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REWRITE TIPS - Terry Rossio #screenwriting #writing #onwriting

A while back, I stumbled across a checklist compiled by screenwriter Terry Rossio (Shrek, Mask of Zorro etc) of questions to ask yourself before you submit your script to a production company.

But the checklist is also useful when you’re rewriting your screenplay.

I’ve found this tremendously helpful in pin-pointing problem areas in your script.

SPECTACLE PICTURES Checklist A: Concept & Plot

#1. Imagine the trailer. Is the concept marketable?

#2. Is the premise naturally intriguing — or just average, demanding perfect execution?

#3. Who is the target audience? Would your parents go see it?

#4. Does your story deal with the most important events in the lives of your characters?

#5. If you’re writing about a fantasy-come-true, turn it quickly into a nightmare-that-won’t-end.

#6. Does the screenplay create questions: will he find out the truth? Did she do it? Will they fall in love? Has a strong ‘need to know’ hook been built into the story?

#7. Is the concept original?

#8. Is there a goal? Is there pacing? Does it build?

#9. Begin with a punch, end with a flurry.

#10. Is it funny, scary, or thrilling? All three?

#11. What does the story have that the audience can’t get from real life?

#12. What’s at stake? Life and death situations are the most dramatic. Does the concept create the potential for the characters lives to be changed?

#13. What are the obstacles? Is there a sufficient challenge for our heroes?

#14. What is the screenplay trying to say, and is it worth trying to say it?

#15. Does the story transport the audience?

#16. Is the screenplay predictable? There should be surprises and reversals within the major plot, and also within individual scenes.

#17. Once the parameters of the film’s reality are established, they must not be violated. Limitations call for interesting solutions.

#18. Is there a decisive, inevitable, set-up ending that is nonetheless unexpected? (This is not easy to do!)

#19. Is it believable? Realistic?

#20. Is there a strong emotion — heart — at the center of the story? Avoid mean-spirited storylines.

SPECTACLE PICTURES Checklist B: Technical Execution

#21. Is it properly formatted?

#22. Proper spelling and punctuation. Sentence fragments okay.

#23. Is there a discernible three-act structure?

#24. Are all scenes needed? No scenes off the spine, they will die on screen.

#25. Screenplay descriptions should direct the reader’s mind’s eye, not the director’s camera.

#26. Begin the screenplay as far into the story as possible.

#27. Begin a scene as late as possible, end it as early as possible. A screenplay is like a piece of string that you can cut up and tie together — the trick is to tell the entire story using as little string as possible.

#28. In other words: Use cuts.

#29. Visual, Aural, Verbal — in that order. The expression of someone who has just been shot is best; the sound of the bullet slamming into him is second best; the person saying, “I’ve been shot” is only third best.

#30. What is the hook, the inciting incident? You’ve got ten pages (or ten minutes) to grab an audience.

#31. Allude to the essential points two or even three times. Or hit the key point very hard. Don’t be obtuse.

#32. Repetition of locale. It helps to establish the atmosphere of film, and allows audience to ‘get comfortable.’ Saves money during production.

#33. Repetition and echoes can be used to tag secondary characters. Dangerous technique to use with leads.

#34. Not all scenes have to run five pages of dialogue and/or action. In a good screenplay, there are lots of two-inch scenes. Sequences build pace.

#35. Small details add reality. Has the subject matter been thoroughly researched?

#36. Every single line must either advance the plot, get a laugh, reveal a character trait, or do a combination of two — or in the best case, all three — at once.

#37. No false plot points; no backtracking. It’s dangerous to mislead an audience; they will feel cheated if important actions are taken based on information that has not been provided, or turns out to be false.

#38. Silent solution; tell your story with pictures.

#39. No more than 125 pages, no less than 110… or the first impression will be of a script that ‘needs to be cut’ or ‘needs to be fleshed out.’

#40. Don’t number the scenes of a selling script. MOREs and CONTINUEDs are optional.

SPECTACLE PICTURES Checklist C: Characters

#41. Are the parts castable? Does the film have roles that stars will want to play?

#42. Action and humor should emanate from the characters, and not just thrown in for the sake of a laugh. Comedy which violates the integrity of the characters or oversteps the reality-world of the film may get a laugh, but it will ultimately unravel the picture. Don’t break the fourth wall, no matter how tempting.

#43. Audiences want to see characters who care deeply about something — especially other characters.

