Kurt Vonnegut provides 8 tips on how to write a great story. These tips from the novelist can easily translate to screenwriting.
Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
Every sentence must do one of two things-reveal character or advance the action.
Start as close to the end as possible.
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.
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.
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.
These rules are so good because they hit on the psychology of a viewers needs and mental harmony, Talk on stage 32 is sly a great director? Rocky gives you all the "mental" happy pills, Down guy wins...good over evil.. you like rocky, etc. But as a writer and producer I don't have to be rocked by...
Expand commentThese rules are so good because they hit on the psychology of a viewers needs and mental harmony, Talk on stage 32 is sly a great director? Rocky gives you all the "mental" happy pills, Down guy wins...good over evil.. you like rocky, etc. But as a writer and producer I don't have to be rocked by a screenplayI have to love the overall idea, I can fill in the blanks if the idea of the story is special.
I'm glad people are taking something out of Vonnegut's suggestions! As for #8, I feel the wording--like when putting a message across through texts and emails--is a bit conflicting with what is at heart in the tip. I'd say he is suggesting to be as engaging as possible, not to push the...
Expand commentI'm glad people are taking something out of Vonnegut's suggestions! As for #8, I feel the wording--like when putting a message across through texts and emails--is a bit conflicting with what is at heart in the tip. I'd say he is suggesting to be as engaging as possible, not to push the reader/viewer into a dark corner, but to guide them through the dark room. For example, as Richard said, the first 10 pages of a script would guide one through the rest of the story if the essentials to the story are there within those pages. Complete understanding, I feel, doesn't mean a giveaway of the story, but a feeling about it.