you can tell how good a character is by how quickly they would be thrown in jail if they existed in real life
"We found out this really simple rule... we can take... the beats of your outline, and if the words "and then' belong between those beats, you're f**ked, basically. You've got something pretty boring. What should happen between every beat you've written down is the word 'therefore' or 'but.'
"So you come up with an idea and it's like 'this happens... and then, this happens.' No, no, no! It should be 'this happens... and therefore, this happens.' [or] 'this happens... but this happens.'"