A complete screenplay development framework — 29 diagnostic sections
The core story test establishes whether the screenplay has a clear, sustainable dramatic engine. A strong premise identifies a specific character in a specific situation facing a specific obstacle with a specific cost of failure. Vagueness at this level is structural, not cosmetic — it rarely improves in later drafts.
Do we care what happens to the protagonist? Why? What makes them compelling, fascinating, sympathetic, entertaining or emotionally recognisable? What do they want externally? What do they need internally? What are they afraid of? What contradiction makes them interesting? Are they actively driving events or merely responding to the plot? Do their choices have consequences? Would the audience miss them if they disappeared from the story?
Audit every significant character. What does each person want? Why do they want it? What are they prepared to do to obtain it? What are they hiding? What do they misunderstand about themselves or others? Do supporting characters have objectives independent of the protagonist? Are characters making decisions that alter the story? Do relationships and loyalties change under pressure? By the end, who has changed, who has refused to change and what has that cost them?
A character trait is only the surface. What is causing the behaviour? Two characters may both hoard money, but one may be defending against the terror of poverty while another uses wealth as a means of control. The visible behaviour may be similar, but its source changes how each character thinks, chooses, speaks, loves, fights and reacts under pressure.
Could you identify the speaker if the character names were removed from the dialogue? Consider age, education, profession, class, culture, nationality, vocabulary, vernacular, accent, rhythm and confidence. Do they speak precisely, expansively, bluntly, elliptically or formally? Do they swear, interrupt, ramble, hesitate, mispronounce, self-correct or repeat themselves? Do they have selective verbal habits such as "um", "like", "you know" or particular expressions? How does their speech change according to whom they are addressing? Flag dialogue that could be transferred between characters without anybody noticing.
Audit every significant female character independently. Does she have objectives, expertise, judgement, desires, flaws, humour and contradictions of her own? Does she make consequential decisions? Does she exist beyond her relationship to a male character? Is she disproportionately passive, frightened, emotionally fragile, easily led or dependent without a story-specific reason? Is she reduced to a familiar function: mother, nagging wife, victim, dutiful daughter, seductress, prostitute, moral conscience, helpless ingenue or emotional support system?
Check older women particularly. Are they allowed ambition, sexuality, authority, humour, selfishness, expertise and relevance?
Do not solve stereotyping simply by making women aggressive, invulnerable or conventionally "strong". Test whether female characters receive the same specificity, agency, complexity and narrative consequence as comparable male characters.
Who or what opposes the protagonist? Is the opposition intelligent and formidable? Does the antagonist have comprehensible motives rather than simply functioning as an obstacle? Are characters forced to make difficult choices? Does pressure increase? Do solutions create new problems? Are obstacles varied, or does the screenplay repeatedly generate the same kind of conflict?
What happens if the protagonist fails? Are the stakes emotional and personal as well as external? Do they become progressively more consequential? Is something important at risk early enough? Are there moments when apparent success creates greater danger? Does the audience understand what can be lost without characters repeatedly explaining it?
Every important action should create an appropriate dramatic consequence. "Crime and punishment" does not mean that characters must be morally punished or that the story must deliver conventional justice. It asks whether choices carry believable weight. A small mistake should not produce an absurd catastrophe without a credible chain of events, while a major betrayal, reckless decision or destructive act should not simply disappear without consequence.
Use "crime" broadly: a lie, betrayal, cowardice, arrogance, manipulation, reckless choice, broken promise or literal crime.
Ask:
Map the major movements of the story. What launches it? What commits the protagonist to the central journey? Where does the story materially change direction? What happens around the midpoint? Does the midpoint create a meaningful reversal, revelation, victory, defeat or escalation rather than merely occurring halfway through the page count? Where are the major highs and lows? What forces the final confrontation? Does the climax arise from decisions and consequences established earlier?
Use structural models such as three-act structure, five-act structure, Hero's Journey or another appropriate framework only where useful to the particular story. Do not distort a screenplay merely to satisfy a prescribed formula.
At approximately the centre of the story, has something genuinely changed? Does the protagonist gain important knowledge, suffer a reversal, achieve an apparent victory, experience a significant loss, change strategy or become more deeply committed? Are the stakes different after the midpoint than before it? If the second half could proceed exactly as it would without the midpoint event, the midpoint may not be doing enough work.
