For me and many others, I have accepted that being good at screenwriting is really about being good at editing. And editing is really just asking a serious of questions.
I personally like to outline my stories before I ever write scenes or dialog. I try to answer all the questions first.
The questions are meant for use during story development but may also be useful at other times, too.
If You Can’t Answer These 6 Questions You Don’t Have A Story – Glenn Gers
The Six Main Story Questions by Glenn Gers
- Who’s it about?
- What do they want?
- What do they do?
- Why doesn’t that work?
- Why can’t they get it?
- Why doesn’t that work?
Other Useful Questions
- Who is the main character and what do they want?
- What does the main character want and what are they trying to avoid?
- Do my characters have established relationships that existed prior to the scene?
- Does each character have their own objective?
- What is the psychological perspective of the character that is challenged?
- Does each line of the script move the story forward or tell the audience something new?
- Does my story have a clear beginning, middle, and end?
- What is the hook and at which point during the script does it occur?
- What is the Takeaway for the film? What is the message of the film? Is this how I want to contribute to the world?
- What does the audience know? And what does the audience not know?
- What does the main character know? And what do they not know?
- Are you telling instead of showing?
- What types of conflict are present in your story? You might find this article on the 7 Types of Conflict in Literature helpful.
- What type of story structure are you using? This article about 7 Narrative Story Structures may help you decide.
