What goes into writing a great movie script?

Primary characters must change polarities. Secondary characters can change less.

The DSM 5 is a wonderful character compendium.

Leave holes. Write and unwrite. Put it in, take it out.

North Carolina U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis won't run for reelection in 2026 - Axios

Make sure to pack enough explosives into the rocket.

All rules are made to be broken, but you damn well better know WHY you’re breaking them.

Your primary job is to create situations. Modern actors will fuck up your dialogue, despite whatever your contract says.

Why do Democrats never produce a good argument for why Trump was a bad president?

Maintain a slush pile/idea file. When you are ready to write, choose the best seeds to plant.

Get up there yourself. Be in a movie. Take some acting (not writing) classes. Learn how a trained actor approaches a text. Learn why actors take roles. They do as much if not more than the writer does.

Only God gets it right the first time. Rewrite everything.

Do women really cheat more than men?

Actors give better feedback than writers do.

To develop a unique voice for each character, try interviewing your characters.

Research the facts and then throw away the research.

Theory Proposing Three-Dimensional Time as the “Primary Fabric of Everything” Could Unify Quantum Physics and Gravity - The Debrief

Don’t direct from the page. Everyone, from the director on down, wants to be part of the process of making movies. Let them do their work.

Write in reverse time. Major characters need to change polarity; minor characters may remain the same at the end.

Learn to tell a story orally and not through writing. Try telling your story to a friend.

Watch: Netanyahu's First Remark After US Bombs Iran Nuclear Sites - NDTV

Conflict is your power source; without it you have no drama and hence no script.

What you leave unwritten is as important as what you write. SUBTEXT.

Use status to help drive conflict. King Lear/fool. Upstairs/downstairs.

Sir Keir Starmer announces national inquiry into grooming gangs - BBC

A critical function of storytelling is wish fulfillment. This is why video games are so popular. “That protagonist is JUST LIKE ME.”

People choose what to see based on the high concept. Make sure to deliver an ending consistent with the high concept -- it is what the audience paid for.

Cut everything that is not a payoff, or a setup for a specific payoff. “Omit needless words.” Think about the sparseness of joke telling, or Grimm Brothers.

How come I can't stay sober?

Outline everything. Use story beats. Keep character’s mouths taped up, until they absolutely MUST speak. Write the script and the dialogue at the last minute, after you’ve revised the hell out of the outline.

A scene should change valence from beginning to end. Up to down, down to up.

Audiences are smarter than you think. Something about turning down the house lights makes their IQs go up.

Accidental discovery at New York planetarium unlocks secret into universe’s inner workings - PBS