How to Plug the Holes in Your Script - veteran script doctor Michael Ray Brown runs down a few questions to ask yourself before you send that script out into the world.

Writers often ask me what I look for in a script. I have only one rule: the script must capture my interest and keep me wanting to see what happens next. But how do you do this?

• Do you load up your script with action?
• Do you keep trying to shock or surprise your audience?
• Do you create a "Whammo Chart" like Joel Silver (producer of The Matrix) does, and make sure there's a "whammy" (a big action set piece) every 12 minutes?

Howard Hawks said, "There are only six good scenes in any good movie." That may be true, but there's a saying that you have to "murder your darlings." In other words, you have to be ruthless about cutting out what doesn't work, even if it's your favorite scene.

Script doctors will tell you the most important thing is structure. William Goldman says it in his book "Adventures in the Screen Trade", along with the rule, "Nobody Knows Anything."

But what makes good structure?

A good story can be broken down into three acts : 

• In act one, you get your hero up a tree (inciting incident).
• In act two, you throw stones at him (complication).
• And in act three you get him down again (resolution).

That may be an oversimplification, but it points out the one essential ingredient in all stories: jeopardy

A story can be defined as how a character copes with danger. It's the protagonist's motivation to achieve an objective, coupled with the threat of failure, that drives the plot. This threat is posed by at least one antagonist. The antagonist is usually external, but there can be internal obstacles, such as a character's fears.

It's also been said that the essence of drama is people not getting along. However, conflict alone does not a story make. Again, the conflict must be focused on an objective. Whether it is a physical threat to the protagonist's life (as in thrillers) or a more subtle threat to his happiness (as in romantic comedies), the danger is always that the protagonist may not achieve his goal. And that's what keeps audiences on the edges of their seats, wanting to know what happens next.

Even if you've taken all the classes and read all the books, sometimes a script will just stump you. Something doesn't quite work, but you can't put your finger on it. When I was running the story department at Metromedia, this occasionally happened to members of my staff. So, as an aid to my analysts, I decided to compile a list of everything that could go wrong in a screenplay.

This list eventually grew to 18 major wrongs, with perhaps 100 sub-wrongs under them. When I decided to start teaching a class on structure, I rewrote the checklist as a toolkit for writers. These are the questions you must ask yourself about your script:

1. Is the story relevant and easily described?
2. Is the size and type of story suited to a feature film?
3. Do we care about the principal characters?
4. Does the story rely on human efforts, and are those efforts credible?
5. Is the story unique, accessible to a general audience, and emotionally resonant?
6. Is something out of balance at the beginning to strongly motivate the protagonist?
7. Is the protagonist in extreme danger of not achieving his objective?
8. Is the antagonist focused on the same objective as the protagonist?
9. Is there always some question that keeps the audience guessing?
10. Is the protagonist engaged in a seemingly hopeless race against time and/or space?
11. Is there a unity of theme, represented in a variety of ways, but pulled together at the end?
12. Does the ending restore the balance and tie up loose ends?
13. Do the characters serve the story, and does the story derive from the characters?
14. Does the script focus on what's most important?
15. Does the script convey enough information for us to understand the story, but not too much?
16. Are the time and place used effectively?
17. Does the description lead the mind's eye of the reader in a manner that closely simulates the camera?
18. Does every bit of dialogue serve the story, and is there subtext?

Screenwriting has been described as a craft, not an art. It has a strict form. Many talented writers stumble when it comes to structure, which is arguably the most important factor in a script's success.Fortunately, dramatic structure is something you can learn. And you can use this list as a guide. Check your screenplay against it. If you answer "no" to any of these questions, that's where your script may need work.