The first ten pages of your script are the most important for a very simple reason: if the reader doesn’t like them they won’t read the rest of the script. All the brilliance of your later pages will be unnoticed, like a tree falling in a forest with no one around to hear it.

Why 10 pages?

Let’s start with some honesty. Choosing the first ten pages as the most important is slightly arbitrary, but it’s a nice round number that’s big enough to give a good sense of the script yet small enough for a reader to consume without feeling like they’ve wasted their time if they don’t like them. That’s why readers will often give a script at least ten pages before giving up on it. If they like those pages, they’ll read more.

With that said, let’s dive into some strategies for crafting strong opening pages.

Start your story as late as possible

One of the first decisions in telling any story is when to start it, and screenwriting is no different. A common problem is writers starting their script too early. That means that your script starts with a lot of pages the reader has to wade through before the story they're actually here for gets going.

If you find yourself with slow pages at the start which you’re defending with arguments like “But it’s important to know this stuff to understand the story” or “But we need this to get the character to the place where the story can start” then you’ve got a problem.  You don’t want to have to defend any part of your script with a “but,” let alone the opening pages.

Start the script when the story actually starts, and figure out a way to build in the necessary information as an organic part of the story. Yes, this may require re-breaking your story, but it will be worth it in the end.

Minimize world building

A related issue is “infodumping” at the start of a script. It makes sense that screenwriters feel the urge to explain everything about the characters and the world in the beginning so the audience doesn’t get confused, but this can really slow down a script.  

At the start of your script take care in choosing which details you share with the reader. Ask yourself if that detail is necessary for the reader to understand what the character is going through at the start, or if it’s necessary to establish the tone. If the answer to both questions is no, it’s probably something the reader can learn later.

If the information is important, find ways to introduce it quickly without bogging the reader down. For more on that, check out my post on expository dialogue.

Establish the tone (and introduce the promise of the script)

Why is it important to establish the tone? And how do you do that? Great questions.

Think of your first ten pages as an invitation to the party that is the rest of your script. Like any good invitation it should give the reader a sense of what to expect, and do it in a way that makes it seem like a party they want to go to. If the script is going to be funny, the invitation should be funny as well. If the script is going to be scary, scare the reader in the opening pages. (Of course just like parties can have surprises, you can surprise the reader with a tone shift later.)

Another way to think of this is making a promise to the reader with the first ten pages. You’re saying, “Hey, stick around and I’ll give you X.” X can equal thrills, laughs, gore, romance, etc. The stronger the promise, the more they’ll want to stick around. (And the more disappointed they’ll be if you don’t deliver on the promise, so make sure you deliver on it!)

Introduce your protagonist

Introducing your protagonist in the first ten pages might seem obvious, but what might not seem obvious is how to introduce them. The trick is to give the audience a sense of who they are as quickly as possible. There are a lot of ways to do this, but one that I find very effective is to meet them as they’re dealing with some kind of problem. How they deal with the problem, and whether they succeed or fail, will be a more convincing argument for who they are then any speech or description.

Show us their problem

The other part in introducing the character is giving us a sense of what the problem is with the status quo of their life. This lets us know what the story will be, and it helps us connect to them on an emotional level. It also clues the audience in on what the central theme of the script is going to be and gives them a deeper reason to stick around.

Hook the audience

Connecting on an emotional level with a character is the most sure-fire way to “hook the audience.” You’ve probably read about hooking the audience before, and it’s sometimes interpreted as having something crazy happen at the front of the script. You can have something crazy happen at the start of your script, but shock value wears off while emotional investment goes the distance.

Try to give your reader reasons to care about your protagonist and the journey they're going to be undertaking over the course of the script. This doesn't mean that your protagonist has to be a great person or "sympathetic," it just means there is something about them that the audience is invested in.