You can read this almost-franchise sequel for Stallone’s “Cliffhanger” at the bottom of the review!

Genre: Action
Premise: A former Gulf War vet with an axe to grind against America steals a nuke and takes over the Hoover Damn.
About: Since Scott knows more about this than I do, I’ll wait for him to post his notes regarding the script and paste it here. But, basically, it’s the script they purchased to turn into a sequel to the 1992 Stallone mountain-climbing flick, Cliffhanger.
Writers: Jan Skrentny & Neal Tabachnick
Details: 1994 draft – 118 pages (1st draft for studio after script sale)

All this Gen-Z writing is making me angsty. It’s time to jump into our screenwriting time machine and go back to an era when screenwriting was simpler. You came up with a simple premise that would last 15 pages, filled up 105 more, and cashed in a million-dollar check. Actually, screenwriting hasn’t changed much at all. Except for the million-dollar check part.

The good news is that I just read a big script that feels like a Hollywood spec sale from the past, and I’ll be reviewing it in the Scriptshadow Newsletter, which will hit your Inboxes on the 1st or 2nd of February. If you haven’t signed up for my newsletter, do it now: carsonreeves1@gmail.com.

Today, we’re tackling a sequel to the Stallone mountain-climbing flick, Cliffhanger. It’s actually quite timely with the success of Free Solo. It’s only natural that we get a mountain-climbing action movie in 2024, right? Let’s see if Cliffhanger falls to its death or uses its ice pick to pull itself up and get to the top of the mountain.

We meet voluntary rescue employees Mike and Carrie as they test a military chopper in the Grand Canyon to possibly use in future rescue efforts. After enduring a gnarly close call with the flight, the two finally get to go on vacation to the Hoover Dam. And while they’re there, Mike’s planning on proposing.

Meanwhile, a dude named Colonel Ezadia Nuff, or, as I like to call him, “Nuff Said,” somehow coordinates a nuclear missile heist from a missile that’s being thrown away by the military. His men not only steal the missile but they drive it right over to the max prison in the desert to pick up Nuff Said. They grab the nuclear innards of the missile and are gone long before anyone can come help.

These two groups of people collide at the Hoover Dam. Nuff Said rolls two semis over the highways west and east of the dam, stopping all cars from being able to get through. He then rigs the dam with explosives. We eventually learn that Nuff Said was left out to dry after capturing Saddam Hussein. And he wants revenge. God Dam revenge.

What follows is a game of cat and mouse as Mike first tries to find Carrie within the dam and then tries to stop Nuff Said himself. But what is Nuff’s plan exactly? Why would he need a nuke to blow up the dam? Could he have something else up his sleeve? The answer may be in nearby Vegas, where our crazy movie climaxes.

One of the biggest challenges with action scripts is conveying the logistics of what’s happening in the story entertainingly and dramatically. Because action scripts are inundated with logistical scenes. Shootouts, car chases, military operations, often happening in or nearby places that the average person doesn’t know a lot about.

That’s the big problem with The Dam. I vaguely know what the Hoover Dam looks like. But if you go ahead and Google it, you see that it’s actually quite intricate with a lot of little stations and areas that are highly unique. You’ve got the top of the dam, the bottom of the dam, and the highway that drives over it, all of which are easy to imagine.

But then you have all these inner areas and lower sections and turbines and engines and electrical rooms – and this is where most of the movie takes place. I couldn’t, for the life of me, imagine 75% of it. I just never knew exactly where I was or what I was looking at.

This isn’t as big of a deal if you’re writing a draft for the studio. Cause if you’re writing for the studio, it’s more about making the physical movie than writing a script that will win over readers. But it still matters because you eventually have to give the script to a director or a star to approve of it and if they’re reading this like me, where they can never quite understand what they’re looking at, then they can’t get invested emotionally. They won’t be pulled into the drama. And they’ll say “no.”

Which is exactly what I’m assuming happened here. This was the draft that went out to Stallone, and all he saw was, “Character is in the Engine Room.” “Character hides in turbine elevator tunnel.” “Character radios Other Character in Diversion Sector.” You might as well write your script in hieroglyphics.

