“I like the experience of reading to feel like an experience of film. So I use spacing, add more air for a scene that should move quickly, then three or four description blocks in scene where I want you to slow down.” —Charles Randolph (writer of THE BIG SHORT, BOMBSHELL, LOVE & OTHER DRUGS)
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Very interesting. Great tips
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More air, short/long sentences/paragraphs, iambic pentameter, punctuation choices...there's lots of things you can do with the written word to control the pace and flow of a story. I worked so hard to add tension and a sense of "running out of time" in the final book of my series that I made it TOO fast-paced and had to go back and add some breathers during revision because even I couldn't read it without my blood pressure going up and staying up. LOL
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Any advice from produced legit writers (and he's got an Oscar) is good advice- considering their careers are way ahead of us, screenwriting as an occupation.
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You're right, Sallie Olson. There's lots of things you can do with the written word to control the pace and flow of a story. A lot of my talking scenes have longer action paragraphs (no longer than 3 or 4 lines), but when I write an action scene, scary scene, or tense scene, I try to use 1 or 2 lines. I've even started using one-word action lines.
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Exactly, Dan MaxXx. Read the top writers to become the top writers. I didn't read scripts that were written by pros when I started screenwriting. I didn't read them years after becoming a screenwriter either. Big mistakes.
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Great tips there. Its always exciting to read a script that uses the format well to make it feel like watching the finished movie.