What goes into writing a great movie script?

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

Actors give better feedback than writers do.

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

What is your daily motivation and does it work?

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

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.

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

Apple has already fixed iOS 26's biggest design crime - Creative Bloq

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

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.

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.

How Fast Are You Aging? Neuroscience Says These 3 Simple Tests Can Tell You - Inc.com

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

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

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

Why are Korean female leads so angry all the time?

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

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

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

Evidence piles up that Trump's tariffs are crushing job market - Daily Kos

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

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

The DSM 5 is a wonderful character compendium.

Chime Gets a Ringing Endorsement on Wall Street as IPO Valuation Hits $11.6B - PYMNTS.com

Research the facts and then throw away the research.

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.

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

Is it better for 2nd generation Western Muslims to marry someone from their parents' country or a western Muslim who was born and raised in the West?

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

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.

Make sure to pack enough explosives into the rocket.

What is your response when someone says "how may I help you"?