What goes into writing a great movie script?

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

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

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.

What is the most offensive thing someone has ever asked you?

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.

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

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

How many women have accidentally pooped their pants and became turned on afterwards?

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

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

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.

The people who are 'allergic' to humans - BBC

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.

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

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

Was Adam white or black (African)?

Actors give better feedback than writers do.

The DSM 5 is a wonderful character compendium.

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

What does it mean when someone says "I'm feeling frisky"?

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

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

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

Have you ever been a victim of gaslighting? What happened?

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

Make sure to pack enough explosives into the rocket.

Research the facts and then throw away the research.

My boyfriend has been separated from his wife for 5 years. Why won't he divorce her? Should this be a deal breaker?

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

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.

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

What made you recently say to yourself, “Wait. Really?”