Screenwriting : What are some helpful tips for writing a Short Film? by Jaleesa Antionette Bealom

Outline. Spend your time planning before you write. Have a clear vision of what you want your short to say. Use this time to be creative. Once you have a clear idea of what you want your short to be, get writing :)

Try to focus on how to say a lot with a little by showing things metaphorically or implying something deeper with subtext. Give yourself a really limited timeframe to show a scene, like half a page and force yourself to stick to it. Write action and dialogue which gives the director, DOP and actors room to show a lot more than what's simply being said.

Eoin - What's a good outlining technique? I find myself going crazy on paper and trying to organize it into one coherent thought. I tend to find myself to have a really, really good emotional struggle but the physical is where it gets tricky.

Create a character with a need. Send them on a journey. Put plenty of obstacles in the way of them achieving that need to create conflict. Have them overcome that conflict and learn something. You want a basic beginning, middle and end. If you read some short scripts, you should get an idea of how they are written and structured and apply that to your outline. Ask yourself, 'what's my story?'. Write it out on a page in simple prose. Hope this helps.

Just to add, a lot comes from how the actor/actress plays the scene. Their reactions and the things they don't say helps tell the story realistically with out having them speak. This may sound weird but someone told me this statement, "Don't fear silence..." Sometimes that is the most impactful part of the film. It has helped a lot with shortening down a long script. The use of body language. Hope this assists you.

Excellent advice gents! Thank you.

With Eoin, Bryant and CJ covering the basics, I have just one additional thought: create an arc, no matter how subtle or extreme; even a straight line of extreme conflict gets boring - I just read one like that. The conflict was clear and established early on but didn't waver until the very end, so the emotional scenery never changed.

I have a lengthy article / rant on this topic: http://joegiambrone.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/the-problem-with-short-films/

Try real hard to keep it at or under 5 pages. To me that's the perfect length for a short.

Joe and Bill pretty well covered it. There's no point in writing more than you're going to shoot and no point shooting more than you need to tell your story. Find the arc - to decide where and when your story actually begins and ends and what you really intend to say... then stop. It's like telling a joke - once you get to the punchline, you're done. Nobody cares what you say after that. A famous author made a fortune on film adaptations of his novels, but his books had an annoying tendency to drag on for two or three more chapters after the story was over. He got away with it in print, but when the adaptations were filmed the movie ended when the story ended. Period.

Just make it short and sweet!