1 like = 1 piece of very bad screenwriting advice

1. Star Wars was a popular film so whatever your film is about, call it 'Star Wars'

2. Call every character in the story 'Jack'. Not knowing whose line is whose keeps the actors on their toes

3. If nothing's happened by the second word your script is off to a very slow start. Scrap everything you've done.

4. The main character must drive a cool car or we won't want to *be* them. This applies even for movies set in ancient Egypt. Make it a pyramid-shaped car so it's still historically possible.

5. Heroes getting shot in the shoulder is a bit of a cliche; you know they're going to survive. Have them shot in the eyebrow or the bum.

6. The second stage of the hero's journey is 'punch the wizard in the face'

7. Set at least 25 scenes of the screenplay in a Nandos because people like Nandos

8. whenever a character walks into a new environment at the start of act 2, they must say "what IS this place...?" or you are subtracted 150 writer points.

9. If you call your hero Jack he can run faster and jump from one moving car to another with greater ease.

10. Your wheelbarrow chase sequence is too long. Edit it down to 8 pages.

11. Get one of the actors to change their name to 'Four Stars, New York Times' so on the poster it looks like the New York Times gave you four stars

12. Don't get them to change it to 'Five Stars, New York Times' as that will strain credibility

13. Make sure the villain is as evil as you can make them by having them strangle a baby animal at the start of each of their scenes. First act: baby squirrels only. Second act: build it up with baby goats, elk, daschunds. Third act: pull out all the stops. Whales, shrews, bears

14. Write every Monday for 50 straight hours. Do the same Tuesday. Wednesday, 50 hours again. No excuses.

15. Write in every shot and angle because directors love that. Crash zoom just before every fifth line. And write 'steadicam' a lot because it'll make it look like you've been on a course.

16. Heroes don't eat salads. They eat meat, hanging from racks, without using their hands. Just gnawing dangling meat.

17. flashback scenes are a cheat. Have everyone look towards an old dog walking past, who stops to explain what happened before the movie started.

18. Your movie must end with Iron Man's death scene even if Iron Man is not in your movie.

19. Page count too long? Cut every second word to save space. 'They summon the guards' becomes 'They the'. 'Let's not go there again' becomes 'let's go again'. Etc.

20. Write a word. If it's the wrong word change it to a better word. Continue changing it until you have the best word in the world. Now start on the second word.

21. Worry about other more successful writers who are doing better than you. Become as envious as possible. Now write. Keep thinking of those other writers *as* you write.

22. Never wash your pen. The more it's covered with your sweat and dead skin, the more it'll think it's part of you

23. Have you main character break the fourth wall because nobody's ever done that before

24. Make your kids write the screenplay for you by telling them it's a fun activity. Then don't pay them. They won't be able to do a lot about that.

25. If your last movie underperformed at the oscars, set your next one in LA, about people making a movie about some people making a movie about some people making a movie about some people making a movie about some people making a movie about some people making a movie about som

26. Stop washing. You're a writer now, nobody gives a shit about you so neither should you

27. Does protagonist fight on roof of a train and they lose fight and they're sprawling on train roof then they smile and the standing baddie thinks, why are they smiling, baddie turns round and it's like oh shit tunnel then baddie's beheaded? Rewrite if this scene is absent

28. If you're writing a spy film make spy eat only Ginster's pasties as Ginster's will be keen to do product placement in a spy film to enhance brand

29. Steal from the best. Shakespeare's comedies all have a bit with a chimp wearing a tie.

30. Every character crossing the road must get hit by a car that's the rule

31. Help the audience understand where the act breaks are by having minor characters saying things like 'so, I hear it's act two now' or 'well, here we are in the epilogue'

32. Don't write for the agents. Don't write for the executives. Write for someone five years from now watching it minimised in the corner of a laptop while they scroll through eBay

33. Have a doctor add a third hand so you can type 50% faster

34. A pigeon must shit into an flashy guy's open top car on page fifty four

35. Writing a script is probably like making an omelette for some reason or other. You find the reason. You're the fucking writer. Jesus.

36. watch Casablanca. Not to learn anything but to put off when you start writing today.

37. If a scene is really working, extend it. The 'fart battle' sequence in Chinatown was only a few pages long in the first draft, but fully earns its twenty minutes of screen time in the completed movie

38. Simplify on the third draft. Merge characters with each other, and with furniture etc. So instead of 'he sees a man sitting in a chair' write 'he sees a man-chair.'

