Hollywood. The land of dreams. It’s a place where many studio blockbusters and culturally-defining television shows are generated and made. It is a fascinating intersection of art and commerce. And it all starts in the brain cells, axons, neurons and dendrites of one person: the Hollywood writer. No one simply arrives as a Hollywood writer. It is a hard-won personal path, that is as individual as a fingerprint. The good news? Everyone starts somewhere. The bad news? Very few become masters. Whether in the feature world or in the television world, a writer is in a constant state of learning and evolving, of honing and mastering their project and ultimately their craft. But if we take a step back from that lofty goal, if we look from on high, it becomes clear that, irrespective of the medium and irrespective of who the writer is or where they are in their journey, there are essential elements that a great script must contain.
Oftentimes people get categorized, “oh she’s a procedural drama writer”, “oh he’s an indie filmmaker”, “oh they’ve only done comedy.” But what’s so fascinating is, the elements of storytelling transcend genre. They can’t be categorized because they are intrinsic to all storytelling genres. And it is these basic elements that a script must contain. So, let’s start there. Every script must have a strong concept. That doesn’t mean a wackily high concept like Hot Tub Time Machine, it just means a writer must have a firm grasp of what their film or series is about. A writer has to know the journey of the main character or characters, open-ended for series, closed ended for features typically. The concept, the starting point, must be clear, must be explainable in a few sentences.
And within that concept, within that defining structure, the writer needs to populate this conceived world with layered, clearly-defined characters. While the audience may not know their motives or their sub-conscious drives, a writer should. They should know everything about them, how they speak, think, act and feel in any given situation. The writer must have a very clear sense of the points of view of the characters populating their material. And these characters need to take part in a story with a beginning a middle and an end (moving forward I’ll only distinguish between genres if needed). The story needs to contain a drive for the main character, with obstacles in the way, emotion coming from conflict that builds and has momentum and stakes. This word in particular is one that you will hear over and over again as people constantly ask, “what’s at stake”? You must be able to answer that question. What’s on the line? Why are we investing in this emotionally? In any genre, you need to be able to clearly point to this throughout your story. And that story needs to contain scenes which consistently move forward, each scene must be purposeful to the story to continue momentum and hold the audience’s attention. Though only touching the surface, these elements are imperative to any script or story. There are many, many more elements but we can get into specifics down the line. As stated, this is the starting point, the view from on high of what must be in a script at the jumping off point.
So, if you’re reading this right now, open up your script to any random page and read with the question of “what’s at stake in this moment?” Or, go back and reread your current script and see if there are any scenes that don’t move the story forward and are excisable. Just a small exercise but you get the picture of how those medium-sized building blocks are essential to any Hollywood offering from studio blockbuster, to a culturally-defining TV hit.