Screenwriting : Today's Wish and Creative Tip by Laurie Ashbourne

Turn the Page (giveaway!) Prolific Author James Patterson has carved a lucrative niche by creating page turners. Screenplay readers know they have a good script when they are not constantly checking to see how many pages they have left to read -- because they are so engrossed waiting to see what happens next. Often, a script will get passed around because it is a fast read. One way to facilitate this is write so that that it is easier to read DOWN the page. This means, keep your sentences short (and your action blocks shorter). Break up your action by beats of character: Don’t have 3 characters’ action in one paragraph. Write in a way that focuses on the action of the character in the order and as you envision it being revealed to the audience. In other words, don’t write backwards action along the lines of ‘she tripped over the carpet after racing through the door.’ She races in, her heel snags the plush carpet – CRACK. Her jaw slams into the glass of the coffee table… Yes, it takes up more page real estate, but next thing you know you’re on the next page. Along these lines, make those first words matter, your sentences should be short because readers fully absorb the first half of the page in one glance, when it goes beyond the middle of the page across they have to work harder (sounds ridiculous but remember scripts are rarely read like novels because they are being read for a different reason – so don’t write them like a novel). Connect the dots and dashes Those three dots at the end of table above, imply this leads to the effect of this beat, and when they are at the bottom of a page, all the more reason to turn it... Same with – When someone’s dialogue is interrupted these two little dashes are your friend, pulling you along to see what was so important to interrupt me. But don’t overdo these bits of punctuation or they will lose their magic. Make the last line of your page a cliffhanger. Whether it be in dialogue or someone being surprised or a car wreck, when last lines make us want more, we read more. Now, the 1st person to tell me the name of the singer of that old rock ballad ‘turn the page’ gets an eval of their 1st 10 pages and I wish you to be forever in my circle of high regard!