39. The thing in the movie that everyone is trying to get is called 'the thing in the movie that everyone is trying to get'.

40. An animal should do a double take on page fifty-one.

41. Inject realism into your script by adding the words 'very realistically' after every verb

42. Inject realism into your script by having montage where somebody tries to learn a new skill but never really gets the hang of it

43. There are only three stories in the world: hero's quest, crime boss does one last job, and crime boss hero quest

44. Write 'cool' at all times. Anyone who tells you not try to write cool is themselves not cool, and that's not cool.

45. Ask yourself what you would do if you were the character in that situation, and then ignore whatever you come up with, because who gives a fuck what you would do. They want to know what Vin Diesel would do.

46. What are the stakes for your character? Make the stakes lower, especially near the end if the movie. High stakes are stressy. Nobody wants that.

47. Be sure to specify that your movie poster will have black lettering on a saturated yellow background because then people will think it's 30% cleverer than it really is

48. Dither. You get your best ideas when you dither.

49. There is no film in the world that won't be improved by a 1970s disco dancing flashback on page 35.

50. Once you've started your script, do no attempt to get to the end to produce a 'scratch draft.' Rewrite the opening another fifty times before you move on.

51. Help the audience empathise with your main character by writing in 'the audience empathises with main character' in five different places, then leaking the script online

52. The end of act one climax is where the heroine/hero discovers the substance called Flubber. Note: this only applies to the film Flubber. It may not even apply to that, I haven't watched it, but it's on Disney Plus so you can check if you like.

53. Look for juxtapositions. In George of the Jungle, George is in a Jungle. Literally nobody called George had ever been in a jungle before this movie.

54. Write what you know, even though no spy movie has been written by a spy and you fucking love spy movies

55. React to script notes as defensively as possible. This will bring you the respect of producers because they'll know you're not a pushover

56. If you're writing a superhero story, get the hero developing super-powers no more than five minutes from the end as that will make it cheaper to shoot

57. Talking trees are always wise in movies (pocahontas, lord of the rings) so break the pattern and make your talking tree a dickhead

58. Your page 20 'event' should encapsulate the premise of your movie, so make it hard to understand so they have to pay you lots to do loads of rewrites.

59. The pie-eating contest should move ten pages later to become the end of act two climax

60. If your main character is handed a gun on page 25, make sure they fire it by page 25 and a half, at the person who handed it to them, to check it works

61. Believe in your characters. You must feel that they really exist. So buy them shoes and clothes, literally buy them shoes and clothes and if your family think you've lost it who cares. They'll be sorry when you're living in your massive writer mansion

62. If your character has a heart attack, have a heart attack for research. If you go private, it'll be tax deductible.

63: Exercise: pick a classic movie and see how it would be improved by the protagonist discovering an astral energy cube in the first act. Start with Four Weddings and a Funeral

64. If you're stuck on a scene, think about what your character *wouldn't* do next, then don't write that in, because that would be plain stupid, you fucking dummy

65. Don't have an agent? Kidnap one, problem solved

66. Don't make life easy for your main character. Test them by saying they wear ill-fitting chinos for which they are mercilessly mocked by friends and enemies alike for the entire story

67. Giving the robot sidekick a robot sidekick is called 'double sidekicking' and is a highly effective writing tool

68. What does your main character want? What is stopping them getting what they want? These are questions best left to the writer they hire after they drop you. For now, just get a draft down.

69. Group walks are good. Have twenty of them.

70. Second tier characters should walk hunched over so we know they *feel* less important

71. When you boil it down, there are only three comedy characters: lovable loser, hip-hop Abraham Lincoln, and heavy metal Abraham Lincoln

72. Nobody else will have thought of writing a coronavirus lockdown movie. Begin yours now.

73. Park your ego. Throw the fucking keys over a fence into some waste ground. Better still crash your ego into a tree, then stand and watch it burn vermilion and tangerine against the silent blue of the darkening spring sky

74. A script is like an onion - it has layers and it smells

75. Try MCU squatting: claiming your film is in the MCU, without Marvel's permission

76. After a good bit in the story, have one character turn to camera and say 'that was a good bit'

77. For a touch of realism, instead of someone being made briefly unconscious by a sharp blow to the back of the head, make them either (a) still conscious & also furious or (b) seriously injured or dead, I'm kidding, make them briefly unconscious

78. characters who bake things are automatically caring and generous

79. Write them a two act movie and if they say where's the third act, say "you didn't pay me enough, motherfuckers"

80. Writing is rewriting except the first draft which is obviously writing for god's sake

81. Exercise: which films would be improved if they had 'Ninja' at the start of their name? Rework the story to fit the new title. Start with 'Ninja Love Actually', 'Ninja Captain Phillips' and 'Ninja 1917'

82. Do your research. Does your character eat meat pies continuously? Then eat meat pies continuously. If you don't *look* like you have a really bad diet, and you do a meat pie movie pitch meeting, they'll know you're not drawing on experience

83. Exercise. Write this movie: Jason Statham has both fists surgically altered so they look like his face, because Jason Statham's face is the only thing which is harder than Jason Statham' fists. He must take down a local drug lord using his facefists. Both facefists can talk.

