October 20, 2012 – Reverse Cause and Effect

Date: Saturday, October 20, 2012 || Speaker: Jeff Kitchen || Check-in: 12:30pm ||

A script should have good cause and effect such that the first event causes the second, which causes the third, and so on through to the ending. You create this by working backwards from the ending, building from an effect back to its cause, thereby constructing an unbroken chain of events that has a good forward flow and keeps the audience on the edge of their seats.

The ability to separate the Necessary from the Unnecessary is a crucial skill for the professional screenwriter. The amateur often bogs scripts down with overwritten dialog and description, unnecessary scenes, and even entire acts that aren’t needed. Lean and mean is the order of the day, and the ability to free yourself from the profusion of unnecessary details enables you to work cleanly and clearly. In addition, stripping your plot down to its spine gives you a good, clean objective look at your story in the same way that radically pruning a tree exposes its major branches.

Jeff Kitchen, one of Hollywood’s top screenwriting teachers and script consultants, teaches the craft of the dramatist to writers of all levels. He has taught development executives from all the Hollywood studios and they consistently say he teaches the most advanced development tools in the film industry. He taught playwriting on Broadway in New York and worked as a dramaturg in New York theater for years. Jeff is a working screenwriter and is the author of Writing a Great Movie: Key Tools for Successful Screenwriting.  For more information, visit Jeff at www.DevelopmentHeaven.com.