Common script notes I give and how to fix them

As a manager, a producer, and script consultant, I read a lot of feature screenplays and TV pilots. These are the notes that come up most often.

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Since January of this year, I have done 61 consultations with screenwriters.

Each consultation involves reading the writer’s full feature or pilot script and putting it through this framework. Then I sit down with the writer via Zoom and give them my biggest, most overarching notes first. As we move through the conversation, I can start talking about smaller and narrower fixes.

After the meeting, I send them a recording of our conversation and write up a summary of the Top 3 Recommended Changes for their script.

These are the biggest recommendations because they:

1. Will have the biggest impact on improving the reader’s experience.

2. Will affect the script the most with changes that happen as a result of them.

There’s no point in offering notes on individual lines or typos if a glaring plot point is missing. There’s no point in giving notes on a scene that might get written out of the script altogether.

So, although many writers would prefer to go into their screenplays and do rewrites consisting solely of small, sentence-level tweaks, the reality is that most scripts need to be torn apart and started from the beginning.

And that’s okay!

If you throw out most of your first draft, that draft was not a waste of time.

It was a crucial step in helping you get to this even better second draft. But feeling married to what you have put down on the page can be detrimental. Even if a scene or moment is working, it’s not worth keeping if it isn’t adding to the overall goal you have for your story.

Letting go of your first draft and making big, sweeping changes in your rewrite takes a leap of faith.

It requires believing in yourself as a writer. Believing in your ability to write this script not just again, but again even better.

With the right notes and the right amount of courage, your second draft will retain the essence of what got you excited about this story in the first place.

But the structure of your script might be completely different.

Before you even get to the stage of the writing process where you get notes from a trusted friend, manager, or script consultant, you can do this process yourself.

First, I recommend taking a break from your script for as long as you can. A few weeks or even a month are ideal.

Then go through and re-read it.

In today’s article, I list the 7 most common Top 3 Recommended Changes I have for a writer when I do a consultation with them.

This way you can see if they apply to you before you send your story out into the world for feedback.

Recommendation #1: (for TV Pilots) Structure your pilot episode so your main character has a proactive goal.

This goal is an objective the character has at the beginning of the script that they definitively do or don't achieve by the end of the episode.

This conclusion is what launches the Central Dramatic Question of your season. The Central Dramatic Question of your pilot should run directly through your show's theme and be related to the central relationship of the series. The goal (or mystery) should be external and specific.

Most writers realize that the pilot episode launches the story for the rest of the season.

But a common mistake is ending the pilot with a cliffhanger without resolving a pilot level story.

You need to do both.

An audience needs every episode of television to resolve something for them. Even in a heavily serialized show, each episode definitively solves a piece of the puzzle or gets the character past some specific obstacle.

If you’re using this script as a sample to get you hired or repped, you also need to demonstrate to your reader that you are capable of telling a story in the time allotted.

This story should have its own beginning, middle, and end centered on its own dramatic question.

Baby Reindeer, source: Variety

Examples:

BABY REINDEER (2024, Netflix) - click here for access to the original script.

Central Dramatic Question of the Pilot: Who is Martha really?

Donny’s Goal for the Pilot: To be successful at performing stand-up comedy.

Bridgerton, source: Manchester Evening News

BRIDGERTON (2020, Netflix) - click here for access to the original script.

Central Dramatic Question of the Pilot: Will Daphne succeed at securing a marriage prospect for the season?

Daphne’s Goal for the Pilot: To secure a marriage prospect for the season.

Recommendation #2: Show what it is about this premise that will make your TV show (or movie) so interesting for an audience to watch.

While structure is important, the whole reason anyone watches a movie or TV show is to be entertained.

This means Act One needs to establish that big “How.” How is all of this going to go down? How is your show delivering on the Promise of the Premise? How is your movie fulfilling the promises of the genre? How is your protagonist going to go about accomplishing their goal in an interesting way?

What is the big complication that will make this difficult?

Who is the antagonist that will try and stop them?

What tactics will your protagonist use that will make them so interesting to watch? What tactics will their opponent use that will make them so interesting to watch? What kinds of set pieces can we come to expect?

