3 Screenwriting Lessons Even Professionals Forget in Their First Drafts

You've heard it time and time again, but all writing is rewriting. I know that sounds annoying to read for the umpteenth time, but that's how the craft goes.

My goal, as a pro, is to make my first draft so good that I don't have as much heavy lifting to do later. And guess what? That doesn't always work either.

But today I want to talk about the specific, craft-level stuff that slips through the cracks in first drafts, not because the writer doesn't know better, but because they forgot. Or got excited. Or pushed through a scene they should have stopped and questioned.

This is the stuff that happens to me all the time, and I want to share some of the things I've learned with you.

Let's dive in.

1. You're Writing Toward the Ending You Imagined, Not the One the Story Earned

Here's something nobody talks about enough: most writers know their ending before they know their story. I know the only way I can start a draft is if I know how it ends first.

That's usually a good thing, but being rigid in storytelling can be a bad thing.

The result is a script that technically arrives at its destination but doesn't feel like it traveled anywhere because you had a preconceived notion of where you wanted to type Fade Out.

The first draft should be about those wild swings and taking chances. Sometimes, those things can unlock something great for you.

Experienced writers fall into this just as often as beginners. The difference is that beginners don't always know why the draft feels off. Professionals usually do, they just don't want to admit that the ending they've been protecting for three months might be the problem.

The fix isn't complicated, but it takes nerve.

At some point in the revision process, you have to be willing to look at your ending and ask: "D id my characters actually get here, or did I just drag them?"

If you dragged them, then it's time to rework and maybe do another outline to discover where you think they should be now.

'Spy' Credit: Sony

2. Every Scene Is Doing One Job When It Should Be Doing Two

Okay, this was a funny one to work out, because I think it's a little hyperbolic, but bear with me. The default mode in a first draft is functional scenes. You want them to exist because something needs to happen. The exposition needs to land. The two characters need to meet. The protagonist needs to find the clue.

Fine. But a scene that only does one thing is, at best, a placeholder.

The scenes that actually work and that make your screenplay sing are the ones readers and audiences remember. They are pulling double or triple duty.

Plot is moving and character is shifting and the relationship between two people is changing in some small but irreversible way.

So when you look back at your draft and see a stretch of scenes that are each doing exactly one thing, that's where the pacing dies.

How can you make these scenes do multiple things for you?

It all boils down to what you think changes in these scenes. Not just in the story, but in the people. If the answer is "nothing, really, it just moves the plot forward," that scene is either underwritten or it doesn't belong there.

See what else you can put in its place or cut it entirely.

'Sinners' Credit: Warner Bros.

3. Dialogue Is Always the Last Problem

This one is almost universal.

When something feels wrong in a draft, writers reach for the lines. They tighten. They punch up. They rework the rhythm of the scenes in front of them.

Bad dialogue is almost never a dialogue problem.

Here's what I mean...Clunky, on-the-nose, or flat dialogue is almost always a symptom of something else. Maybe it's that a scene doesn't need to exist, or it's a character whose motivation isn't clear enough to actually generate real conflict on the page, or a relationship that hasn't been properly established before this moment.

That's why the dialogue that shows up makes no sense or just reads poorly.

If two characters are saying what they mean in a scene where they should be talking around what they mean, then you probably have a structural problem.

No amount of line-tweaking fixes that.

When you hit dialogue that isn't working, resist the urge to fix the words first. Ask why the scene isn't working. Nine times out of ten, that's where the real answer is, and it takes a lot more rewriting than just punching up the jokes.

'Pulp Fiction' Credit: Miramax

Summing It All Up

None of this is meant to make the first draft feel like a minefield. It's not. The first draft is still just about getting the story out.

But these are the traps worth keeping in mind as you write — because the writers who catch them early spend a lot less time in revision.