By skyforbes For a long time, I chalked it up to “good acting” or “nice cinematography,” because that’s all I really knew how to notice. Then I tried writing my own stories… and they came out about as emotionally powerful as a soggy napkin.
One night, after complaining to a friend about why my characters felt flat, they suggested I try reading actual screenplays. Not summaries. Not YouTube breakdowns. The real scripts. I figured, why not? Worst case, I’d fall asleep.
Instead, I fell into a rabbit hole.
I grabbed a few scripts and used some screenplay analysis tools from Greenlight Coverage just to help me track scene purposes, plot beats, and character changes. Nothing fancy, mostly highlighting, beat markers, little notes like “THIS is where the character gets cornered” or “emotional reversal here.”
And suddenly, movies I’d already watched dozens of times made sense in a way they never had before.
There was always a turn. Always a shift. A question was raised. A wound poked. A choice forced.
It wasn’t accidental. These writers were engineering emotions.
When I went back to one of my old drafts, it hit me how many scenes I’d written where nothing changed and characters just sat around talking because I liked the dialogue. Cool for vibes, terrible for a story.
So I tried applying what I learned:
Every scene had to do something.
Every character had to want something and fail or succeed in a way that pushed things forward.
Every emotional moment had to have a setup earlier, even a tiny one.
It didn’t magically turn me into a screenwriter overnight, but it made my writing feel alive for the first time. And honestly, it made watching movies more fun too, like seeing all the gears spinning under the story.
Now, whenever a film hits hard, I can usually point to the exact beat where the writer set the emotional trap. And instead of ruining the magic, knowing how it works actually makes it feel even more impressive.
Who knew reading scripts would be the cheat code I needed?