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How To Write a Screenplay

Learn how to write a screenplay through detailed analysis of feature films.

  • Screenwriting Tips
  • How To Write A Screenplay

How To Write by Vonnegut

June 30, 2012 By William Robert Rich 4 Comments

I ran across this today on Open Culture. Slaughterhouse Five is one of my favorite books (I hope Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation finds its way to the screen as soon as possible). I also dug up another list from Vonnegut on style. A lot of these popped right off the page as fundamental rules of screenwriting (if such things exist). I guess good writing is good writing. From Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction:

Vonnegut: How To Write a Good Short Story

  1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
  2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
  3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
  4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
  5. Start as close to the end as possible.
  6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
  7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
  8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Vonnegut adds that great writers break these, noting Flannery O’Connor only obeyed the first. From How To Use the Power of the Printed Word:

Vonnegut: How To Write With Style

  1. Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.
  2. Do not ramble, though
  3. Keep it simple. As for your use of language: Remember that two great masters of language, William Shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences which were almost childlike when their subjects were most profound.
  4. Have guts to cut. It may be that you, too, are capable of making necklaces for Cleopatra, so to speak. But your eloquence should be the servant of the ideas in your head.
  5. Sound like yourself. I myself find that I trust my own writing most, and others seem to trust it most, too, when I sound most like a person from Indianapolis, which is what I am.
  6. Say what you mean. Readers want our pages to look very much like pages they have seen before. Why? This is because they themselves have a tough job to do, and they need all the help they can get from us.
  7. Pity the readers. They have to identify thousands of little marks on paper, and make sense of them immediately. They have to read, an art so difficult that most people don’t really master it even after having studied it all through grade school and high school — twelve long years.

I don’t know how many of you folks remember Back to School, but I’d follow these at your own risk:

The Shawshank Redemption

May 1, 2012 By William Robert Rich 5 Comments

The Shawshank Redemption Analysis

Frank Darabont has often compared The Shawshank Redemption to a Rorschach test. Written and executed with exceptional skill, it possesses a power that allows viewers to effortlessly empathize with its characters. It is, perhaps, the metaphor of imprisonment that resonates within us the hardest. We all have things that hold us captive, whether physical, psychological, social, or economical. Shawshank is about hope. If Andy can escape and come out the other side free, so can we. Get busy living or get busy dying. That’s goddamn right.

Click here if you’re looking for The Shawshank Redemption screenplay.

[Read more…]

Network

March 19, 2012 By William Robert Rich Leave a Comment

I wanted everyone, every man, woman or child to realize that they had a choice. I wanted them to know that they have the right to get angry, to get mad. They have the right to say to themselves, to each other, to the world at large, that they had worth, they had value. The speech wrote itself, because that was Beale’s battle cry for the people. 1

~Paddy Chayefsky on Howard Beale’s “Mad as Hell” speech. [Read more…]

  1. Considine, Shaun. Mad as Hell: the Life and Work of Paddy Chayefsky. Lincoln, Neb.: IUniverse.com, 2000. Print. Link. ↩

Gladiator

January 14, 2012 By William Robert Rich 2 Comments

Gladiator Screenplay Analysis

Style and substance. Gladiator is a phenomenal revenge drama that earned the Oscar for Best Picture in 2000 (the original screenwriter, David Franzoni, shared the award with William Nicholson and John Logan), as well as Best Actor for Russell Crowe, Best Costume Design, Best Visual Effects, and Best Sound. Long after the CGI fades into nostalgia, or possibly a few laughs, the story will keep this film alive. As Maximus says, “what we do in life echoes in eternity.”

Click here if you’re looking for the Gladiator screenplay.

[Read more…]

Risky Business

January 3, 2012 By William Robert Rich Leave a Comment

Risky Business Screenplay

It would be wrong to label Risky Business as just another teen sex comedy. It’s much more than the best that genre has to offer. It’s the yin to The Graduate’s yang. It’s an ideal precursor to Oliver Stone’s Wall Street. At it’s core, it’s a slick satire about guilt, greed and lust. With hindsight in their favor, some call it social commentary on the Reagan Revolution. Above all else, it will go down in history as the film that launched Tom Cruise, and that’s a shame…it has a lot more to offer.

Click here if you’re looking for the Risky Business screenplay.

[Read more…]

The Big Lebowski

December 13, 2011 By William Robert Rich 2 Comments

The Big Lebowski Screenplay Analysis

With this one we sort of figured, you know, if things become a little bit too complicated or unclear, it really doesn’t matter. I mean, the plot is kind of not the…and again, this is similar to Chandler: The plot is sort of secondary to the other things that are sort of going on in the piece. I think that if people get a little confused it’s not necessarily going to get in the way of them enjoying the movie. 1

~Joel Coen on The Big Lebowski

Click here if you’re looking for The Big Lebowski screenplay.
Click here to download my The Big Lebowski screenplay analysis.

[Read more…]

  1. “The Making of The Big Lebowski.” Interview. The Big Lebowski (Limited Edition) [Blu-ray Book + Digital Copy. Link. ↩

Good Will Hunting

October 12, 2011 By William Robert Rich 14 Comments

Good Will Hunting Screenplay Analysis

It’s rare when twenty-something actors write something so well received, let alone so profitable. Orson Welles did it with Citizen Kane. 1 Peter Fonda did it with Easy Rider. 2 Sylvester Stallone did it with Rocky. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck did it with Good Will Hunting.
[Read more…]

  1. Orson’s co-writer, Herman Mankiewicz, was in his forties and Citizen Kane initially failed to recoup its investment. ↩
  2. Peter’s co-writers Dennis Hopper and Terry Southern were in their thirties and forties. ↩

Die Hard

September 25, 2011 By William Robert Rich 13 Comments

Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker!

Yeah, that’s the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions Die Hard. Well, either that, or a man jumping off an exploding skyscraper roof with a firehouse tied around his waist. Maybe it just depends on my mood. Released back in 1988, this film kicked arse at the box office, spawned three four sequels, and as a result, has been ripped off more times than the white man at a Cherokee Nation casino:

  • Speed (1994) — Die Hard on a bus.
  • Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997) — Die Hard on a boat.
  • Under Siege (1992) — Die Hard on a boat.
  • Executive Decision (1996) — Die Hard on a plane.
  • Con Air (1997) — Die Hard on a plane.
  • Air Force One (1997) — Die Hard on Air Force One.
  • Toy Soldiers (1991) — Die Hard in a boarding school.
  • Cliffhanger (1993)– Die Hard on a mountain.
  • Night at the Museum (2006)– Die Hard in a museum.
  • Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009) — Die Hard in a mall.

[Read more…]

Zombieland

August 13, 2011 By William Robert Rich 1 Comment

Zombieland is a fun, fast-paced, kick-ass, zombie movie. It clocks in at roughly 83 minutes, delivering eye-popping visuals with a tight, economical story to boot. It’s a great screenplay for the aspiring screenwriter to study. While the voice-overs are entertaining, and in a sense, help define the style, they are completely unnecessary. The protagonist tells the audience his exact feelings — on-the-nose dialogue — at crucial beats. In the world of story, there’s a little rule — show don’t tell — but then again, some rules are made to be broken.

Click here if you’re looking for the Zombieland script
Click here to download my Zombieland script analysis (PDF)

[Read more…]

Shot Headings: Misc.

June 17, 2011 By William Robert Rich Leave a Comment

Following Time of Day, there’s a little category I like to call miscellaneous (excluding weather, these are all functions of time). You can lump the following in this category:

  • Time
  • Date
  • Weather
  • Continuous Action
  • Flashback / Present Day

[Read more…]

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