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The Scene, Well Written
One Good Scene Deserves Another
While we’re on the topic of scene work, let’s examine what makes a scene pop in a screenplay.
What are the essential tasks of a scene in a screenplay? They must do two essential things. Move the story forward and keep the audience engaged.
One Job at a Time
A scene is the hardest working member of your screenplay team. It has the most things to do at once. Along with plot and story, a scene reveals character and theme. It holds a reader’s interest with story questions. It conveys tone and mood.
In order for all that to be accomplished, a scene convey only ONE ESSENTIAL piece of information that advances the plot.
This information is the overall point of the scene. This is the big reveal of that scene. This is what everything in the scene is about.
This information drives the plot forward and generates the story question at the end of the scene that keeps the audience wanting to know more. It’s what you put in beatsheet to describe that scene.
A Clear Objective
Most scenes in a movie involve your main character because they should always be the agent of their fate. However, that does not mean that your main character is always the protagonist of every scene. When you…
