What is “electricity”, in screenwriting terms?

On the Special Edition DVD/Blu-Ray for THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, Jodie Foster is interviewed as part of a retrospective. In the interview, Foster explains that a structurally insignificant scene (the one where “Multiple” Miggs can’t contain his excitement, after Clarice’s first meeting with Hannibal Lecter) is in fact very important: The scene achieves one key thing: it tells the audience “in this film, the gloves are off”. Regardless of genre, screenwriting electricity is an important concept. It’s a sense of energy,

Read more