3 Writing Techniques Every Screenwriter Should Use

Whether you’re drafting your very first short screenplay or you’re a seasoned veteran with half a dozen features under your belt, the time will always come for feedback on your writing. The inevitable editing and refining process can be infamously grueling, especially after just coming off the high of actually finishing a draft.

So, let’s talk about some of the easiest things you can implement right now into your writing to make that process a little less mentally taxing.

Make Your Exposition Invisible

Setting up the lore of your world, establishing your characters, and delivering backstory all at once in your first act is one of the most challenging parts of the process. As a result, there’s going to inevitably be the temptation to just have the characters over-literally explain what they’re feeling, seeing, or using at the present moment to get the explanations over with and focus more on the story. But what’s more annoying than watching a movie and feeling like the characters are spoon-feeding you information in a way that implies you can’t read context clues?

Let’s say your main character is experiencing grief from the loss of a loved one and is confiding in their friend in the opening scene of the script. Instead of having them say something like “I can’t believe it’s been two weeks since my dad died”, have the scene start halfway through the conversation. Have them talk about how expensive the funeral costs have been, or how annoying the grief counselor they’ve been seeing is. Whatever the main point of information is that needs to be delivered, have your characters delicately dance directly outside of it to deliver the information as subtly as possible.

One of the finest examples of expository delivery this past decade is found in one of the opening scenes in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Mildred Hayes explains which billboards she wants rented, makes Red read what they need to say, and that’s enough for him to realize who she is. She confirms this right as she flips a struggling insect back on its stomach, saving its life. Present character traits, backstory, and motivations are immediately established without ever making you realize it’s happening.

'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri' Credit: Vudu

Don’t Let Your Characters Speak the Same

A common roadblock that writers can fall into, especially while in the process of finding their own style, is having their characters all speak in relatively the exact same cadence and rhythm. Children speak the same as adults, adults speak the same as the elderly, men speak the same as women, and so on and so forth.

But aside from the rudimentary details like age and gender, it can sometimes be challenging to separate the personalities of the supporting characters from the personality of the central protagonist. If the protagonist is a snarky know-it-all, it can be easy to make everyone around them one as well to maintain a sense of consistency. This is a trap.

A really great way to keep yourself from falling into said trap is to keep a detailed character list with key descriptors and backstory traits for everyone close by whenever you’re working on your drafts. It can be really hard, even as the architect of a story, to keep track of everyone involved, and all that makes them them.

And remember, you can edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page. If you have to sacrifice a bit of individuality to just get a first draft of a scene done…do it. There’s no sense in wracking your brain for what is probably, in the grand scheme of things, a really minor detail. You can always come back to it, and that handy dandy character chart will always be waiting for you as well.

Don’t Model Your Style Off Someone Else’s

‘The Social Network’Credit: Sony Pictures

There is a somewhat famous piece of advice out there that says something along the lines of “copy your favorite writers when you’re first starting out so that you can try and figure out how you write.” This can be an interesting challenge to do as an exercise, but I, personally, have seen far too many people fall into another age-old trap of continuing to only emulate Aaron Sorkin or Quentin Tarantino when writing each new thing.

Think of trying to emulate another writer’s style like a college student using AI to write an essay for them. Granted, an “Aaron Sorkin style” screenplay will always have more inherent value than an AI-generated essay because a person wrote it, but the analysis here can be similar. Much like how an AI-generated essay can closely mimic human diction, but will always have some sort of robotic uncanny valley-esque rhythm to it that exposes its inhumanity, people will always be able to spot someone who is mimicking another writer too closely because they haven’t quite found their voice yet.

This is in no way an indictment of using your inspirations or your favorite films to influence the stories you tell. That is always how we’ve evolved this medium. All stories evolve from each other into new ones. Just make sure that along the way, you actually figure out what makes your voice unique and what makes you tick. The world needs to hear what you have to say, and how you say it is just as important.