Do you want to write a short film script without any inspiration? In this case follow my recipe and you will be able to impress yourself!
Start already by writing a simple story. You have no inspiration?
OK... then think of something that you would like to do that you can never achieve.
Then develop your story around this idea. You can't do it?
OK... the end of your story is the goal you set for yourself: "desire not achievable". Then search the internet or elsewhere for people who have successfully achieved that kind of goal. See the steps these people had to take to reach it. Then, among all of them, identify the stages that you could have experienced during your own journey. After, with all these elements, write a first story respecting an organic chronology. Finally read it over several times and correct your story as many times as necessary until you are satisfied.
Once the story is written, it will have to be divided into seven parts:
- 1 - The starting point is a need that you have defined
- 2 - The next step is the desire to meet this need
- 3 - The 3rd stage is the obstacle which will prevent reaching the objective.
- 4 - The 4th step is the establishment of a plan to deal with this obstacle
- 5 - The 5th step is the implementation of the plan, or the confrontation with the opponent.
- 6 - The 6th is the result of this confrontation, success or defeat, the lesson learned by the main character.
- 7 - The 7th is the moral part: how did this experience impact his life?
If your story does not respect this diagram, in this case it will still have to be corrected until you achieve this division into seven parts.
After this big step, identify all the characters in your story. Once done, describe each person's story as precisely as possible on one or two pages.
Now read your story again and see if in each step the actions correspond to your characters. If this is not the case, either you have to review the character file, or its action is not consistent with your story. So you have to correct one of the two. You don't know which one?
You should know that if your character is well constructed, well defined and well developed from all angles, whether it is his personal history, his strengths, his weaknesses, his morals, etc... in this case you must review your plot. I remind you that the plot is the arrangement of the events and actions of the character in your story.
If, on the other hand, you notice that the climax, the high point of your story is not impactful enough because your character is too light or not fleshed out enough, in this case you will have to make some changes to the character level. You will have to make him more interesting by, for example, reversing some of his values or accentuating his character, good guy becomes bad boy. Actions will obviously have to be revised accordingly to his new personality.
Before Don Quixote, for 2000 years authors used Aristotle's method which favors plot over character. But since the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th Don Quixote, the novel, has become the dominant means of narration, the authors favor first the character then the plot for the construction of the scenario, even if it is true that the two are closely linked. Just as a reminder, Aristotle classified the 6 constituents of dramatic art as follows:
Aristotle
1) plot
2) character
3) Meaning
4) dialogue
5) music
6) show
Don Quixote
1) Character
2) Plot
Now that everything is structured, analyze the theme: is the moral debate really worth developing? If yes, do not change anything and make it progress, otherwise find a theme that is better suited to your story. Tell yourself that the theme of a scenario is easier to replace than its structure.
Now analyze the universe of the main character, does the universe you have developed make it possible to expose in an interesting way the evolution of your character? If yes it is perfect otherwise it will have to be developed and enriched.
Visual symbols help audiences understand the values conveyed in a film. So I advise you to introduce symbols corresponding to the theme of your story.
Once this is done, you will have to identify the plot (s) of your story, these are fleeting actions that will give the main character a hard time. If there is none, you have skipped one of the stages from the start. In this case, you will have to integrate it.
If you have reached this stage, I congratulate you! That means you have a strong story that you can turn into a short film script.
Now you have to move on to weaving the scenes. What's this ? This is the timeline of your scenario also the step outline. Each stage is a scene, and a scene is an action that takes place in a specific place at a period of the day, if you change place or period in the day, it becomes a new scene.
In this weaving, carefully describe everything that you think is useful and important for each scene: the scenery, the characters' outfit, their mood, their state of mind, the actions, the twists and turns and even the ideas of dialogues that inspire you.
For the writing of the scenes respect the chronology of your story, then the scenes must be written in a harmonious way, avoid banal dialogues: "hi - it's okay - and you - etc ...". As for the first scene, it must be original and surprising because it is the starting note, the one which gives the rhythm to the film and which will allow the public to hang on to it or not.
Important to know: do not forget to write openings and closings of scenes. For example, when the scene ends with an object, a sound, a landscape, a place, an action, etc ... you have to open the next scene with an element that comes close to it so that allow the scenes to be connected to each other .
Have you finished writing your scenes? In this case bravo, but it is not finished! Now you will have to focus and re-read your scenario several times to define what is going well and what is wrong. For that during the readings you must ask yourself the right questions: "this part, this action etc ... is it useful, credible, why, the public will he understand, etc ...?". If the scene is not convincing, it will have to be corrected. You will need to repeat this exercise until you are satisfied. When you correct your scenario save it each time under a new version (version 1, 2, 3 etc ...)
Now that you know the formula it's yours, and good luck!
Screenwriter / Film Director