The first ten pages is arguably the most important part of a screenplay. It gives a reader their first experience of your writing: how you introduce a character, establish a world and make something matter.
We wanted to know what things working readers notice, and what they actually look for. So we asked five script editors, consultants and story analysts in the UK and US the same question:
What tells you, in the first ten pages, whether the writer can actually write? Not what's wrong with the script. What tells you about the writer.
Their answers appear below, exactly as they wrote them. Our commentary and research follow separately.
Lucy V Hay is an author, script editor and the founder of Bang2write, one of the UK's leading writing blogs. She has written multiple novels and non-fiction books on writing craft, and has worked with Oscar & BAFTA-nominated creatives, as well as Amazon and NYT bestselling authors for over twenty years. Find her at bang2write.com.
Visual writing. In the first ten pages, I want to SEE the story unfolding rather than have the writer explain it to me: character, conflict and emotion communicated through behaviour, action and imagery. A writer who understands that usually understands what screenwriting actually is - it's a visual medium, so SHOW ME, FFS!
Cera Rose Pickering
Cera Rose Pickering is a screenwriter, producer, playwright and script consultant, as well as being the founder of The Screenwriters' Slate UK, an online platform that connects UK screenwriters with film and TV industry professionals. Find her at cerarose.co.uk and The Screenwriters' Slate UK.
I can normally tell from the first action line! If the writer jumps into the story in a way that immediately grabs my curiosity or surprises me in some way, I know I'm in for a good read. E.g. the script starts with a car hanging over a cliff instead of the protagonist waking up and going through their morning routine. Another sign is that they won't introduce their protagonist with a bunch of adjectives, their hair colour and the fact they're wearing jeans, they'll introduce them by showing me how they react to what's happening in the opening scene through their actions and idiosyncrasies. This paints a far richer picture of who that character is at their core than simply describing them with adjectives.
Yvonne Grace
Yvonne is an award winning television drama producer with 30 years of experience in television drama development and production and her Script Consultancy Script Advice has helped writers from all over the world raise their writing bar, get their work out to the market and also if needed, help them find an agent. You can find her at Script Advice.
In the first 10 pages of a script, I am looking primarily for that natural combination of visual imagery and character/s that carry an entertaining, enthralling and engaging story line. This should start in minute one and reach an interesting juncture by minute 10. This, in my process, is the end of act one and I expect there to be something pivotal happening for the main characters by this point. For me, great television writing is all about character carrying plot via the subtext of that character. A great script will tell me the beginning of the story via a combination of pictures, great dialogue and a driving story engine beneath the whole thing.
Tash Smurthwaite
Tash Smurthwaite is a script editor and development consultant working across high-end TV and film (most recently BBC/Hera Pictures' What It Feels Like for a Girl), offering writers clear, story-focused notes that sharpen structure, character and voice. Find her at scriptservices.co.uk.
For me, it's all about whether the world feels fully built and the voice feels distinctive. It's about execution too, i.e I should be laughing if it's a comedy, tense if it's a thriller, or falling for the characters if it's a drama. And a good writer knows how to hook the reader in fast: the old rule that you need 'a fight or a fuck in the first five minutes' exists for a reason - a real writer drops you into a story already spinning and trusts you to catch up.
Michael Ray Brown
Michael Ray Brown is a story analyst and script consultant who estimates that he has read and analysed more than thirty thousand screenplays. In his own words: "When I'm not consulting with writers, I'm writing and/or producing movies and television. I also can be found working in our little vineyard (the wine took a silver medal at the California State Fair) or walking our two Collies." Find him at Story Sense, where he also publishes a structure checklist.
One of my most popular lectures is how to survive "coverage." Every reader has their own pet peeves, but mine include "internal" description, misspellings, format errors, and an overuse of ellipses. More to the point of your article, the key to capturing a reader's interest is jeopardy. Within the first 10 pages, the reader must get a sense that something has happened - or is about to happen - that puts our protagonist in danger.
Michael sent a second note that week to clarify what he meant by jeopardy:
The jeopardy may be subtle, such as the threat to our protagonist's happiness (as in a romantic comedy). No matter the genre, the danger is that our protagonist may not achieve their objective. That's what keeps readers turning the page.
What we noticed
These are five extremely insightful, individual perspectives, with some useful points of overlap.
Lucy, Cera and Yvonne all emphasise storytelling through images and behaviour. Cera's example makes that practical: a character's reaction can reveal something that a list of attributes cannot. The introduction becomes part of the story.
