Screenwriting guide

How to write a screenplay: logline to table read

Scripts get bought on structure and voice, not on a clever page. This is the working order professionals use — premise, turns, characters, scenes, format, then a read that tells you the truth — with a drill at every step.

The six-step script process

1. 01Lock the logline

   One sentence with an ironic situation: a flawed protagonist, an inciting event, a goal, and an opponent who can beat them. If the logline does not make someone lean in, no amount of great dialogue on page 60 will save the script.

   Pro drill: Write five loglines for the same idea. Keep the one a stranger repeats back correctly.

2. 02Map structure by turns, not page counts

   Structure is a chain of turns: the moment the character cannot go back, the midpoint reversal that flips the meaning, the low point that costs them the thing they protected, and the obligatory scene the whole premise promised. Page counts describe those turns; they do not create them.

   Pro drill: Name your four biggest turns on one line each. If two are the same event, your second act is thin.

3. 03Interview your characters

   A character is a want plus a wound plus a strategy. Interview each one — what they lie about, what they would never do, what they say when losing — and the dialogue stops sounding like one writer talking to themselves.

   Pro drill: Answer ten backstory questions in your lead's own voice, then rewrite their first scene.

4. 04Write scenes that earn their pages

   Enter late, leave early. Every scene needs a want, an obstacle, and a value that flips from positive to negative or back. Cut anything a reader could skip without losing the story — that is the difference between a produced script and a stack of pages.

   Pro drill: Delete the first and last lines of every scene in a sequence. Note how few you miss.

5. 05Format like a professional

   Standard format is invisible when correct and disqualifying when wrong: slug lines, tight action in present tense, no camera direction, dialogue that breathes. Readers judge craft seriousness in the first three pages.

   Pro drill: Read three consecutive action blocks out loud. Any block over four lines gets broken up.

6. 06Table read it, then rewrite

   Hearing the script performed exposes what the page hides — flat exposition, identical voices, jokes that die, scenes with no turn. Record the read, mark every moment attention drops, and rewrite those pages first.

   Pro drill: Run a table read of your weakest ten pages and rewrite only the moments where the room went quiet for the wrong reason.

Screenwriting questions, answered

How long should a screenplay be?

Feature specs generally run 90 to 110 pages, hour-long TV drama 50 to 60 pages, and half-hour comedy 22 to 35 pages depending on single or multi-camera format. Roughly one page equals one minute of screen time.

What screenwriting software do I need?

Any tool that produces correct industry formatting works. What matters to a reader is the formatting standard — slug lines, action, dialogue and margins — not the brand of the program you used.

How do I know if my structure is working?

Name the turn in every act. If you cannot say what changes at the midpoint or what the low point costs the lead, the structure is the problem, not the dialogue. The live teacher marks these turns against your uploaded sides.

Will the AI write my screenplay?

No. It grades structure, marks weak turns, runs character interviews and performs table reads, but every line is yours. You keep full ownership of your script and your intellectual property.

Run the process here

Upload your sides and the live teacher marks the turns, the causal chain and the weak scenes. Then grade the script and run a virtual table read with cast voices.