Hey everyone, so I'm trying to write my first screenplay at the minute. I'm using Marriage Story and the first Scream movie as reference and watched a few YouTube vids on formatting, etc.

I was just wondering if anyone had advice on formatting and what mistakes to avoid.

I have written manuscripts of books before so I'm more used to that formatting.

Anything is appreciated, thank you in advance!

Because from what I’ve learned, an important factor of pitching a show is the longevity behind its story, how long can it go while effectively still telling the story. But for a limited series, it’s just one season and that’s it. What’s the reasoning and process behind that?

I'm a repped writer at a talent agency and a management and would love to collab with someone on an action idea I have that deals with former professional athletes and the action/hitman world. Let me know if this sounds up your alley!

(Kind of long but I'll have a TDLR at the bottom.)
So, I have a webseries that's my passion project that's based off of my actual friend group that I started back in 2022. I write episodes in the form of a script. In Season 1, it did just start off as a silly little project with a lighthearted and comedic tone. Around Season 2, it hit a tonal shift storywise, introducing heavy and serious topics due to my growth as a screenwriter and storyteller. As a result of this and promoting the series around Tumblr and several writing Discord servers, the series gained some traction around earlier this year with my stories website reaching almost 2k readers recently and I won two honorable mention awards at my high school's literature festival because of some of the emotionally resonant writing I experimented with in the third episode.

But around the time I was producing Season 1, I wondered what if I implemented more mature topics in the series and that’s where I tried it out with an arc including two main characters in Episode 3 - the first “topic” being explored was boundaries and why they should be respected. After writing that episode, I found myself feeling resolved?

I don't know how to explain it but using some of my own experiences for a story arc felt refreshing and the feedback on Season 1 and the two awards I won for it gave me an affirmation of sorts that I have potential to tell more emotionally powerful stories, even when the series began on a wacky note back in 2022.

When it got around to conceptualizing Season 2, I wanted to expand on that emotional maturity aspect of the series more. Not to say that I wanted to intentionally make my series too depressing for everyone to read but wanted the series to have some sort of emotionally mature story for the characters and by extension, everyone who has dealt with issues shown in VBTS to be noticed and represented by and taken in the most serious light. (i.e. one of my main character's backstory involving and dealing with domestic abuse)

I do get comments sometimes saying that the “angst” isn’t required all the time in episodes and feels forced (mostly towards the late Season 2 episodes and majority of Season 3) but still, it’s genuinely made me so happy to see people reach out to me saying they felt seen and tell me about their experiences with panic attacks, depression, mental health issues, domestic and child abuse and how I accurately portrayed these topics in the series and some of these issues, I dealt with myself.

I am in the process of writing.outlining Season 4's story beats and I'm looking for some advice on how to find a balance moving forward between the silly and the more serialized, character-focused aspects of my story.

(TDLR: Got feedback from readers of my story saying the angst sometimes feels forced and looking for advice to find a good balance between lighthearted fun moments and serialized moments of my story)

Hey all,

I'm having an issue with a specific fight scene in my script, that issue being that it's too long. I've condensed and shaved a bit off already but I can't bring myself to shorten it any further. I've thought to summarize the entire fight into roughly two paragraphs or so, but I feel that the fight needs some detailed explanation (especially given that it's two fights that are happening simultaneously in the same room AND supernatural elements are at play here).

Obviously I can't just go: "They fight" and move on, but it's three and a half pages of dense action lines which I'd image would be off-putting for any reader. I swear the rest of the script isn't this dense. It's literally just this scene.

Any thoughts, tips or tricks on how to shorten it without losing details would be appreciated.

Here's the excerpt: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_wkyyGKdFHVQlQCDQPr3eWK0ujmYvyt5/view?usp=sharing

Also for context: This screenplay is based on an old flash horror game called Exmortis 1. Basically: a man wakes in the middle of the woods with no memory of how he got there, finds an old abandoned house, seeks shelter inside and... there's an axe murderer inside. The house is also haunted. This scene happens about half-way through and is Man's (the main character's) second encounter with the axe murderer (named Hunter).

Cheers.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TbKd8VOqd2XpNObp8EO1W4ZVj_zr_Hpq/view?usp=sharing

I finished draft 2 of my first script. I would like to hear your feedback on these action scenes. Are the action scenes smooth and easy to picture? Is the dialogue natural? Thanks!