Does the protagonist gain important knowledge, suffer a reversal, achieve an apparent victory, experience a significant loss, change strategy or become more deeply committed?
Are the stakes different after the midpoint than before it?
If the second half could proceed exactly as it would without the midpoint event, the midpoint may not be doing enough work.
For every scene ask: why does this scene exist? Who wants what? What prevents them getting it? What changes between the beginning and end? Does the scene reveal character, advance plot, alter a relationship, provide essential information or preferably accomplish several functions simultaneously? Could the scene disappear without damaging the story? Does it repeat information, conflict or an emotional beat already established?
Where does the scene actually begin - the first line carrying dramatic content, or an earlier line of arrival, greeting or setup that could be cut? Where does it end - the moment its dramatic question is answered, or does it continue past that point? Flag scenes that open with characters arriving, sitting down or exchanging pleasantries before the real business starts. Flag scenes that linger after the beat has landed.
Is the final beat doing new work, changing our understanding or creating forward momentum, or merely confirming what the audience already understood?
A scene does not need a conspicuous "button". Some scenes should end quietly, abruptly, on an image, in silence or on an unresolved emotional beat. The test is whether the writer has deliberately chosen the strongest point at which to leave the scene.
In scenes with more than two characters, what is every person present doing dramatically? Flag characters who remain present without purpose.
In a significant scene, examine who temporarily holds the leverage and why. Dramatic power does not depend solely on social status or authority. It may come from information, a secret, emotional need, money, danger, expertise, the ability to leave, or having nothing left to lose. Track how that balance changes during the scene.
At the end of every significant scene or sequence ask:
What question has just been answered? What new question has been created? What remains unresolved? What danger, mystery, desire, revelation, emotional tension or anticipated event pulls us forward?
A scene does not always need a cliffhanger. It should usually alter our understanding, expectations or anticipation. Flag stretches in which the audience has no compelling reason to discover what happens next.
A scene does not always need a cliffhanger. It should usually alter our understanding, expectations or anticipation.
Flag stretches in which the audience has no compelling reason to discover what happens next.
Track the questions the screenplay creates. When is each answered? Does answering one important question generate another? Are mysteries withheld fairly, with sufficient information for the audience to remain engaged? Are answers delayed because of genuine dramatic circumstances rather than artificial concealment? Is crucial information revealed too early? Are there forgotten questions that never receive a payoff?
The audience should experience a controlled rhythm of
What does the audience know that the characters do not? What does one character know that another does not? Where are secrets creating tension? Are revelations arriving at the most dramatically effective moment? Could information become more powerful by changing who discovers it, when they discover it or whether the audience knows first?
Identify significant objects, behaviours, information, promises, relationships, skills and mysteries introduced during the screenplay. Which return later? Are important resolutions properly prepared? Does an apparently insignificant detail acquire meaning later? Flag forgotten plants, unearned payoffs, convenient solutions and set-ups that never become dramatically useful.
Does dialogue accomplish more than exchanging information? Are characters explaining things they already know? Are they describing what the audience can see? Are they stating their emotions rather than behaving them? Do characters always answer questions directly? Where are they lying, evading, provoking, manipulating, concealing, testing or protecting themselves? What is being communicated underneath the literal words?
Map the emotional and dramatic temperature of consecutive scenes. Does the screenplay remain in one register for too long? After sustained tension, is there space for humour, intimacy, stillness or release? After quieter material, does something restore momentum? Are action, suspense, comedy, tenderness, discomfort, mystery and reflection varied appropriately for this particular story?
Do not manufacture arbitrary tonal changes. Look for contrast and rhythm. A relentlessly melancholy screenplay can become emotionally flat; relentless action can become equally monotonous. Contrast allows individual moments to have greater impact.
Map what the audience should feel throughout the screenplay. Where should we laugh, fear, hope, worry, grieve, become angry, feel tenderness, experience relief or anticipate disaster? Are there prolonged emotionally neutral sections? Do emotional peaks build appropriately? Has the screenplay earned its most important emotional moments?
What is the story ultimately examining beneath its plot? Is the theme emerging through characters, choices, consequences and conflict, or are characters delivering the writer's argument? Do different characters embody genuinely different perspectives? Does the screenplay allow difficult ideas to remain complicated? Does the ending deepen or resolve the thematic question?