I wish I could reveal the script I’m reviewing for the newsletter because that’s a script that did the exact opposite of this. It created a situation that was incredibly easy to imagine and, as a result, was able to secure one of the biggest actors on the planet. That’s not an accident that that happened. When you write scenarios that are easy for the reader to imagine, it’s easier for them to get lost in the story.

By the way, I’m not saying you can’t write a script about the Hoover Dam. You just have to understand the challenge in front of you and be up for that challenge. You need to have a game plan to keep your script easy to visualize. Recently, a writing duo hired me for a script consultation on a big flashy 90s-type action movie and, on the very first page, provided a picture of the location. That went a long way towards me understanding what I was looking at. I’m not saying to only use pictures. I’m saying, use whatever you can. If you’re great at description, be prepared to mine every last drop of that skill in a script like this one.

Outside of that, the script was fun to read in a “Back to the 90s” way. The number of 90s spec cliches here was astounding. One of the first things we see is a Blackhawk helicopter. It is statistically proven that between the years of 1994 and 1999, every single Hollywood movie had a Blackhawk helicopter in it.

We’ve got silly tough guy lines that nobody would ever say in real life: “Think my nuts just hit absolute zero.” We’ve got a max security prison (check that, a “Max Max” security prison, whatever that is). We’ve got a villain who used to be in the U.S. military. And, of course, no 90s action spec would be complete without a stolen nuclear missile.

I bring this up in part to have fun with it. But also to remind you that you don’t want someone in 2054 looking back at your script that you’re writing now, and be able to tell, within seconds, that it was written in the early 2020s. So if you’re doing whatever everyone else is doing (female lead, social commentary, overly sensitive to every potential reader, overtly political), it’s going to be obvious why your script didn’t get anywhere. Because you were doing exactly what everybody else was doing!

Be different. Make sure your script stands out in some way.

As I look back at this script, its biggest problem is that it’s trying to make a set piece an entire movie. The Hoover Dam is a great 20 minute action set piece. I’m not convinced it’s a 2 hour movie. Mainly because of the stakes. What does destroying the dam do? Our villain says that it will destroy every city downstream but I looked up on a map every city “downstream” and all I saw was a podunk town called “Bullhead.”

And then, of course, we don’t get Gabe Walker! The hero of Cliffhanger. I know, I know. The studio bought the script to turn into a Cliffhanger sequel. But this Mike guy is pretty lame as far as action heroes go. He wasn’t that smart. He wasn’t that actiony. That’s another reason Stallone probably passed. “Yo Adrian, this character sux.” Although, in Mike’s defense, he does get to skate up the Luxor Hotel in Vegas in the final act (no, I’m being serious).

It was fun to take a trip back to this potential franchise. But after reading this script, it’s easy to see why it never made it past the first movie.

Script link: The Dam

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Make your set pieces easy to visualize. To this day, the best action set piece I’ve ever seen remains the T2 semi-truck motorcycle chase. It not only works on screen. It works on the page. Why? BECAUSE IT’S SO EASY TO VISUALIZE. Tanker truck chases cycle down narrow passage. Compare that to this script where I needed to study a 200-page series of diagrams about the Hoover Dam to properly understand where everyone was, where they were in relation to each other, and what the heck they were doing.

Is the worst logline on the 2023 Black List its best script??

Genre: Thriller
Premise: (from Black List) A married man takes his girlfriend on a romantic getaway to a villa. There is a swimming pool.
About: This script was on the Black List with 8 votes. The writer, Evan Twohy, had a script on the Black List a couple of years ago called Bubble & Squeak. The only thing I remember about it is that it was weird.
Writer: Evan Twohy
Details: 101 pages

Jason Bateman for Martin?

Since we’ve been having so much fun with loglines all weekend, I thought, “Why not keep it going?” Just like America’s football fans can’t get enough Taylor Swift drama, I can’t get enough logline drama!

Today’s script had the single worst logline on the Black List. And yet, several of you read the script and told me it was great! Hence, I wanted to provide the “loglines don’t matter” crowd with some ammunition going forward. It’s finally time to review “Roses,” aka “Swimming Pool Script.”