This was written on writersolo.

Title - Demonic City of Lorne (Animation)

Genre - Dark Fantasy, Crime

Good evening, I am seeking advice about how to structure something in my latest screenplay. It's a faith-based comedy drama that features a messy divorce. The divorce puts the screenplay in motion.

A divorce in real life takes a while and they can be messy. Deciding to get a divorce. Lawyer meetings. Managing new work schedules to accommodate divorce. Clearing out the old house. Selling the house. Finding new places to live. New normal for children. Finalizing the divorce. Moving on with life.

I feel like I am spending too much time covering the details and steps of a divorce, which is taking up too many pages. I know during the editing process I will trim a ton of fat, but I'm trying to think of a way to speed time ahead because I will need the pages later in the script.

Do you think I could get away with using a ton of SUPERs (superimposed) to bypass some of the details about a divorce? In past scripts I used SUPERS very sparingly. What are some of your best tricks to move a script ahead?

Thank you very much.

Hey guys sorry this is a beginner question so I was watching Dawn of the Planet of Apes and there is a scene where Alex is talking to Ellie where he tells he didn't know she had a daughter and asks for her name. From my understanding this scene allows Ellie to bond with her step-son but besides this it doesn't really advance the plot. There was another similar scene earlier where Ellie tells Malcolm it was brave what he did and he replies he need to do this cause Alex has seen horrible things he shouldn't have seen, I get this scene is trying to show the horror of the flu even though like the previous scene it doesn't advance the plot. Similar with the scene where Alex bonds with Maurice. So are calmer dialogue scenes like this there to allow the audience to take a breather from all the fighting?

How would you format the cuttaway transitions in a cript like they do in shows like superstore? like random one off bits between the main story's?

I’m moving to NYC next year, and was wondering what are some advantages up there for a writer. I know LA I’d known as the main hub but I got a job offer up in NYC so it’ll have to be the place for me for the time being.

So, I've gotten multiple pieces of feedback on my screenplay that have asked me to cut back on the "flashbacks" I have because they break up the pacing. I would understand that generally, but the majority of these flashbacks aren't really flashbacks so much as they are very fast memories. I envisioned them as like, visual only, while the audio of the current scene still plays, and you just see barely enough of these snippets to get the idea of what's happening. Moments in The Prestige come to mind, honestly. But how do I write that in a screenplay to effectively communicate that? It feels disingenuous to call that a "flashback," its not like it's a scene taking place in the past, it's 1-3 second long visual snippets.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!

I’m currently writing a character driven naturalistic screenplay, and I’m finding it hard to stick by the “show, don’t tell” rule when it comes to character development when I want it to stay as close to reality such as we do “expose” ourselves through conversations all the time and it’s a lot about human connection and that’s the way I interpret life, but at the same time I feel like I’m doing something wrong for giving out so much, and was just wondering if there’s a way to master this without having it seem like I’m feeding all the information to the spectators/reader?

I remember Richard Linklater’s interview where he talks about having the same problem when he came up with the idea for Before Sunrise, because he was also taught to always choose to show, not tell. He did an amazing job with the trilogy, but I just can’t stop feeling like mine is not as subtle?

I don’t know, my teachers in uni traumatised me enough to keep me away from writing, and now that I’m back and trying something different, I just want to find my own pace, I guess.

EDIT: What I'm trying to convey through this screenplay is something far more voyeuristic/a intimate look into real life, where you can blurry the line between the fictional and real life. The dialogues would (even if giving too much expositiong) be an essential part for me to convey this realistic feeling, as much of the dialogue I'm writing has this sense of "I'm eavesdropping this conversation between two strangers and now I'm curious to know where this is going", with a lot of colloquialism and could potentially rely on improvisation from the actors (when in production), just so it gives that extra "this is 100% something I would say or hear in real life" sort of feeling, if that makes sense? I'm just trying to find a way to carefully work around the feeling that this is necessary (because I want that feeling of "yep, I'm watching (being a voyeur, not a spectator), eavesdropping into this person's life and honestly this could very well be something I could come across/see/hear in real life") and not have people miss the point and feel like I missed the point and I'm rather "spoon-feeding" the audience. Idk, I sound crazy.

I'm trying to understand why several TV shoes and books that I've read lately seem to repeat words and phrases so often? Is this s new writing style? I just finished watching a TV show where they use the word "ok" at least 60 times each episode and sometimes almost 100 times in one episode. They also constantly repeat the same phrases. Is there is reason for this? I can delete if not relevant to this sub.