The more of these questions you answer by the end of Act One (or by the end of your Pilot episode), the better.

The “How” highlights and emphasizes the unique concept and distinct emotional angle into your story.

What is the "but" of your movie? The part of your 1-2 sentence pitch that is surprising and never seen before?

Many experienced writers who have taken classes and studied screenwriting extensively forget this part. They’re so focused on hitting the correct story beats that they forget to infuse their script with the special sauce that makes their version of the story different.

And that difference is required to make your work stand out in a competitive market.

Examples:

BABY REINDEER- How does this show deliver on the promise of the premise?

In the pilot, Baby Reindeer explicitly promises to be a thriller based on a true story.

Every time we watch Martha do something increasingly deranged, every time Donny handles the situation with cringe-inducing humor, the promise of the premise is fulfilled. On a more tactical level, the promise of the premise is that Martha’s tactics as a stalker, her threats, and her humorously creepy emails will escalate. Because this show is about stand-up comedy, watching Donny try his routines with varying levels of success is another Promise of the Premise.

Watching Donny try to manage Martha’s volatile emotions without triggering violence or encouraging her affections is another Promise of the Premise.

Donny’s attempt to thread this needle between kindness, boundaries, and curiosity is what makes the engine of this show so uniquely compelling.

Other shows about stalkers don’t implicate the victim in such a nuanced, self-conscious way. Other thrillers about stalkers are usually about men pursuing women, not this other way around.

The unique power dynamic is what makes this show fascinating.

BRIDGERTON - How does this show deliver on the promise of the premise?

Bridgerton promises to be an anachronistic period romance.

It delivers on this promise by showing us sweeping, escapist world-building of a version of 19th Century England that never existed. It gives us fancy parties with spectacles, gowns, and string covers of modern Top 40 hits. In the screenplay itself, this tone shines in the contrast between the period dialogue and the cheekily modern action lines.

It delivers the rom-com story with tried and true tropes.

The setup of the pilot is classic rom-com “pretending to be in love for external gain.”

Every time we watch the characters flirt, deny their true feelings, and struggle with their desires in tension with the demands of society, the show is fulfilling its Promise of the Premise.

What is the big complication that will make this difficult?

Daphne’s goal for the pilot episode is to secure a prospect on the marriage market.

The complication for her is that even though she did everything right and is extremely desirable, her overprotective brother chases off every single prospect with his too-high standards.

The conclusion of the Pilot finds Daphne making an arrangement with Simon: He will pretend to be her marriage prospect so that she will once again be desirable to all the other eligible bachelors in society.

This launches her season-level goal of finding a love match to marry.

Because we, the audience, know the tropes of romance, the Promise of the Premise at play here is that we know she and Simon are ultimately going to fall in love.

So the show needs to give them some interesting complications that we are excited to watch them overcome:

Anthony, who knows Simon from school, is convinced that Simon will not ever marry. Does he know something that Daphne, Violet, and even Lady Danbury don’t?¹

True to the tropes of the genre, Simon and Daphne have a chemistry, but they also do not get along. They offend and bristle at one another in every interaction. Not to mention, the additional complication of Simon being the most eligible bachelor on the market. Daphne is going to find herself many antagonist women trying to get in her way here², most notably Cressida who seems in the pilot to be set up as the villain of her peers. As well as Lady Whistledown, who is setting herself up as a character who can make or break a woman’s reputation—the most important weapon that a woman can wield in the marriage market here.

All of these elements are pieces of context that are clearly and explicitly stated and acted out in the hour-long pilot episode.

If you like this type of story, you’re pulled in immediately and can’t wait to keep watching.

If this show isn’t for you, it’s probably because you don’t like romance in the first place.

That’s how clearly the Promises of the Premise should be understood and conveyed to your reader.

This isn’t just true for TV shows.

Movies need to answer these questions by the end of their Act One.

Shrek, source: The New York Times

SHREK (2001) - click here for access to the original script.

Central Dramatic Question: Will Shrek succeed in rescuing the princess Fiona?