51 year old Martin says goodbye to his wife, Justine, as he heads off on a work trip for the weekend. At least that’s what he tells Justine. We see him drive up to Northern California and pick up the 28 year old naive Rose, who’s quickly falling in love with Martin. Martin then drives her to a big Air BnB cabin in the forest.

After the two make love, Rose decides to go swim in the poorly cared-for pool, which has a greenish grime layer over the top of it. The two later head to sleep when Martin is woken up at 3 in the morning to a sound outside. He grabs a working old gun from the wall of the mansion and heads out, only to find Rose inexplicably swimming laps in the pool.

He asks her if she’s crazy, only to hear Rose reply from behind him. He turns and sees a second Rose, aka Original Rose. The Rose coming out of the pool is Rose #2. Savvy moviegoers will figure out what the script tells us later – this pool duplicates anybody who swims in it.

Martin is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He’s freaking the heck out but he can’t exactly call the cops, since his weekend soiree with a younger woman will get back to his wife. Eventually, Rose #1 talks him into sleeping on it. And the next morning, they try to figure out what they’re going to do.

Soon, it’s apparent that Rose #2 is different from Rose #1. Rose #1 is head over heels in love with Martin and would trust her life to him. Rose #2 is only in it for the fun and finds Martin annoying and dumb. If it was up to her, she’d end this affair tomorrow. Because of this, Martin covertly takes Rose #2 on a walk deep into the woods and shoots her dead. Problem solved.

Well, not really. When he gets back, there are five new Roses with the original Rose. And worse, they’re starting to look different. For example, one of them has a nose growing off of their neck. It turns out the Roses love swimming in the pool. And, despite his attempts to stop them, they keep swimming, and keep duplicating, with each new iteration less human. Once the Roses finally have a big talk about Martin, they realize he’s one of the worst people ever. Which only means one thing: They have to eat him. Will Martin be able to escape? Or will the rapidly expanding Roses consume him?

One of the common issues I find in amateur screenplays is that the writers come up with a unique idea but they don’t do enough with it. For example, they might come up with an idea about time travel, yet their entire third act has nothing to do with time travel. When you come up with a unique idea, your job, as the screenwriter, is to exploit the heck out of that idea. You want to milk every last drop out of it. That idea is the selling point of your entire movie. Why would you avoid it?

If you want to know how to exploit an idea to its fullest, read this script.

This script is the blueprint for concept exploitation. At the end of the first act, we have two Roses. By the midpoint, we have five Roses. Within ten more pages, we have 30. Ten more, we have 50. By the third act, we have 100. By the climax, Martin himself is multiplying.

In other words, whenever the script needed to evolve, it went back to its hook – the swimming pool that clones whoever goes in it. Whenever you’re facing an issue in your own screenplay that you can’t find a solution for, exploiting your concept is usually the answer. So, if your movie is about a guy trying to start his chocolate business (Wonka), and you’re not sure what to do with your climax, you should probably lean into… drum roll please… CHOCOLATE. Which is exactly what they did. Wonka is tossed, by his rivals, into a vat of steadily rising liquid chocolate to die.

The genius of this script is that it never stops leaning into its unique premise. It keeps going back to that swimming pool well. And the writer has a lot of fun with it. It isn’t just that Rose keeps getting cloned. It’s that her clones get cloned and each one comes back a little less human. So these new Roses we’re getting become gnarlier and gnarlier. In other words, the writer isn’t mindlessly milking his premise. He’s CREATIVELY milking it.

So, what does a non-exploited version of this premise look like? We’ve seen it before. It’s if Twohy would’ve stopped at two Rose clones. You can write that version. And I’m not even saying that version of the script would have been bad. But it wouldn’t have been as fun as this one.

The only issue I have with this script is that I’m not sure what it’s trying to say.

There was this interesting moment about 40 pages into the script where Rose 2 reveals that she doesn’t have that naivety that Rose 1 has. She’s more skeptical of men and their motives. Twohy seemed to be exploring the multiple voices in our heads that are always fighting each other during the life decisions we make. I thought he was going to continue down that road with each new iteration of Rose that came out of the pool. But that never happened. They became more like a hive mind determined to eliminate Martin.

