What goes into writing a great movie script?

Research the facts and then throw away the research.

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

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

What are some effective ways to cope with loss and grief?

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

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

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

Mother Diagnosed with Stage 4 Colon Cancer After Doctors Mistook Symptoms During Pregnancy (Exclusive) - AOL.com

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

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.

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

WWE Raw GM Adam Pearce Announces Final Entrant In KOTR Tournament Match - Wrestling Inc.

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

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.

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

Why do I sometimes hear full conversations when I am alone?

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

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

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.

If the world was flat, would it be possible to see Mount Everest if it was on the other side of the Earth on a clear sunny day?

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.

Actors give better feedback than writers do.

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

My friend asked my crush and he said my crush hates me but not in a rude way. What does that mean?

The DSM 5 is a wonderful character compendium.

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

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.

Rory McIlroy destroys tee marker but survives cut at U.S. Open - NBC Sports

Make sure to pack enough explosives into the rocket.

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

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

Is the Trump-Zelenskyy meeting a preview of what the US is going to do to Taiwan?