I’ve read many, many opening sequences. Their importance to the success of your story
is at the deity level. Here are a few
ways to help your opening pages set the stage for scripting stardom:
Borrow A Copywriting Technique
There’s a rule of thumb in ad writing that you
should spend 50 percent of your time on the headline and 50 percent of your
time on the rest of the ad.
You can think of a logline as your headline (and
yes you should spend a good amount of time getting it right), but it also makes
sense to imagine your first five or ten script pages as the headline of a
magazine ad. In those early moments,
you’ve got to sell your reader on your story.
Assuming you’re writing a 100 page script, while
you probably shouldn’t spend 50 percent of your writing time on the first ten
pages, it definitely makes sense to spend considerably more than 10 percent of
your time on the opening. If your
opening is great, you’ll get some leeway in later moments, even if a particular
Act Two segment doesn’t wow a reader, but if the opening doesn’t work, it’s
nearly impossible to drag a reader on board later, even if you have some really
good stuff in the middle.
When you’re revising a script after feedback from
others, if there’s a moment that’s really resonating with your readers, and if
it makes any sense to move it up to the opening sequence, do it. It can make a huge difference.
Open Right Away With Something Somebody Wants
When it makes sense, try to create mini dramas in
the opening pages. Set up something a
character wants (an outer goal) and make another character opposed to that
goal. It doesn’t have to be the primary
goal of the main character. It just
needs to be an objective with opposition.
Letting a mini drama play out on screen while you establish your world
will often increase audience engagement.
Don’t Open On Minor Characters
I see this a lot actually. For whatever reason, a lot of writers start
with minor players. There are several
reasons to avoid this practice. First
off, it’s disorienting; the reader isn’t sure whose story it is. Second, it’s not good for casting; you want
talent prospects for your leads to find their parts up front, not buried
underneath a cameo. Third, keeping minor
roles on screen early takes time that you could and should be using to develop
your main characters. Presenting and
establishing key characters early is essential to engaging your readers.
Make It Extra Lean
While you want to make all of your script fairly
fat free, it really helps to keep that opening quick, with lots of white space
around the words – again, the idea of a headline comes to mind. Keep it catchy and concise. If you draw your readers in with a fast-paced
intro, you can get away with a bit of wordiness later. But if you have any way to avoid it, don’t do
wordiness early. The wordy bird doesn’t
get the worm.
Take A Chance
With spec scripts, it’s not enough to avoid
mistakes. You have to proactively
impress. So take a chance on a dicey
joke or an unusual set up. There’s so
much competition that you’re not going to win gold with a low difficulty
dive. Try for that super-triple-twisting-flip. If you end up belly-flopping, no
worries. Just try again on a rewrite.
