It’s often stated that a good scene in a feature film or TV screenplay both advances the story and reveals something new about one of the characters. But what if there is a third way of writing?

New AI tools such as ChatGPT have provoked considerable debate about whether screenwriters should use them to generate story and character ideas and help write their screenplays. But what about doing the opposite and writing the old-school way: with pen and paper?

Screenwriting books, script gurus and academic courses love to stress the importance of following these rules when writing a screenplay. As these examples show, though, the screenwriters of successful and well-loved films broke these rules to good effect.

Here are some lessons we learnt from looking at nearly 150 scripts from our last Get It Made competition, which you may find of value when writing your own screenplays for short films.

I’m sure lots of writers enjoy doing a deep dive, ”under the hood” look at scripts as much as I do. So I always thought it would be both enjoyable and instructive to do this with others. And if book lovers can have book clubs, why can’t screenwriters have script clubs?