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Creating A Scene

Creating scenes in a screenplay requires including dramatic beats that change characters and create conflict. Each character should have different personas revealed through their actions depending on if they are alone, at work, or with friends/family. Scenes should keep stakes high by having characters risk physically and emotionally to achieve goals through fights or falling in love rather than small arguments or crushes. Important moments can be given weight through preparation or aftermath scenes where characters interact differently to underscore the major event's importance. Having a clear theme that each scene reinforces, such as the power of love, and using planting and payoff of clues or ideas helps create dramatic or comedic tension.

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50 views

Creating A Scene

Creating scenes in a screenplay requires including dramatic beats that change characters and create conflict. Each character should have different personas revealed through their actions depending on if they are alone, at work, or with friends/family. Scenes should keep stakes high by having characters risk physically and emotionally to achieve goals through fights or falling in love rather than small arguments or crushes. Important moments can be given weight through preparation or aftermath scenes where characters interact differently to underscore the major event's importance. Having a clear theme that each scene reinforces, such as the power of love, and using planting and payoff of clues or ideas helps create dramatic or comedic tension.

Uploaded by

Pierce J
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Creating A Scene

As you start your screenplay, remember these points as you attack each and every scene:
Every scene needs a dramatic beat (a moment of choice or change in the life of a
character).
Every scene needs conflict. Everything your characters try to achieve must come at a
large price, be it love, success, or just buying a newspaper at a newsstand.
Your task is to reveal your characters’ inner emotions through actions. Remember
that each character is really three different people: the friend and lover; the
professional/worker; the man/woman alone. Each persona allows you the opportunity to
reveal different layers of your character. For example, we are quite literally a different
person when we are all alone; when it’s just us looking into a mirror. It probably makes
sense now why so many films feature this simple moment: the man/woman gazing at
their own reflection in a mirror. At this moment, they may actually say or imply
something to themselves that reveals their true feelings. In contrast, we behave with a
different set of manners and attitudes while at work or when addressing a “superior.”
We’re a more relaxed version of ourselves when we’re among friends. We’re more
vulnerable around those we trust and love for the longest time; but we are at our most raw
when we are completely alone.
Always seek to keep the stakes of any dramatic situation high. Your characters should
risk all they possess, both physically and emotionally in achieving their goals. Don’t
settle for your characters having a little tiff when they can have a knockdown, drag-out
fight. Don’t let your character get annoyed at someone when they can get furious. Don’t
let someone develop a crush when they can fall head-over-heels in love. Remember, your
characters have to care A LOT for us to care a little.
Give extra weight to important moments in your screenplay. You can add weight to a
moment by adding a “preparation scene” (show characters getting ready for the important
moment) or an “aftermath scene” to an important moment. An aftermath scene is where
characters get together after the important event and behave toward one another with
changed attitudes that underscore the importance of the Major Event/Major Plot Point
that just occurred.
Having a clear idea of theme is a good idea before you begin to write. For example, if
your screenplay is really about the power of love, then every scene should touch upon
this theme in some large or small way, reinforcing the idea of love in either a negative or
positive way (sometimes the way to make the case for your theme is to show how
bankrupt life would be without it)
One way to create and hold dramatic or comedic tension is through planting and payoff.
You plant a clue or idea early in the script and revisit it later, finishing the thought or
idea. This “plant and pay-off” often is an explicit example of why your major THEME is
so important.

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