Rabiger Directing: Film Techniques & Aesthetics 4ed Part 3 Checklist Page 1

PART 3: WRITING AND STORY DEVELOPMENT

These stage by stage reminders should help you along. Derived from their chapters, they
may also reflect pertinent information from other parts of the book. To locate further
information, use either the Part’s table of contents or the index at the back of the book.

Chapter 7 Recognizing the Superior Screenplay

A. Deciding on a subject:
a. Choose carefully; you will live with it for a long time. 
b. Choose a subject with issues you would love to learn more about. 
c. Through your film, be concerned for others. 
B. When assessing a script, ask:
a. How behavioral and visually cinematic is it? 
b. How well would it play with the sound turned off? 
c. Which character(s) did you like or find interesting? 
d. Is the plot wholly credible, or can it be made so? 
e. What is the screenplay trying to accomplish, and do you like the way 
it goes about accomplishing it?
f. In each scene decide 
i. What each character wants—moment-to-moment and overall.
ii. What they must do to get it. 
iii. What impedes the character and how he or she adapts to each 
new obstacle.
g. Are the obstacles intelligently conceived, do they put the characters 
to the test?
h. Are all characters integrated and multifunctional or are some invented 
to solve plot problems?
i. Who grows and develops in the script and who remains static or 
typical?
j. What did you learn from making a step outline? 
k. What do you think is the screenplay’s premise? 
l. What are the screenplay’s thematic concerns, and how effectively 
does it deal with its main one?
m. What is revealed when you name the function of each scene and 
make a flow chart for the script?
n. What do scene, character, and location breakdowns reveal? 
o. When you time the film, does story content merit its onscreen time? 
p. What problems emerge when you pitch the story to successive 
listeners?
C. Duality and conflict:
a. This film has a clash of goals, values, or temperaments because any 
drama needs it somewhere.
b. What are my main characters trying to get, do, or accomplish? 
c. What obstacles, difficulties, and unforeseen consequences make their
struggles particularly significant? (Struggles and conflict are not
Rabiger Directing: Film Techniques & Aesthetics 4ed Part 3 Checklist Page 2

necessarily negative).
d. What do my characters learn by problem-solving? 
e. Which characters have “unfinished business.” 
f. Every credible person and situation contains contradictions and 
opposites—how is this enacted in my story?

Chapter 8 Analyzing a Screenplay

A. Exposition:
a. Does vital expository information come too early or too late? 
b. Is any exposition in my story likely to go unnoticed and need 
reinforcement?
c. If it’s spoken and too obtrusive, can you mask it in action? 
B. Plot and character:
a. Hold your story’s basic dramatic situation up against the Hero’s 
Journey, or other archetypes, to see what you may have missed.
b. Are there missing elements that might make the characters more 
effective?
c. Have you built in enough contradictions and false trails to keep up 
dramatic tension?
C. Action:
a. How comprehensible would your film be without sound? 
b. Can you reconfigure any dialogue scenes to play as behavior? 
c. What else might better reveal your characters’ inner lives and 
qualities?
D. Dialogue:
a. Is it in the character’s own vernacular? 
b. Make it action—that is, words trying to get, do , or accomplish 
something.
c. Tighten, compress, and simplify. 
d. Can you cut any lines, or syllables from lines? 
E. Scenes:
a. Mark beats and critically examine the working of each dramatic unit. 
b. What questions does each scene establish in the audience’s mind? 
c. Can these questions become more urgent by raising the stakes?
d. Are the audience’s questions answered too quickly or too slowly? 
(Too quickly makes dramatic tension dissipate).
e. Kill your darlings—eliminate any scene that repeats information or 
fails to advance the story (a flow chart reveals this).
F. Dramaturgy and visualization:
a. Review the script’s mood, period, and form to see if it is optimal. 
b. Assess (from a flow chart) how well the screenplay “breathes” 
between different kinds of scene, and consider transposing to improve
variety.
c. Do you have any “convenience” characters? Can they be eliminated, 
amalgamated, or made more broadly functional?
Rabiger Directing: Film Techniques & Aesthetics 4ed Part 3 Checklist Page 3

d. Assess the script purely for how well it maintains dramatic tension. 
e. Consider radical adjustments if similar works deliver a better 
thematic impact.
f. See if there is overlooked imagery that could play a special part 
(visual leitmotifs, foreshadowing, symbolism, visual analogies, etc.)
G. Check that the screenplay’s world is:
a. Authentic. 
b. Adequately introduced if it’s unfamiliar. 
c. Making full use of its connotations. 
d. Ethical and without undesirable embedded values. That is, it’s not 
unconsciously reiterating indefensible sexual, ethnic, or gender
stereotypes.

