Any advice you can give

Scriptsearch · Apr 30, 2015

Hey everyone. I have recently been tasked with writing a short (45 Page) Sci-Fi script. I do not have a whole lot of scripts under my belt, but I really want this one to be great and stand out. Basically, the film revolves around wormhole technology. Lots of profound ideas and concepts will be utilized. Like I said, I would really like this script to be great, so, if anyone has any advice to give about any aspect or screenwriting or even interesting scientific occurrences, I'd appreciate it.
Thanks for any help

sfoster · Apr 30, 2015

unfortunately profound concepts by themselves do not make for an engaging film. You've got to bring in a human element and make people feel.

Ernest Worthing · May 1, 2015

Read everything you can find on building characters, story and writing scripts that you can find. Plenty of resources available online for free.

Goodluck!

Kingda Ka · May 4, 2015

Sfoster is spot on. I majored in Lit in college. Understanding the structure of a story is like a musician when they first become able to hear individual notes. It's the tools of the trade, and there is no substitute for doing it over and over.

The most common mistake writers make is getting too full of themselves and forgetting the Audience is God. Nobody except your mother wants to see your opinion on a movie screen.

I would advise against high concept stories until you have a few, simple ones under your belt. Use your A-Story to appeal to males and B-Story to appeal to females. Tolkien had plenty of sword fights for the menfolk, and the suspense of poor, defenseless Hobbits facing the greatest evil in the land brought in the female fans. High concept stories are a new twist on an old story - Trials of Hercules, Jason and Golden Fleece, Hansel & Gretel, Grail Quest, etc. Any of the sort of hero journeys Joseph Campbell wrote about. Star Wars was based on Campbell's 'Hero's Journey.'

maz · May 4, 2015

Pitch it again, this time in terms of the characters, the peril and the conflict you want your story to contain. Characters are key, unless you're going to have a talking wormhole.

Although to be fair, a lot of movie people seem to talk out of their wormholes...

writersandfilmmakers · May 4, 2015

Why 45 pages?

I'm sure you've read up on Einstein's need for wormholes to exist.

FantasySciFi · May 5, 2015

Every sci-fi script nowadays invokes wormhole technology. As such, I'm not sure the technology should be the focus. As others said, movies are about people and their conflicting goals. Good luck.

Kingda Ka · May 6, 2015

I don't know how helpful wormholes are to physics, but they save writers pages and pages of space flight between galaxies.