295 | What Are The Elements Of A Good Scene? SUPERCUT

The Screenwriting Life with Meg LeFauve and Lorien McKenna

Meg LeFauve & Lorien McKenna

Tv & Film

4.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 April 2026

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Lorien and Meg have asked numerous guests the same important questions, What are the elements of a good scene? You will hear different ideas from the industries best including: Melissa Rosenberg (Dexter) Derek Kolstad (John Wick) Maggie Lane & Eric Jarboe (Hotel For The Holidays/Christmas Switch) Dana Fox (Wicked) Alex Woo & Erik Benson (In Your Dreams) Chandler Baker (Oh.What.Fun.) Jesse Andrews (Hoppers) Looking for more support on your writing journey? Join Meg and Lorien inside ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TSL Workshops⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Episode Links: For more information on Flipping The Screen and to sign up for the workshops, email flippingthescreen@gmail.com Check out the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TSL merch shop⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TSL on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Screenwriting Life is produced and edited by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Alex Alcheh.⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:23.3	Hey everyone. Welcome back to the screenwriting life. I'm Meg Lofov. And today we have a supercut for you.
0:29.0	On our show, we've asked many guests, what are the elements of a good scene? All of our
0:33.4	guests shared ideas that we believe combined are really going to illuminate many of the elements of a great scene.
0:39.5	This supercut was edited by our wonderful intern Charlie Robson with some assistance from our
0:43.9	other wonderful intern John O'Keefe.
0:46.6	Enjoy.
0:47.6	The head writer of the hit TV series Dexter, Melissa Rosenberg.
0:51.5	Okay, here's another question.
0:55.2	What are the elements of a good scene?
0:58.1	Knowing when to get in and out, you know, are you center cutting the scene?
1:04.1	Are you going, are you taking characters away out the door?
1:09.7	That's something you begin to get a sense of after you practice the craft
1:14.9	a while. But the most important thing in the scene is what is it about? What is it trying, how is it
1:24.5	moving the characters forward? And if you've written a whole scene and it's just
1:29.0	a bunch of dialogue banter back and forth or it's about, you know, information you needed to
1:35.0	get out there, that's not going to be a great scene. You've got to, it only matters in terms of how
1:41.7	does it move the characters forward, you know, that story.
1:45.9	So it may be like, well, you know what?
	...

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