Always fancied trying screenwriting but suspect you’ve left it a little late? You haven’t. In fact, you may be arriving with one of the most useful things a new writer can have: a lifetime of watching how people really behave.
Have you ever watched a film and thought, I’d love to have a go at writing something like that?
And then, almost immediately, another little voice pipes up: Yes, but I wouldn’t know where to start.Or perhaps: Surely everyone who writes screenplays started when they were twenty-three and went to film school?
Nope. You are allowed to start now. At 50. At 60. At 70. At 83, if that is when the idea finally turns up and refuses to leave you alone.
You do not need a film degree, an encyclopaedic knowledge of screenplay terminology or a complicated piece of software.
You need a story you are curious about. And somewhere to begin.
So let’s begin there.
You Are Not Starting From Scratch
This is one of my favourite things about helping adults who are new to writing.
They often tell me: “I don’t know anything.” Then we talk for five minutes.
They know what it feels like when somebody says “I’m fine” and very clearly is not fine. They have watched families argue, friendships change, people fall in love, people make spectacularly silly decisions, and ordinary people quietly do extraordinary things. They know that two people can remember the same event completely differently. They have probably sat through an uncomfortable Christmas lunch or two.
In other words, they know people. And stories are full of people.
Your life experience does not automatically teach you how to format a screenplay, of course. That part can be learned. But it gives you something much harder to teach: years of observing how people behave, speak, hide things, want things, change and occasionally make a complete mess of things.
That is useful material.
So please don’t arrive at screenwriting thinking you have turned up empty-handed.
You haven’t.
What Exactly Is a Screenplay?
Let’s make this less mysterious.
A screenplay is the written blueprint for something intended to be experienced on screen. That means you are writing:
- what happens
- where it happens
- who is there
- what we can see
- what we can hear
- what characters say and do
There is a particular format for presenting all of that, and yes, you will eventually need to learn it. But the important word there is eventually.
The Australian Film Television and Radio School has introductory screenwriting resources specifically aimed at students and novice screenwriters, covering the fundamentals of the craft. In other words, these are learnable skills. Nobody emerges from the womb knowing where to put a scene heading.
For now, I want you to think about something much simpler: What would we actually see happening?
Screenwriting Is Writing for Eyes and Ears
This is probably the biggest mental shift if you are used to novels, memoir or short stories.
In prose, you can write: Margaret wondered whether coming home had been a terrible mistake.
Lovely. But if Margaret is on a cinema screen, how do we know that? We cannot climb into her head.
So perhaps Margaret pulls up outside the house she has not visited in thirty years. She switches off the car. Looks at the front door. Starts the engine again. Stops. Turns it off. Still doesn’t get out.
Ah. Now we’re watching something. The audience begins to understand what she is feeling because of what she does.
That is one of the pleasures of screenwriting: finding a way to turn thoughts and feelings into moments we can see and hear.
Screen Australia’s story-development guidance likewise focuses on dramatically viable concepts, character actions, and how a story communicates its underlying ideas through what unfolds.
You don’t need to master that on your first attempt. You just need to start noticing it.
Start Ridiculously Small
When people decide they want to try screenwriting, they sometimes make the first task approximately this: WRITE A FEATURE FILM.
That’s a lot for a Tuesday afternoon.
Let’s make the first job smaller. Much smaller.
Write one scene. Not Act One. Not your entire life story adapted for Netflix. One scene. It could be:
- two sisters waiting outside a doctor’s surgery
- a man returning something to a shop without a receipt
- two old friends meeting after twenty years
- someone trying to confess something over dinner
- a woman discovering an unexpected parcel on her doorstep
- a grandfather teaching his granddaughter to drive
- two neighbours arguing over a fence
- someone sitting in a car, trying to decide whether to go inside
Pick something you can picture. Then ask:
- Who is there?
- Where are they?
- What is happening?
- What does each person want?
- What can I see and hear?
There you go. You have somewhere to start.
Try This Little Exercise
Imagine this: A woman arrives at a café to meet somebody who is late.
That is all you get. Now play with it.
Who is she waiting for? Her son? An old flame? A stranger who contacted her online? The sister she hasn’t spoken to in twelve years? Why does the meeting matter? What does she do while she waits? Checks the door every thirty seconds? Orders two coffees, then drinks both? Types a message and deletes it? Gets up to leave just as somebody walks in?
See what happened? We started with one very ordinary situation, and now possibilities are everywhere.
That is screenwriting.
Not knowing everything. Noticing what could happen next.
But I Don’t Know Screenplay Format
Good news. You are not sitting an exam today.
Proper screenplay formatting does matter when you start producing or submitting scripts. Screen Australia even provides guidance on suggested script layout, and professional screenwriting follows established conventions so scripts can be read and used efficiently. But don’t let formatting become the dragon guarding the entrance to the castle.
At the beginning, concentrate on the scene. If you know how to type:
MARY: I told you not to come.
JOHN: I know.
You can start exploring what happens between Mary and John. Later, you can learn how those lines would appear in a properly formatted screenplay.
Story first. Formatting lesson second.