84. Exercise. Write this movie: a colony of mutant crocodiles is discovered underneath a hospice. Your movie is titled 'Crocspice'

85. In a pitch meeting, when an executive asks you "why are you the right person to tell this story?" the correct answer is "because I need the work." You must never use the correct answer.

86. In a pitch meeting, when the exec says "why are you the right person to tell this story?" try replying with "sure, I'll tell you, if you tell me why *you* are the right person to be doing *your* job." Exec will enjoy this jousting.

87. Exercise: find the two scariest things you can think of, then combine to create your movie's primary threat. Give it 20 minutes. Correct answer below line.

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Clowns, and sharks. So your antagonist is 'Pierrot Shark', a deadly fish wearing a ruff and eye make-up

88. Executives like to ask if you're passionate about the project you're pitching them. So prove how passionate you are by threatening to burn their second home down and go to jail if they don't give you the go ahead.

89. Deep inside every chicken are six McNuggets. When they are removed the chicken dies. Ask yourself: what are your story's McNuggets?

90. Shakespeare made up words, so can you. Make your zob go mffv. Glnjjap your syaaqgn.

91. How does your character enter a room? Do they sidle in, barge in, shuffle in? Note: if your character is played by Jason Statham they enter every room by driving a car through the wall

92. Exercise: write an extra scene for the Wizard of Oz where the cowardly lion does a lion shit on the road and looks to Dorothy to bag it up because lions have no pockets for little blue shit bags. What do you learn about the characters?

93. The cliche is that when plain woman takes glasses off she suddenly looks Beautiful. Have her swap her glasses for a monocle. Monocles split the difference nicely.

94. Every scene in your movie should have some conflict. Ideally between Jason Statham and five yakuza gangsters.

95. 'Zingers', snappy comebacks at the ends of scenes, are very popular. Create a character whose sole purpose is delivering zingers, called Professor Zingmeister. This character should be in every scene.

96. Further to the last point: everyone of this character's lines should be followed up and emphasised by one of the leads saying "you zinged it again, Professor Zingmeister!"

97. The best time to start you script is a year ago. The second best time is two years ago. 'Now' doesn't make the top ten.

98. Deliver your script in the wingdings font. Having to go to the trouble of decoding it will make the reader value your words so much more.

99. When someone says to you "you should write a script about the sort of things that happen around here!" then drop everything and write that script

100. All sequels must involve the characters going to New York that is the rules.

101. Exercise. Write a bonus sex scene for the movie Beauty and the Beast, between Lumiere and Cogsworth. What are their penises like? Waxy/brassy? Activated by little gears and triphammers? Make sure each penis says something about its owner's character.

102. Make sure to write a Deus Ex Machina ending because a God coming out of a machine will be an awesome CG sequence

103. Minor characters provide exposition; heroes don't. This is because heroes are lazy and don't put in the hard work. Fire your hero on page 30 and promote another character.

104. Watch Chinatown, then Rolf's Animal Hospital. Both are problematic works made by sex offenders. Can we separate the artist and the art?

105. If your plot is too fiddly and complicated, have one character say to another "it's perfectly simple!" This will make the audience believe that the reason they can't follow it is that they are too stupid and you are very clever.

106. If your plot is too fiddly and complicated, don't simplify it down. Instead, kid yourself that all that complexity will make people want to read/watch your story multiple times, like you've just written the Usual fucking Suspects or something.

107. Have the following idea: "we could make a feature film that's one long zoom call between a group of friends, and we can shoot it in real time!"

108. If a character plays chess that means they must be clever, and the screenplay must also be clever, even though some people who play chess are shit at chess and some scripts contains chess-players are a pile of thick balls.

109. Have a bit where someone says "Who are you people?" It's never been used before in anything.

110. Don't rewrite. It conveys weakness.

111. When in a writers' room amongst other writers, establish dominance by rubbing your scent glands against one leg of the table before the meeting begins.

