Narrative (Revisited)

Time to refocus our attention on screenwriting. Here are some things to remember when constructing the narrative for your screenplay.

Stories happen in real places.

Even when the worlds are fantasy, futuristic or other imagined, they are still very real to the people that populate them. To the characters that exist in your story, this is all they know. As such, the world you create must contain all the details that affect your characters and shape how they see themselves and their environment.

Root Your Characters in a Place

When situating your characters in a location, make that place specific. It is the details of a world which make it unique and memorable. Not specifying the surrounding environment runs the risk of pulling the reader out of your script while they try to figure out where your characters are supposed to be.

If they are in a house, what kind of house? Who’s house? Which room? If they are in a city, where is that city located? What do the buildings look like? The people? What kind of weather occurs there? (Think about it. Weather dictates how we dress in the morning. Knowing whether it’s hot or cold, wet or dry, will inform your descriptions of both the place and the people.)

While specificity matters, you want to avoid clichés. If you don’t know a lot about the…