#44. Is there one scene where the emotional conflict of the main character comes to a crisis point?

#45. A character’s entrance should be indicative of the character’s traits. First impression of a character is most important.

#46. Lead characters must be sympathetic — people we care about and want to root for.

#47. What are the characters wants and needs? What is the lead character’s dramatic need? Needs should be strong, definite — and clearly communicated to the audience.

#48. What does the audience want for the characters? It’s all right to be either for or against a particular character — the only unacceptable emotion is indifference.

#49. Concerning characters and action: a person is what he does, not necessarily what he says.

#50. On character faults: characters should be ‘this but also that;’ complex. Characters with doubts and faults are more believable, and more interesting. Heroes who have done wrong and villains with noble motives are better than characters who are straight black and white.

#51. Characters can be understood in terms of, ‘what is their greatest fear?’ Gittes, in CHINATOWN was afraid of being played for the fool. In SPLASH the Tom Hanks character was afraid he could never fall in love. In BODY HEAT Racine was afraid he’d never make his big score.

#52. Character traits should be independent of the character’s role. A banker who fiddles with his gold watch is memorable, but cliche; a banker who breeds dogs is a somehow more acceptable detail.

#53. Character conflicts should be both internal and external. Characters should struggle with themselves, and with others.

#54. Character ‘points of view’ need to be distinctive within an individual screenplay. Characters should not all think the same. Each character needs to have a definite point of view in order to act, and not just react.

#55. Distinguish characters by their speech patterns: word choice, sentence patterns; revealed background, level of intelligence.

#56. ‘Character superior’ sequences (where the character acts on information the audience does not have) usually don’t work for very long — the audience gets lost. On the other hand, when the audience is in a ‘superior’ position — the audience knows something that the characters do not — it almost always works. (NOTE: This does not mean the audience should be able to predict the plot!)

#57. Run each character through as many emotions as possible — love, hate, laugh, cry, revenge.

#58. Characters must change. What is the character’s arc?

#59. The reality of the screenplay world is defined by what the reader knows of it, and the reader gains that knowledge from the characters. Unrealistic character actions imply an unrealistic world; fully-designed characters convey the sense of a realistic world.

Over 80 Free, Legal Movie Script PDF Downloads

Exactly what it says on the tin.

Hello there, writerly friend~ ♥︎

I think that a lot of people do plotting and they go about it the wrong way. If you have taken a look at my (Strange) Guide To Planning Your Novel then you probably have a feeling for what I am about to talk about, if not— then prepare yourself.

It’s time for me to give you the best piece of advice that ever came from my many years taking creative writing classes in college. My amazing professor once said something that I have coined "The Marcy Rule" (because her name was Marcy :p and everyone needs to know that she came up with this). It goes like this:

The Marcy Rule

Story rises from character, not the other way around.

What does this mean? I find that a lot of writers are under the assumption that the plot is the primary agent in a story— and that characters are secondary. And I totally get where this misunderstanding comes from. People are taught in school that events make history. People are taught to memorize events and dates as what happened in their past. This is not good, because it forgets about the driving agent(s) behind these events.

Would you say that the most important factor in history is the events that happened (plot) or the people that lived through those days (character)?

Of course it’s the people. Story rises from character, and thus is it character that drives the story forward.

Though… I think that you already know that, writerly friend. As you said in your question— you keep trying to toss your character into plots but they don’t follow along. It’s almost as though you’re forcing events into a timeline, and you find that your lead actor is not interested in going with this script. Now, let’s look at this from the point of view of that question I get all the time:

What do I do if I have a character, but no story or plot to go with them?

You see, this is problematic, because it assumes that plot is primary— and that characters are secondary. I believe this is doing your characters an injustice. Your story does not revolve around events and dates and points on a timeline— they revolve around you, and your actions and your choices and your dreams and your goals.

Take a moment (or a few) to sit down and ask yourself this question:

What does this character want, and what are they willing to do to get it?

Everybody wants something. There is nothing too big or too small to write a story about. Again, people get this idea in their head that every book should be an epic story of war and death and saving the world— but I can tell you that a story about a character dealing with their own personal turmoil, and their dreams of finally overcoming their depression and being able to get up in the mornings… that can be a story as good, if not better than any ‘epic.’

