I just finished reading screenplays for the Austin Film Festival and have probably learned more in that endeavor than I did in all my writing courses.  I reviewed over 150 screenplays and passed maybe 15 onto the next round.

I’ll be honest, I’m still searching for someone to produce my screenplay and my novel is yet unpublished, so by no means do I have any credits under my belt.  I may not know how to write an Oscar winning screenplay or a Newberry-worthy novel, but I now know how NOT to write a story.

I’ll start with the basics of what you do when determining the story structure of your screenplay:

• Start your story at the catalyst or just before catalyst.  Basically, have a really good reason for starting the story where you do. 
• You should really get to your first major turning point (or the point of no return) by page 30.  You can stretch that to 35 or 40, but there better be a good reason for it.
• Keep increasing conflict and tension and reach the climax of your story about 10 to 15 pages before your screenplay ends.
• Keep your script under 120 pages.  There are exceptions to this rule, but if it is your first script, have someone help you get the page count down to below 110 pages…no one likes to read that much and few stories can pull off the extra time.

OK, so there are the basics of how your screenplay should look.  Yes, some of these rules are flexible, but if you are reading this article then chances are you haven’t sold your script yet.  I can take a wild guess that most of the scripts I read for the competition hadn’t sold yet, either.  So follow them.  It’s readers like me who determine if your script goes to the next level or not.

If your screenplay is worthy of 130 pages, still cut it down.  Like I said, you probably haven’t found a producer for it by now and few production companies like looking at long scripts from unknown authors.  You can always add the pages back AFTER you sold it.

So here’s some of the common problems I saw that you should try and avoid.

• Ever express emotion through dialog.  Movies are visual and audio, that’s it.  Use these to your advantage.  Instead of having your characters tell the audience how they are feeling, do it through action. 
• Explain anything that you can do through subtext.  If they are resentful or happy, do it through action or other dialog, but without blatant explanation.  Let the characters EXPRESS how they feel without telling it.
• Put excessive action or narrative in the action section of your script.  Action verbs are key.  Instead of saying “he shut the door hard and then put his face in the pillow” say “he slams the door.  He buries his face in a pillow.”
• Have your characters standing around doing nothing.  Talking heads are boring.  Take the movie forward by developing it through dialog AND action.
• Repeat the same activity over and over again unless it changes.  Groundhog Day is a great film that has a character whose reaction and demeanor changes over time as he is exposed to a repetitive event.  That’s fine, just make sure that if you use this same technique, have your characters change. 
• Put your characters on a steady journey to happiness.  Make it hard on them!  People need conflict in order to bring out the true nature of characters.  Use it. 
• Over-describe your characters.  If your character has brown eyes for a reason that’s relevant to the story, great.  Otherwise leave it out. 

Those are just some of what I came across.  Read screenplays, good and bad.  There are online communities and local groups of people everywhere who are willing to read and critique each other’s scripts.  You can get a great feel for what to avoid by reading amateur screenplays. 

Happy Writing!