Chapter 9 Director’s Development Strategies

A. Writing as a process
a. What creative limitations would pressure this project and raise the 
stakes?
b. Is the writing spare and leaving the actors to develop the action? 
c. Can you say what the characters are trying to do, get, or accomplish 
every step of the way?
d. What is each character’s major conflict and are they interestingly 
different?
e. Are all characters integral or do you produce some as you need them? 
f. Each line of dialogue should be a form of action—see (c.) above). 
g. Try writing a step outline first, and the screenplay later. 
h. First drafts are normally dreadful. Try writing twenty or more. 
i. Keep writing, no matter what. 
j. Circle between screenplay, step outline, and premise, revising each as 
necessary.
k. Don’t be afraid to write by association: let things happen and see 
where they lead.
l. Really make us see your characters (show us them through action, 
behavior, and concise poetic detail). Write visually and behaviorally,
which is where the cinema excels
m. Work to create a series of moods. 
n. Write for the silent screen and allow yourself minimal dialogue later. 
o. Distill a dramatic premise for each scene and one for the whole piece. 
p. Pitch your idea to anyone who’ll listen. Their reactions will say it all. 
q. Make your audience laugh, make them cry, but make them wait (for 
explanations) but not beyond the point of patience.
r. Never use a line if you can find an action that functions just as well. 
B. Criticism 
a. Don’t cave in too easily to your critics.
b. Don’t argue or explain: listen so you remember.
c. Sleep on comments until you’re sure what needs action.
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C. Original screenplays:
a. Write and direct your own first short works, 3–10 minutes maximum. 
b. Choose subjects you really care about, but avoid autobiography 
unless you have at least 5 years’ distance on the events.
c. When you direct longer works, find a reliable, compatible writing 
collaborator.
d. Write about what calls to you, and about what you need to explore. 
e. Write in outline first so you can solve all the plot problems before 
going on to a screenplay.
f. Develop the premise once you have the events mapped out. 
g. Write and rewrite to a schedule, don’t wait for inspiration. 
h. Work on increasing the needs and depth of your characters. Good 
stories have active, charged characters.
i. Don’t set out to preach or advocate ideas; aim to tell a good story. 
j. Look for actions or objects that can function as a ruling image, one 
that represent or symbolize something larger in meaning.
k. Keep pitching your idea to check audience reactions 
l. Write behaviorally as if for the silent screen. Add minimal dialogue 
later.
m. Add a column to your script in which to note what your audience 
should feel and think at each important juncture.
n. Do you have an up-to-date premise? 
o. Does the screenplay pose intriguing questions that an audience would 
want to solve?
p. Write a treatment. Plot problems become visible for you to solve 
before you return to the screenplay.
q. Test out your screenplay with a dramatic reading and a critique 
session. You may learn something important.
r. If possible, attend public script readings and critique sessions so you 
can decide how to handle something similar for your work.
D. Story development:
a. Early versions of stories always need extensive development. 
b. Make sure you begin with an up-to-date step outline. 
c. Classify your tale according to the nearest basic dramatic theme and 
situation, as well as any myths, legends, or folk tales that parallel
yours.
d. Place an outline of your screenplay next to its archetypal collaterals 
and see what you learn.
e. Most stories are forms of journey, so check your piece against the 
archetypal Hero’s Journey steps (see Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey).
f. Do your major characters have interesting character flaws and 
contradictions?
g. Be ready to alter scenes to make better use of the actors. 
h. Apply the scene assessment criteria (Assessment 11-1). 
i. Submit your work to as many objective readers as you can. People 
lose objectivity if you expect them to read more than on or two drafts
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j. Scrutinize your script for its embedded values so you don’t 

unconsciously violate your own ethics and standards.

Chapter 10 Alternative Story Sources

A. Adapting a book, play, or short story:
a. A creative rather than literal adaptation takes courage and is more 
likely to succeed in its new medium.
b. Adapting anything well-known usually requires staying close to the 
original.
c. Cutting and compressing are usually necessary and acceptable. 
d. Short stories can make great adaptations, but as with any literary
source,
i. get copyright clearance 
ii. make sure you are choosing for cinematic, not literary, 
reasons.
B. Using improvisation:
a. Try writing a film based on ideas your actors generate as they 
improvise around key episodes in their lives.
C. Research:
a. Research into the time, place, and manners of any fictional piece can 
yield a goldmine.
b. To help ground fiction in actuality, try pretending you are going to 
make the story as a documentary.

Chapter 11 Setting Creative Limitations

A. Creativity thrives on limits, so
a. What overused form or convention do you want to avoid? 
b. How can you overcome your movie’s budgetary limits creatively? 
c. What can you give up without undue loss, thus concentrating on what 
matters? (see the Dogme group’s Vow of Chastity)
d. Have you written out your beliefs (about art, movie-making, and 
representation in stories) to see what you can heighten in your piece?
e. What else might raise the stakes, and make your film more intense? 
f. What particular challenge are you setting yourself? 
g. How will you measure success at breaking new ground? 