Staring at a blank page, the cursor blinking like a ticking time bomb, taunting you with every click. Sounds familiar? I call it scriptwriters' eternal struggle.

But what if there's a tool that can take this "struggle" and turn it into "strategy"? Yes, I'm talking about ChatGPT.

I know what you're thinking, "AI writing my script? That's like asking a microwave to cook a Michelin-star meal." But here's the deal – I don't want ChatGPT to replace the Spielberg in you. I want ChatGPT to unleash it.

So if you want to do that, continue reading and learn how I took ChatGPT for a spin and used it to write a complete script from idea to polished pages.

Writing a Script With ChatGPT

There are many ways to get ChatGPT to write a script for you. But if you want the best results, you need to split that task into bite-sized pieces. Here is how we're going to write a script with ChatGPT:

1. Generate Idea

To kick things off, I asked ChatGPT to give me some ideas. And here's how the conversation went.

I have no idea why, but this sounds like "The Shawshank Redemption" for Gen Z. But I don't judge. On the contrary, I like the first idea ChatGPT gave me.

Let's see if we can expand on it.

2. Write Brief Summary

This is what experienced scriptwriters call synopsis. It's a summary that outlines what happens in a script. And it gives you the big picture without diving into all the details. But I don't want to bore you with definitions, let's take action.

I prompted ChatGPT to generate the synopsis based on the idea from before.

As you can see, this doesn't scream a masterpiece. But with a little bit of human touch, this could be the start of something great.

However, I don't want to tinker with the output. I want to see what AI is capable of on its own. So let's move on to the next step.

3. Define Characters

The next step is to build character arcs. We already have the synopsis written. Now, we can just continue with the conversation.

I have to be honest here. As I read through the response, I liked it. So you can imagine how excited I was for the next part.

4. Generate Story Beats

There are many ways to write a beat sheet. I went with Save The Cat, but you can pick any format you like. Just make sure to change the prompt accordingly.

That being said, here's how the conversation went.

The story gets a bit boring here. I tried different prompting techniques and went back and forth with ChatGPT, but I couldn't get a better response.

5. Write Chapters

This is the last step of the process. It'll tie everything together and give us a full-blown script - hopefully. But before we do that, let ChatGPT summarize what we have so far.

To do this, copy & paste the prompt to your ongoing conversation.

Example ChatGPT response:

Once ChatGPT does this, we're ready to write chapters. We'll need to write the chapters one by one based on the story beats from the previous step.

Here is how I structured the prompt to do this.

To write the next chapter, I typed "Continue" and hit Enter. However, you can give your feedback to ChatGPT and maybe you'll get the response you're looking for.

And this is pretty much it, now you need to write the chapter for every story beat until you have the final script.

But will it be any good? Let me give you my thoughts on that in the next chapter.

ChatGPT For Script Writing: Takeaways

For this experiment, I was using GPT-4 to do all the writing. This is the most up to date model as of now, and it should give you the best results.

But did it? Let me give you my thoughts.

Can ChatGPT Write a Script?

As I tried to write a script with ChatGPT, I learned 2 main things.

1/ ChatGPT is great for brainstorming and thinking big picture. It can give you really good ideas to get your creative juices flowing.

2/ ChatGPT is not so great when it comes to tasks that require detail. The chapters it wrote were rather short. It made up characters along the way. And it also changed some parts of the story.

So do I think that ChatGPT can write a movie script on its own? Not yet!

Can You Use ChatGPT To Write a Script?

And for the next question that is probably crossing your mind. Can you actually do this? Is it okay to use AI for writing your scripts?

Let's be honest. Your clients don't care. If the script is good, if you delivered it on time, and if it has the potential to become a great movie. No one will really care if you use AI or not.

But as we learned today, if you use AI to do all the work, you'll end up with a mediocre script that no one will want.