5 Practical & Actionable Advice/Tips for writing better scripts

Dear writers, get your handy-dandy notebooks out

It’s mid-day. Wednesday. I just crushed some avocado toast like the California dude I am, and felt totally inspired to share some actionable tips on how to become a better screenwriter, and thus, get more results.

Here goes nothing.

1. Finding the balance between unique character names vs. names that’re OTT (over the top). John Wick - cool. Gunner Steele (corny)

2. A hook that implies STAKES immediately. Stakes don’t need to be spectacle, but you do need to show the audience that what they’re reading is of importance. Avoid briefcases and secret meetings though.

3. Great dialogue, in my experience, comes from putting your characters in original scenarios. You can’t write great dialogue if it’s a scene that we’ve seen before; you would just be trying to say things a little sharper, edgier, wittier, but you’d be unoriginal. If you put two characters, or three, in a scenario that’s really awful, or scary, or tragic, or embarrassing — whatever the emotion or circumstance is, it should be eventful and meaningful — you are going to find the dialogue writes itself. Cue: Vince Vega and Jules taking about hamburgers on the way to a hit-job.

4. Exposition is necessary, but how you execute the exposition will make or break your story. Especially in stories that require heavy world building — like science fiction or horror, you need to lay down a lot of mythology, backstory, how the world became the way it is, etc. I love exposition when it’s done right. It can be incredibly interesting. Like in Jurassic Park, Jeff Goldblum’s character gives a lot of explanation, but he’s fun and whacky and charming and you don’t mind it.