Goal for the script: Rescue the princess Fiona from her curse.

By the end of Act One on p34, this script has promised that the movie will include the following components (Promises of the Premise):

1. Satirical subversions of fairy tale tropes (both on a grand, story-level scale and in small, punny joke moments).

2. Shrek scaring cowardly humans.

3. Donkey being cheeky and friendly with Shrek despite Shrek’s curmudgeonliness (Donkey’s comedic voice in general is a big draw here. Their dynamic is a huge part of the selling point of this story and why it works).

4. Comedic action set pieces (We get one right before Act One ends).

How is your protagonist going to go about accomplishing their goal in an interesting way?

Shrek problem solves by literally barreling through obstacles, not following the rules of fairy tales, and using creativity to solve problems.

The reader can anticipate that watching him slay the dragon and save the princess will not be the same old boring fairy tale story we’re used to (and they would be right).

Donkey and Shrek’s teamwork is the “How” that will make this interesting.

The set pieces we expect are big action fight scenes that challenge our assumptions about what always happens in a fairy tale.

Thinking ahead to the actual movie, the most iconic, memorable, and funny moments are the moments that deliver on both of these big promises.

Let’s do one more.

John Wick, source: The Guardian

JOHN WICK (2014) - click here for access to the original script.³

Central Dramatic Question: Will John Wick succeed at killing the man who stole his car and killed his dog?

Goal for the script: Kill the man who stole his car and killed his dog.

By the end of Viggo’s explanation of who John Wick is on p32, the script has made the following promises:

1. Car action chase scenes.

2. John is involved in some sort of organized crime with Russians.⁴

3. Violent high stakes.

4. Badass gun action.

5. Gentlemen’s agreement and loyalty among criminals in this violent underworld.

6. Viggo as a character is a promise. His threats and old Russian man demeanor are a big hook in terms of antagonist we get to watch here. He threads civility and barbarity in a fascinating way.

7. And we even get a taste of how fun it’s going to be to watch Iosef get his comeuppance for his despicable actions.

Most importantly, humans are very unwilling to forgive violence against cute dogs. Way less willing than we are to forgive violence against other humans. We are promised that the man who did this will get worse revenge than he ever bargained for, and because Act One started so emotionally, there is a bloodlust within us.

We want to see it.

Recommendation #3: Strengthen the movie's Central Dramatic Question.

The main character has a goal or is trying to solve the answer to a mystery.

It should be launched with clarity through the perspective of your main character's experience by the end of Act One. This question will take your reader from the beginning to the end of your film. It should be external and specific. The audience knows what we can expect to see play out on screen if the character succeeds and what will happen if they fail.

If any of these elements are missing, your movie’s Central Dramatic Question won’t land:

1. Reader can name the exact CDQ that you’re intending (clarity).

2. Reader is legitimately interested in the answer to the CDQ (stakes).

3. Reader can reasonably expect the CDQ to be answered on screen by the end of the movie (external, achievable).

If you’re missing any of these, you need to launch the CDQ in a stronger way:

To make the CDQ clearer, have a character specifically state it.

To make the CDQ higher stakes, have the reader experience why the goal is so important. Or have the reader experience the clash between expected and unexpected that launches a profoundly interesting mystery. Also, it’s okay to have your character say the stakes explicitly.

If the reader can’t reasonably expect the CDQ to be answered on screen by the end of the movie, try writing out exactly what we will see happen if the character succeeds. What will we see happen if they fail? When the mystery is solved, who will explain the answer and in what setting? Once you have these details hammered out, you can go back and rewrite your CDQ if need be.

Sometimes it’s helpful to give your character a deadline to be working towards.

That way we know exactly what action set piece will be occurring in that Act Three when we get the answer we have been waiting for.

Examples

SHREK - The Central Dramatic Question of this movie is “Will Shrek succeed in rescuing the princess Fiona?”

Technically, this question is launched on p1 When Shrek is reading the legend from the fairy tale book. But the audience isn’t specifically asking the question with clarity until the very end of Act One. By this time, we understand why Shrek cares to succeed (for selfish reasons, so he can get the fairy tale creatures off his land), we understand where the impetus for the quest is coming from (Lord Farquaad is tasking him to do this), and we see how he came into Lord Farquaad’s awareness through the tournament.

