What goes into writing a great movie script?

Actors give better feedback than writers do.

Write in reverse time. Major characters need to change polarity; minor characters may remain the same at the end.

Your primary job is to create situations. Modern actors will fuck up your dialogue, despite whatever your contract says.

Aut explicabo sapiente quis consequuntur fuga consectetur fugit.

Leave holes. Write and unwrite. Put it in, take it out.

Cut everything that is not a payoff, or a setup for a specific payoff. “Omit needless words.” Think about the sparseness of joke telling, or Grimm Brothers.

A critical function of storytelling is wish fulfillment. This is why video games are so popular. “That protagonist is JUST LIKE ME.”

As Kamala Harris weighs a run for governor, some Democrats are moving on - The Washington Post

The DSM 5 is a wonderful character compendium.

Learn to tell a story orally and not through writing. Try telling your story to a friend.

Outline everything. Use story beats. Keep character’s mouths taped up, until they absolutely MUST speak. Write the script and the dialogue at the last minute, after you’ve revised the hell out of the outline.

First Map Made of a Solid’s Secret Quantum Geometry - quantamagazine.org

A scene should change valence from beginning to end. Up to down, down to up.

What you leave unwritten is as important as what you write. SUBTEXT.

Primary characters must change polarities. Secondary characters can change less.

YieldMax® ETFs Announces Distributions on XYZY, WNTR, SMCY, AIYY, MSTY, and Others - GlobeNewswire

Don’t direct from the page. Everyone, from the director on down, wants to be part of the process of making movies. Let them do their work.

To develop a unique voice for each character, try interviewing your characters.

All rules are made to be broken, but you damn well better know WHY you’re breaking them.

Nice Hat, Loser - aftermath.site

Audiences are smarter than you think. Something about turning down the house lights makes their IQs go up.

Only God gets it right the first time. Rewrite everything.

Conflict is your power source; without it you have no drama and hence no script.

Which job has the potential to become rich easily?

People choose what to see based on the high concept. Make sure to deliver an ending consistent with the high concept -- it is what the audience paid for.

Research the facts and then throw away the research.

Use status to help drive conflict. King Lear/fool. Upstairs/downstairs.

What is the more common way to say "you're welcome" in French: “De rien” or “Pas de problème”?

Get up there yourself. Be in a movie. Take some acting (not writing) classes. Learn how a trained actor approaches a text. Learn why actors take roles. They do as much if not more than the writer does.

Make sure to pack enough explosives into the rocket.

Maintain a slush pile/idea file. When you are ready to write, choose the best seeds to plant.

Why Circle's ‘Super Positive’ IPO Could be Bullish for Ethereum: Analysts - Decrypt