2. Your Story Doesn't Start At The Last Possible Moment
In other words: your screenplay should start at the last possible moment that it's possible to tell your story. What you might find on a re-read, then, is that you can cut 5 or 10 or even 20 pages out of your script at the start, and get things moving far quicker without those meaningless scenes you wrote when you were first putting it all together. You'll often be surprised how late into a story you can start with sacrificing any of the drama.
1. Your Screenplay Is "Too Big" For A First Screenplay
Maybe it's a little pessimistic to say that you should think "smaller" when you're writing your first screenplay, but it's probably a far better idea to keep things on the cheaper side, from a production cost point of view. It's unlikely that anybody is going to agree to produce your screenplay if there are eight or nine large-scale battle sequences, or the studio is going to have to spend $100 million on the necessary CGI. Hollywood rarely takes those kinds of chances on first-time writers. If you're trying to find a way into screenwriting, then, your best bet is to probably write something less like a blockbuster and to instead focus your efforts on a piece of writing that allows a script reader or an agent to see how well you have mastered all the elements of the craft: a unique, well-structured story that holds up until scrutiny, filled with memorable characters. So if you're currently penning Avatar, the odds are against you. But, hey, The Matrix might be okay.
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