It’s a common issue writers encounter when writing a screenplay – they can either lean into the aspects of the script that create more of a theme, or lean into the aspects of the script that create more of a fun story. Rarely are you able to do both. But this script ends up being so wild and fun by the time we reach the third act, I think Twohy made the right choice.

So does this answer the age-old question once and for all? Loglines don’t matter? I’m afraid to say it does not. Because I never would’ve read this script based on the logline and I don’t think anybody else would’ve either. The script was read because the writer had a previous high-ranking script on the Black List that got a lot of reads and developed a lot of fans for the writer. So they were eager to read anything he wrote, regardless of the logline. You, as the unknown screenwriter, don’t have that luxury. You need to earn it first. So pick a great concept and write a great logline. :)

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: If I didn’t make it clear enough in the review, EXPLOIT YOUR CONCEPT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Every creative decision you make in your script that isn’t derived from your unique premise, means you are creating characters and scenes THAT COULD BE IN ANY MOVIE. The goal is to create an experience that can only be enjoyed IN YOUR MOVIE. So lean into your premise as much as possible!

The box office is so dead right now that the biggest story in Hollywood is Sydney Sweeney doing Hot Ones and the 500 memes that have already been born out of her episode. Of course, you’re not going to get any argument from me. The more Sydney Sweeney on the internet, the better the internet becomes. That’s indisputable math. I checked with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

I am happy to see that The Beekeeper is still buzzing along, though. The underrated flick with the honey-sweet script dipped just 17% from last week to reclaim first place. That’s good news for screenwriter Kurt Wimmer, who may have laid claim to the stash that every screenwriter dreams of – a franchise.

But since there’s nothing else to talk about on the box office end, I thought, why not jump right into “Why Your Logline Didn’t Make the Cut?” This Thursday is reserved for a “Start Your Screenplay” post. Friday we’ve got a review of this weekend’s Showdown winner. Today is about teaching writers the value of a strong concept and logline.

Title: Safe Space
Genre: Thriller
Logline: From her bird’s eye point of view, an alcoholic crane operator on probation races against time to piece the clues together to prove a murder happened in an apartment before she becomes the killer’s next victim.

Analysis: I actually thought this logline had potential. It’s one of the more unique contained thrillers I’ve seen. But this is a great example of how the message of a logline can be lost due to the absence of a few words. I *think* this all takes place in the crane. But the logline doesn’t make that clear. “From her bird’s eye view,” is just vague enough to make us wonder. When it comes to loglines, don’t get cute. You need to actually say: THEY’RE IN THE CRANE THE WHOLE TIME. Cause otherwise it’s too easy to misinterpret it. I’d also want to know why they’re in the crane the whole movie and why that’s relevant. These things are not clear enough in the logline.

Title: Bunker Mentality
Genre: Zombie comedy
Logline: A group of high-ranking government officials struggle to manage the emergency response – and their own survival – after they accidentally lock themselves inside a secret military bunker at the outset of a zombie apocalypse.

Analysis: This one has a similar issue. It’s unclear what we’re actually going to experience in the movie. We get locked in a bunker at the outset of a zombie apocalypse. Considering that being outside WITH THE ZOMBIES is a much worse scenario, my assumption is that this is a good thing! A movie idea is supposed to pose a problem. Not a solution. I did e-mail the writer, pointing this out, and he said that there are going to be zombies in the bunker that they’re stuck in. Well, that needs to be in the logline then! Also, I’d think that military bunkers could be opened from the inside. So I don’t know how you lock yourself in. That last part is a minor question but it’s the kind of thing that goes through a potential reader’s head when they’re deciding whether to request a script or not. You don’t want that. You don’t want there to be any questions. I hate to use these breakdowns to pimp my logline service but seriously, I could help you get rid of all of these problems. carsonreeves1@gmail.com

Title: The Love, The Bend & The Break
Genre: Thriller
Logline: After an aspiring cyclist’s thoughtful birthday gift sparks his wife’s affair, his curiosities lead him to confront her lover, as he unlocks a fury that even he would never have imagined.

