What goes into writing a great movie script?

Don’t direct from the page. Everyone, from the director on down, wants to be part of the process of making movies. Let them do their work.

What you leave unwritten is as important as what you write. SUBTEXT.

Research the facts and then throw away the research.

Here's How Much Traders Expect Apple Stock to Move After WWDC - Investopedia

Use status to help drive conflict. King Lear/fool. Upstairs/downstairs.

Audiences are smarter than you think. Something about turning down the house lights makes their IQs go up.

Cut everything that is not a payoff, or a setup for a specific payoff. “Omit needless words.” Think about the sparseness of joke telling, or Grimm Brothers.

What is a good tool for product analytics besides Google Analytics?

Actors give better feedback than writers do.

Leave holes. Write and unwrite. Put it in, take it out.

All rules are made to be broken, but you damn well better know WHY you’re breaking them.

37 Hidden Gems On Amazon That’ll Make You Think “Where Have You Been All My Life?” - BuzzFeed

Conflict is your power source; without it you have no drama and hence no script.

To develop a unique voice for each character, try interviewing your characters.

Outline everything. Use story beats. Keep character’s mouths taped up, until they absolutely MUST speak. Write the script and the dialogue at the last minute, after you’ve revised the hell out of the outline.

Do you think most people would rather be a certain race or are most people happy with the race they are?

Learn to tell a story orally and not through writing. Try telling your story to a friend.

A critical function of storytelling is wish fulfillment. This is why video games are so popular. “That protagonist is JUST LIKE ME.”

Only God gets it right the first time. Rewrite everything.

In an interview Donald Trump said Taylor Swift could be a success in the music industry if she was not so liberal. What do you think? Is Trump correct that Swift is failing as a singer and should listen to his advice about her politics?

Make sure to pack enough explosives into the rocket.

A scene should change valence from beginning to end. Up to down, down to up.

People choose what to see based on the high concept. Make sure to deliver an ending consistent with the high concept -- it is what the audience paid for.

Scientists Discover Exercise Creates 'Youth Molecule' That Could Reverse Aging In Muscles And Bones - Study Finds

Write in reverse time. Major characters need to change polarity; minor characters may remain the same at the end.

The DSM 5 is a wonderful character compendium.

Maintain a slush pile/idea file. When you are ready to write, choose the best seeds to plant.

How an unnoticed pregnancy complication almost ended a young Staten Island mom’s life - SILive.com

Your primary job is to create situations. Modern actors will fuck up your dialogue, despite whatever your contract says.

Get up there yourself. Be in a movie. Take some acting (not writing) classes. Learn how a trained actor approaches a text. Learn why actors take roles. They do as much if not more than the writer does.

Primary characters must change polarities. Secondary characters can change less.

Researchers get viable mice by editing DNA from two sperm - Ars Technica