My screenwriting teachers have always practiced ‘tough love’, & my fave writer-on-screenwriting is Goldman.
What they suggest is Asking:
1) What’s Happening, &
2) Why [should] I Care?
…& keep asking that, from the first page on. Flip it open to any page, & if the 2 answers aren’t immediately obvious, then there may be issues in need of attention.
Classic Structure is:
Act 1 ends w/ “Hero up a Tree” (with a tangible Want he must achieve… & best if it leverages the idiocyncracies of his Character)
Act 2 ends w/ “Point of No Return” (he’s already overcome increasingly impossible hurdles; but now he has to *truly* commit)
Act 3 climaxes w/ “He got [the tangible something], or He Didn’t”.
* Anything that doesn’t fit that thruline must be ruthlessly purged, or morphed into one that does.
* Any scene which has only 1 purpose must be rewritten
- (eg, backstory PLUS plot setup PLUS character-dev PLUS ‘something important happens’ PLUS *surprise*).
- My fave example: the final confrontation between Rutger Hauer & Harrison Ford in “Blade Runner”. But damn near every scene in “Silence of the Lambs” does multiple things too.
* & the Ending must be a Surprise, but Justified. Which means to me: Yes the guy gets the girl, but Not the way we expect, & she’s Not quite completely what he had in mind. Kinda like getting “3 wishes” in Dungeons & Dragons– wish for gold, & you get it… in the form of a avalanche that suffocates you.
Finally– “complex characters, & simple story. Or the reverse. But never both complex at once”.
Which is why “Something About Mary” or even “Dumb & Dumber” work; very straightforward/simple characters, in a world increasingly complex. Mary can be (accidentally) creative in her hair products, or even have a ‘heart of gold’, but she can’t have an emotional transformation. And neither does our hero… what he ‘succeeds’ at is steadfastness. Whereas “Annie Hall” has some funny set-pieces, but overall leaves tons of room for Woody to have an emotional transformation… his ‘pitfalls’ are all in his head, not in the scenery.
There– 1 yr of Screenwriting Classes, in 1 ‘post 
Tags: film-making