Write a Script You Can Actually Shoot This Weekend

Count your locations first. Before you write a single line of dialogue, list the places you can use for free: your kitchen, the school hallway, the park down the street. Write only for those. A story set in a spaceship is fine if your basement can play the spaceship, but a story that needs a real airport will stall before the first day of shooting.

Limit your characters. Two or three people is plenty for a short film. Every extra character means another person to schedule, another costume and another voice to direct. If you have a crowd scene in mind, ask whether one person walking through an empty hall can tell the same story.

Start late, finish early. Open your scene at the moment something is already happening, and leave it before everyone says goodbye. Nobody needs to watch a character put on shoes unless the shoes matter. Cut the greetings and the farewells and your pages will shrink naturally.

Give your main character one clear want. She wants to finish a puzzle before dinner. He wants to return a lost glove. A small, specific goal is easier to film than a big, vague one, and viewers will follow it willingly.

Say less out loud. Read your dialogue aloud with a friend. Any line that sounds like a speech should be shortened, or replaced with an action or a look. If a character can show a feeling, let them.

Format it simply. Use a new heading for each location, put actions on their own lines, and keep each page to roughly one minute of screen time.

Do a table read. Gather your cast around a table, read it start to finish, and listen for the places where people get confused or bored. Fix those, and then stop rewriting. A finished simple script beats a perfect unfinished one every time.