But Screenplay Writing Is Scary and I Don’t Know How to Do It

Upon my admission to DePaul and subsequent decision to pursue screenwriting, I entered the fall of my freshman year with a very nervous kind of excitement. 

I sat down on the first day of SCWR101 and listened to those around me speak about the plethora of career-related experience they seemed to have already, even before starting the process of earning a degree. I then had a realization that left me terrified: I had never written a single line of a screenplay. 

I was immediately overcome by feelings of impostor syndrome and felt unqualified, like I was falling behind even before I had been given the chance to try. But as I’ve learned through my involvement with the Writing Center, everyone is a writer– the only thing you have to do is start.

But where does one begin? 

Hopefully, you can begin right here! I’ve compiled some of my favorite strategies and tips for writing action lines in a screenplay– regardless of your level of familiarity with genre and/or format conventions.  

Writing Action: Ruthless Efficiency

If you’ve ever taken a film class before, I’m sure you’ve heard that film is a visual form of storytelling; while characters can go on incredible emotional journeys within the duration of a film, the primary journey they take is one of action.

In other words, films are stories about people doing things– the screenplay is merely a blueprint, the first part of an unfinished product. 

I found it especially hard to write good action when I was first introduced to the genre. Screenplay format is different from the narratives of other genres, not only because of the visual nature of film, but also because of the dual task taken on by a screenwriter to accurately express the tone/feeling of a story through the action writing itself while keeping the phrasing as efficient as possible.

The question then becomes: how can you write the most direct lines of action while still accurately conveying the tone of your story?

The Basic Function of Action in a Screenplay

Before that question can be answered, we first have to understand the basic function of action within a screenplay. Actions performed by a given character must either move the plot forward or illuminate an aspect of character– if the action doesn’t accomplish either of these things, chances are you don’t need to include it. 

Good lines of action are expressive, immediate, and streamlined in their focus, and serve one (or more) of the following three purposes: 

(1) to express action taking place in a scene

(2) to describe the location/arena the actions are taking place within 

(3) to introduce a new character into the story

Writers new to or unfamiliar with the genre often include thoughts/feelings/intentions of characters within lines of action similar to prose in literary fiction– and while the internal workings of your characters are important to know as the writer of a story, these feelings can’t be expressed by themselves within a film. 

Dialogue-heavy scenes can become a crutch used to tell audiences what is going on in a character’s journey without having to show it. But again, we must remember film is a visual narrative. 

I like to think about the feelings/thoughts of characters as a starting place from which an external result is immediately produced and expressed; the result itself has unlimited variance and manifests in relation to the want/need/flaw of the given character. 

This sounds kind of vague and broad and hard to do, but I promise it’s not as intimidating as it may seem. 

To understand how feelings can be expressed without having to say them, I’d like to go through an example from my all-time favorite show, HBO’s Barry. Allow me to set the scene.  

Barry is a former marine currently working as a hitman in Ohio. After taking a job for the Chechan mob in LA, Barry is confronted with the dissatisfaction he has for his career and decides to pursue acting instead.

For our purposes, I’m going to focus on how Barry’s dissatisfaction with his career is expressed through his action in the opening scene of the pilot episode. The unhappiness Barry has regarding his career can be felt, and more importantly SEEN before he even steps foot in the theater and makes the decision to become an actor. 

The pilot opens with Barry’s daily life, establishing his personal and professional routine as we see him perform a hit and return to his apartment: 

And once again after he agrees to take the job for the Chechans:

In both of these scenes, the audience is able to understand how Barry feels without him explicitly saying “I am lonely and dissatisfied with my career”. 

It’s particularly interesting in Barry’s case because of how close-mouthed his character is; not addressing something/avoiding obvious problems is a form of action in itself. While every single feeling he has may not be expressed directly, the result is often something that is built, pent up and then violently released.   

I could go on forever about this show so I’ll wrap it up by saying this: Barry is a great watch for anyone who loves dark comedies and/or Bill Hader, and the scripts are a real treat to read for anyone interested in screenwriting. 

Beyond the example we just looked at, the stylistic choices in how action lines are written make the script dynamic to read and really emphasize the visual element of screenplay writing. 

Writing Expressive and Efficient Action

Now that we have a better picture of how action lines function at a basic level, we can return to the idea of tone and how to express it most efficiently through your writing. Once the purpose of a given line of action is understood, the task of the screenwriter then becomes one of personal expression and efficiency of delivery. 

Below I’ve created a chart that I hope will help when trying to determine if a line of action has been written as effectively and efficiently as possible.  

TIPS AND TRICKS OF THE TRADE

Now that you know the basic purpose of action lines and how to write them efficiently, there is a little more room to play around with things like format and presentation. Here are a few tips of mine on how to make lines of action more stylistically expressive: 

• I like to use semicolons to link pieces of action together, particularly when an action is taken in response to something done or said by another character. 
• Stylistic choices such as dashes or ALL CAPS can be helpful not only to express the feeling of a given action, but also to ensure these moments stand out on the page. 
• Varying the structure of sentences and length of action blocks is important to maintain a balance of text to white space on the page and assist in the overall pacing of a scene. 

To further understand how format can help action in a script feel more dynamic, I’d like to show another example from an episode of Barry in season 2 called “Ronny v. Lily”. I find this episode in particular to be incredible in how the writers were able to translate such an action based story onto the page without disrupting the balance of text/white space and still keeping the reader active and invested in what will happen next.

As you can see, the scenes above use ellipses and dashes to transition from one room into the next and help the reader move seamlessly through the house. Ellipses can also be used to build tension or establish a unity of action between multiple scenes. 

Let’s take a look at the following scene:

Again dashes are used by the writers as a means of transition– not to move from location to location, but instead to link lines of action together using dashes and create a sense of cause/effect between them. The most important pieces of action are presented in all caps, which makes them stand out on the page and make the read more dynamic overall. 

Some Concluding Thoughts

The first rule of screenwriting is there are no rules in screenwriting– just “best practices” to guide your story in the right direction. 

Writing can be scary! 

Extremely scary! 

The task of telling a story is a broad one at that, and the endless potential that exists within it can get overwhelming fast. But if you take anything away from this article, let it be this: the most important part of storytelling is to write in a way that expresses your vision as an artist, even if it breaks the rules. 

As the Spring Quarter of my junior year comes to a close, I can’t help but laugh at my freshman self. She lacked seemingly everything it takes for one to call themselves a writer, but as I look back and reflect on everything I’ve learned in that time, I begin to poke holes in my old fears and repair my broken confidence with knowledge.

I hope this article can do the same for you. 

Works Cited

Berg, A., Hader, B. Barry, “Chapter One: Make Your Mark”. Television script. 2015. Scriptslug. 5 May 2022. [https://www.scriptslug.com/assets/scripts/barry-101-chapter-one-make-your-mark.pdf] 

Berg, A., Hader, B. Barry, “Ronny v. Lilly”. Television script. 2018. Storyfactory. 5 May 2022. [https://storyfactory.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Barry-S02E05.pdf]