So, I finally did it. At exactly 100 pages, after three months of work, I finished my first-ever screenplay (well, first draft, at least). Writing a screenplay has been on my bucket list for years, and now that it’s done, I feel amazing!

It wasn’t always easy. I have ADHD, and staying focused can be… challenging, to say the least. In the middle of writing this feature, I somehow managed to come up with five other fairly detailed story outlines in a variety of settings all across the globe (because of course, I did). But even with all those distractions, I stuck with finishing this one and I’m kinda proud of myself for it.

Is it a groundbreaking, earth-shattering piece of art? Nah, probably not. But I loved writing it from beginning to end. I think it has some real potential to be great with subsequent drafts.

Right now, my plan is to put it aside for a couple of months so I can come back and start revising with an unbiased perspective.

In the meantime, I’m diving straight into writing the first draft of my second screenplay.

Here’s to this being the first of many! 

To anyone else out there thinking about tackling that dream story, you’ve got this! 💪

https://deadline.com/2024/11/the-apprentice-script-read-the-screenplay-trump-movie-1236187251/

A lot of screenwriting and filmmaking courses are 50% off for Black Friday/Cyber Monday, like Masterclass and BBC Maestro. Any that you’d highly recommend? Thank you!

ETA: sharing a Black Friday deal that I purchased - Hulu is $0.99/mo for a year and Hulu with Disney+ is $2.99/mo for a year. I subscribed to the latter.

Hey guys,

Big THANK YOU to everyone who's been reading all the drafts I've been posting! Based on the feedback, I've decided to take things in a somewhat different direction. Would love your thoughts on the new opening 3 pages-- good, bad and ugly.

THE JET: A famous pop artist must fight for her life on a private jet when she comes face-to-face with her murderous stalker at 30,000 feet in the air. AIR FORCE ONE meets HALLOWEEN.

NEW: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fcc39Qx-dkrW0PesD8OXIqHaPXAWxmm8/view?usp=sharing

OLD: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fV67AEGwNpVVxMzLXEWOqeKQo9-NOZb0/view?usp=sharing

MUCH OLDER ORIGINAL DRAFT (FULL SCRIPT, for reference):  https://drive.google.com/file/d/10nzyQVW1B4rC7ayPNBSs1ROCLgp5cV1g/view?usp=sharing

Thanks again.

-SL

Logline: Three hitmen are sent to eliminate a client at his house. But when the client’s best friends arrive unexpectedly, the tables turn. Now trapped with a dead body and the client’s friends, the hitmen must find a way out—without escalating the situation any further.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18K9YuC-PDroJRlvO7zEXK7Rpz5LC0pnI/view?usp=sharing

I’ve been working on it for a while since I first shared the project, and I believe I’ve made considerable progress. I’m quite confident in this draft.

I would love to hear your feedback—what worked, what didn’t, whether it was funny or immature, how you feel about the characters and anything else that comes to mind. Please feel free to tell me. I’d be glad to rework anything I find less than great in the screenplay.

Thanks in advance for your time, I appreciate it.

Disclaimer- I'm still not sure whether it will be a TV series or a feature. I consider both options to be reasonable possibilities, and based on some previous feedback I’ve received, I believe it could evolve into a TV series.

Wow - it's been a hot minute since I've written anything of my own. After a few months of tire kicking some alternative/newer screenwriting tools the familiarity and comfort of FD won the day.

That said - the process of adapting a feature into a series has begun...

FADE IN:

Feeling discouraged and sad today. I’m just a girl in the state of Georgia and have been trying to make my dreams come true with no luck so far. Been on my writing journey since the year 2015. For those who have an agent tell me your story and about your journey. I need some hope today. 🩷

Format: Feature

Title: SILENT OVERRIDE

Logline: In the age of AI automation, a ex music producer, joined by his laidback son, aims to become a great man by joining a anti-AI and pro-agency guru.

Genre: Tragicomedy.

Nutshell: Comedic, but topical story about the psychological impact large scale AI automation could have. High-concept, but dramatized and exploring themes that are timelessly human (agentlessness, hopelessness, relationship between generations)

Total length: 98 (I can give access to full script if anyone is interested.)