What have audiences seen before? What makes this version distinctive? Are familiar genre conventions being used deliberately? Can the audience predict major developments too easily? Are twists surprising but retrospectively logical? Does the project contain characters, relationships, imagery, situations or ideas that could become uniquely associated with it?
Flag unnecessary scenes, redundant characters, repeated information, repeated emotional beats, excessive exposition, overwritten action, unnecessary adjectives, unfilmable internal thoughts and dialogue explaining what the audience already understands.
If the answer is "nothing", consider removing it.
If something in your story disappears, does the narrative lose anything essential?
If the answer is "nothing", it's likely a candidate for removal to streamline the storytelling.
Does the climax arise from the protagonist's actions and choices? Does it confront the central dramatic problem? Are important character and relationship arcs resolved appropriately? Are major plants paid off? Does the ending answer enough questions to satisfy while preserving deliberate ambiguity where appropriate? Is the final emotional impression the one the writer intends?
For series: does the episode or season satisfy its immediate dramatic promise while creating genuine desire for what follows?
Does the episode or season satisfy its immediate dramatic promise while creating genuine desire for what follows?
Does the story deliver what its chosen genre promises while retaining individuality? Does a thriller generate suspense? Does comedy actually produce comic situations? Does horror create fear or unease? Does a mystery provide a satisfying investigative engine? For television, is there a renewable series engine beyond the pilot? For features, does the premise justify its running time?
Check specifically for patterns commonly introduced or amplified by generative AI: characters with suspiciously similar voices; excessive emotional explanation; generic vulnerability; repetitive sentence structures; unnecessary adjectives; characters constantly smirking, sighing or exchanging knowing looks; overuse of exposition; artificial symmetry; repeated thematic statements; generic "strong female character" behaviour; scenes that sound polished but contain little dramatic movement.
AI should identify these patterns. It should not automatically rewrite the writer's voice.
Check whether successive revisions appear to have been made independently in response to individual notes rather than as part of a coherent screenplay-wide revision. Flag when the script shows evidence of:
Where several symptoms share a common cause, identify the underlying structural problem and recommend addressing that before any further local fixes.
Assess whether the screenplay creates immediate professional confidence and gives the reader a reason to continue.
Now forget the individual rules and assess the screenplay as an industry reader.
Would you read beyond page 10? Where did your attention first wander? Which character would you most want to cast? What is the strongest selling point? What is the weakest element? What would concern a producer, commissioner, financier or distributor? What would make somebody describe this project to another person tomorrow? If you could fix only three things before submitting it, what would they be?
A demographic is not an audience strategy. Knowing that a project is aimed at 'women 25–54', 'young adults' or '18–34s' describes a population. It does not explain why those people would choose this particular film. A strong project can identify the people most likely to respond to it, what they are coming for and which element of the project delivers that promise.
WHO? Who is most likely to actively choose this film?
WHY? What are they coming for? Suspense, romance, recognition, humour, escapism, nostalgia, spectacle, wish fulfilment, cultural identification, intellectual curiosity, a particular world, subject or experience?
WHAT? What specific element of the project satisfies that desire?
A film may have several audiences. They may be attracted to the same project for completely different reasons.
Can the creator describe the audience by motivation as well as demographics?
Weak: "Adults aged 25–45."
Stronger: "Viewers drawn to morally complex political thrillers in which institutional power is challenged from inside."
The second description begins to explain why somebody might actually choose the film.
A project may have several potential audiences. It still needs to know which audience comes first.
When the needs of two audience groups conflict, which audience wins? If changing something would attract a broader audience but weaken the experience for the project's core audience, does the project know which promise it intends to protect?
An answer of 'everyone' usually indicates that the audience has not yet been sufficiently defined.
An audience becomes considerably more commercially useful when the producer can identify where it can actually be found.
Replace: 'I think people will like this.' with: 'These identifiable people already demonstrate demand for something this project provides.' The stronger the evidence behind that statement, the stronger the project's commercial positioning.
Score each diagnostic area using the Green / Amber / Red assessment below. The overall score is a weighted judgement normalised to 100, not a mechanical sum. Weight protagonist and audience investment, story engine, stakes, character agency, scene propulsion, structure and emotional engagement most heavily.
Strong. Protect it unless another revision affects it.
