WELCOME:This blog is assembled and contributed to by writers who are interested in developing the craft of screenwriting. We've created a number of exercises that will aid you as a writer. Use it by selecting an exercise and following the instructions listed within. For a more detailed and organized list of exercises, visit the category pages. If you'd like to contribute an exercise, email basil@beingmedia.com. This website is now optimized for the iPhone & iPod Touch. Thanks for visiting! |
Written/Contributed by Hal Ackerman
Two people are in bed. A siren or alarm is heard. Or the phone rings. Or a doorbell. WRITE THE SCENE.
You will have to ask yourself: Who are these people? Who are they to each other? What are the immediate circumstances? How does the alarm affect them? What do they do? Are they at cross-purposes? How so?
Place ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances or extraordinary people in ordinary circumstances.
Written/Contributed by Hal Ackerman
Do this with a writing friend. Each of you separately concoct a perfect crime: Circumstances, motive, execution, getaway. Perpetrator. Victim. Write it out in some detail.
Then exchange papers. Create a character who will solve this crime. How will the hole in the plan be discovered? By what means of detection?
Written/Contributed by Hal Ackerman
Two cars, a sports car and an SUV arrive at the same parking spot. Write the scene or sequence of scenes in
a. A Romantic Comedy
b. An Action Adventure
c. A Film Noir mystery
d. Science Fiction
You may change the vehicles and characters inhabiting them as you please.
Written/Contributed by Hal Ackerman
Write the full name of your character down the left side of a page, one successive letter on each line. On each line, write a true statement about the character (or from his/her voice) beginning the first word of each line with each successive letter of the character?Ç‚Äôs name. So for a character named Holmeyer:
He lives with a rabbit
Open hearted
Loves bridges
Means well
Ebbs when he should flow
Yearns for love
Even tempered
Runs from life
Try it with all your main characters. (Try it with your own name)
Written/Contributed by Hal Ackerman
1.Open the phone book Yellow Pages to two random pages, and select two businesses. Move two characters from Point A to Point B by whatever means you invent. Invent a good reason for the journey. Reveal that intent skillfully. If it?Ç‚Äôs huge, understate it. If it?Ç‚Äôs trivial, exaggerate.
2. Pick one of the following topics and write a dialogue scene between those two characters, exploring and disputing the topic fully.
a. Standard shift vs. automatic transmission
b. Leaf blowers
c. Teeth
d. Class seating on airplanes
e. Vegetarianism
f. Paying for cable TV
g. Burning CD?Ç‚Äôs
h. Any other mundane topic in the world.
As in every good scene, use the interchange not only to explore the issue, but in doing so, reveal who the characters are, individually and in their relationship to each other.
3. Orchestrate part 2 into part 1 and write a sequence of scenes.
Written/Contributed by Hal Ackerman
In a series of one-line (or at most, two lines) impressions, make a litany of all the times you ?¢‚Ǩ?ìbroke the rules,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù Lied, cheated, stole, set fire, pilfered, prevaricated, deceived. (eg: Poisoned my sister?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s gold fish. Enjoyed it. ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú Took joy rides in the family car at age 14 while parents were in hospital.
b. Extract the juiciest of all those incidents. Write it as a story, in prose. However long it takes?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùa page, 10 pages.
c. How would you adapt it to a screen story? Make a running order of the scenes. Would you need to invent other scenes to dramatize events that were mentioned in the prose version? How would a movie audience know who the characters were and what was important to them?
Written/Contributed by Hal Ackerman
What is the thing or person that irks you most. Lawn
sprinklers that spot your car? TV Ads? War? Politics? People who apply
makeup while driving?
Write a furious diatribe against it. Attack it. Lacerate it. Vent your
spleen. This will be the document that ends the thing that you hate.
When you have done, write PART 2. With equal commitment, honesty, depth,
passion and insight, be an advocate for the issue you have just attacked.
If it was a person, write his/her character piece about you.
This site was initially established by Basil Shadid and produced by being MEdia as a way to develop the screenwriting craft. He wanted exercises that would challenge his abilities as a writer. billie rain, an amazing writer and editor, came on board soon after, to create new exercise ideas and to hone the ideas that already existed.
Enjoy!
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