So. Take this with you. Ask your characters what they want, and start following them. Don’t get in the way of the story— you are not the mastermind plotting out a plan, you are the camera-crew. Your job is to tell this character’s story. So, follow them. See where their story goes.

As a final note. Remember that everyone wants to live an ‘easy’ life, but nothing worth having ever comes easily. Every choice comes with a price, every action comes with an opposite reaction. Your character can desire to live an ‘easy’ life as much as they want… but fate always tends to get in the way of such things c;

I hope this helps! if you, or any other writerly friend has any more questions, then make sure to send them my way!

Maybe an addition to Max’s advice is that scale/scope don’t always have to be saving the world. Listen to this talk from Lindsay Doran “Saving the World Vs Kissing the Girl” on what all movies are about.

Read this article by Cameron Cubbison “Actions Speak Louder: The Highs and Lows of the Genre” which extols the idea that scale has gone too vast and what we really need are smaller stories with believable stakes and relatable themes.

Every point on this list “101 Practical Writing Tips From Hollywood Screenwriter Brian Koppelman" will help get you there. Especially this one:

10. With writing gurus it’s all about the HOW. How do I write this. What writers should think about is WHY. Why do I need to write this now.

Finally, what you have is a great setup. Your character has his own mind. You should appreciate how wonderful that is. He certainly won’t be a cliché if he’s all ready fighting the stories you put him in! But you are the master of his world. Send him some action into his life for him to react to — make it rain on his day, have a friend give him a call, send him draft papers, put a baby on the doorstep, clog his drains. Whatever you do, you are in control of the world around him. And whatever you do, that is the plot.

From Filmmaker:

1. Film has a way of being truer than memory.

Everything in [Queen and Country] is based on characters and incidents that occurred. The relationship between memory and imagination is a very mysterious one. I sometimes feel that imagination is sometimes closer to the truth than the memory. I remember when I was writing the script for Hope and Glory and I showed the script to my mother and my older sister — because they’re featured very strongly in it — they were astonished because things I thought I had invented turned out to have actually occurred. They were shocked how I could have possibly known these things. Perhaps the same thing occurs in this film, that the elements of imagination are probably closer to the truth than the memories.

2. The business of filmmaking requires a great deal of faith.

The difficulty [with Queen and Country] was finding the money. There is an acknowledgment in the credits for a friend of mine who stepped in. He followed me up one day and asked how the picture is going, how is the preparation, and I said: “Well, I think it’s falling apart, the money dropped out.” And the next day he sent me $350,000 and that got us over that.

More than 50% of independent films collapse, either a couple of weeks before starting shooting or a week after starting shooting. It’s a very hazardous business. You know the story of a man who was asked, “How can you become a millionaire making independent films?” And the answer was, “Start as a billionaire.”

3. Have a vision or don’t make the film.

The most important thing is to have some sort of a vision and as David Lynch said, make the films you want to make, and if your taste doesn’t coincide with the audience, then stop making them.

4. Don’t let the actor direct you.

There are a number of moments in the film, which are about the relationship between film and life, andRashomon. I saw it when it opened in 1952 and it had a tremendous effect on me. Suddenly I’d seen greater possibilities in filmmaking than I had ever imagined possible.

Mifune — well, I had a very fractious relationship with Mifune [during Hell in the Pacific] because he had very much wrong ideas of the film and the character and I had to correct him. I had a Japanese crew and it was a big loss of face for him to be corrected by me, so we fought all the way through the film. And in every scene he would revert to the character as he saw it and I would have to go on and on until I got what I wanted. It was just awful.

Eventually I had an accident on the reef and I had to stop shooting. And this situation with myself and Mifune was so bad that producers came along and thought that they had to replace me. And they went to Mifune and they said, “You’ll be glad to hear that we’re going to replace Boorman.” And Mifune said: “I can’t agree with that.”

We went to a teahouse in Tokyo. We drank a toast and sake and I agreed to do the film with him. He said, “It’s a matter of honor.” And the producers said, “Listen, this is Hollywood. Honor doesn’t come in to it.” But he wouldn’t budge. So when we started shooting again I thought, “We’re going to be pals,” but he was exactly the same.

5. Cinema doesn’t need to be real. It just needs to be alive.

That was a quote from Ingmar Bergman. Someone in my presence asked him what he was going to do when he was shooting a film and he said he wasn’t trying to make it real, but he was always trying to make it alive. That was very significant and important.

