London Screenwriter's Festival - Making a good script GREAT!

This weekend I was lucky enough to go to the London Screenwriter's Festival. As a novice screenwriter, I wasn't sure how useful this excursion into the industry would be. I have no scripts I'm trying to shill, not yet anyway, and am really in learning-mode. What I did have, however, were two near-completed scripts (one of which is now done). So it was with great interest that I attended a talk by Kate Leys, a script developer, who was delivering the talk: "Making a Good script Great!"

I could not have been more thrilled by this talk. Leys is charming, funny, intelligent, caring, passionate and very knowledgeable.

There were a number of talks I was looking forward to and they all paid off but Leys was, in my humble opinion, leagues above the rest. I came in with lofty expectations and walked out smiling and blown away. In fact, her analysis of Jaws was so brilliant it seemingly unclogged a lot of backed up writing in me and I spent the entirety of the next talk I went to scribbling notes.

Some of her advice I had heard earlier, such as getting the log line or "hook" perfect. Yet she was clear that there is no formula for success. There are commonalities between scripts that seem to be necessary components for success but are not always sufficient. In short: don't take these as rules carved in stone so much as helpful guiding principles.

I wont transcribe the whole talk here. That would be rude, as she deserves money and attention for her talk, but also unfair as I'd no doubt fail to get across the ideas with the same strength and humour. What I will do is briefly list the top ten suggestions I found most intereting:

1. Your characters should be hyperbolic but to avoid cliché cast the characters with real actors.

2. If you're ever stuck on a script create conflict. "Throw rocks at them," explains Leys.

3. Don't protect yourself. This means, you shouldn't worry about getting your characters into a problem you don't know how to solve. Even if you think there's no way out of a certain situation for your character don't be afraid to write it - the longer you work on it the more likely you are to figure out the solution. If it's simple the audience will pick up on it immediately. You have to fool your audience. This advice reminded me of what magician Penn Jillette said about performing "impossible" illusions, which was something like: "You may think it's impossible because you've spent maybe an hour working on the problem. But what if you spend 200 hours working out how to do it?" That's how magic works and maybe that's how writing works too.

4. Causality: Everything happens in the script because of actions set up within the script.

5. Unity: All secnes and sequences are unified by a theme.

6. Tell someone your story and ask them to repeat it back to you. Make notes on what is most remembered and look for anything that is forgotten.

7. Ask yourself: Whose story is it? What do they want? Why can't they get it? And maybe the most important question: What does your character need and why can't they do/get that?

8. Somewhere between what your character wants and what your character needs is the heart of the drama.

9. If there's something that can be cut from your script: Cut it and see how it looks! It can always be added later.

10. The only thing that really matters is your ending.

She is really, very good. If you're a screenwriter and looking for some constructive feedback please check out her website: http://kateleys.co.uk/