How to Start Your Screenplay - Starting with a Bang

What happens after fade in? Image you're sitting in a dark theater and the lights go down, the music starts and what... as a screenwriter that's what you have to decide before you even sit down to write. Writing is an organic process and is different for everyone.

You might have scenes in your head but no idea how to put them down on the paper. Every writer has his or her own process from getting from point A to point B.

The best way I have found to get a script up and running is to start with a conflict. Conflicts are what keep the story moving, without it, you do not have a story.

Create obstacles for your protagonist to have to over come. When people go to the movie and claim to identify with the main character, they are likely identifying with the conflict the main character my have found him or herself in.


None of us can ever really be the protagonist on the screen but we could have certainly had some of the same experiences or been in some of the same situation as the protagonist.

That is what the moviegoers is identifying with, the conflict. Another good place to start is from taking real events that may have happened to you or someone you know and dramatize them.

People watch, you never know you might see, someone might do something that sparks an idea for the start of your script.

Some writers like to free write just get a piece of paper and write down without editing any and everything that comes to mind until they have dwindle the idea down into something workable.

Others like to use outlines and draw out the process one step after the other the point is to uncluttered the mind.