It’s always a matter of the elements. There is always one element that would make a scene into cinema and it always comes from somewhere that makes the scene cinematic, rather than just a scene being photographed. And you’re always looking for that moment, both in the writing and in the shooting and in your dealing with the actors.

6. The script is just a guide. Directing happens on set.

In Point Blank with Lee Marvin, there was a series of scenes in which he was confronting people. One scene where he gets into this penthouse, he’s getting to this guy and they’re in bed together, it’s a great scene. He breaks in and pulls the guy out of the bed, and it’s so very difficult. How would he react, this gangster?

We tried to shoot in different ways, and finally I said, “How about you faint? Such a terrifying situation, you pass out, just bang.” And that’s what we did. So it made the scene work. The actor’s reaction was: “I’m a tough guy, I wouldn’t do that.” Yes, but look at the situation, and it made the scene work. That’s an indication, an idea about how you can convert a scene into cinema.

I think that often happens when you come to shoot a scene, you find that there is something, an element missing and you have to find it some way, that one thing that makes the cinema.

7. Digital isn’t the enemy. Just make a good film.

I’ve been shooting digital for some years now. I was very happy to say goodbye to film because I’ve suffered so much in my whole life from scratches and dirt and loosing shots. The color of the film stock was devised to flatten out the skin tones of movie stars and it’s dreadful. Now digitally we can do whatever we want with color. We can get exactly the color we wish.

8. Silent movies will teach you a lot about filmmaking.

When I was 18 in 1951-1952, the national film theaters opened in numbers and they showed all the great silent films. I haunted the place, and I really fell in love with the silent movies, the origins of film. That’s really where I learned the possibilities of films and learned what they could do.

When they were shooting silent films, they had to devise ways of communicating ideas and stories without the use of dialogue. The techniques they developed, many of them disappeared when sound came in, because when sound came in you were stuck with a very big camera which was very difficult to move and it made films much more static. Filmmaking never quite recovered.

9. Give yourself time to write.

The only thing about writing is that you have time, so you’re doing it on your own and you don’t have the pressure of time. But I always like to write in front of a blank wall because I project the scenes onto the imaginary screen and see if they work.

I kept journals since I was 16. I write all the time, and I’ve got stacks and stacks of them. So when it comes to making a film I go back and look at them and I’m always very disappointed about how unspecific they are, but they’re helpful.

You know, for me the writing process is part of the whole shooting process. One or two universities asked me to give them my archive, my scripts, my old scripts. I don’t keep them. The script is like a map for the film. Once I’ve shot the film, the script has no use at all further away. So it’s just a device to help you make the film. Once the film is made it has no value whatsoever.

10. Story structure is the key to filmmaking. The rest is just details.

I like to figure out what qualities they have that will help the plot and what will hinder it.

Screenplays require irony, juxtaposition, complex goals, and limitations for both character and plot. Instead of the chicken/egg dilemma — this question allows you to develop both elements in a deeply integrated way.

Once you design how a character interacts with the plot you can decide if your goal in any scene is to enhance or inhibit the character — then figure out how you want to do that — which in turn fuels the plot.

It works for both internal and external goals and it’s a completely different question than what are their wants and needs. I’ve found the wants/needs question alone leads to a flat, singular character arc and doesn’t directly motivate the plot.

You can break down each character’s goals into three types: professional, private and personal.

‘Professional’ refers to the job that needs to be done. A monster has to be killed, a treasure has to be found, a wedding has to take place etc. This physical goal drives the main story and gives the hero something to do.

‘Private’ is something that characters want for themselves. It may not be the main focus of the story as it doesn’t necessarily affect other characters, but a character that only acts out of pure altruism and self-sacrifice is both unrealistic and a little annoying.

‘Personal’ is more about the psychological needs of the character. Whatever flaws or hang-ups the character might have (and he should definitely have some), there will have to be a resolution or understanding reached at some point in the story. This aspect is often the most rewarding and satisfying in a novel, but also risks being the most clichéd and obvious.

These three elements are often very closely linked and intertwined, but they can also be very separate.  Both approaches have their advantages and their disadvantages.

by Christopher Boone

As always, please use these screenplays for your educational purposes only, and don’t wait to download them as we never know when they will go offline. 

Here at NFS, we will keep you posted as new screenplays go online for your consideration so you can download and use them for your own learning process.