112. When in a writers' room make the tea badly so that you won't be asked to make the tea again

113. When in a writers' room start saying 'that's lunch!' from 11.35am onwards because everyone wants lunch and lunchtime is entirely the wrong time for lunch. Lunchtime is at least 1 hour too late for lunch.

114. Tell producers you'll fax them scripts so they'll get to thinking all the cool kids have gone back to faxes and you're one of the cool kids

115. In a writers' room, bring along a pop-up tent and crawl inside it saying "you're all just in the outer writers room, in here is the *inner* writers' room where the real magic happens"

116. In a writers' room, before you shit on another writer's idea, give them a few seconds' warning. For example: "In just a moment I'll shit on that idea", "brace yourself for a humiliating takedown", "may I shit on that shit idea? Thank you"

117. When pitching a show don't look in the person's eyes. Look at one of their ears. Always the same ear. Until they're worried. Then say, "i'm just checking that the amazing words i'm saying are going in."

118. When pitching a movie say it's like one thing meets another thing, they lap that up. 'Jaws meets The Full Monty'. 'Shallow Grave meets Nativity.' '8 Mile meets Robin Hood.' 'Wall-E meets La Haine.' Literally any two things will do.

119. In a pitch meeting don't come through the door, smash through the office wall with a sledgehammer because you 'don't see boundaries'

120. In a pitch meeting to three executives, whenever the most junior one pipes up, tell them to shut the fuck up because the grown-ups are talking

121. In a pitch meeting with three executives, start by asking them which one has the real power, then put cardboard boxes over the heads of the other two because their faces will just be a pointless distraction while you're pitching

122. Walk into a pitch meeting with a bleeding head wound to make them sympathetic to you even before the pitching starts. Bonus: if you decide the meeting isn't going well you can always end it by keeling over and passing out

123. At the end of a pitch meeting, slap down an invoice on the table. Two hundred pounds, just for you attending the meeting. Say "You pay lawyers for every meeting, you pay the accountants for every meeting. You can manage it for writers too." This will definitely work.

124. If writing for Jason Statham, write in a bit where he's trapped in freezing water under the arctic ice sheet, which he breaks through with a succession of three headbutts. The first seems to have no effect, the second cracks the ice, the third smashes through it.

125. Following on from point 124: Jason Statham then uses a long broken ice shard to stab the henchman who was assigned to watch Statham die.

126. Whenever waiting in BBC reception pretend you're having a phone call with Scarlett Johansson. Then everyone will think you know Scarlett Johansson. Be sure to speak loud and say 'Scarlett Johannson' at the end of everything you say

127. Remember that your villain should kill someone the first time we see them, so everyone knows how bad they are. There are exceptions to this, such as if you are writing a script for Hey Duggee.

128. If a pitch meeting is unsuccessful, and you have to get in a lift to leave the building, vandalise the fucking lift. Next time you pitch to the same people they will know not to piss you off

129. Bring a Charlie Chaplin impersonator to pitch meetings but say he's the real Charlie Chaplin and he thinks your stuff is just great

130. Make sure you get enough credit for what you write by making every second line 'that last line was written by (insert your name here)'

131. Stuck? Write down the word 'kidney'. Then at least you've written *something* today.

132. Exercise: write a story where a ghost gets haunted by a ghost and everyone says ha ha that's a taste of your own medicine isn't it you damn ghost

133. Look for screenplay topics that haven't been tackled yet. Nobody's written a movie about a helicopter falling in love with a branch of Homebase.

134. Exercise: write an extra scene in the Wizard of Oz where the Tin Man starts killing the humans like in Westworld and Dorothy has to take his head off with a can opener but even then the head keeps coming, dragging itself along the ground with its spiked metal tongue

135. Exercise: write an extra scene for the Wizard Of Oz where the Scarecrow shits out a little straw facehugger creature which lays an egg inside the Tin Man who says I'm fine, I feel okay, then a metal-straw monster erupts out of Tin Man's pewter guts

136. Save paper by printing out your scripts on slices of processed cheese and thin ham

137. Reward yourself after a hard day's writing with some more writing YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO ENJOY IT

138. When writing a movie about a mile wide asteroid which destroys civilisation, make sure you write facing the window in case one falls nearby. It'll be free research, and you won't want to miss it.

