How Writing a Screenplay is Similar to the Scientific Process

I started writing screenplays when I was 10 years old after seeing Home Alone in the theatre and being told by my parents that I couldn’t get an agent to pursue acting. I would have liked to have gone to a school for the performing arts, but alas I didn’t get in when I auditioned for the performing arts magnet school because my mother was told that they already had too many Black students. 

I’m from Prince George’s County, Maryland, which has been predominately Black since I was a kid. When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, they turned many of the neighborhood schools into magnet schools with special programs to promote desegregation in the county and busing. And where I lived the magnet program for John Carroll Elementary was Science and Technology.

I was forced to do a science project from 3^rd-8^th grade, but even in elementary school, I could see how writing a screenplay was similar to the scientific process. As early as 2^nd or 3^rd grade, we were taught that the way to do a science experiment is to start with a question, create a hypothesis, come up with the procedures and materials to carry out the experiment, state your results, and draw your conclusion.

How the Question in a Science Experiment is Like The Premise Question of a Screenplay

When reading screenplays from novice writers, you can tell that many of them have never learned how to use a premise question to structure their screenplay. Somewhere along my screenwriting journey, I was taught that every scene of a screenplay answers the premise question with either a yes or no. The premise question is not the tangible outer goal. The premise question helps the writer identify what themes they want to explore in the screenplay. For example, in middle school, one of my science projects was a survey about whether a best friend lasts forever. I was 12 or 13, and this was a very serious question that I wanted an answer to.

So, if you’re looking at a screenplay as if it’s a science experiment, the question for the science project would be the premise question for the script: Does a best friend last forever? The movies that immediately come to mind that would fit that premise question would be Now and Then from 1995 or The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants from 2005, or even the classic movie that all kids from my generation loved, The Sandlot from 1993. 

Every scene in those scripts would be an answer to that premise question. Whatever happens in that scene would either answer the question, 'does a best friend last forever?' with either a yes, based on what happens in the scene, or a no.

How the Hypothesis Aids the Writer in Structuring the Script

The biggest advantage to writing a screenplay using a premise question is that the writer can be surprised by the outcome of the first draft. If the writer uses the question, 'does a best friend last forever?' as their premise question, then they obviously have an opinion about that. 

The hypothesis of a science project is basically what you think the results of the experiment are going to be. So, the hypothesis for the script would be what the writer thinks. Based on their hypothesis—either yes that a best friend lasts forever or either no that a best friend doesn’t last forever—their screenplay would be written differently depending on which hypothesis the writer chooses.

The hypothesis would shape how the story unfolds, what challenges arise, and even how the characters are created. This is the same way that a hypothesis shapes a science experiment. When a scientist is looking for a certain result, it definitely affects how they carry out the experiment. Experiment results are not obviously subjective, but they are. It’s similar to how the placebo effect causes a sugar pill to heal illness because the patient believes that they’ll be healed. When the experimenter believes that there will be a certain result to an experiment, it definitely skews the results.

How Procedures and Materials Would Show Up in a Screenplay

In a science experiment, the scientist would write out the procedures that he or she needs to go through to conduct the experiment. In a screenplay, the experiment is made up of scenes that the characters go through and the obstacles that they face. Using the example of the premise question of whether a best friend lasts forever, there would be challenges and obstacles that pop up that challenge the friendships of the central characters in the movie. The materials are the tools you use as a screenwriter—the elements of screenwriting: character, plot, theme, setting, etc.

The Results and Conclusion of Your Screenplay

At the end of the science project, you come to realize your results. What were the results of your experiment? After all of these scenes that teeter between yes and no all along the way, what is the final conclusion? Does a best friend last forever? Yes or No? Well, it depends what your genre is and what the overall feeling is that the writer is going for. For a feel-good movie, the answer would be yes. For a darker movie, the answer would be no.

I’ve always looked at the screenplays I write as literary science projects. I ask myself, 'Why am I writing this script? What am I trying to learn about life?' If writers took the time to develop a question and hypothesis about each of their story ideas, it would add a level of depth that most people will say can’t be taught. But, I completely disagree. You can teach anything. And using a question while writing your screenplay as if it were a science project is a way to teach a level of depth that most people would say is impossible. But when you look at the marvels of the universe, nothing is impossible. Science—and life—will surprise you every time.