Now all that’s left is to follow him on the mission.

JOHN WICK - The Central Dramatic Question of the movie is “Will John Wick succeed at getting revenge on the man who killed his dog?”

We experience this question in the form of John Wick exacting revenge on every single mechanic who was even associated with Iosef.⁵ We legitimately care because we were there with him while he was grieving, and we saw that the dog was more than a dog to him—it represented his love of his dead wife and the purpose for living that she brought to him when he was at his lowest.

And since we know where Iosef is, where Viggo hangs out, and we have seen what skills John Wick possesses, we can reasonably expect him to accomplish this goal by the time the credits roll.

Recommendation #4: (for TV pilots) Launch a strong and specific Central Dramatic Question for your first season.

Make sure your reader knows, specifically, what your main character is trying to achieve from episode to episode as we follow them into the story.

Sometimes I’ll give a writer this note, and they will say that the reason the audience will keep watching is because of the characters, the world, the stakes, the themes, or the humor. These are all necessary components in a TV show (as explained in Recommendation #2). But they’re not enough to keep your audience invested.

You still need a strong and clear structure.

We need to know what goal your character will be pursuing all season. And we need to reasonably understand, with clarity, whether this goal is definitively achieved or failed by the season finale.

Make sure that this objective is tied to their internal motivation. What is the most important thing in the world to them?

Examples

BABY REINDEER - Donny’s goal for the season is to become a successful stand-up comic.

Yes, the hook of this show is him struggling against his stalker. But this is explicitly because the stalker is simultaneously propelling his career forward and sabotaging it. A powerful and compelling engine. By the end of the episode, we see him looking at his comedy props. This is what triggers him to make the choice to accept Martha’s friend request.

There is even an external, specific mentioning of the comedy competition that he is working toward (p28).

It’s not just that he is dealing with a stalker. It’s not just that he’s trying to become a stand-up comic. What makes this story so fascinating is how the goal and obstacle are intertwined.

And if you watch the whole season, you will see how the stalker escalates against this goal and ultimately pays it off in the finale.

BRIDGERTON - Daphne’s goal for the season is to find a love match to marry.

She is explicit about this in the pilot (p45). By the end of the episode, we see the “How.” She is going to pretend to be interested in Simon to attract interest from someone else. But we also see her chemistry with Simon. We know that ultimately the story is between the two of them.

Our question for the season is Will Daphne and Simon overcome the issues that stand between them and find love with one another?

The other elements of the show (The world, the drama, the scandals, the balls) are all going to be the obstacles that come between them and make this question so fascinating to watch play out. But their pairing up at the end of the episode makes it clear that their story is the love story that will pull us through the season.

And by the time we get to the finale, Daphne is either going to be married to a duke or suffer the worst fate she could possibly imagine: Being a spinster.

Recommendation #5: Dig deeper into your main character's specific backstory.

For the audience to get invested in the story, we need to understand what your main character’s trauma is.

How has this resulted in a specific weakness? What lie has your main character internalized as a result of their wound?

How does the character’s pursuit of the goal force them to let go of that lie and embrace the truth that is the lesson of the movie (or TV show)?

Examples

BABY REINDEER - Donny’s trauma is explicitly laid out in its full depth in a later episode. But it is touched on throughout the pilot script:

• p7 - “I had moved to London to fulfill my lifelong dream of becoming a comedian—but for whatever reason, found myself twenty-seven, working in a bar, living with my ex-girlfriend’s mother in a broken old house miles out of town… I had arrived with such grand plans to be someone. As though my brand of whacky, bullshit, comedy, was exactly what this world leading city was missing—But London red carpets for no one. It’s like waking up one day to find yourself a background artist in a cast of millions.”

• p13 - “You’re already doing it—some people run away by packing their bags—others run away by standing in the same place for too long—”

• p23 - “Someone hurt you, didn’t they? I can see—you’re a warrior with a chink in the armour—a wounding of some kind—(beat) Was it a woman? A heart-break?”

