If given a choice of characters to identify with, the audience will choose the one who acts the most like them — at least, the way they believe themselves to be. That means the character that’s vulnerable, fair, humble, caring, hiding a secret or making the best of a bad situation. The most human character.

The only cure for feeling bad about not writing is, well, writing. So sit down and do it.

Don’t fight your influences — use them. If you want to emulate the style of your favorite screenwriter, go ahead. If you make it even halfway there, you’ll be halfway to writing like a professional screenwriter.

Pure, unrepentant antiheroes are fun to write, but self-reflective ones are even better. If they know that what they’re doing is wrong, you get a free source of internal conflict.

We can only ever know what the script chooses to tell us. If we never see a date or any indication of time, how can we know the story is set in the 1920s? If the protagonist never expresses her inner flaw or wound, how are we supposed to know what’s wrong with her?

Your protagonist doesn’t have to get the best lines, the coolest moments or the funniest jokes, but she does have to get the most powerful emotional scenes.

A novelist’s job is to translate the world. A screenwriter’s job is to translate the world into a movie.

The role of the romantic interest is to challenge the protagonist and shock her out of her regular mental and emotional pattern.

Conflict doesn’t always mean two people fighting. Create conflict in the minds of the audience by having one character know something the other doesn’t, or by letting the audience know something none of the characters know.

When is it okay to stop the action to explain or describe an element of the scene to the reader? When they wouldn’t be able to visualize it otherwise, e.g. an exotic sport, a mutant creature, a completely alien landscape, etc.