The Premise

First of all a huge amount of gratitude to Adam for sending me this. His blog has great screenwriting stuff on it. Check it out.

At the bottom of this post there will be a link to a document I highly recommend any writer download and fill out for their project. Especially anyone wanting to start on the 14-Day Screenplay. It will really help you get your head around the story and the characters parts in it.

The first nine questions will help you get the premise of the story together. I recommend taking time to fill this out. Think about the answers. Answer each question with more questions until you get somewhere you like. If you only feel a little ‘ho hum’ about the answer keep asking questions until you are excited. You don’t want to get bored ten days into writing this because you didn’t think about the idea enough before you started.

1) What is the genre? A helpful thing to know because your genre defines the rules you have to follow. Sure, you can bend them and ignore them, do what you like, but remember the audience has a certain expectation when they wee a horror film, and another when they see a romance. The publicity people need to know how to advertise your film, don’t make life too hard on them. I’m sure we can all think of films that would have done better if they had been able to be advertised more easily, or films advertised as one thing that disappointed us because they turned out to be something else. If we’d expected what they were we would likely have enjoyed them a lot.

2) Who is your protagonist? Who is the main character in your book? You’re going to put this person through hell, so make them interesting. Care about them. They will be in you thoughts and dreams for those 14 days. Do yourself a favor and care about them.

3) What is the protagonist’s goal? Basically what journey is your person going on? Are they trying to stay alive? Are they trying to get laid? Are they trying to kill everyone? Are they trying to raise money for an orphanage? Are they trying to make a coat out of children’s pets?

4) Why must the protagonist achieve their goal? No-one cares about what your person does if there is no point to it. Are they going to look after Grandma? Don’t they want to be killed by the knife wielding maniac? Are they sick of being the only virgin in the school? Is everyone out to kill them? Will the kids all be used for medical experiments if the orphanage closes? Do they just like the feel of the pets on their skin?

5)What general course of action will the protagonist pursue? What is going to happen on their journey? Are they going to hop on the train to Grandmas? Are they going to try work out who the killer is then kill the killer? Are they going to try and become cool and get it on with the cheerleaders? Are they going to learn how to be a fighting machine and make their own form of Armageddon? Will they schmooze the rich and shoe them how selfish they are so they give money to the children? Will they let their kids pets breed to make a bigger coat, and coats for their friends?

6) Who is your antagonist? Who is trying to stop the protagonist achieving their goal? Try not to see protagonist as the good character and antagonist as the bad. In The Fugitive the antagonist is Tommy Lee Jones who is just doing his job, he isn’t bad. The protagonist in Talented Mr Ripley is Mr Ripley who isn’t good.

7) What is your antagonist’s goal? The antagonist’s role in the story is defined by the protagonist. Their goals must be in conflict. Dr Kimble wants to stay free and find his wife’s killer; Tommy Lee Jones wants to put Dr Kimble back behind bars. The pretty girl wants to live; the knife wielding maniac wants her to die. The goals must relate to each other, and you must know if they are achieved at the end of the film. A simple yes or no.

8) What general course of action will the antagonist pursue? How will the antagonist go about foiling the protagonists plans? Will he strap himself to an ACME rocket? What will be done? Will they work their way into the protagonists confidence then destroy from within?

9) Why must the antagonist achieve this goal? What is their motivation? If the audience doesn’t understand why any of your characters are doing what they are doing then they won’t care about the film at all. Give them characters they understand and even if they despise the methods used they will still follow along.