A weakness worth examining before submission.
Likely to damage audience engagement or industry readiness.
For every Amber or Red assessment, identify: WHERE the problem occurs; WHY it matters; WHAT QUESTION the writer should ask to solve it. Do not prescribe a replacement scene unless specifically asked.
Do not overwhelm the writer with fifty recommendations. Rank findings:
word economy, description, formatting and minor dialogue refinement.
scene purpose, dialogue, exposition, repetition and tonal rhythm.
relationships, pacing, revelations, emotional journey, planting and payoff.
premise, protagonist, stakes, structure, agency or ending.
Before recommending any substantive change, test whether it alters: character motivation or knowledge; causality; setup and payoff; chronology; stakes; conflict; relationships; theme; tone; pacing; later scenes; or ending logic. A revision that improves one scene but weakens the screenplay elsewhere is not automatically an improvement. Where possible, identify the smallest change that solves the diagnosed problem without creating unnecessary downstream rewriting.
Before producing priorities, run these final checks: Enter Late, Leave Early; Last 10%; Who's Watching; Nameless Dialogue; Exposition Ownership; Absent Scene; Turn-the-Page; One Clear Image.
Identify the five changes most likely to improve the screenplay, in priority order. Only elevate a finding if fixing it would materially improve the screenplay.
A note is evidence of a reader's experience. It is not necessarily an accurate diagnosis of its cause, and it is not an instruction. Before acting on any note, distinguish between three things: what the reader experienced, what element of the screenplay produced that experience, and what change the reader has proposed. Do not assume these are the same.
Identify the specific reader reaction the note is evidence of — confusion, boredom, disbelief, loss of tension, emotional disconnection, unclear motivation, pacing problems, insufficient or excessive information. Then locate where in the screenplay that reaction originates. Test whether the suggested cause is supported by the screenplay. Test whether the proposed solution would actually address that cause, whether a different intervention would solve the problem more economically, and whether the proposed solution creates problems elsewhere.
When a note appears misguided, do not dismiss it. Ask what prompted the reader to make that suggestion. A note proposing more exposition may indicate that essential information is unclear. A note requesting a more likeable character may indicate that the audience cannot follow the character's motivation. A note to cut a scene may indicate that the scene is not changing the story. Diagnose the underlying symptom before recommending a rewrite. These are possible underlying problems, not rigid cause-and-effect rules.
Distinguish repeated feedback from independent convergence. If several independent readers identify difficulty in the same scene, character beat, plot turn or piece of information, increase the diagnostic significance of that location. Do not assume that multiple readers proposing the same solution proves that solution is correct. Separate agreement that a problem exists from agreement about how it should be solved. The first is evidence. The second still requires screenplay-level testing.
The diagnostic may identify what appears not to be working, why it may not be working, evidence from the screenplay, possible revision approaches and the consequences of those approaches. It must not treat an external note, producer suggestion, reader preference or AI recommendation as an instruction the writer must obey. Preserve the writer's intended story wherever the underlying problem can be solved without replacing that intention. Feedback is evidence, not instruction.
The diagnostic is a development tool, not a substitute for authorship. Make deliberate revisions, then run the screenplay through the same assessment again. Compare the scores. What genuinely improved? What became weaker? Did solving one problem create another? Has the writer's distinctive voice survived the revision?
Once the screenplay is working, move to the PitchUp Readiness assessment and Pitch Package.
The following resources are part of the Solaire PitchUp Creator Centre screenwriting library.
Writers are the worst-placed people to spot what's missing from their own scripts — because they already know everything. This diagnostic asks you to read only what you actually wrote, and find where the story you're carrying in your head is absent from the page.
Imagine someone walks into the room halfway through your scene. They know nothing and have no obligation to keep watching. Does something make them stop? A practical test for whether your scenes generate the curiosity that holds a stranger's attention.
Dan Brown, Tony Gilroy, Aaron Sorkin and script doctor Clive Frayne don't agree on where scenes come from. This article steals a question from each of them — and shows how the same scene requirement produces five entirely different pieces of cinema depending on which door you enter through.
Every pitch is a promise. Before you walk into the room, can you answer all ten? From premise and emotional engine to market position, your current project status and the specific ask — the questions that separate a pitch that's ready from one that isn't.
SOLAIRE PITCHUP CREATOR CENTRE