Billy Wilder’s Top Tips For Screenwriters

Shaun Usher | Film and animation | March 30, 2012

Billy Wilder died just over 10 years ago a – man who was responsible for some of the most iconic films of 20th Century such as ‘The Apartment’, ‘Some Like It Hot’ and ‘Double Indemnity’. For that very reason I have posted up a list of tips for screenwriters that he told to Cameron Crowe in the late 1990s and published in the superb book, Conversations with Wilder.

1. The audience is fickle.
2. Grab ‘em by the throat and never let ‘em go.
3. Develop a clean line of action for your leading character.
4. Know where you’re going.
5. The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
6. If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.
7. A tip from Lubitsch: Let the audience add up two plus two. They’ll love you forever.
8. In doing voice-overs, be careful not to describe what the audience already sees. Add to what they’re seeing.
9. The event that occurs at the second act curtain triggers the end of the movie.
10. The third act must build, build, build in tempo and action until the last event, and then — that’s it. Don’t hang around.

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