Final Draft Blog
All the tips, tricks and information you need to inspire your writing!
Read interviews with the pros, catch up with industry news, and listen to Write On: A Screenwriting Podcast by Final Draft.
How to Write Action According to Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
In a cinematic world where superheroes fly effortlessly through multiple universes and the tentpole summer films have been a staple for decades, how does a movie stand out for its action sequences? For screenwriters, the thought of creating an action...
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What Does "Breaking the Fourth Wall" Mean?
What is "breaking the fourth wall?" You may not know what it means or where the phrase originated — but you've definitely seen plenty of examples of it in movies and TV shows.
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12 Villains That Every Screenwriter Should Study
Villains come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they are hidden behind masks and wielding knives, other times they are conniving and cause destruction. And then, sometimes they’re just mean.
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Internal Conflict Vs. External Conflict
Over the years, I’ve read my share of scripts from aspiring screenwriters. If it’s a character-driven drama, there is plenty of internal conflict; if it’s an action/adventure, sci/fantasy or thriller/horror there’s a good deal of external conflict.
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How To Make Genre-Bending Work in Your Screenplay
Sometimes you have an idea for a screenplay, but it’s not suited for just one film genre. In fact, it might contain tropes from two different genres or even multiple genres! If this is the case, you’ve just dreamed up a genre-bending screenplay.
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Write On: Cruel Summer's Showrunner Elle Triedman
Spoiler Alert: This podcast interview may contain spoilers about Cruel Summer. With an excited fanbase and even more exciting plot twists, the drama/thriller series Cruel Summer is back for Season 2 on Freeform. Final Draft sat down with showrunner E...
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What is the Iceberg Theory and How Can It Help Your Writing?
Ernest Hemingway was not a screenwriter.
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Worldbuilding 101 Using the Star Wars Model
“Worldbuilding” is when writers create a world for their characters to inhabit and story to take place.
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The Bricks of Breaking In: Showrunners Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker On The Power of Teamwork
For showrunners Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker (Abbott Elementary, Harley Quinn), their interests in writing came in very different ways. With Halpern, it was a competition to write a Seinfeld spec when he was just 16 where the winner had the ...
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