Franklin Leonard’s advice on screenwriting

The Black List founder gives his take on what the biggest mistake people make when writing a screenplay.

In a recent interview with Marriott Traveler, Franklin Leonard, former Hollywood production executive and founder of the Black List, was asked this question: What are the biggest mistakes that people make when writing a script? Here is his response:

Focusing way too much on plot — and then this happens and then this happens — and not enough on how does this make the audience feel. We don’t go to the movies for plot. We don’t go to the movies for information. We go to the movies to feel something, whether it’s to laugh or to cry, or to feel awe or to feel scared. If you don’t deliver those emotional sensations, no one is remembering your movie.

I couldn’t agree more. Franklin and I have discussed this subject at length, the power of story to engender and elicit emotion in a script reader is right up there with the preeminent commandment: Be entertaining!

But how to imbue a script with emotional content? The answer to that is both easy and hard.

The easy part is where to find the emotional core of a story: Characters. It’s their wants and needs, struggles and aspirations, inner and outer lives which comprise the essence of what translates into plot.

The hard part is how to tap into each character’s emotional life, then wrangle all that content into a coherent plot.

There is no simple approach. Rather, it involves the diligent work of immersing ourselves in the story universe and the lives of our characters, and directly engaging them in interactions and conversations. After all, it’s their story, they are the one living through all of the events. It just makes sense that we should lean into them to help steer us into and through the story-crafting process.

If we have the courage and patience to trust our characters…

If we respect every one of them as the protagonist in THEIR own story…

If we begin the process with characters…

And end the process with characters…

We will find the story in-between.

And with it, the pulsing heart and soul of the narrative, providing our script with a rich, vibrant, and compelling emotional life.

For the rest of Franklin’s interview, go here.

You can learn more about the Autograph Collection Hotel’s Indie Film Project Initiative here.