How to Write an Anthology Film

An anthology film is a short series of stories that are loosely connected by theme, character, or some other element. But which may technically have no other relationship to one another. They don’t necessarily mean the same thing or have similar stories. In fact, the stories can be incredibly different and complete opposites or in no way similar. Except that there is an underlying symbol or theme that does create a relationship. Learning how to write an anthology film is something that many aspiring filmmakers and screenwriters want to dive into. But wonder where to get started.

The Relationship

Writing an anthology film is all about choosing the relationship that will connect the short stories to create the anthology. For example, your anthology may be connected by theme in which all of the stories take place in the same timeframe or location.

Other times, they could be connected by a particular actor that plays in each one. Choosing the relationship that will be used to make an anthology is the very first step to writing a successful anthology film – so take your time and make it count!

Consider the following:

• Place – such as a city, state, or particular world.
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• People – the same director, the same actor, or the same character.
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• Things – all include a gnome, coffee, tea, etc.
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• Theme – horror, drama, love story, etc.
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• Events – all include a fair, a party, or a particular holiday.

Figure out how you will connect the films or stories that you’ll share in the anthology. As this will form the foundation upon which you can build the anthology for your audience. 

As long as you’re stories all fit within a common theme, you can safely call it an anthology and be done!

Write the Scripts

Now that you’ve got your relationship planned out for the anthology, learning how to write an anthology film moves onto the next step which is to define the scripts for each story.

Keep your original theme in mind and the connection as you write each script out. Remember, most anthologies are short, so a short script for each story is likely going to work best. 

It’s also important to make sure that the connection is clear. While there are plenty of anthologies that have a connection that is relatively difficult to understand. The best anthologies are those with a common theme that is easy to spot as the underlying connection. 

Anthologies are Not Series

As a final note, when writing an anthology, make sure that you keep in mind that an anthology film is not necessarily a series in the sense that there is a story connection.

While there should be a bond in the theme, there is not a bond in the sense of the stories being connected to an extent that they are a series.

As you learn how to write an anthology film, keep in mind that you don’t want each of the short stories to be so closely connected that they could be considered a series – you simply want a single symbol of similarity.