The Left Brain vs. The Right Brain

As you probably know, the left brain is associated with linear and analytical thought. The right brain, on the other hand, is associated with creative and intuitive thought, and we have both a left and right hemisphere in our brain. Screenwriting incorporates both the analytical mind and the creative mind. The left brain helps us to structure our screenplay and the right brain helps us to develop our characters, our dialogue, and picture our worlds. We may be stronger in one hemisphere over the other, but these parts of our brain can be developed with practice. Know your strengths and keep this in mind when going through the screenwriting process. For example, if you are more of a left-brain thinker, you may find that structuring your story comes easily to you and you enjoy thinking through the plot points. On the other hand, you may struggle to know your characters and hear their voices. No worries…with practice your right brain will kick in and your characters will come to life.

The same is true for the right brain thinkers who can barely turn their characters’ voices off at night. Structure might be a grueling task for you and you wonder why you can’t just let your characters tell you where they want to go next. You can try this approach, but after two hundred pages of script with no end in sight, you may decide that engaging your left brain to step up and structure your screenplay is the way to go.