Analysis: I’m beating a dead horse here but, again, we’ve got a logline that’s not giving us enough information. When some of the readers of the site complain that the loglines posted aren’t good enough, you have to understand that more than half of the entries are like these listed above where they don’t give you enough information to even make sense. That’s not to say the script isn’t good. But the logline needs to reflect all of that in a way where we can understand the movie you’re pitching. A thoughtful birthday gift sparks a wife’s affair. What does that mean? Why would a gift do that? It’s such a specific cause and effect that we need to know what the gift is in order for it to make sense to us. From there, the rest of the logline is platitudes and you guys know how much I hate platitudes (“unlocks a fury,” “he would never imagine”). Platitudes are phrases that sound important but ultimately mean nothing because they don’t provide the reader with enough information to understand what’s happening. They are particularly harmful to your logline on the back end of it. You’re supposed to be leaving us with a big exciting climax to your logline that makes us want to read the script! Instead, we get platitudes, which creates the opposite effect.

Title: the secret recipe.
Genre: black comedy
Logline: A frustrated 32 year old man kidnaps the chef from his favorite burger restaurant after repeated failed attempts to get the recipe. He finds out real quick that the chef may not be who he seems to be.

Analysis: For starters, no capitalization on the title or genre. You’re toast right there. Nobody in Hollywood is even going to read your logline after they see that. Show appreciation and care for the language you’re using to tell your story. It’s not only professional but it shows that you care about attention to detail. The first part of this logline creates some sense of a movie. But the logline is destroyed by its second sentence. He finds out the chef’s not who he seems to be. What does that mean? Is he secretly a woman? Is he a vampire? Is he a used car salesman? Is he an alien? Is he a vegetarian determined to destroy the meat industry from the inside? Every one of those options tells a different story. So if you don’t give us that information, we don’t know the story. This is a constant theme with people sending me loglines. They play it too coy. They hide information that they should be giving the reader. One of the best pieces of information I can give everyone writing loglines is PROVIDE MORE INFORMATION THAN YOU THINK YOU HAVE TO. NOT LESS.

Title: Cutie Pie
Genre: Defiled Rom-Com
Logline: When a disturbed female chef falls for a bent cop who’s getting married tomorrow, she cooks up a diabolical plan to win his heart and stop the wedding.

Analysis: I’m going to say this as plainly as I can. THE DIABOLICAL PLAN IS THE MOVIE! Therefore, IT NEEDS TO BE IN THE LOGLINE. One of these days I should livestream myself reading these loglines because all I do, 99% of the time, is either throw up my hands in exasperation or my head falls into my hands in frustration. Cause these problems are fixable yet writers keep making the same mistakes over and over. Why keep the most critical part of your story a secret? It doesn’t make sense to me yet SO MANY WRITERS think it’s the right thing to do.

Title: PHANTASMAGORIA SUCCESSION
Genre: Horror
Logline: After becoming trapped in a logic-defying mansion, a newlywed fights to stop a centuries old supernatural vendetta that will ensure her new family’s global empire and enslave her for eternity.

Analysis: With this one, the issue is more specific. It’s not clear, upon the initial reading, what the “strange attractor” is. A “strange attractor” is the unique thing about your movie that isn’t in any other movie. It’s what sets your movie idea apart and will make people want to read it. I read the logline again and saw, “logic-defying mansion” and decided that that must be the strange attractor. Except here’s the problem: Nobody knows what a logic-defying mansion is. Whatever it is, is the hook of the movie. So it needs to be explained in the logline or else your logline sounds like every other movie where people go to a big house and crazy stuff happens.

Title: Do You Fear What I Fear
Genre: Horror/Comedy
Logline: There will be blood… Elf blood! When a masked killer out for revenge goes on a rampage at the workshop, only Santa’s pissed off, recently-fired daughter Karen can save Christmas.

Analysis: The tagline here is fun. But I need to make something clear to screenwriters everywhere. I’ve read a million and one versions of this logline. For whatever reason, half the screenwriters out there have a Christmas horror script. It *seems* clever but it’s a surprisingly common idea. Also, I just don’t think it works. I get the irony (evil on Christmas). But, at least for me, Christmas is a good time. The Christmas scripts I like celebrate Christmas. — By the way, I’m not saying other people won’t like this. Everybody’s different. But you probably don’t want to send *me* one of these ideas unless it’s honestly the most clever version of this sub-genre ever written.