The Spectacular Now, screenplay by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, based on the book by Tim Tharp

Spring Breakers, written by Harmony Korine

The Bling Ring, written by Sofia Coppola

Before Midnight, Written by Richard Linklater & Julie Delpy & Ethan Hawke

Kill Your Darlings, Screenplay by John Krokidas & Austin Bunn, Story by Austin Bunn

Some of the scripts are still available from last year too!

Even more from Go Into The Story:

The Armstrong Lie (Sony Classics)

Before Midnight (Sony Classics)

The Bling Ring (A24)

The Croods (DreamWorks Animation)

Despicable Me 2 (Universal – Click on “screenplay”)

Frozen (Disney)

The Invisible Woman (Sony Classics)

Kill Your Darlings (Sony Classics)

Lone Survivor (Universal – Click on “screenplay”)

Monsters University (Disney / Pixar)

The Past (Sony Classics)

Rush (Universal – Click on “screenplay”)

The Spectacular Now (A24)

Spring Breakers (A24)

Studios also make production notes available:

All Is Lost

Dallas Buyers Club

Fruitvale Station

The Grandmaster

Gravity

Inside Llewyn Davis

Lee Daniels’ The Butler

Mud

Muscle Shoals

Nebraska

One Chance

Philomena

The Place Beyond the Pine Trees

Spark your filmmaking passion and education with Art of Cinema, one issue with a lucky 7 sources of inspiration for all things cinematic presented by A-BitterSweet-Life.

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6 Filmmaking Tips from Paul Thomas Anderson

A Bit of Free Film School (for Fans and Filmmakers Alike) from a 70mm Heavyweight - “1) Treat the Book Your Adapting as a Collaborator 2) Be Highly Selective with Actors Because a Bad One Will Mean More Work 3) Short Films Can Be a Good Way to Get Started 4) Put On a Good Show First 5) Growing a Mustache and Riffing on Cops Could Lead You to Brilliance 6) What You Can Learn From Pornography”

Why No One Likes Your Art: 26 Reasons

Come Away from This with a Refreshed Sense of What You Might Be Doing Wrong, What You Are Getting Right and What You Can Do to Put Yourself in the Best Possible Position - “1) It’s not refined yet 2) It’s not targeted 3) It’s been done already 4) You don’t understand light/color balance & composition 5) You don’t know why you are doing something 6) It lacks consistency 7) You’re not making sacrifices 8) It’s not fashionable 9) Your portfolio is poor 10) You lack purpose 11) You aren’t well known 12) You’re just creating 13) You don’t present it well 14) You haven’t given it enough time & practice…”

10 Questions For Aspiring Screenwriters

Honest Questions that Every Aspiring Screenwriter Must Answer - “1) Do You Have an Artist’s Mentality 2) Have You Mastered Screenplay Format 3) Do You Overwrite 4) Do You Respect Story/Screenplay Structure 5) Have You Accepted This Fact: Screenwriting is Rewriting 6) Are You Willing to Give the Time Necessary to Create a Viable Body of Work 7) Are You a 1-Script Wonder or a Writing Workhorse 8) Have You Found Your Unique Voice/Type of Material That Attracts You 9) Are You Humble/Practice Humility 10) Are You Patient”

What Watching Memento in Chronological Order Can Teach About Story Structure

A Revelatory Experience - Christopher Nolan’s Memento was a sleeper smash-hit in 2000: the smart indie used an ingenious backwards narrative structure and well-drawn but mysterious characters to draw us into the world of Leonard Shelby…Now the film has been re-edited to run chronologically, and is available to watch online. Click below to see what an indie filmmaker can learn from the narrative structure of this indie classic!”

How to Keep Moving Forward, Even When Your Brain Hates You

A (Probably Incomplete) List of My Anti-Procrastination/Anti-Negativity Tricks - “1) Let hard things be hard 2) Believe in the power of ritual 3) Go somewhere 4) Help someone else 5) Check SOMETHING off your list, no matter how small 6) When all else fails, bake brownies 7) Call in the professionals”

7 Ninja Mindsets for the Writer and Filmmaker

Put These Seven Together and You Will Have an Indomitable Spirit - “1) Commit Now 2) Don’t Waste Your Talent On The Ordinary 3) Watch Your Language 4) Focus Your Attention 5) Be Humble Enough To Learn, Bold Enough To Ask 6) Manage Your Moods 7) Get A Fit Body, Get A Creative Mind”