Scriptageddon Academy

Repairs: Concept & Premise · Protagonist Development · Theme & Meaning · Originality & Creative Identity

1. Module 1 · 8 min

   Want versus need

   The gap between what your protagonist chases and what they actually have to learn is the engine of the whole screenplay. Read the full lesson, then find the page where those two collide.

   Read the full lesson

   A want is external, stated, and chaseable: win the case, get the money, reach the border. It gives your story a finish line and lets the audience keep score. A need is internal and usually invisible to the character: forgive the father, stop performing, admit the fear. It gives your story a reason to exist.

   The engine is the gap between them. When the want and the need pull in opposite directions, every scene can force a small choice, and the accumulation of those choices is what an audience calls character. If your protagonist's want and need point the same way, there is nothing to dramatise — they simply succeed and the story flattens into a series of events.

   The climax is where the two collide and the character must sacrifice one. Give up the want to get the need and you have written a redemption. Take the want and refuse the need and you have written a tragedy. Both work. What does not work is getting both handed over for free, which is the single most common cause of a hollow final ten pages.

   Reactivity is almost always a want problem, not a personality problem. A character who does not want something specific enough to act cannot drive a story, so the plot starts pushing them around and readers feel it immediately, even if they cannot name it.

   Drill: Write your protagonist's want in one sentence starting with a verb, and their need in one sentence starting with 'They have to learn'. Then find the page where they first have to choose between the two. If that page does not exist, that is your rewrite.

   Do this
   Write the want in one verb-first sentence and the need in one 'they have to learn' sentence.

2. Module 2 · 20 min

   Premise pressure-test

   A premise that cannot be stated cleanly usually contains two competing stories. Read three professional loglines for produced films in your genre and compare the shape of yours against them.

   The Black List — Go Into The Story loglines

   Do this
   Rewrite your premise in 35 words with the irony visible.

3. Module 3 · 45 min

   Egri on the ruling passion

   Character contradiction is where premise turns into drama. Study how a character built from opposing drives generates conflict without the plot forcing it.

   Lajos Egri — The Art of Dramatic Writing

   Do this
   Name the one contradiction inside your protagonist, and the scene where it costs them something.

4. Module 4 · 25 min

   Theme without a speech

   Theme is the argument your ending makes, not a line someone says out loud. Locate the scene where your story states its case through a choice.

   Do this
   Delete your most on-the-nose thematic line and let the choice carry it instead.