Link to script: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1arYPLjc9DIOrLwdXAnwzMdirXqEDhcl5/view?usp=sharing

I just got notification from Nocturna Film Festival. I submitted two of my scripts to them, one TV script and one dystopian sci-fi thriller. Both of them got nominated! Yay!

I guess this means my writing is getting decent.
It is difficult sitting on your own, writing, and not getting proper feedback from others. I have bought coverage on one or two occassions, but it is expensive.

How do you go about getting people to read your stuff?

Does anybody have the screenplay/script for the 1974 Tales from the crypt movie? Especially the Blind alleys part.

(Note: I'm french, please excuse my english)

Hi everyone. Hi have a hard time wrappin my head around something hopefully some of you will be able to help.

So i'm new to the concept of story so i'm trying to understand the terms as best as i can so that i can make the most out of everything i read or watch on the craft.

When trying to figure out the difference between story and plot which for now is still blurry but at least i think i'm on the good road.

Story = A (list) of events in their original/chronological order of occurrence with no link between them other that their chronological order: event 1 happen before event 2 and event 2 after event 1. The king died then the queen. Two events the only link between them is their chronological sequence but those 2 could have both died from ANYTHING.

Plot = The events of the story in their original order(linear) or rearranged but this time causaly ! One event is the reason for the existence of the other and the other is the consequence of the first ! The king died and then the queen died of grief

Event 1: The king died Is responsible for Event 2: The queen died (BECAUSE) she loved the king and couldn't live without him.

As soon as all the above clicked in my brain another question popped which is the reason of that post.

If the story is: The timeline of events and the plot: The arrangement of those events it mean

Subplot = Storyline + Plotline = Subplot

My understanding of subplot is: A story ((((( !!! WITHIN !!! ))) the overall story(complete work: movie or novel)

So my question is what the difference between a SCENE and a SUBPLOT(Story within the OVERALL story)

Since scenes are also described as mini story and having a beginning middle and end ?

Hey all,

Long-time lurker and novice writer here looking for some guidance. I've recently completed my first feature length script after doing my best to learn some of the basics (via youtube, and reading quite a few screenplays). I was hoping I could come to you guys for some guidance as to how to proceed. I've shared my draft with some friends but haven't gotten much feedback that would be particularly useful in starting the second draft. I know it has issues-- namely that it's bloated (over 150 pages-- likely also means my pacing is off) and that the story kind of falls apart in the third act (landing the plane is so hard, lol), but I have some faith that with more time and effort, I can turn this experience into a solid foundation for improvement on projects moving forward.

I completely understand if reading the entire thing is too big of an ask-- I wouldn't expect a total stranger to dedicate hours of their life to reading my mediocre story, so any feedback for any portion/aspect of the story would be greatly appreciated. And if someone is interested in offering me some more detailed feedback on the full project, I would be more than willing to discuss appropriate compensation.

Either way, thank you guys-- I've learned a good amount from you guys just by perusing this sub.

Below is the link to the script and some basic info.

Title: So They Say

Logline: A failed artist turned teacher goes toe to toe with a powerful family in a small town when one of his vulnerable ex-students suffers a grisly fate at their hands.

Genre: Drama, small town drama, murder-mystery (?)

Page count: 154

Themes: Art and authentic expression, community and the need for connection.

Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YsBYO9x-FFo5aVIdu3amvmD2C389hb5X/view?usp=sharing

Thanks again!

Does anyone who uses the dubscript screenwriting app on their phone know how to close ads? I understand you can pay to permanently remove them, but in the case that you're OK with ads is the no way to close them? I've been having to close the app entirely to remove the ad since it covers the whole screen.

Can anyone think of a TV show that plays at both extremes of tone? I'm looking for something warm and fuzzy like a Bill Lawrence production but also dark and bleak like a Coen Brothers or Barry in the same show. Is this conceivable, or done somewhere already?

The closest things I can think of are Justified and Succession, though neither go as far into the warm and fuzzy. But they are both very dark and funny.

Title : GOD

Logline: A woman invites a stranger inside, and together they unravel into nothing.

Read It Here.

https://deadline.com/2024/11/the-last-showgirl-scrript-read-the-screenplay-1236184130/

(not tagged because I haven't been able to add any subreddit tags for a few weeks now in the app or in Safari on iPad)

I gotta hype myself into moving to LA. I'd love recommendations for any movies or TV shows that'll get me excited. Thanks!