Page One: ‘Collateral’ (2004)

Written by Stuart Beattie

Here’s the movie version of the scene:

Was it an accident? Was it a brush pass? Yes, you can do that in scene description. That’s an example of what I call Narrative Voice where you think of scene description as dialogue. Whose dialogue? An invisible character.

You may write the story. They tell the story. And that’s Narrative Voice.

Page One is a daily Go Into The Story series featuring the first page of notable movie scripts from the classic era to contemporary times. Comparing them is an excellent way to study a variety of writing styles and see how professional writers start a story.

For more Page One posts, go here.

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