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Great post! I gave myself a challenge recently: read 1 screenplay or stage play per day. I'm on day 34 so far and have learned a lot. Besides everything you mentioned above, it's forced me to read scripts outside what I would normally read (both in terms of genre and level of quality), and it's given me more of an appreciation for the craft. I've been surprised many times by screenplays I didn't think would entertain or move me. It's definitely difficult to read one a day on some days, but it's been worth it. I plan to keep it up. My next step is to dig in more deeply to scripts, break them apart as you've suggested, and see how they work in closer detail. How about a 31 Day Screenplay Challenge: read 31 screenplays in 31 days and see what happens.

mgren, glad to hear you've embraced this aspect of learning the craft, and that you're learning from it. Re Screenplay Challenge: I've done that before and I think it's a great idea. The problem before was providing links to scripts that are hosted illegally. I know everybody does it, but still it always made me hesitate. But now I've got 80+ scripts which are legal I host through the site, so I had been thinking about doing precisely what you suggested: 30 scripts, 30 days. Might do that in June or September.

Sounds great. And since I just took your protagonist workshop, I've been paying particular attention to the concepts you introduced when I'm reading screenplays. Thanks

I totally agree about having to immerse oneself in the world of the craft to be truly successful at it. My one concern that holds me back from reading more than a snippet of scripts is this: I'm afraid that I will begin to unconsciously develop boundary lines of how "scripts should look like", thereby making it more difficult to be creative and stray away from those boundary lines. I hope this makes sense. Let me know what you think!

Narina, the creativity Hollywood is looking for has very little to do with HOW a script looks and much more to do with WHAT the story is. Furthermore there is no reason in the world that the 'boundaries' of a script should inhibit creativity. Indeed consider Aristotle's articulation of narrative structure: Beginning, Middle, End. That set of boundaries has worked pretty well for storytelling for thousands of years. Finally, I think you will find an enormous amount of variety among screenwriters in terms of format, style, and all the rest involved in writing a script. The upside of reading a lot of scripts far outweighs the downside.

Thanks Scott for the advice! :)