How to write a short film screenplay

A short film is not a feature cut down. It is its own form with its own rules, and nothing spoils one faster than writing it like a summary of a bigger story.

Start with one idea only

A feature can carry a main plot and two subplots. A short barely carries one. The working rule: one situation, one character who wants something, and one turn.

Test your idea in a single sentence: “A woman tries to tell her mother some news, and the mother will not stop talking.” That is a short film. “A family falls apart across three generations” is a feature squeezed into ten minutes, and it will come out flat.

The building blocks are the same in both forms: a hero, a want, an obstacle, a turn. They are laid out in the guide to writing a screenplay; what follows here is what belongs to the short film alone.

How many pages?

Remember that a page is roughly a minute. That gives you a realistic ruler:

If you are starting out, aim for seven to twelve pages. Most festivals prefer that range, and the cost of shooting it is realistic.

Four steps from idea to draft

1. Write the logline. One or two sentences: who the protagonist is, what they want, and what stands in the way. If you cannot write it, the idea is not ready — and writing now is effort without direction.
2. Decide the last moment. Know your ending before you begin. A short film lives or dies on its final scene, and everything before it should serve that.
3. Write the scenes as headings only. One line each: where, who, and what changes. If you end up with twenty scenes for a ten-minute film, your story may be larger than the film can hold.
4. Then write the whole draft without stopping. Do not revise as you go. Revising mid-draft is the fastest way to kill a first draft before it exists.

Make every scene change something

A simple test: delete the scene. If nothing changes, it was surplus. Every scene should move the character or the audience from one state to another — new information, higher tension, or a decision.

And in a short film specifically: enter the scene late and leave it early. Do not film the arrival, the knock and the sitting down. Start at the moment tension starts.

Recurring mistakes

• Dialogue explaining what we can see. If the audience can see the character is angry, do not have her say “I am angry”.
• A twist with no setup. A good surprise makes the viewer say “it was in front of me the whole time”, not “where did that come from?”.
• Too many characters. In ten minutes an audience will not hold more than three. The rest are passing names.
• Writing what cannot be filmed. After every line of action ask: how does the camera shoot this?
• Ignoring production. An airport scene with a hundred extras is an easy sentence to write and an impossible one to shoot on a first film. Write what can be made.

And after the first draft

Leave it a week, then read it aloud. Dialogue your own tongue stumbles over will not survive in an actor’s mouth. Then give it to three people who do not know the idea, and ask one question: “what did you understand?” — not “did you like it?”.

Once you have a draft you trust, make sure its format is standard before sending it to any production company or festival. Read the Arabic screenplay format guide for the details.