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✍️Screenwriting II
Key Terms

292 essential vocabulary terms and definitions to know for your Screenwriting II exam

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A

Aaron Sorkin
Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay
Act break
Act transitions
Action beats
Action line
Action, Dialogue, and Description Balance
Action-reaction intercutting
Adaptation rights
Alien Cultures
Alternating plots
Ambiguity
Angle on
Antagonist
Antagonist-protagonist relationship
Antagonistic Forces
Antagonistic relationship
Anti-hero
Aristotelian Unity
Audience misdirection

B

B-story
Backstory Integration
Beat
Bird's eye view
Body Horror
Breaking the fourth wall

C

Call-back
Camera angles
Carl Jung's Archetypes
Chain of Title
Character Arc Subplot
Character archetypes
Character consistency
Character Contrasts
Character diction
Character doppelgangers
Character Flaws
Character Foils
Character growth
Character highlighting
Character History
Character Inconsistencies
Character Introduction
Character-driven exposition
Close Up
Comic relief
Commercial agent
Conflicting desires
Conflicting Motivations
Conscious Motivations
Contrasting Subplot
Converging Plotlines
Converging Storylines
Cosmic horror
Crossover scenes
Crossover stories

D

Dark comedy
Deuteragonist
Dialogue block
Dialogue density
Dialogue transitions
Dialogue-to-action ratio
Distribution Rights
Divergent timelines
Diverging Storylines
Double entendre
Dramatic Irony
Dream sequence
Dual dialogue
Dutch Angles
Dynamic Descriptions

E

Emotional Arc
Emotional Beats
Emotional catharsis