What goes into writing a great movie script?

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

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

Research the facts and then throw away the research.

Here's Why Rational People Skip Vaccines Even When They Trust Science - ScienceAlert

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

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

Make sure to pack enough explosives into the rocket.

NASA warns: massive anomaly spreads across Earth, linked to mysterious forces beneath the surface - Glass Almanac

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.

The DSM 5 is a wonderful character compendium.

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

How do you get started in bestiality with a dog as a male?

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.”

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

Apple Pulls Ad Campaign Fronted By SNL Star Just One Day After Its Debut - LateNighter

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.

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

Actors give better feedback than writers do.

EleutherAI releases massive AI training dataset of licensed and open domain text - TechCrunch

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

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

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

Was Annette Funicello really that talented? Why didn’t she have a bigger career beyond the Beach Party movies?

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

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.

Why do men suck dick? Me, I can't get enough

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

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.

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

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