How To Write A Screenplay
How To Write A Screenplay
Syd Field has been know in the world of movies for many years. In 1979 he wrote a book named "Screenplay : The foundations of Screenwriting". The book is a step-by-step guide for people who want to write screenplays or people who want to improve there skills. I'm one of those people who want to write screenlays and thats why I read this book, I wanted answers to questions like : "How do I build my character?", "What is a subject?", "What combines begin, middle and the end?" and many other questions.
The first thing you need when you write a screenplay is a character. After Syd introduces what a screenplay is there comes a long chapter about building a character. Syd recomends people who have a story to build the character first, then to start write. People who have no story should build the character first, in the continuation of that comes the story. Charater is built by asking yourself questions. What are his parents like?, what do they do?, how old is the character? and so on. The writer has to ask himself questions to make the characters attitude, personality and behaviour. This is very important because if you don't do it you don't know how he would react in different situations.
Out of the character comes the storyline, if the writer hasn't yet determined it and format the character for it. The storyline is also very important. If you don't have anything to say you don't say it, if you have nothing to write about you don't write. The storyline is the action that happends to the character. Syd recommends writing the ending first, then the beginning and then you can write the middle. But why is that? If you do know what happends in the end, you can set up the story to fit that end. If you set up the story first the ending becomes a bungle and it doesn't work out.
Films also have so-called plot points. The plot points combine the beginning to the middle and the middle to the end. The plot points move the story forward, some discovery trow the story to the next level so it can move forward.
"All drama is conflict. Without conflict you have no character; without character, you have no action; without action, you have no story; and without story,...