We write from the viewer backward.

What follows from this

1. Drama is conflict — someone wants something, and something stands in the way

   A scene plays when a character pursues something specific against resistance: another person, the world, or themselves. Without a want and an obstacle there is only event.

   What it constrainsBefore a scene is written, name who wants what in it and what stands in the way. A scene where everyone agrees, or where the want meets no resistance, is rebuilt around a collision or cut.

   Why it mattersThe audience's attention is a question — will they get it? Remove the obstacle and the question goes with it. Every lasting tradition of dramatic writing, from Aristotle to the studio story department, starts here.

2. Every scene turns — something is different when it ends

   A scene is a unit of change. A value at stake in it (safety, love, trust, knowledge, power) shifts from one charge to another, through an action or a revelation.

   What it constrainsName the value at stake and its charge at the start and at the end. If they are the same, the scene is cut or merged into one that turns. A scene that only carries information carries it inside a turn.

   Why it mattersA film is change felt in sequence. A scene that does not turn reads as delay however well it is written, and development readers count them.

3. Character is revealed in choice under pressure

   Who a person is shows in what they do when the choice costs them something. What they say about themselves, and what others say about them, proves nothing.

   What it constrainsEvery principal character faces at least one choice where both options cost; the greater the cost, the deeper the revelation. Never describe a trait the action does not show, and never let a character announce their own nature.

   Why it mattersAn audience trusts behaviour over testimony, on screen as in life. The choice is what they remember of a character, and it is what an actor needs to play anyone.

4. Write only what the camera and the microphone can record

   A screenplay records what will be seen and heard, in the present tense. A thought, a memory or a motive that never reaches the screen does not exist for the audience.

   What it constrainsNo interior states on the page ("she realises", "he remembers his father"): render them as behaviour, image, sound or a line. Action is written in the present tense and in pictures. Whatever matters to the story is put where the camera can find it.

   Why it mattersThe audience receives only picture and sound. Prose the camera cannot record misleads every reader of the script — actor, director, financier — about what the film will show.

5. People rarely say what they mean — the want lives under the line

   Dialogue is action: characters use words to get what they want, usually indirectly. The meaning lives in the gap between what is said and what is wanted.

   What it constrainsNo character states their feelings, motives or the scene's point outright unless saying it costs them, and then the scene is built around that cost. An on-the-nose line is rewritten so the want acts through it: deflecting, testing, bargaining, hiding.

   Why it mattersWhen the line carries the whole meaning, the audience has nothing to do and the actor has nothing to play. Subtext is what makes a viewer lean in.

6. Scenes connect by "therefore" and "but", never "and then"

   A story is a chain of causes. Each scene follows from the one before as its consequence or its reversal.

   What it constrainsBetween any two scenes the link is causal: because of this, that; or this, but then that. A scene that could sit anywhere, or follows only in time, is worked into the chain or cut.

   Why it mattersCausality makes events feel inevitable rather than arbitrary, and arbitrary events release the audience from caring.

7. Every payoff is planted, and every plant pays off

   What the climax needs — a skill, an object, a fact, a relationship — is set up earlier, and what the film sets up with weight, it uses.

   What it constrainsTrace each payoff back to its plant and each weighted setup forward to its use. A payoff with no plant gets one earlier; a weighted setup with no payoff is paid or cut.

   Why it mattersSetup and payoff are how a film rewards attention. An unplanted payoff feels like cheating; an unpaid plant feels like a broken promise. Chekhov's gun is the oldest statement of it.

8. The audience must know what is at stake

   A viewer can only fear for or hope with a character when they understand what will be won or lost, and why it matters to that person.

   What it constrainsBy the time pressure peaks in a sequence, the audience knows the goal, the cost of failure, and the clock if there is one. Stakes are personal — a consequence the character will feel, not an abstraction — and they rise across the film rather than being restated.

   Why it mattersWith unclear stakes, action becomes spectacle: the viewer watches but does not feel.

9. The protagonist's own action decides the climax

   The resolution comes from the protagonist's choice and action under the greatest pressure of the story. Luck, rescue or a sudden new power does not resolve it.

   What it constrainsAt the climax the protagonist acts — even when the act is to refuse, sacrifice or surrender — and that act decides the outcome. Coincidence may create trouble, never solve it. Every capacity the climax uses was established earlier.

   Why it mattersThe climax answers the question the film asked about this person. If someone or something else answers it, the film's argument collapses and the audience feels cheated; the deus ex machina has been faulted since Aristotle.

10. Exposition is ammunition — given when it is needed, inside conflict

    The audience needs a fact only at the moment it changes what they feel or expect. Given earlier, it is forgotten; given as a lecture, it is resented.

    What it constrainsHold each fact until the scene where it matters, and deliver it through conflict: a character uses it as a weapon, a lever or a confession. Never have two characters tell each other what both already know. Cut what the audience can infer.

    Why it mattersInformation the audience works for is kept; information handed over is skipped.

11. Enter late, leave early

    A scene starts as close to its turn as it can and ends as soon as the turn lands.

    What it constrainsCut arrivals, greetings, small talk and departures unless they carry the turn. Find the latest moment the scene can begin and still be understood, and end on the change, not after it.

    Why it mattersThe audience fills in a scene's edges; what it cannot fill in is the turn. Trimmed edges keep momentum and make every scene feel necessary.

12. Each character speaks in a voice of their own

    How a person speaks — their words, their rhythm, what they avoid saying — is character.

    What it constrainsCover the names and the speaker can still be identified. Two characters who sound alike are made distinct or merged. A voice is drawn from who the person is (background, want, fear, status in the scene), never from the writer's own register.

    Why it mattersA shared voice flattens a cast into one person and tells the audience the writer is talking. Distinct voices let actors build people and let viewers follow a scene by ear.

13. A page runs about a minute — the page is timed

    In standard format a page of screenplay plays for roughly a minute, and white space is pace.

    What it constrainsUse standard format. Keep action blocks short — about four lines or fewer, one image or beat per block. Length on the page is a claim on screen time: a moment meant to feel quick reads quick, and one meant to breathe takes room.

    Why it mattersEveryone who reads a script — producer, actor, scheduler — times the film by the page and feels its pace in the white space. A dense page plays slow in the reader's head and misreports the film.

14. The opening sets the world, the tone and the question

    The first pages teach the audience how to watch: what kind of film this is, whose story it is, and what question will carry them.

    What it constrainsBy the end of the opening sequence the viewer knows the rules of the world that matter, the film's tone, the protagonist, and a question they want answered. The opening belongs to this film alone, not to a generic establishing of place.

    Why it mattersViewers and readers decide in the first minutes whether to give a film their attention, and a script that has not caught a reader in its first ten pages is rarely read further.

15. Theme is argued through action, never stated as a lesson

    A film's meaning emerges from what its people do and what it costs them; the story tests an idea from more than one side.

    What it constrainsNo character states the theme as a moral. The opposing view is given its strongest form, usually through the antagonist or a counter-character. The ending's meaning is earned by the choices that lead to it.

    Why it mattersA stated lesson is heard as a lecture and resisted; an argued one is felt and remembered.