Why Less Is More in Screenwriting: Mastering the Art of Selective Storytelling
“Less is more.” It’s a mantra that’s become gospel in screenwriting circles, yet it’s often misunderstood. This isn’t about being sparse for the sake of it or leaving ideas half-baked. It’s about clarity, focus, and leaving enough unsaid so that the audience can fill in the blanks. Great screenwriting isn’t a showcase of everything you know—it’s an invitation for the viewer to imagine more.
Let’s dive into why choosing less—fewer events, fewer characters, tighter themes—creates room for infinitely more meaning and why psychology proves that sometimes restraint is the boldest choice.
One Event to Rule Them All
Trying to tell a life story in two hours is like summarizing War and Peace in a tweet—it’s possible, but what’s the point? Consider films like Selma (2014), which doesn’t try to chronicle Martin Luther King Jr.’s entire life but instead hones in on the Selma marches. By doing so, the film becomes deeply rooted in that moment, allowing the audience to experience the intensity of those events as though they’re happening in real time.
Selma (2014)
Now compare that with biopics that attempt to span decades (Jobs [2013], we’re looking at you). These films feel more like a Wikipedia summary than a story. They give us facts but rob us of immersion and emotional engagement.
Psychology explains this: humans are wired to connect with specific moments, not sprawling timelines. A single event—well-explored—invites us to live it fully, triggering empathy and investment. It’s why The Social Network succeeds by focusing on the early days of Facebook’s creation, while other films attempting to tackle “big lives” fail to leave a lasting impact.
Fewer Characters, Greater Connection
If your screenplay introduces six protagonists, three love interests, and a couple of comic relief sidekicks, your audience might need a flowchart to keep track. Cognitive load theory reveals that our brains struggle to process too many elements at once. In storytelling, fewer characters allow deeper emotional engagement with the ones that remain.
Take The Banshees of Inisherin (2022). With just two central characters, it crafts a searing study of friendship, loss, and identity. If it were cluttered with additional subplots, the sharp focus on its central conflict would dissolve into noise.
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
Contrast that with ensemble films like Valentine’s Day (2010), where dozens of storylines jostle for attention. You don’t remember the characters because you never had a chance to connect with them. In storytelling, intimacy beats quantity every time.
Big Ideas Live in Small Spaces
A screenplay isn’t just what’s shown on the screen—it’s what’s left unsaid. A tightly focused story can plant small seeds that grow into sprawling ideas in the viewer’s mind.
Consider Lost in Translation (2003). On the surface, it’s about two strangers bonding in Tokyo. The plot is minimal. The themes, however—alienation, connection, the passage of time—feel vast because the film allows room for interpretation. By keeping the narrative restrained, it invites the audience to expand on those ideas themselves.
Lost in Translation (2003)
This idea is reflected in real life, too. When a natural disaster strikes and news stories break about thousands of lives being affected, the sheer scale is devastating, but it can also feel overwhelming and impersonal. Then comes the story of someone like Kim—a young girl whose house was destroyed, who’s desperately searching for her mother amidst the chaos. Suddenly, the disaster is no longer an abstract concept; it’s a visceral, personal story that cuts to the heart.
In screenwriting, the same principle applies. Big, sprawling narratives might impress with their scope, but it’s the human-scale stories—the Kim searching for her mother, the brief shared glance in a Tokyo hotel—that leave a lasting emotional impact.
The Danger of Doing Too Much
Broad stories often collapse under the weight of their ambition. Take Collateral Beauty (2016), a film that tries to wrestle love, death, and time into a single coherent narrative. While its intentions are noble, its attempt to cover so much at once leaves it feeling superficial—like a Hallmark card stuffed with too many platitudes.
Now compare that to Whiplash (2014). Rather than tackling the grand topic of ambition as a whole, it zeros in on one hyper-specific thematic question: What is the cost of artistic greatness? The result is a film that feels enormous in scope despite its lean storytelling.
Whiplash (2014)
In screenwriting, trying to say everything often means saying nothing. A narrow lens paradoxically offers the widest view, leaving audiences room to explore and personalize the story’s meaning on their own terms.
The Psychology of "Less"
Why does “less is more” resonate so deeply? It’s all about how the brain processes information:
Cognitive Load Theory: Too much information overwhelms the brain, causing disengagement.
Emotional Anchoring: We bond most deeply with a single clear emotion or conflict. A cluttered story spreads emotions too thin to leave a lasting impression.
The Peak-End Rule: Audiences remember the emotional peaks and the ending of a story most vividly. A streamlined script sharpens these moments, while an overstuffed one muddles them.
By keeping your script focused, you’re not denying the audience complexity—you’re ensuring they have the mental space to explore it themselves.
Perfect Days (2024)
Conclusion: Less Isn’t Just More—It’s Infinite
The brilliance of great screenwriting lies in what it doesn’t say. A tightly focused story allows the audience to extrapolate, reflect, and connect on a deeper level. Concentrating on one event, paring down your cast, and asking a hyper-specific thematic question isn’t about limiting your vision—it’s about creating the space for that vision to grow in the minds of your viewers.
As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said, “Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
By giving less, you give your audience more. More room to think. More room to feel. More room to make your story their own. After all, what’s on the screen is only half the story—the rest belongs to the imagination of those watching.