Ten Tips for Writing Shorts
by Ken Aguado
While there are many good books on screenwriting out there, one area that gets short shrift is the art and strategy of writing shorts. This is unfortunate because, while writing and selling a motion picture or television series can seem like winning the lottery, writing a short and getting it produced is very attainable for anyone with a little talent, a little money, and the technology not much more complicated than your iPhone. Here are my ten tips for writing short films.
1. A short film is a short film. For practical reasons (like cost), limit your script to 10 pages or less. If you want to get into film festivals, be aware that most prefer to program shorts that run 10 minutes or less. (Films with a particularly weighty topic can run a little longer.) Nothing wrong with longer shorts, if these previous two issues are not a big concern for you. If you’re just going to drop your final short on YouTube or Vimeo, who cares how long it is. That said, I see many longer shorts that could easily have been cut by 20% or more.
2. Consider underused genres. Genres such as comedy, science fiction, suspense and animation are often overlooked. For example, film festivals get very few comedy submissions, so if you make a good one, it’s bound to stand out. Festivals also have a preference for stories that promote inclusion, diversity and/or meaningful social issues.
3. Find a clever gimmick or simple dramatic moment. Many shorts revolve around a simple, clever concept (or gimmick) or simple dramatic moment/event/incident that is developed into a story with a beginning-middle-end. Look at “Lights Out” (by David Sandburg) for gimmick or “On Time” (by Ted Chung) for simple moment, but try to avoid shorts that rely solely on a twist ending. If the rest of your film is uneventful or undramatic, no one will care about your clever surprise ending. Avoid cramming a feature film into a short subject. Most shorts are brief confections.
4. Use 3-act structure. While most shorts are just brief confections, using a 3-act structure can make any short narrative feel more substantial. This means establishing the “inciting incident” as early as possible, usually in the first 3rd of the script and having a significant twist or dramatic tun at the end of act two. See #6 below for more.
5. Be compelling. Conceive of your main character as someone we’d like, admire, or if flawed, someone we’d like to be redeemed. Now give them a real problem to surmount. Anti-heroes need a good reason to live and be worthy of attention in your story. Not doing so can be a rookie mistake.
6. Get your story going right away. Too much “set up” can be a killer in a short film. Try to grab the viewers right from the start. Begin your story as late as possible into the drama of your narrative. For example, if you’re writing a 6-minute horror story, don’t make the viewer/reader wait 5 minutes to get to the horror. You want to capture the audience attention right from the start and never let go. On a related note, filmmakers should avoid using opening credits in shorts. The title is enough. This issue was famously spoofed in the 1969 animated short “Bambi Meets Godzilla.”
7. Avoid clichés. A lot of painful and overused tropes pop up in shorts films. My list includes: the magic of childhood, dysfunctional families, first dates, crimes gone wrong, obvious or overfamiliar personal afflictions, it was all a dream, tortured artists and anything that confuses “edgy” with interesting. Avoid shorts that are personal “therapy” or a “soapbox.” This doesn’t mean politics is out of bounds, but rather, think of your short as entertainment for someone other than yourself. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with writing a personal short, but avoid being a “navel gazer.”
8. Beware of proof-of-concept shorts. If you are writing your short as a proof-of-concept for a longer work (like a feature film or series idea), remember that it first must work as a short. Don’t let your short be held hostage to the longer work. Your short is not a trailer. The short version must be able to stand on its own as a complete narrative. In most cases, you should avoid just shooting a scene from the longer work.
9. Don’t forget nonfiction. Most nonfiction scripts are written after some or most of the film is shot. (Sometimes called a “paper edit.”) But before you shoot, make sure you have a solid outline and shot list that incorporates your approach to the topic and the kind of narrative you’d like to see in the film. While “reality” doesn’t always cooperate, you have to start with a point of view if you want to shoot your subject matter economically.
10. Write for the reader. Write your short so other people will understand it. Because short films are often personal projects where the filmmaker knows exactly what they intend, they will sometime write in a shorthand that only they can understand, omitting traditional screenwriting information like properly establishing characters or under-describing or unclearly describing actions and using improper formatting. Be a pro and don’t do this.
Bonus Tip: Related to Tip #1, be realistic about the length of your script relative to the time and money you have to shoot it. Inexperienced filmmakers often over-estimate the number of pages they can shoot per day. A good rule of thumb is 3 or 4 pages at most, especially if your script has numerous locations, complex actions or scenes with numerous characters talking, like a dinner party scene. A shorter script you can shoot well is usually better than a longer script that will require you to make painful production compromises, like having to shoot some scenes in a master only, or worse, not “making your days,” which might make your film impossible to complete.