Title: “LAST BREATH”
Genre: Horror
Logline: When a group of college students discover how to get possessed by inhaling the last breath of people who died, they become hooked on the new thrill, until they go too far and unleash terrifying supernatural forces.

Analysis: I know a few of you liked this one, which is why I wanted to include it here – so you know why I passed. What tripped me up was the logistics of it. I couldn’t understand how they did what they did. Did they just look for people who were dying, hang out nearby, wait until it looked really bad for them, then go kiss them at the last second and hope, during the kiss, it was their last breath? How did they time it? Unless they’re killing these people to create the last breath. In which case that needs to be in the logline. Cause now we’re watching a bunch of serial killers. It just seemed a bit too wonky to work. That’s why I didn’t include it.

Title: Not Alone
Genre: Horror (Found Footage)
Logline: On a cutthroat wilderness survival show, a contestant vanishes. The shocking recovery of her bodycam footage unveils a harrowing encounter with a hermetic clan of inbreds that turns her quest for victory into a desperate fight for survival.

Analysis: I played with the idea of including this one but here’s why I didn’t. If you’re going to revive a dead genre (found footage), you need to bring it back in a way that either reinvents the genre or covers a subject matter that’s never been in that genre before. This feels too familiar. That’s one of the frustrating things about writing scripts. You may have a PRETTY GOOD idea. But oftentimes, “pretty good” is what causes a reader to NOT request a script. “Not Alone” looks like it could be pretty good. But hermit inbreds? I’ve seen that before.

I may do more of these another day. But this gives you an idea of the types of loglines I’m pitched. For the most part, they’re not bad. But they aren’t exciting enough to pull the trigger and feature them. What do you guys think? Did I make a mistake not including any of these?

It’s the first Showdown of the year. And boy is it a weird one!

I think some of you are starting to figure me out. I saw a lot of alien-centric loglines this month. But as you’ll see from this set of loglines, it appears my taste has transcended into an obsession with… animals? Animals just caught my eye this month. It makes about as much sense as the owners of Chick-Fil-A (closed on Sundays) putting one of their restaurants in a football stadium (games on Sundays). But isn’t that Hollywood? You send your script out there and have no idea what the person reading it has going on in that noggin of theirs.

If you’ve never played Logline Showdown before, it’s simple.  Read all the loglines and vote for your favorite in the Comments Section.  Whoever gets the most votes gets a script review next week.  It’s helpful if you explain why you liked the logline and, if you have the time, why you didn’t vote for the others.  Your constructive feedback may help them improve their logline so it’s battle-tested the next time it goes out.  Have fun and let’s find a great script!!

Title: The Rhythm Police
Genre: Buddy Cop Musical
Logline: During the scorching English summer of 1989, a grieving police chief recruits a neurotic young officer to help him stop the illegal rave parties that are destroying a generation, but finds himself having to protect his protégé from falling in love with the music that constantly surrounds them. 

Title: Sleigher
Genre: Thriller
Logline: An aging sheriff investigates the brutal murder of a champion dogsled driver on the eve of the state’s annual dog sled race.

Title: The Glades
Genre: Thriller
Logline: A freak hot air balloon accident strands a young family deep in the treacherous Florida Everglades where they must fight for survival against an enormous bloodthirsty Crocodile.

Title: Death & Dacquoise
Genre: Whodunnit
Logline: A timid young woman is thrust into the role of investigator following a murder on the set of a popular amateur baking show.

Title: The Incredible Frog Boy Is on the Loose Again!
Genre: Dramedy
Logline: An ambitious journalist for a cheap tabloid returns to his hometown where he’s forced to cross previously burned bridges with friends and family while investigating claims of a giant frog creature terrorizing the town.

Don’t worry. Scriptshadow has the best outlining method in the business. Even the Outline Haterz are going to love it.

We are in WEEK 4 of our Writing 2 Scripts in 2024 Challenge. It is probably the most controversial week because this week we’re outlining. And, as we all know, there is a contingent of screenwriters who believe that outlining is Satan reincarnated. I’m not here to argue with those people. All I’m here to say is that the more prepared you are, the better your script tends to end up.

