Do you want to write a short film? In this article, I’ll walk you through coming up with a great idea that works as a short film, developing that idea into a story, and turning that story into a script.

Coming up with an idea that works as a short film

Usually when people are writing a short film it’s either because they’re new to screenwriting and want to start small or they’re planning on actually making it. Which is the awesome thing about short films. You can make them!

If you’re planning on making your short film, your idea needs to be something you can actually make. That might seem like it will limit your creativity, but limits are actually great for your creativity, because they literally force you to get creative.

It’s also helpful because instead of the overwhelming notion that your film can be about anything in the entire universe, you can look to places, things, and people around you for inspiration.

In fact, even if you’re not planning on making the film, you’re just writing it, it’s still a great way to get an idea.

• What places in your life do you have access to? A bedroom? An office? A garage? A park? A barn? What kind of story could you set in that place?
• What things do you have? A pair of roller skates? A replica samurai sword? A dart board? A pet snake?
• What people do you have access to? What kind of skills do they have? What skills do you have?

An idea can start anywhere, you’re just looking for something that crosses your mind where you go, “Oh, that could be interesting.” Try to let that lead you to a character, because stories are about people.

Conflict

Your main character is your protagonist, and what you want is for your protagonist to experience conflict.

Conflict is where stories come from. It doesn’t have to be loud, though it could. It doesn’t have to involve fighting, though it could.

Conflict just means that your protagonist wants something, but there is something keeping them from getting it. Let’s break that down.

They want something. That means they have a goal.

Something is keeping them from getting it. That means there is an obstacle.

So the equation would be Conflict = Goal + Obstacle.

Goal

Let’s talk about the goal first.

What could your protagonist want? Well, anything. Generally they either want to get something they don’t have or they want to keep something they already have. So think about your protagonist. What do they want?

Whatever it is, you will have such an easier time writing the script if they really want it. That doesn’t mean it has to be serious or life and death. It just has to feel important to your protagonist.

If your protagonist doesn’t care about their goal, there’s a strong chance your story will fizzle out.

Obstacle

Next, think about the obstacle in their way. What kind of obstacle could be in their way? Often times that obstacle is another person. We call that person an antagonist. An antagonist is someone who is in the way of your protagonist getting their goal. Maybe the antagonist wants the same thing, and only one of them can get it. Or maybe the antagonist thinks your protagonist shouldn’t have their goal. You can learn more about antagonists here.

But not all obstacles are people. The obstacle could be something physical, an animal, society, or even the protagonist themselves, getting in their way.

You’re just looking for something to cause conflict.

If you were writing a feature length film, you would have a lot of obstacles. But short films are short. You generally want to keep it to one obstacle that takes a while to overcome, or one category of obstacle that might show up in a few different ways.

Tone

When you’re coming up with obstacles, it’s helpful to think of the kind of tone you want your short film to have. Choose obstacles that will create a conflict that matches the tone you’re looking for. If it’s a scary short film, the obstacle should create a scary conflict. If it’s a comedy, the obstacle should create a funny conflict.

Example

Let’s do a quick example of coming up with an idea for a short film based on the advice I just gave and see if it works or if I’m full of baloney.

We’ll start with something that most people have access to, a bedroom. What do people do in bedrooms? They sleep!

This gives us a protagonist and a goal. And we want them to really want their goal. So let’s say our short film is about  a guy who really wants to sleep in on Saturday morning. Maybe because he had a really hard week at work or school and he is dead tired.

What kind of obstacle can we put in this dude’s way to create conflict? Well, if he wants to sleep in… let’s have something keeping waking him up. That’s conflict! If you have access to multiple actors, you can make that his kids or his spouse or his roommate or his neighbor doing yard work. If it’s just you, you could make it physical things.

This kind of feels like a comedy, and things waking him up feels like we’re creating the right tone.

So we started with something basic, a bedroom and one person. And by adding conflict we have an idea for a short film. This is something we can work with.

Once you have your idea, what you need to do next is turn it into a story.

Developing your idea into a story

What’s the biggest difference between an idea and a story? Change. Something is different between the beginning and the end of a story. Usually, the biggest thing that’s different has to do with your protagonist. Either they have changed, their understanding of the world has changed, or their understanding of themselves has changed.

This change will happen over the course of the beginning, middle, and end of your story.

This means we’re talking about story structure. Don’t worry, it sounds complicated but it’s pretty intuitive. The absolutely simplest way to think of this is the protagonist wants something, that’s the beginning, they try to get it but it’s really hard, that’s the middle, and in the end they succeed or fail, having experienced some kind of change, that’s the end. And that’s it.  Beginning, middle and end. You are now an expert in story structure.

(Don’t worry, I’ll go more into detail.)

Beginning

Obviously in the beginning you need to begin your story. And since this is a short film, you don’t have a lot of time to get things going. So what we need to do is quickly meet your protagonist, get a sense of what they want, and what the problem is.

But this isn’t an essay; you can’t just say those things. You have to dramatize it.

Let’s go back to our example of the guy sleeping in. A really simple way to start would be to have the guy coming home late from work, it’s like midnight. He is dragging. Beaten down. Exhausted. He’s falling asleep as he eats his takeout. He changes, gets into bed. And then he pulls out his phone and changes his alarm from 5am to 7am. He pauses. Changes it to 9am, then 10am. He’s getting excited. Then he just turns the alarm off completely and he is so happy. He gets in bed and cut to 6am and the neighbor’s chainsaw rips him from his dreams.

That could all be on the first page. We get who this guy is, what he wants, and what his problem is. It’s a really simple example, and you might be writing a different kind of story. But he never had to say “I’m tired and I really want to sleep in and I hope no one wakes me up early.” We get it.

