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Your Screenplay Sucks!

100 Ways to Make It Great
William M. Akers ·2008
“Most scripts fail for specific, identifiable reasons. A 100-point checklist catches what self-assessment misses.”
A 100-point diagnostic checklist covering every dimension of screencraft — concept, character, structure, scenes, dialogue, and format. Blunt, specific, and designed to catch the problems you've been ignoring.
100 diagnostic questions covering every craft dimension. Run your script through them. Fix the failures.
Won't help with: inspiration, emotional depth, finding your voice, or generating new ideas.
Topics structuredialoguecraft
Key Insights
1 takeaway from this resource — click to expand
💡 Reading your script for 'how it feels' will miss the problems. Checking it against 100 specific questions will find them. ›
Akers' approach replaces subjective self-assessment with systematic diagnosis. Instead of asking 'is my character compelling?' — a question too vague to answer honestly — the checklist asks specific, answerable questions: does your protagonist have a clear external goal by page 10? Can you state your character's flaw in one sentence? Does every scene turn — does the character enter in one emotional state and leave in another? Each question targets one observable, checkable thing. The power is in the specificity: a writer who can't tell if their screenplay is 'good' can absolutely tell if their protagonist lacks a clear goal by page 10. The checklist converts a paralyzing holistic judgment into a series of binary checks.
Check Your Script
Pick the dimension of your screenplay you're least confident about — dialogue, structure, character. Write five specific yes/no questions you can check against the actual pages. If you can't write specific questions, you may not know what 'good' looks like in that dimension yet.
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How It Teaches

Encoding fingerprint and cognitive approach

Theory
Examples ›
Balanced — each of the 100 points includes specific examples of the problem and the fix.
Mechanism
Heuristic ›
Heuristic — quick rules for identifying problems. Some explanation of why they matter.
Diagnostic
Prescriptive ›
Diagnostic — the 100 points are a pass/fail checklist. Does your script do this or not?
Global
Local ›
Balanced — covers both overall story problems and specific craft errors.
Cognitive Mode
Te + Se
Teaches through extraverted thinking — a systematic, numbered checklist of specific problems to identify and fix (Te). Grounded in extraverted sensing — the diagnostic is concrete and observable: does this specific thing exist in your script or not? (Se).
Te provides the system; Se ensures each diagnostic is concrete. Together they catch the specific problems your self-assessment misses.

What It Teaches

Central thesis and key premises

Most screenplays fail for specific, identifiable reasons that the writer hasn't noticed. A comprehensive checklist of 100 diagnostic questions catches the problems your self-assessment misses — from concept flaws to formatting errors.
Teaching Modality
Diagnostic Checklist
Approach
Run your script through 100 specific diagnostic questions. Each one catches a common problem. Fix the failures.
Structure
100 Diagnostic Points
100 specific questions organized by category: concept, character, structure, scenes, dialogue, format, and selling. Each question catches a common mistake.
Blunt Assessment
The title sets the tone — the book doesn't soften its message. If your script has the problem, you need to know. Denial doesn't fix craft.
Structure
Specific, Observable Problems
Each diagnostic point targets something specific and observable — not vague advice like 'make the character more compelling' but specific checks like 'does your protagonist make decisions that drive the plot?'
Structure
Organized by Craft Dimension
Points organized by category let you diagnose specific areas of weakness — your concept may be strong while your dialogue needs work.

Put these ideas to work on your screenplay

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