What Should My First Screenplay Be About?
Your first screenplay should be a story you can finish: a contained premise with a small cast, few locations and one clear protagonist, in a genre you watch often. Personal experience is a strong source, as long as you shape it into a story with a goal and conflict rather than a sequence of events.
- Write in a genre you already love as a viewer.
- Small casts and few locations make a first script easier to control.
- Real life needs a goal and conflict to become a story.
Write what you watch
You have already absorbed the rhythms of the genres you watch most. A horror fan knows how a scare is built even without the vocabulary. Starting there means you spend your energy on craft rather than on learning the conventions from scratch.
Keep it contained
A story with four main characters and a handful of locations is easier to structure, easier to revise and cheaper to produce if it ever goes further. Contained thrillers, two-hander dramas and single-location horror are all good first projects.
Use what you know, then change it
Your job, hometown or family can give a script texture no one else can. Fictionalize freely. Combine people, move events, raise the stakes. The facts matter less than a character who wants something and cannot easily get it.
What to avoid on a first script
Epic fantasy worlds, large ensembles, and adaptations of books you do not hold the rights to are hard to finish and hard to use. Save them for when you have a few drafts behind you.
Questions
- Should my first script be a short or a feature?
- A short of 5 to 15 pages is a good way to learn format and finish something quickly. If you already know the story you want to tell is feature-sized, a feature is fine too.
- Can I write about my own life?
- Yes. Many first scripts are personal. Give the main character a clear goal and obstacles, and be willing to change what really happened to serve the story.
Related course: Screenwriting 101