And it’s also kind of fun. It’s established the tone that the short film will have, which you need to do.

Finally, there’s a little bit of a hook. It’s not the most exciting hook, but it’s enough where the audience is wondering what happens next. How is he going to deal with this interruption? Is it going to keep happening?

So in your short film, try to figure out a way to quickly introduce your protagonist, show what they want, and what the problem is.  At the same time, establish the tone and try to hook the audience by making them want to know the answer to a question.

Middle

Now we’re into the middle, and the middle is the simplest to understand but the hardest to do. In the middle the protagonist is usually trying to accomplish their goal, but it’s difficult, and it keeps getting more difficult.

There are more problems, more complications or the problem gets tougher or more personal. But dealing with problems stinks, so why don’t they just give up?

For one, this is why it’s important that they really want it. They want their goal enough that they’re willing to face problems to get it. You can also force them to deal with the problems by making there be a consequence for not achieving their goal. Make them lose something. It could be something physical, emotional, or psychological. It just needs to be meaningful to them. Having something to lose means they can’t give up. We call this the stakes of your story.

Okay but how do you keep thinking of complications without it feeling random or illogical? Well, don’t make it all random. Have your character face a complication, they deal with it in some way, and however they deal with it causes another complication. Now they have to deal with that complication.

Some of the complications can come from the outside world and other characters, and some of the complications can come as a result of their own actions.

For instance, in our example the guy wants to sleep in. Let’s say his alarm clock goes off. That’s a complication. In his frustration, he hits it. But he breaks the snooze button. And it won’t stop. He caused that complication, and now he has to deal with the consequences.

Your protagonist dealing with problems gives you your story, but it also reveals who they are. Our characters reveal who they are by their actions.

But it doesn’t stop there. By giving them more and more difficult obstacles our characters actually have to change to deal with them. They become better or worse versions of themselves, depending on the kind of story you’re trying to tell.

That is the special sauce of character-driven storytelling.

A couple more tips before we move on to the end.

• You can add some kind of surprise or twist in the middle to make your story more interesting. Maybe we learn something unexpected about the protagonist, or we realize this problem we were dealing with turns out to be a much bigger problem.
• You can also add a false victory. Make your protagonist think they got their goal, get their hopes up, and rip it away. How they react to that devastation will really show who they are.

Now let’s end this story.

End

Before I talk about the ending, I need to bring up one thing that you could call a secret ingredient. If you want to make the flavors of your story bolder and richer, figure out why your protagonist wants the thing they want. Some deeper psychological or emotional reason why. Give them some kind of need underneath their actions.

In our example about the guy who just wants to sleep in on Saturday after a long week, we can give him a deeper reason why. Yes, he wants to sleep in because he’s tired, but maybe the deeper reason why he wants to sleep in so much is that he feels powerless at his job, and being able to sleep on Saturday is the one thing he can do to show he’s still in control of his life, so when he keeps getting woken up it’s really frustrating because it means he’s powerless here too, and he just cannot handle that idea.

So his goal is to sleep in, but the reason why—what he really needs—is to deal with his sense of powerlessness.

Do you see how adding that layer elevates the story and makes it feel richer? We started with just a guy and a bedroom, and now it’s a real story.

This is a way you can explore the theme of your short film. What it’s really about. What you’re trying to say about the world.

So why am I bring this idea of why your protagonist wants their goal now when I’m talking about endings instead of earlier when I was talking about goals? Because the ending is where we see what’s changed, and it’s a really good idea to make the change about this “why.” Try to make your protagonist reconcile with the why that was driving them.

So we talked about goals, but now they kind of have two goals. There was the thing they wanted, and the deeper reason why they wanted it or what they needed it. We call the first one the external goal or the plot goal, and the second one the internal goal.

At the end, your protagonist could succeed or fail at getting either of those, which gives you four different types of endings.

They could get what they want and what they need. That’s a happy ending or a sweet ending.

They could get neither. That’s a bitter ending.

They could get what they want, but not what they need. That’s a bittersweet ending.

Or they could get what they need, but not what they want. That’s a semi-sweet ending, and it’s probably the most common.

So you can choose what kind of ending your story has.

Organizing the story beats

All these things that are happening in your story are called beats. A beat of your story is just something that happens; usually, something is changing.

There are different ways to organize your beats as you’re figuring out your story. A classic way is with index cards pinned to a board. But you can also do that digitally with an app. For instance, in Arc Studio, which is bringing you this video, you can organize your beats visuallly with digital index cards.

The cards are called beats, and you create one for each one that happens in your story. You can also color code them with the characters and storylines, which really comes in handy if you’re writing something longer.

Writing the Story as a Script

So once you come up with the story you can write the script. And it’s okay if your story changes while you’re writing the script. It’s all a fluid process.

What you need to do is turn the beats of your story into scenes in your script.

People can get hung up on the difference between beats and scenes, but don’t stress out too much. Your beats have to do with the story. They’re all the things that happen in your story. A scene has to do with the actual script. It’s everything that happens in one place at one time in your script. If two people are talking in the kitchen, that’s a scene. If during the conversation they walk out into the backyard, that’s a different scene because they went outside. But it’s the same beat of your story.

Sometimes one beat takes place during one scene, and sometimes a beat can take place over multiple scenes, which we would call a sequence. But that information is just for the nerds like me. You really don’t need to worry about that.

But when you’re writing scenes it really is a good idea to have a screenwriting software like Arc Studio, because it does all the script formatting for you and you just switch between the different script elements using TAB and ENTER.

If you want to learn more about script formatting, you can check out this guide.

If you want to learn how to write strong scenes, read this article.

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