And when you do begin learning screenplay format, take it one piece at a time:
- Scene headings
- Action
- Character names
- Dialogue
You don’t need to memorise an entire screenplay manual before writing your first scene.
Give Yourself Permission to Be a Beginner
This sounds obvious, but it is surprisingly difficult. Adults are used to being competent. We know how to do our jobs. Run households. Manage money. Organise appointments. Solve problems. Look after other people.
Then we try something completely new, and suddenly we are staring at a page thinking: Why am I not immediately good at this?
Because you have been screenwriting for seventeen minutes, Barbara.
You are supposed to be new. Your first scene can be clunky. Your dialogue can sound a little odd. You can forget what INT. and EXT. mean. You can discover halfway through that your character has changed names. You can write something today and decide tomorrow that it is dreadful. Welcome to learning a creative skill.
Queensland Writers Centre currently offers beginner-level creative-writing training alongside programs for developing writers, reinforcing a fairly useful point: writers do not need to arrive already knowing how to do everything. Learning the craft is part of being a writer.
Use What You Already Know
Here is another easy way in.
Think of a moment from real life. Not necessarily a dramatic one. Perhaps:
- waiting for important news
- meeting someone for the first time
- getting lost
- saying goodbye
- having an argument
- being caught doing something you shouldn’t
- receiving an unexpected visitor
- walking into a room where everyone suddenly goes quiet
Now don’t write the whole true story; just borrow the situation. Change the people. Change the place. Change the reason.
Play with it.
Real life can provide the spark without becoming the finished story. For example, perhaps you once arrived at a family lunch and immediately knew two relatives had been arguing.
Excellent.
Your screenplay scene does not need to feature your relatives. Make them two business partners. Or sisters. Or rival magicians.
Now ask: How does the third person entering the room realise something has happened?
Nobody says: “Hello, Susan. For the benefit of the audience, Graham and I have just had an enormous argument.”
Perhaps Graham is furiously buttering bread. Perhaps Susan asks a perfectly innocent question and both of them answer at once. Perhaps nobody speaks at all.
Now you’re thinking visually.
Listen to How People Actually Talk
You have another advantage as an older beginner. You have heard a lot of conversations.
Use that.
People rarely say exactly what they mean. We dodge. Hint. Interrupt. Change the subject. Answer questions with other questions. Say “whatever” when we very definitely do not mean whatever.
Try listening to conversations around you — without becoming the creepy person taking notes on strangers at the next table. Notice:
- how short many spoken sentences are
- how often people interrupt
- what goes unsaid
- how tone changes meaning
- how differently people speak to different people
Then bring some of that natural messiness into your dialogue.
You are not trying to record real conversation word for word. Real conversation contains an alarming amount of repetition and discussion about where somebody left the car keys.
You are learning its rhythm.
Your First Screenwriting Challenge
Ready? Here is your entire assignment.
Write one scene of about one to three pages using:
One location:Keep life easy. Kitchen, café, garden, car, waiting room — somewhere you can picture clearly.
Two characters:Give each one a reason for being there.
One small problem:One person wants something the other person does not want to give them. It might be information. Permission. An apology. Money. The car keys. The last lamington. Anything.
One change:By the end of the scene, something should be different. Someone finds something out. Makes a decision. Leaves. Agrees. Refuses. Lies. Changes the subject because the truth has come a little too close.
That’s it.
Don’t worry about whether it is brilliant. You are practising.
Then Ask Yourself Three Questions
When you finish, read the scene and ask:
Could I picture it?If you could actually imagine watching the scene, you’re on the right track.
Did somebody want something?It does not need to be dramatic. Wanting the other person to answer a question is enough to create movement.
Did something change?Even a tiny shift gives the scene a reason to exist.
If the answer to one of those questions is no, have another play with it. Not because you failed. Because now you know what to try next.
Please Don’t Race
There is no timetable.
Nobody is standing beside you with a stopwatch yelling: “COME ON, MAVIS, TARANTINO HAD FINISHED ANOTHER DRAFT BY NOW.”
Take your time. Learn one thing. Try it. Learn another. Try that.
Read screenplays. Watch films and start noticing how scenes work. Write little pieces.
Experiment.
Some will work. Some will be peculiar. Occasionally you will write something that makes you sit back and think: Oh! I like that.
Keep going.
What Happens Once You Start?
Something interesting usually happens. The question gradually stops being: Can I do this? And becomes: What happens next?
That is a much more exciting question. Because now you are not standing outside screenwriting, wondering whether you belong there.
You’re writing a scene.
Perhaps a second one. Perhaps a character wanders onto the page who was not part of the plan. Perhaps you suddenly realise the little café scene you started as an exercise has a much bigger story hiding behind it. Wonderful. Follow it for a while.
You don’t have to know where it leads yet.
Start Where You Are
Being over 50 does not mean you have missed your opportunity to learn screenwriting.
It means you are beginning with fifty-plus years of people, places, arguments, mistakes, surprises, relationships, memories, and observations already tucked away somewhere in your head.
You still have to learn the craft. Everyone does. But you do not have to learn everything before you are allowed to begin.
Start with one place. Two people. One small problem.
See what they do.
Then ask the best beginner screenwriting question there is: What happens next?