I read an interesting book about writing short screenplays. It’s “Crafting short screenplays that connect – 2nd edition” by Claudia Hunter Johnson.
Books about writing screenplays always talk about conflict. There has to be some form of conflict (that may be physical or emotional or any other form of conflict) in a story to be interesting to an audience. Claudia however states that there also should be a connection. The audience must be able to connect with a story. They must be able to recognize themselves or situations they have been in themselves, in a story.
I think she’s right. If a story (with or without conflict for that matter) brings nothing to you to which you can relate, you wouldn’t care about that story at all and you probably would not finish that particular story. If it was a movie you’re watching you probably wouldn’t make it to the end titles.
If you’re interested in writing screenplays I can also recommend the “Save the Cat” series by Blake Snyder and “Rewrite” by Paul Chitlik. Reading these books you get an in depth view on how to properly write a screenplay that people would consider reading and that can be made into an actual movie.