Here are the links to the first three Writing A Script posts if you need to catch up:

Week 1 – Concept
Week 2 – Solidifying Your Concept
Week 3 – Building Your Characters

As far as how much time I need from you this week, at the bare minimum, you need to give me an hour a day. But if you want your outline to have real impact, two hours is preferable. And for those of you youngsters who don’t have jobs yet and have all day to write, put in as much time as you’ve got because when it comes to writing a screenplay, your progress will be proportional to your preparation.

The idea here is we want to create CHECKPOINTS. These are key moments in the script where the scenes are of elevated importance. If you can construct a series of script checkpoints, you’ll always have something to write towards.

The more checkpoints you create, the shorter the distance until the next checkpoint, which makes writing easier. For example, if you have a checkpoint on page 10 and then your next checkpoint isn’t until page 50, that’s where you’re going to run into trouble. The amount of space feels too vast, you don’t know how to fill it up, which leads to the dreaded “writer’s block.”

Remember, writer’s block is rarely about your inability to come up with something to write. It’s more about a lack of planning. The more you plan, the more pieces of your screenplay will be in place, and the easier it will be to connect those dots together.

So here’s the first thing I want you to do. I want you to think of three big set-piece scenes. These are the scenes that are going to sell your screenplay. When you came up with your concept, these are often the first scenes you thought of. For example, if we were writing Barbie, a set piece scene would be the big “I’m Just Ken” musical number. In Heat, it’s that iconic bank robbery scene. In Spider-Man: No Way Home, it’s Dr. Octopus attacking Peter Parker on the highway. In Bridesmaids, it’s the dress try-on scene.

And don’t limit yourself to 3 if you want more. What was so cool about Fincher’s The Killer was every single scene was a set-piece. So he had like eight of them in there. Whatever’s right for your movie, come up with that number of set pieces. And if you really want to do this justice, come up with 20 set-piece ideas and whittle it down to the top 3.

Pro Tip: One of the easiest ways to separate yourself from the competition is to NOT SETTLE. If you settle for the first three ideas that come to you, your script is not going to be as good as if you came up with 20 ideas and picked the best three.

From there, open your outline document and place the scenes at the rough page number where you think they’ll work. Just post “Page 45 – I’m Just Ken musical number.” It doesn’t have to be perfect. Again, you just want to create these checkpoints that you’ll be able to move towards. Even if you only create these three checkpoints, you’ll be in better shape than if you went into your script naked.

The next thing I want you to figure out is your first scene. Your first scene is SO IMPORTANT. I could write 5000 words on the importance of the first scene and it wouldn’t be enough to convey just how important that scene is. So just trust me on that.

If I were you, I would not go with a “setup scene” as your opening scene. This is a scene where you’re setting up a character or setting up your plot. You know the opening scene of Die Hard? Where we meet John McClane on a plane? That’s a setup scene. You CAN do that if you really want. But it’s better to start with a dramatic scene that pulls the reader in.

My favorite example of this is Source Code – the spec script not the movie – A dude lands inside someone’s body on a train and is told he has eight minutes to find a bomb or the train blows up. But a more recent, less intense, example is Tuesday’s script I reviewed – The Getaway. A married couple attempts to have sex in an airplane bathroom and get busted for it. Just make something happen in that opening scene. Don’t bore us.

Okay, now we’re going to get into the technical stuff. Most writers don’t like to do these story beats because it’s, well, technical. Screenwriting is supposed to be free-flowing, fun, artistic. It’s art! Art should never be dictated by technicalities! Yeah, keep telling yourself that.

Screenwriting is inherently mathematical. It’s 110 pages. Those pages are divided into four sections – Act 1, Act 2.1, Act 2.2, Act 3. Essentially, each of those sections are going to be 27 pages long, although that will change depending on the length of your script. But the key to remember is that the end of each section will ALSO work as a checkpoint, since a major moment will happen at the end of each section.

Don’t worry. You’re not going to stick to this like a bible. The nature of writing is that you’re constantly generating new details in your story and those details will generate new story ideas. So, much of this is going to change. But we have to start somewhere.