Tash brings attention to the experience the writing creates. A comedy should make her laugh; a thriller should make her tense. Her answer asks whether the opening is already delivering something of the script's intended effect. Now, as with every great story, you mustn't reveal your hand too early, so subtlety here is important.
Michael adds a reason to stay involved: something the character wants may be at risk. His clarification matters because it leaves room for quieter openings. A threat to someone's happiness can carry jeopardy without physical danger.
Together, the answers suggest three useful questions: what can the reader see, what do they feel, and what makes them want to continue?
Dialogue can contribute to all three. Although only Yvonne mentions it explicitly, these responses don't establish that dialogue matters less. They show how much else readers are attending to alongside it.
What produced screenplays do in their opening pages
We also examined opening-page patterns in 416 produced feature screenplays released between 2000 and 2026.
These measurements offer a different kind of evidence. They describe statistical features of the pages; they cannot judge whether a character feels convincing, whether a joke is funny or if a scene creates suspense. These things are inherently subjective by nature, with individual human taste being the key driver. The sample also contains features, while some of the contributors above work primarily in television.
For this analysis, a scene counts towards the opening when it starts on or before page ten. Page numbering is adjusted so that each script's first scene heading falls on page one. Measurements come from a deterministic parser reading the screenplay layout. Our research methodology explains the wider approach and its limitations.
Openings have a slightly higher share of action lines
The measured action-line share is 50.5% in the opening, compared with 47.3% in the rest of the script. In 63.7% of screenplays, that share is higher early on than later.
That is a modest tendency towards more action-line material in openings. It does not tell us how effectively those lines communicate visually. An action paragraph can reveal character through behaviour, describe a room or explain something the audience could never see.
The contributors' advice concerns what the writing achieves. The measurement concerns how the page is divided.
Openings contain more scenes per page in most of the sample
The median opening contains 12 scenes, compared with 10.5 scenes per ten pages afterwards. In 62% of screenplays, scene frequency is higher in the opening.
This suggests that many produced features move between scenes more frequently early on. It does not establish how fast those scenes feel. A sustained exchange in one room can be urgent; several short scenes can leave a reader waiting for the story to begin.
Scene frequency is something to examine alongside the reading experience, rather than a substitute for it.
The largest speaking part usually speaks early
Across the 415 screenplays where we could identify a character with the most dialogue, that character's first line falls on page two at the median.
Share of produced screenplays in which the character with the most dialogue has spoken by the end of each page.
Measured. 415 produced feature screenplays released 2000 to 2026, parsed from the printed layout. The character with the largest share of dialogue across the whole script, which is not necessarily the protagonist. Page numbers corrected per script so the first scene heading sits on page one.
That leaves 17.6% whose largest speaking part has not spoken by page ten. Hmmmm.
Now, the definition here matters. The character with the most dialogue is not necessarily the protagonist. In Knives Out, this measure selects Benoit Blanc, who arrives on page thirteen.
The figure drops sharply when one character clearly dominates the script. In screenplays where a single character has at least a quarter of all the dialogue, only 8.6% of those characters have not spoken by page ten. Even then, the character who talks the most is not always the one the story is about.
Note: these figures describe when a character first speaks, which may be later than when we first see them or begin to understand their importance.
How to use this on your own pages
Produced screenplays give us useful comparisons, but they are a selected sample. Publicly available scripts favour certain kinds of films and include different draft stages. We cannot use them to determine which opening choices caused a script to sell or get made.
The contributors offer another way into the question. Read your opening and ask:
- What do I learn about the characters through their behaviour?
- What experience is the writing creating: curiosity, amusement, unease, anticipation?
- What matters to someone here, and what could put it at risk?
Then look at the measurements. If your opening contains long scenes, a high proportion of dialogue or a central character who speaks late, examine what those choices accomplish.
Cera's first-action-line observation is a useful prompt to read closely. Start with that line and keep going: what does each passage give the reader, and what makes the next one worth reading?
We'd like to extend a warm thanks to Lucy, Cera, Yvonne, Tash and Michael for sharing their time and perspectives on this subject. If you work as a script editor, reader or consultant and would answer the question differently, or would like to contribute to our ongoing research posts, we'd love to hear from you too. You can email me personally at dylian@teamprelist.com. And to everyone else, if you enjoyed reading this, don't forget to subscribe to our PreList Newsletter where we'll be dropping new posts on everything screenwriting
