How to Finally Start That Screenplay You're Always Talking About

A lot of creative people think about starting a screenplay at some point or another. It may begin with an idea for a story, or a description of a character, or even a funny situation or conversation. Eventually that seed of a concept grows into a full-fledged desire. However, it can be exceedingly difficult to actually put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) and start on your opus. It doesn’t have to be, however, so long as you look at it the right way.

Start by separating everything that you’ve already thought of into a few different categories. If you’ve primarily had ideas for characters, for example, write the word “Characters” on the top of a sheet of paper. Follow that with names, back-stories, and personalities – anything that is already in your mind. Do the same with the general concept for your plot, locations and more.

Look back over your list of characters (if applicable) and examine their motivations. For each character you need to answer the questions of “Who is this person?”, “What does this person want from the story?” and “What role does this person play in the larger arc of my screenplay.” As you start to answer these questions, you will begin to get a better picture of the overall story of your screenplay. The situations that they need to get themselves into for the story to work, and how they will react to those situations, will become clear.

Continue by breaking down the overall story of your screenplay into a series of scenes. Feature length screenplays tend to have anywhere from 70 to 150 or more scenes, depending on the genre. Writing down all of your scene ideas will give you a good indication of just how far along your idea actually is.

Write down each scene onto a notecard, using one new notecard for each. You can do this any way you’d like: you can write a description of the scene on the front of the card and the location on the back, or write both pieces of information on the same side.

Arrange all of your notecards in chronological order, the way they would unfold if you were watching the finished film on television or in a theater. This will allow you to flip through the notecards from beginning to end, which will tell you where your story flows naturally and where there are holes that need to be filled.

Separate your notecards into three sections, or “acts.” Almost all major motion picture screenplays follow a standard three act structure. The first act introduces the characters and sets up the conflict. The second act takes the protagonist on their journey, and shows the difficulties they face along the way. The third act builds towards the climax of the story, as well as the resolution. Put the notecards you’ve written into one pile for each act.

Spread out all of your notecards on the floor, or pin them up to a cork board or bulletin board. This will give you a visual idea of how far along you are with your story. If all of your notecards are in the “Act 1” section and the “Act 3” section, for example, you know that your “Act 2” is going to need to be fleshed out. If you seem to have an equal amount of notecards in each section, you’re on the right track.

Do as much research as you can. This can encompass watching films that are similar to the one you’re trying to write, or reading published screenplays purchased in bookstores or downloaded from the Internet. Watch how professionals do their job, and learn from the best along the way.

Study the screenplay format. Writing a screenplay is not like writing prose – the formatting is very particular, and a poorly formatted script will be thrown into the garbage by studio executives, producers, actors and the like. Each scene has to have a scene heading, for example, which is formatted in a very particular way. The dialog goes in a specific place on the page, and can’t go anywhere else. You also can’t write anything in a script that can’t be seen or heard – this means you can’t arbitrarily write why a character is performing an action, or what they’re thinking while it’s going on.

Make time in your day to start writing and do so. One of the hardest parts of writing for many screenwriters is staring at the blank page before they actually begin. Write “FADE IN:” in the upper left corner of the page, and then keep going. Even if you can only write for twenty minutes a day, or can only commit to two pages a day, that’s still an excellent start. The more pages that you write, the more motivation you will have to continue to the end.