139. When selecting the subject for a biopic choose a very boring person because they deserve attention too

140. Write for 25 minutes at a time then take a break, like maybe for eleven days or something, then come back refreshed and do another 25 minutes

141. There are stories everywhere. Shit stories, for the most part, but they are everywhere.

142. Draw faces on slices of bacon and lay them out on your desk and imagine they are your characters talking. The words will come. Then eat the bacon.

143. Don't jump genres mid-movie unless you are writing Vera Drake And The Deadly Octopus and it's page 55 and still no octopuses

144. You are a weaver and the plots and characters are your larder of ingredients 145. Watch out for mixed metaphors

146. Write until your fingers bleed and your mac breaks down and you take it to genius bar and they say, yeah, your problem is your computer's full of blood, you must be a fucking amazing writer, and everyone in the apple store claps

147. Go through your old notes from five years ago. Are you wincing? Then you must have become a better writer! OR a worse writer who is shamed by your the radiant talent of the younger you, so must now hide behind a shield of disdain

148. Exercise: rewrite The Empire Strikes Back so that every character talks like Yoda, except Yoda, who talks like a normal person

149. The correct number of sidekicks for your lead character is 312

150. Write some scruffy gangsters with egg yolk stains on their tops; people are tired of stylish gangsters

151. Option the film rights to a yoghurt, then write a screenplay called 'Pots of Glory'

152. Exercise: write an extra scene for the Matrix where Morpheus shows Neo how to write 'BOOBS' on a calculator

153. Get an agent by burying your scripts in the ground until Time Team dig them up and then Tony Robinson reads bits of them on tv, and you get exposure, and an agent signs you

154: Get an agent by working out which branch of Pret one particular agent goes to, get a job there, then write one word on their cup when they buy a coffee, and after 12 years they will realise that all these words together make a writing sample

155. Get an agent by writing 10 consecutive Oscar-winning screenplays. Then you can probably get a few meetings.

156. Get hold of old forgotten scripts. Then just change the character names, places, and every single thing that happens in the story, and nobody will know you didn't write it

157. Adapt a novelisation without seeing the movie the novelisation is based on, just for giggles.

158. Be rigorous: what is the purpose of each of the characters in the scene? Correct answers include 'to be someone for Jason Statham to kick in the face'

159. Be kind to yourself, and reward yourself for writing. One sentence = one mini pork pie

160. Find out who will be reading your script, check social media to see the name of their ex, then give the villain that name.

161. Why don't you have a snowmobile chase on page 35? Put a fucking snowmobile chase on page 35

162. Now shall not have both a snowmobile chase and a jetski chase in the same film, unless both chases crash through a wedding, in which case both are definitely earning their keep.

163. Page forty one needs a scene where our hero teaches a room full of manners-obsessed aristos to 'get funky'

164. Exercise: write a Robocop spin-off where ED-209 becomes an inner city school teacher and learns how to empathise

165. If you find the Internet too distracting, buy an old school mechanical typewriter to write your scripts on, then become revolted at yourself for doing something so hipster-ish, then go back to the computer

166. If you have a nerdy character in your story, write in the character description: 'played by a beautiful handsome actor trying to prove they have range and aren't too vain', because that is exactly how it's going to be cast

167. Exercise. Write a short screenplay about a dystopian future world where thanks to nanotechnology every tooth in your head as a face and a personality and together they call themselves the mouth committee and decide what you eat

168. Sometimes scriptwriting is like nailing jelly to a wall in that it's completely pointless

169. Work hard to transcend the expectations of the genre you're writing in. That's how the writers of The Farting Leprechaun (2008) earned their best screenplay nomination.

170. Write the first draft with your heart, the second draft with your head. For the third draft, make the typing a whole lot easier by using your fucking hands

171. Make sure your screenplay has a good title. Test the title on your friends. If they don't like it, tell them to fuck off. What do they know.

172. Call your screenplay 'Tom Hanks Is Attached To Direct This Project' to ensure it gets more attention

173. When handing someone a printout of your script, always make sure it has a fried egg on the top. Important: you must follow this up by saying 'this script is so hot you could fry an egg on it!'

174. Liquidise some raw pork with water and keep a glass of it next to your desk. Then say to yourself, if I haven't cracked this storyline by noon, I'll have to drink the whole glass. Note: this motivation technique only works for people who *don't* like raw pork water

175. If anyone calls your new script an 'opus' it'll suddenly be five and half times harder to write. So avoid all people, or kill them with a concealed crossbow if they ever start to say a word that begins with an 'O' sound

176. Type behind your back to make it feel like someone else is doing it

177. Make a box with a turning handle on the side and a hole in the front marked Idea Output. This will enable you to 'crank it out' on the days you're not feeling inspired.