Which leads us to the inciting incident. This is the thing that happens that INTERRUPTS your hero’s world, usually between pages 10-15. You know that moment in body-switch movies where they first switch bodies? That’s an inciting incident – it’s the disruption of your hero’s everyday existence that now forces them to act. In The Killer, it’s when our main character killer tries to assassinate his target but misses.

After this happens, your hero will be in denial. That’s because just like you and me, movie characters don’t like it when they’re forced to change. So they resist, resist, and resist. But then, at the end of Act 1, which will be your next checkpoint, they accept that they need to solve this problem and head off on their journey (usually around page 25).

The next checkpoint I want you to figure out is your midpoint (around pages 50-60). Now, midpoints are one of the trickier parts of a screenplay because every screenplay is so different that by the time you get to the midpoint, there is no “one-size-fits-all” scene you can write, like the inciting incident. Oppenheimer’s midpoint doesn’t have anything in common with Star Wars’s midpoint. The two movies are trying to do something completely different with their stories.

But something you can keep in mind is that you don’t want the second half of your movie to feel exactly like the first half of your movie. So, for example, if you’re writing a contained thriller where our heroine is being held captive in a basement that she’s trying to escape from – if you just have her try to escape for 90 straight minutes, we’re going to get bored. You need something to happen at the midpoint that changes the story up considerably.

Maybe the most obvious example of this is the movie, Room. The first half of that movie is a woman and her kid being held captive in a room. The midpoint is their big escape. And they succeed. The second half of the movie covers the aftermath as our heroine tries to deal with the trauma of what happened. You can’t do this with most movies. But it’s a great example of how the midpoint should affect the second half of your story.

A more subdued version would be The Equalizer 3. The first half is Robert McCall recuperating in this small Italian town, watching as a local gang makes the locals’ lives a living hell. He doesn’t do anything because, if he does, it will bring attention to himself. But at the midpoint, the gang goes too far, and Robert has had enough. So he starts taking them out one by one.

That’s a good example of a midpoint by the way. The midpoint should always make the second half BETTER, if possible. That’s why Room was not the perfect movie. Its first half was more entertaining than its second half. You always want it to be the opposite.

Once you have your midpoint, your next checkpoint will be the end of your second act (between pages 75 and 90). This is when your hero will “die,” – figuratively of course, but sometimes literally (The Princess Bride). They’ll be at their lowest point. They’ll have tried to solve the problem but failed. There are no other options. The audience should truly feel, in this moment, like there is NO WAY our hero can win. That’s when you know you’ve written a great finale to your second act. In Barbie, this is when Barbie comes back to Barbie Land only to realize that the Kens have taken over.

And the final major checkpoint is your climax. This should be easy because, if you set up a clear goal for your hero at the beginning of your story (John McClane – take down the terrorists and save my wife), then this is the scene where they’ll attempt to do that.

Also, the reason we did that character work last week is so that you can match up your character’s transformation with your climax. For example, if your character’s flaw is that they are selfish, your climax should test that selfishness. It should give them an opportunity to become selfless. If you can pull this transformation moment off, it’s the kind of thing that makes your script feel really intelligent and satisfying.

Okay, those are your major checkpoints. If you get all of those down, you should be in a really good place by the time you write “FADE IN.” However, if you want to go deeper, I prefer that you never go more than 12-15 pages without a checkpoint in your outline (12 if your script is 100 pages, 15 if it’s 120 pages). Even if you just have a cool idea for a scene – that’s all you need for a checkpoint. What we want to do here is close the gap between those big empty holes of space in your script so that you’re never writing in a void. That big void of empty space between checkpoints is when you start freaking out and get writer’s block.

Easy, right?

As you can see, I’m not big on these super-detailed outlines that include things like, “The Circular Resistance Modifier To The Protagonist’s Conflict Moment.” Screenplays are too varied for those specific moments to work in every script. My outlining method keeps things loose enough that you don’t feel controlled by your outline, but it’s tight enough that you have confidence when you start writing your script.

If you have any outlining questions, I’ll be dipping in and out of the comments all weekend. If I have time, I’ll answer what I can. Now start outlining! Cause next week, WE BEGIN WRITING!