventional editing.
Never Force Dialogue
Dialogue is the soul of a script and if you do not have powerful dialogue then it can ruin the script for you and that is why you should never force a dialogue no matter how much the scene requires it.
In order to do this, you should not lock yourself in a room and keep on trying to write excellent dialogue but you should go out into the world and sit in coffee shops and listen to people speak and speak with people.
You should engage in public speaking and understand the true essence of organic speech.
You should speak with the kind of people your characters are based on and you should also speak with people that do a lot of speaking everyday such as bus conductors and shopkeepers.
You should also try and mix with groups of people such as people in a pub or people enjoying a card game and you should focus on listening to how they interact with each other.
Real life is the best kind of teacher for a screenplay writer and you should utilise your surroundings to the best effect for the most organic dialogue delivery.
Rewrite As Many Times You Want
This is different from editing and creating multiple drafts because we are talking about rewriting everything from the beginning.
If you are unsatisfied with your script and if you feel like it does not really have that kind of spark you are looking for and if you are sure that you cannot fix and salvage the script in the editing process then you should throw away that script.
Writing something, especially something like a screenplay is going to test your attachment skills and detachment skills because you need to throw away material you are not satisfied with all the time.
You can start the rewriting process entirely but we recommend you to break down your screenplay into different segments and elements.
You can then embark on the rewriting journeys for different scenes and different characters and even individual lines.
Rewriting gives you the power to make as many changes as you want from the foundational level.
Always Think Visually
You need to understand what you are writing for because movies and TV series are a visual medium which means people are actually going to see rather than read.
That is why if you want to bring true realism into your scenes, you need to see rather than read.
That is why if you want to create scenes and you want to set up plots then the best way to do it is to actually imagine the things happening visually.
This is such a good idea that even authors utilise this technique because thinking visually is the simplest but also the most effective way of creating situations that are very realistic.
If you are able to think visually then you can also utilise your thoughts and save them up to explain the scenes to the director once the screenplay is ready for a motion picture.
When you are thinking about the scene you need to think of it from the perspective of a movie camera and you also need to think about the angles.
The more detailed you are in your visual imagination, the easier it will be for you to not only write the scene but it will also be easy for you to explain it.
Create And Maintain a Schedule
And lastly, the 10th tip for successful screenplay writing is more powerful than all the other nine tips combined and we are talking about a single word.
Discipline.
You need to create a schedule and if you are doing this for the first time this schedule is going to help you stay focused on your screenplay writing.
You need to set aside a few hours every day in order to write the script and you should not do anything else during those reserved hours.
It might just be the fact that you simply cannot think of anything when you sit down to write but even if you do not write anything, you should not do anything else during those scheduled hours.
We all face writer’s block at some point in time and it is natural and that is why if you are not being able to produce any content during the schedule, you should reserve that time for background research.
We hope this blog helps you with your next screenplay masterpiece and we sure hope to see your script being made into a world-class movie.
However, if you are someone who simply does not have the time to write screenplays but you have excellent ideas in your mind regarding scripts then we are here for you.
We are Ghostwriting India and we are one of the premier screenplay ghostwriter-for-hire agencies in India.
We will help you with all your screenplay needs whether it is for a short film, a full-length movie or even a multi-part series.
We have extensive experience in writing for multiple genres and we can help you with every possible genre.
Along with that we also do every other kind of content writing whether it is children’s book writing or online content writing and much more and we welcome you to visit our website and check out everything we do.