Donny’s internalized lie is that he is an average comedian of average talent.

A nobody.

He’s never going to make it in this town on his own merit, but he can use the story of his professional stalker stalking him to make him feel special and give him something interesting to talk about in his act.⁶

What makes this story doubly interesting is that we also get a pretty clear vision of Martha’s backstory and internalized lie. I don’t have room here to go through all the characters in each of these examples. But I encourage you to go through the script and pull references to Martha’s backstory and wound.

What is her internalized lie?

BRIDGERTON - Daphne is a very privileged girl in a blue skies, escapist story.

But she still has trauma⁷. This trauma comes from the expectations she is saddled with by the society she lives in:

• p46 - “You have no idea what it is to be a woman. What it might feel like to have one’s entire life reduced to a single moment. This is all I have been raised for. This is all I am. I have no other value. If I am unable to find a husband… I shall be worthless. If I am unable to find someone to love me… I shall be useless. You have rendered me useless to society…”

Daphne’s internalized lie is that if she can’t find a love match she is of no use to society. Her wound is that her family has been training her her entire life for this, so she doesn’t know what else to do with herself if she can’t fulfill this very narrow role that has been laid out for her.

We feel for her stakes and we also hope to watch her find her voice and her strength throughout the season.

We even get a little taste of her potential to grow when she actually throws a punch at a man and talks back to a Duke. Daphne might be demure, but she is not weak.

SHREK - Shrek’s internalized lie is that because he is ugly, he is unworthy of love.

We see this when he rips out the page of the fairy tale book on p1 of the script. He literally wipes his ass with it, showing us his disdain for such stories because he is so outside of them. They could not be less relevant to him.

Shrek’s insecurities are well-founded. We spend Act One watching humans act revolted and fearful of him based on his looks. It’s clear that he is bothered by this, even when he pretends not to be. But this movie also uses a light touch to demonstrate this. Sometimes less is more with backstory. In this film, the backstory is there. But it’s not oversold. There’s no scene of him being abandoned by his parents or rejected by a former lover. We don’t need a specific tragedy.

We see the way society treats him. And that is enough.

But these examples aren’t vague. In Act One, we get three separate instances of humans explicitly trying to kill Shrek because he is gross and scary:

1. Villagers with pitchforks.

2. The government official rounding up fairy tale creatures.

3. Lord Farquaad tasking his knights with killing him.

Each time, Shrek prevails because his grossness and scariness intimidates and overpowers the cowardly humans.

That’s what makes his friendship with Donkey so delightful. Donkey is the first character to not run away and treat him as a disgusting creature. Even though Shrek outwardly says that he hates Donkey, the script is very explicit that he is touched by the creature’s behavior towards him (p13):

SHREK: NO! I’m an ogre! You know—’grab your torch and pitch forks’! Doesn’t that bother you?

DONKEY: Nope.

SHREK: (a little surprised) Really?

DONKEY: Really, really.

Shrek is suddenly disarmed.

SHREK: Oh…?

This moment shows Shrek’s hidden desire for connection and his potential to one day be deserving of it. It creates a chink in Shrek’s internalized lie and for the first time he starts to feel hopeful about his ability to form a real relationship.

But it’s going to take all movie for him to finally openly admit that.

JOHN WICK - John Wick’s internalized lie is that without his wife, he is a man who is defined by his violent actions.

We spend the first half of Act One learning that without Nora, John lets his home and even his beloved car fall into neglect and disrepair. His lonely, sparse morning routine exemplifies the way his grief has made him sleepwalk through life.

He doesn’t wake up from this until his dead wife (who knows him better than anyone else) calls him out on p7:

NORA (V.O.): But you’ve still got a life ahead of you, and I intend for you to live it. You may think you’ve hidden things from me, but you haven’t. I know you. And should this reach you in time—which I pray it has—I beg you, I implore you, to stop. To think. To live.”

Nora represents John’s best impulses. And the dog she gives him brings out the peaceful man that he could be.

