| HOW TO WRITE A SCREENPLAY - Lesson 1 | | | | The second part is the scene description. What is |
| Where is your main character? What is he or she | | | | happening? To whom is it happening? What are |
| doing when we open your short story or play? | | | | the concise but descriptive details of the scene |
| Let's widen our perspective: where in the world is | | | | that make this situation interesting? |
| your play taking place? | | | | Pretty clear, huh? What's the difference here |
| London, England? Paris, Texas? Antananarivo, | | | | from a short story or a play? It's pretty clear: a |
| Madagascar? | | | | screenplay is like a short hand account of a story. |
| Okay! | | | | All of the nuances of story, details, and emotions |
| Inside a cozy, lantern-lit hut? Out in the wild? | | | | are inferred through simple but descriptive words |
| Okay! | | | | and phrases. You know how in speed reading it's |
| By the way, is this happening at night or during | | | | taught that the first sentence in a paragraph is |
| the day? Take a look at the following two lines: | | | | most important and that the proceeding |
| INT. HUT - NIGHT | | | | sentences in that paragraph are usually a |
| Cozy, lit by a gas latern, TWO LOVERS stare into | | | | summary of what was stated in the first |
| each other's eyes. There lips are like magnets | | | | sentence? Screenplays - good ones anyway - are |
| pulling each other closer. | | | | stripped down to those first sentences: Such and |
| Here, "INT." is of course, "interior", "HUT" is of | | | | such happens, BOOM, and then...always moving |
| course, the location, and "NIGHT" is of course the | | | | forward. |
| time of day. Very simple. Where in the world is | | | | I'm assuming you know a little bit about story |
| your story taking place. Oh, and what time is it | | | | structure. We will get into screenplay structure in |
| happening. The seed of your screenplay is planted. | | | | a later, more advanced lesson. So, a good place |
| You've started to write your sceenplay once you | | | | to start in adapting your story is to start to |
| write that first "slug line" which is what INT. HUT - | | | | breakdown the what, where, and when of your |
| NIGHT is called. | | | | story. Practice slug lines and scene descriptions |
| Let's try another: | | | | until they become second nature. Which shouldn't |
| EXT. BREWSTER STATE PARK - DAY | | | | take long at all. Screenplays are not as daunting |
| It's early morning. BILL, 45 and homeless, lies | | | | as they seem. You will find this out in subsequent |
| sprawled out on the bench part of a picnic table. | | | | lessons. But for now, just know that the slug line |
| His eyes are open, not blinking looking into the | | | | and scene description along with dialogue comprise |
| cloudless sky. | | | | the building blocks of a screenplay. |