Right. These things called \’movie scripts\’. How, actually, do you write a screenplay? I\’ve got a map for you. A top level description of a great process to follow. Ten points that, if you take them in order, are simple screenwriting gold.

1. Make your audience care. Get a person at the heart of your story who is deeply loved. Make terrible, awful things happen to them.

2. Decide which genre you\’re writing, and stick closely to the expectations of that genre. You can blend a couple, in fact that\’s probably a good thing, but don\’t be surprised if your genius comedy-ghost-story-political-thriller-tragedy never gets made.

3. Happy Ending. You need one. Not because they are better (though personally I think a truly joyful ending that doesn\’t feel cheesy is many times more difficult to write than a tragic slice of gloom) but because producers like to see them, because the feeling in the industry is that Happy Ending = Bigger Box Office

4. Love your hero, and force them to choose between two equally powerful alternatives at the end.

5. You need a villain you absolutely love too. The clever thing to do with your villain is make sure they are explicitly designed to stop your hero getting what they want. And will go the extra mile on this. Even if it hurts. Especially if it hurts.

6. Never ever go to script until you\’ve got the entire shape of your story worked out. Know what the ending is, what happens to your hero, and how you\’re going to get there. Write that whole outline up as a prose document before writing a word of dialogue. This is called a treatment.

7. Think about getting a gang of your friends to read the treatment. If three or more of them pick up on a point independently, you might have a problem there. If enough people say something it is probably true.

8. Pick the first paragraph in your treatment. Think about it over and over again, visualise it in the bath, when you wake up, when you are walking along the street. Visualise what happens until you can run it through like a little movie in your mind, seeing what happens, almost hearing the dialogue. This will be your first sequence.

9. Get that mini-movie down on paper, as fast as you like. Don\’t worry too much about layout right now, that can come later. But just write those scenes so they\’re vivid, and real and make you feel something when you read them back.

10. Repeat steps 8 and 9 over and over again, until you have got to the end of your treatment.

You have just finished your first draft.

Format it. Print it. Weigh it in your hand. Admire it. You should be proud. Few people get this far. And if you followed these steps, it\’s going to be far more readable than anything else you have written.