When he loses this dog in a violent attack, he sinks back down to the level of the man he once was. The man he fears he truly is. And this backstory is given explicitly. There’s no dancing around it, no vagueness, no ambiguity (p30)⁸:

VIGGO: His name is John Wick… and when he was fifteen, he lied his way into the marines and headed off to Vietnam. He specialized in force-oriented reconnaissance, meaning he often crossed over into enemy territory to both collect information and—should the opportunity present itself—fuck with the enemy in whatever way that he saw fit…

John earned four hundred and seventeen confirmed kills over the course of his five tours. The majority of those were done by hand, by blade, and by small caliber… which is unheard of.

It got to him, though. Hell… How could it not? Even though he won every military distinction on record, including the Medal of Honor—Joh was eventually discharged with high honors, of course—and found himself in the city… lookin’ for work…

John was the goddamned boogeyman; give him a name, request a method, and he’d get it done. Come hell or high water, by God… he’d get it done. Then one day, he fell in love and left the game. The years scrolled by, age set in, and he—like myself—had to watch the love of his life die. Suddenly alone, with no family to speak of, John deserved to live—and die—in peace. Instead…

You went and killed his fucking dog.

Chills.

After watching the love of his life die with him, falling in love with his dog with him, and seeing the brutality committed against the animal with him, this monologue locks in our understanding of who he is with crystal clarity.

And we are ready to go along for the ride.

Recommendation #6: Clarify your Central Thematic Statement (or Central Thematic Question, if you prefer).

For a longer deep dive into why Theme is important and how to give your script one that resonates, read the deep dive I wrote about it here.

The steps to infusing your story with meaning are:

1. Figure out what you are trying to say. What do you want your audience to take away from this movie (or TV show) experience?

2. Make the character’s internalized lie the negative version of this theme.

3. Give the character a goal that will require that they let go of the lie and learn the truth of your theme by the end of the story.

4. Give them an opposition that will challenge them like they have never been challenged before. Eventually, they’re not going to be able to continue to deny the lie that they have been telling themselves.

5. Figure out whether you want a happy ending or a tragic ending.

6. If you want a happy ending, the character learns the lesson and achieves the goal.

7. If you want a tragic ending, the character does not learn the lesson. They either fail the goal, or they achieve the goal and realize that it isn’t what makes them happy.

This framework is absolutely an oversimplification.

But if you’re struggling with your script because you don’t know how to make it meaningful to your audience, it’s a good place to start.

A word of caution: You can’t half-ass theme. You cannot pay lip service to it. If you incorporate a character arc that feels phoned in, your reader will see right through you. This means don’t include a theme, a character arc or a wound simply because you know that a script needs one. If you do this, it will not resonate, your reader will not care about it, and your reader will get annoyed because they will feel like the writer is lazily trying to manipulate them

For a theme to work, it has to be something you are legitimately interested in exploring or saying. You don’t need to know what this is before you start writing your script.

But you do need to figure it out before you finish the draft that you expect someone else to read and care about.

Examples

BABY REINDEER

Central Thematic Question: Does using our trauma to inform our art actually heal us from it?

BRIDGERTON

Central Thematic Question: Is it possible to fulfill our family obligations while also creating a happy life for ourselves?

SHREK

Central Thematic Statement: True love is about what is on the inside, not what’s on the outside. So, you can’t have it unless you’re willing to trust someone by showing them who you really are.

JOHN WICK

Central Thematic Statement: When everything is taken away from you, it’s tempting to give in to your darkest impulses. But the greatest act of strength is to give yourself the permission to move forward and start your life again.

Recommendation #7: (for movies) Give your Act One a structure.

I started this article by talking about how your Pilot Script needs a beginning, middle, and an end.

But what if you’re writing a movie?

Act One of your movie needs to establish:

1. Who is your protagonist?

2. What is their goal for the movie? (the Central Dramatic Question)

3. How can they expect to go about accomplishing this goal? (Tactic, How)

4. Why is this going to be so interesting to watch? (Antagonist, Promise of the Premise)

5. What will happen if they fail? (External Stakes)

6. Why will it be so bad if those stakes happen? (Emotional Stakes)

7. What is the character’s internalized lie/weakness/wound?

This is the information your reader needs to know before they will get invested in your story.

