What goes into writing a great movie script?

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

Actors give better feedback than writers do.

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.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Developer "Wants To" Add One Of Its Most Requested Features - TheGamer

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

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

Make sure to pack enough explosives into the rocket.

Bono Educates Joe Rogan on DOGE’s ‘Pure Evil’ USAID Cuts - Rolling Stone

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

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

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

Why do Indian parents force their kids to do stuff?

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

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.

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

iOS 26's New Battery Life Mode Available Only on These iPhone Models - MacRumors

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

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

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.

The two rules investors need to follow right now as the S&P 500 eyes a return to 6,000 - MarketWatch

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.

Research the facts and then throw away the research.

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.

Jennifer Garner reveals her secrets to being 53, flirty, and thriving in candid interview - New York Post

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

The DSM 5 is a wonderful character compendium.

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

Can it be true that people know your name, not your story, they’ve heard what you’ve done, but not what you’ve been through, so take their opinions of you with a grain of salt?

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

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

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

Yankees will have to find ninth-inning serenity in Luke Weaver’s absence - New York Post