How to Write a Movie Script in Seven Days

Sounds crazy doesn't it, but it's true. Seven days from start to finish of writing your script. How does it happen? You plan it out. Now, keep in mind this is a tough love, you want this script written, nothing holds you back plan and with that, it requires a few days of planning. Ten minutes a day, the week before, sitting down and brainstorming by asking your self one question "how did my hero get here, here being where he needs to be, but not where he wanted to be". That one question is, like attenuation is to amplification, the key to writing a script.

Most people fail on writing scripts because they have an incredible beginning, and a pretty clear idea of the ending, but the desert of Act Two kills them. That's where they stop writing, put it in a drawer and forget about it. As soon as you do that, you know you have lost. If you have a stack of such scripts in your drawer, then you know you need to finish reading this because this is written for you.

I can offer you two things, one, that it's relatively easy, and two, that it get's easier as the days go on.

Day One...

The key is the ending. Start with the basics; is your hero alive at the end of your film? Yes, then he has to be close to death (emotionally, physically, mentally) at the beginning. If he is dead at the end of your film, then he has to have everything going for him at the beginning, every reason to live. Congratulations, that was your first ten minutes. Ask yourself why you want them to live, or why you want them to die. Why do you want to write a story like this.

The setting, time, place, location, etc, those are all details that can be worked out because in actuality, it doesn't matter. Consider Shakespeare, set all his plays in the Globe Theatre yet he took his audiences around the known world and they believed it. They believed it because the actors believed it.

Day Two...

Does your character gain, or do they lose? Do they rise to who they want to be? Or do they get their comeuppance and lose everything. Again, ask yourself why you want to write a story like this.

Day Three...

Are they the victim of circumstance? Or do they make their own future? This is a big difference in the type of hero you have. Does he live his life and trouble comes to him? Or does he go in search of something?

Here is a truth about stories, there are only two. For the last six thousand years there are only two stories. Either a hero goes on an adventure, or a stranger comes to town. Day three is where you figure out how your hero deals with the change in his life.

Day Four...

Are they saving themselves? Or are they saving someone else and putting themselves at risk? That says a lot about your hero and yourself. If they are saving themselves, they have to be thrown off balance, and the best way to show that is by them making a tragic mistake. If they didn't make it, life would be great, all would go along fine, but in making it, they throw everything out of balance. If they are saving someone else, then they are the least person expected to do the job. They are not Superman, they are not Batman rather they are just the ordinary guy thrown in an extra-ordinary situation.

Day Five...

This is a fun day, you get to pick your genre....murder, romance, thriller, horror, discovery, adventure, western, you got a lot of choices.

Day Six...

Now you pick your setting. Space, Old West, Haunted House, isolated town, make it somewhere where the Hero is out of place simply because of whom he is inside.

Day Seven...

Outline. Now that you have all the details, write an outline for your script. Have seven headings in this order: Introduction, problem, plan, execute, fail, regroup, lose everyone, go alone, victory

Now, each one of those sections should be nine pages long in your script. This is your first draft; you will adjust in later drafts. In this draft you need to write, don't worry about details like location descriptions, people descriptions, time of day, all of that can and will be sorted in later drafts, what this is is your raw ideal on paper and that's the most important part. That sets you apart from 90% of people that "want to write a movie script"...this makes you in the elite already just for having a completed script.

There are numerous books and websites that tell you how to fine tune your script, you can Google and find more than you can ever hope to read. I'll list a few at the end of this article. That is not what I am talking about though in this article. To be able to fine tune your script, you must have a script to fine tune. That's what this article is about. Take the time, dedicate yourself one week to just get it out, and then spend the quality time you need to make it tighter, sharper, better.