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Syd Field’s Check Points
For Writing A Better Screenplay
Check to:
- Make sure your characters and story are set up within the first ten pages. Did you introduce your main character(s), establish the dramatic premise, and indicate the dramatic situation, the circumstances surrounding the main character?
- Check your structure and see whether it's dramatically effective in holding your story line together.
- Take another look to see if your dialogue is too explanatory, or too wordy. Do your characters need to explain everything to keep the story moving forward?
- Remember - all drama is conflict. See whether your character's dramatic need drives the action forward; Film is behavior; either the character drives the action, or the action drives the character. Check it out!
- As a final tip: make sure your script is formatted properly: (Final Draft is the only way to go) Do a spell check, and check your page numbers; a minor detail to be sure, but very important nevertheless.
Good luck! |
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"I was working at the Mirage, on the graveyard shift, making $8 an hour; I invent bill boards for the heck of it, I’m writing letters and now you want me to write a screenplay? So I went to the bookstore and bought three books by Syd Field on screenwriting…I began to write this movie…The Runner. Six weeks later, I had this movie that’s actually pretty damn good…and sold it for $35,000. That was the pivotal moment, the beginning of everything..."
--Anthony Zuiker
Creator and Executive Producer
CSI, CSI: Miami
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