Increase the Chances of Selling Your Screenplay by Exploiting its Genre
Genre is one of the most important elements to get right when it comes to writing and selling a screenplay.
So, today we’re going to take a look at how to increase the chances of selling your screenplay by nailing it’s genre to a particular emotion.
What exactly is genre?
As you know genre is a way of categorizing films into a “type” for marketability purposes. Audiences want to know what kind of film they are going to see. Hollywood wants to know what type of film they’re going to buy so they can package it to a particular audience.
Sci-Fi isn’t a genre!
Many screenwriting books, screenwriters and tutors classify sci-fi, western, gangster etc. as genres. We think, though, that it’s best to classify genre in terms of EMOTION.
Terms such as “Science Fiction”, “Western” or “Gangster” don’t tell you much about the emotion you feel when watching them. Rather, they are sub-genres that tell the audience about the setting or style of the film they are going to see.
Alien is first and foremost a Horror.
Blade Runner is a Thriller.
But both have Science Fiction as a sub-genre.
Genre = Emotion
Our recommendation is to think of genre purely in terms of emotion.
Choose one of the five main genres below and write to its extreme; i.e. write in order to illicit the maximum emotion within that particular genre.
Action / Adventure
Thriller
Comedy / Romantic Comedy
Horror
Drama
Ask yourself “What emotion am I trying to make the reader feel when they read this script?”
Fear? Laughter? Excitement?
If your comedy has been called “amusing,” it probably needs work satisfying its genre requirements. Make sure your protagonist finds him / herself in the most hilarious / awkward / painful etc. situations possible.
In that Thriller you’re writing ask yourself, “What’s the most dangerous thing that could happen to my protagonist?” And then write it! Make sure it’s on the page and not in your head—what you think is thrilling often isn’t to the reader.
Whatever the genre, make sure you’re putting your protagonist through the biggest tests which will really help get that emotion onto the page.
Thanks for reading!
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