If they need all this to get invested, how do you keep them around long enough to learn it?

You give your Act One its own beginning, middle, and end.

Act One should have a goal or a mystery to hook your reader’s interest for the first 30 pages. Once they get the answer to that Question, the question for the movie is launched.

Let’s see how our example movies use the structure of Act One to pull us in:

SHREK - As discussed, the CDQ of the movie is “Will Shrek succeed in rescuing the princess Fiona?” But this question isn’t asked explicitly until page 34. So what gets our interest up until this point?

A smaller goal.

Shrek’s goal for Act One is to preserve peace, quiet, and privacy on his swamp land.

When we first meet him, he’s happily going about his gross daily routine. This routine is interrupted by villagers with a “Wanted Creatures Reward” sign on p3. The reader gets to spend the next few scenes watching various people challenge Shrek’s peace and quiet:

1. Villagers with pitchforks - Succeeds in chasing them off.

2. Government officials - Succeeds in chasing them off.

3. Donkey - Fails at chasing him off (he’s too ingratiating).

4. Fairy tale creatures - Fails at chasing them off (there are too many).

This leads to the first proactive action Shrek takes in the script.

In an effort to chase the fairy tale creatures off his land, he seeks help from the ruler of the kingdom: Lord Farquaad. This request is successful, only in that Shrek will get his land back if he goes on the quest of the movie.

This gets us into the quest of the movie.

There is also a sub-question pulling our interest through Act One: What does Lord Farquaad want? We learn through the world-building of his government’s actions that he wants to be king of a perfect land, free from any ugliness of any kind, including fairy tale creatures.

Notice how the antagonist’s goal directly centers on the theme of the movie and on Shrek’s personal emotional wound.

John Wick - Even though John Wick is a goal-driven movie, Act One is structured around mystery.

As we read the script (or watch the film), the compelling question is, “Who is this John Wick guy, really?”

It’s hinted at a little bit on p7 when Nora says, “You might think you’ve hidden things from me but you haven’t. I know you.” A curious reader might ask: “What has he been trying to hide from the love of his life?”

But the most explicit and exciting launch of this question happens on p10 When John Wick speaks fluent Russian to a threatening stranger.

This surprising skill makes us wonder what probably violent past he is hiding.

There are technically no rules in screenwriting as long as the script is entertaining to your reader. But generally, a good rule of thumb is that your Act One question should be launched by p10, the Inciting Incident of the movie should happen by p15, and we should understand with clarity all the information required from Act One by the end of p35.

Why are so many of these recommendations focused on Act One?

The purpose of this article was to talk about the most common “Top 3 changes” I give to writers during script consultations.

My top recommendations are usually centered on Act One. Why? Because if Act One isn’t firing 100% on all cylinders, then Acts Two and Three don’t matter. I’m trying to give the biggest, most upstream notes. These are the notes that will end up changing scenes that happen later down the line.

So there’s no point in focusing on Act Two or Act Three unless all the Act One moments are locked in.

1. Duh.

2. This is explicitly state by Eloise on p11.

3. Why am I crying on p7 while rereading this script omg.

4. If you’re watching this for the first time you might guess that he could be former CIA, but I am counting that as a category of organized crime :)

5. I am talking here about the script version. The movie moves things around a bit, but the resulting question launch is still the same.

6. One could argue that the fact that he turned this story into a limited series that turbocharged his career ends up tragically reinforcing his internalized lie rather than helping him get over it. This meta-experience of watching the show work through Donny’s (and Richard’s) wounds is what makes it so resonant.

7. Trauma doesn’t need to be violent or upsetting. It’s all relative. It can be an objectively awful experience or a comparatively benign one. What matters is that it has damaged and hurt that character and resulted in their insecurities.

8. Again, I am quoting from the script here, not the movie. The movie is slightly different (probably because Keanu Reeves was 10 years too young for the character as originally written) but the main idea is the same.