Usually I give you guys formal screenwriting advice. But today I’m going to change things up and give you screenwriting HACKS, flashy tips that aren’t meant to guide you to the perfect screenplay so much as spice your script up. You can use two of them. You can use seven of them. It’s up to you. They will never make nor break your script. But they will HELP. Let’s begin!
1 – A concept you don’t have to defend – I see this all the time. Someone will pitch me an idea like, “A group of people trying to make it in Los Angeles endure a series of obstacles but eventually come out on top.” The writer will then immediately launch into a defense of his logline before I even say anything. “I know that sounds generic. But what it’s really about is this guy who runs an acting workshop and see…” I’m not saying the above idea would make a terrible script. If the writer knows character, it could be great. But we’re talking about hacks here, things to make your job easier. You do this by coming up with a concept that speaks for itself, that isn’t so boring that you have to defend it. “A young African-American man visits his white girlfriend’s creepy parents for the weekend, and begins to suspect that they’ve brought him here to hurt him.”
2 – At least one big character – Big characters jump off the page and get big actors attached. The kind of character you’re generally looking for here is a chatterbox with opinions who’s a little bit crazy. Juno. Ladybird. Walter from The Big Lebowski. Louis from Nightcrawler. Mildred from Three Billboards. Dixon from Three Billboards. This is one of the easiest ways to make your script stand out.
3 – A flashy opening scene – This is a TV pilot staple. But they’re available to you feature writers as well. Give us a scene that grabs us right away. If it doesn’t fit into the timeline of your story, you can make it a flash-forward. Those first 5 pages are when you’re being judged the harshest. It’s when the reader is literally thinking, “I have to read another terrible script before I can get to my own writing??” Give’em a hell of a great scene, like the opening of Scream (one of the most famous spec scripts ever), Inception, or all the James Bond films, and they’ll want to stick around.
4 – Efficient description – Keep your paragraphs to THREE LINES AT MOST. Make most of them TWO LINES AT MOST. If that scares you, good! Scripts are supposed to be easy to read. Not a chore. Learn to be a poet, to say as much as possible in as few words as possible.
5 – A small group of strong characters as opposed to a large group of average characters – Spec scripts work best with a tight cast of characters. Fight it all you want. It doesn’t change the fact that the screenwriting format LOVES setups with 4-5 main characters. Cloverfield 13, Get Out, Ex Machina, Room. All of these superhero movies with 30 characters are not spec scripts and therefore don’t require an overworked reader to keep track of all 30 people. Also, a small group of characters allows you to focus the story and give those characters more attention. So look for ideas that favor this setup.
6 – Dialogue that’s a model, not a mannequin – Mannequin dialogue is the bare essentials. It’s the shape of the human, but there’s no expression or individuality to it yet. A model, on the other hand, has a face that can express emotion. Hair that can be styled. You can dress her in something classy, sassy, slutty, distinguished, whatever you want. Here’s a scene from Three Billboards, where Dixon (Sam Rockwell) is drunk and badgering Mildred at the bar. A patron tells Mildred she sounded great in her TV interview yesterday. Here’s the “mannequin” version of Dixon’s dialogue: “Why are you encouraging her? What she’s doing is wrong.” Note how straightforward and generic that is. Anybody in the world could’ve said it. Now here’s the “model” version, which was used in the movie: “I didn’t think you came across really good in the things you were saying. I thought you came across stupid-ass.” Dixon is an idiot, a 6th grader in a man’s body. We see that here in his butchered grammar and low level vocabulary. This is how you dress up dialogue. You have it express the individual who’s speaking.
7 – An antagonist with personal motivation rather than general motivation – Marvel keeps screwing this up but there are signs of course-correction. Having a bad guy who wants to collect some item so they can harm the world is boring because it’s generic. But a bad guy who has a personal beef with the hero, as we saw with Black Panther, is interesting because it’s specific. If that doesn’t work, consider a personal beef adjacent to your hero. This is what Spider-Man: Homecoming did. The Vulture wanted to hurt the city because they went back on their contract with him, leaving him high and dry in his career and his family. Villains with solid motivations juice a story up.
8 – One giant setup and payoff – You can have as many setups and payoffs as you like. But you need one great one. Setups and payoffs are so fun and audiences LOVE them. Unfortunately, I don’t see as many of them as I used to. The Rita Hayworth poster in The Shawshank Redemption. The snakes in Indy. The clock tower storm in Back to the Future. Where are my current setups and payoffs at?
9 – A twist ending – I hesitate to put this here but nothing affects a reader more than a twist ending they never saw coming. It’s got to make sense for the movie. But there isn’t a single device that can upgrade a script faster than a great twist ending.
10 – At least one scene you KNOW everyone will be talking about when they leave the theater – I can’t tell you how many scripts I read without a SINGLE memorable scene. You need a scene that defines your movie. Achieving this is easier than you think. Just come up with a scene idea that you know audiences will have a strong reaction to. Fish sex for The Shape of Water. The peach scene in Call Me By Your Name. Dixon throwing the advertising agent out the window in Three Billboards.
There ya go. Now go hack at it!
