Your Screenplay Sucks

...is an absolutely TERRIBLE, CORNY name for a book...but I'm finding the book itself (by William M. Akers) to be pretty helpful. It takes the form of a list of 100 things to watch out for, in the outlining, writing, and rewriting of your screenplay. Here are a few highlights. And he goes into a lot more depth, so please, if this is at all useful, get the book. Some of these are drop-dead obvious, of course...but that's because we're good writers. Still, checklists help.

1. Never forget that a screenplay is, on one level, ACTOR BAIT.
2. Write something YOU really care about.
3. Write something ORIGINAL.
4. Communicate GENRE quickly and early.
5. Make sure you're telling a STORY, and aim for a happy ending, or at least some hope.
6. Have a good title (the man should take his own advice).
7. Your main Character should be ACTIVE, should have a well-defined and interesting PROBLEM, must be able to solve OWN problem.
8. Make sure your character TRANSFORMS over the screenplay. Remember that what your character WANTS may be different than what your character NEEDS.
9. Be very specific about your character. Know your character in detail.
10. Be very specific about PLACE.
11. We have to want your main character to WIN.
12. Your main character's opponent should be a PERSON (or embodied by a person...).
13. Your opponent should be an AGENT OF CHANGE in your character.
14. Your character is not a device. Don't have him or her do STUPID things to move the story forward.
15. Make sure there's TENSION, and that the tension ESCALATES.
16. Make sure there's some kind of TIME PRESSURE (not always, but in general).
17. Milk emotional moments.
18. Do a one-line outline (ie what each scene "does" in a line)
19. "Just when everything seems fine, it's not."
20. Do you have an A story and a B story? Do they intersect? Does B support A?
21. Take advantage of set-ups and pay-offs.
22. Bury exposition.
23. Every scene should (a) Advance the story (b) Increase dramatic tension and (c) tell something about characters.

I suspect that you could apply a lot of these to playwriting, without being dogmatic about it.