“Show, Don’t Tell,” another of the most frequent mistakes found in newbie screenplays. You can say more about a relationship in trouble by seeing a husband eye a pretty young thing as he and his wife are walking down the street than by three pages of dialogue about how their marriage counseling sessions are going. Movies are stories told in

stories are about change. And the measuring stick that tells us who succeeds and who doesn’t is seen in the ability to change.

The basis of the “Turn, Turn, Turn” rule is: The plot doesn’t just move ahead, it spins and intensifies as it goes. It is the difference between velocity (a constant speed) and acceleration (an increasing speed). And the rule is: It’s not enough for the plot to go forward, it must go forward faster, and with more complexity, to the climax.

Every character has to have a unique way of speaking, but also something memorable that will stick him in the reader’s mind.

A catchy logline and a killer title will get you noticed. A well-structured screenplay will keep you in the game, and knowing how to fix your script — and any other script you may be presented with — will get you a career.

If your script feels flat, if you are getting the sense that something’s not happening in the story, do a quick Covenant of the Arc check and see if you need to do more work on making everybody change and grow and transform. Everyone, that is, except the bad guy.

It’s a truism that the easiest people to sell are salesmen. I

we still want to see justice meted out for characters we hate and victory granted to those we admire.

There must be sin committed