178. Fill a shoe box with bad ideas on index cards to get them all out of your system. From then on, every idea you ever have will be solid gold.

179. If you have a shit idea while typing on your laptop, it's not enough to delete it. You have to print it out, scrumple the printout into a ball, then flick it into a bin on the other side of the room.

180. Fill your life with creative and productive friends. Then feel shit because they will start doing better than you, because if you feel shit, you're a proper writer.

181. If you write a bad script using final draft, tell yourself it's final draft's fault

182. Write music cues of your favourite songs into your script because the director will always feel obliged to follow them and not put their own favourite songs in

183. Have your protagonist give up every time they meet a challenge, because it's only fair that people like that get representation in movies too.

184. Writing isn't a sprint. It's not a marathon either. It's the pole vault, because it's basically just too fucking difficult

185. Work out what sort of writer you are. Morning writer, afternoon writer, or 'not gonna write today' writer

186. Is your script too long and needs to be shorter? Change the font size.

187. Keep a dream diary. it will make more sense than act 2 of your script.

188. Exercise: write Mary Poppins into the MCU. But not as Dr. Strange's mum because that's too obvious.

189. Exercise - write a sidekick for Gandhi in the 1982 biopic. Name of sidekick: Scrappy Gandhi

190. On page one, establish the central question your screenplay is asking. Answer it on page two. That clears the next 98 pages for the fart jokes.

191. If they ask you for a script that works on two levels, bill them twice. Levels don't come for free, you fuckers

192. Exercise. Write a sports movie where a pandemic is declared at the end of act two, and the whole of act three is the hero/heroine scratching their arse and checking instagram

193. Think of a movie you can write and shoot in lockdown; a fantasy epic where everyone wears rigid hooped dresses extending two metres from their middles

194. Cast your movie by shouting 'who wants to be in a film' in the middle of a shopping centre and contracting the first ten people who talk to you. They might not be actors but they will be keen.

195. Drag around a wheelie bin everywhere you go and if anyone wants to give you notes on your script, hide in the bin. They'll never think to look in there.

196. If you're stuck, go for a walk, go to an artisan coffee place, sit next to some other writer who's working there, look over their shoulder and plagiarise the fuck out of whatever they're doing

197. If your script is too short write main character saying 'Nooooooooooooo...!' And add as many O's as you need

198. If writing a musical, make all the songs 1 minute long and put them all at the start to get those troublesome bastards out of the way

199. Exercise: write a screenplay set in the near future where the sun is going out and Jason Statham has to be fired off in a rocket to restart it with a single punch

200. Write your screenplay on some gold bullion to make sure you fetch a good price for your screenplay

201. Exercise: write Crank 3 where Jason Statham can only keep alive by eating chocolate digestives

202. If we meet a mad professor on page 23, his lab must explode on page 55

203. Base your movie on the plot of a Shakespeare play because his work is timeless and safely out of copyright

204. They say don't write weather conditions into the script because you'll have to shoot through whatever's there, but hell with that. If you want a slowly drifting mist clinging to the hilltops write that fucker in.

205. When you're pitching to an exec on a zoom call, and you can't think what to say next, just freeze as if your broadband is on the blink

206. Is your character drunk in this scene? Stop writing. Get drunk. *Then* write.

207. Print your script on wafer thin ham so the executives can eat each page after reading it and then think 'hey, this writer ensured I have a free bellyful of ham; I shall buy this script'

208. Nobody can smoke in movies any more so have a scene where all the characters stare at a ten metre high pile of cigarettes for ten minutes then say, "i don't want to consume any of those"

209. Everyone uses the letter E all the time. Show your originality but dropping it altogether and inventing a new vowel the like of which nobody has seen or heard.

210. The third worst thing you can do in a pitch meeting is take a poo on the glass coffee table then encourage everyone to lie on the floor and look at the poo from underneath

211. Flashbacks are not permissible without a wibble-wobble screen effect.

212. Keep writing 'dissolve to:' between scenes because the editor will always follow that instruction and not use their own judgement when faced with the actual filmed takes.

213. If writing a musical, when a song is approaching, write 'oh christ here is that awkward gear change between talking and singing, just brace yourself for a few seconds and we'll be through it'

214. Print out your screenplay, bind it with a metal clip, then drop it on the desk. If it goes 'flap', you probably haven't written enough. If it goes 'thud' you may have written too much. Aim for a noise between the two.