Here’s the way I see it. 2020 and 2021 don’t count. They were weird years. A lot of weird stuff happened. How can one focus on his screenwriting career when he can’t even sit down at a coffee shop for six hours and complete one page of his script, for goodness sakes! Or can’t go to a movie theater where he can properly procrastinate? Here’s the good news. Those days are over. Covid is disappearing in 2022. Who said that, the CDC? No. Try the CRC. The Carson Reeves Consortium.
Myself, along with my esteemed board of trustees, have put in a word with the leaders of the free world, minus the president of Finland, of course, and have decided that enough is enough. Once these presidents and prime ministers learned of the reason I demanded an end to Covid – that screenwriting everywhere was suffering – they were immediately on board.
But the CRC didn’t stop there. They demanded that I – yes, yours truly – personally give screenwriters two opportunities to break out. And so I created the ANYTHING GOES AMATEUR SHOWDOWN along with the FABULOUS FIRST ACT CONTEST. Both of these competitions are going to revolutionize screenwriting. Well, maybe not revolutionize. But they’re going to give you two deadlines so that you actually get some writing done ya lazy asses.
ANYTHING GOES AMATEUR SHOWDOWN
What: An amateur showdown where any genre is accepted. I will choose the five best-sounding concepts to compete against each other at the end of February. You will then vote on the best one. I’ll review the winner.
When: Entries are due by 10pm, Pacific Time, Thursday, February 24th.
How: You need to send me your title, genre, logline, why you think the script deserves a shot on the big stage, and, of course, a PDF of your script.
Where: E-mail your entries to carsonreeves3@gmail.com and put “Anything Goes” in the subject line.
How Much: Free
THE FABULOUS FIRST ACT CONTEST
What: Starting March 1, I will spend a month guiding you, scene by scene, through writing your first act, the most important act of a screenplay.
And?: Whoever has the best first act, I will develop the rest of the script with you, guiding you through several rewrites. Once we’ve got the script in shape, we’ll go out there and try and get it made.
When: Entries will be due on May 1. You can start sending your first acts to me on April 1. I’ll give you details on where to send them as we get closer to the deadline.
How: Anybody who is thinking of entering this contest, I want you to begin a two-month Battle Royale of all your script ideas. I want you sending these ideas out to friends and asking them which one is the best. You will need a strong concept to win this contest.
How Much: Free
I wanted to start the screenwriting year off with some motivation for you guys and, unfortunately, found out that hiring several thousand Benihana chefs to go to your personal places of residence and do that really scary sword attack thing they do until you write three pages of a screenplay was going to cost me a couple million dollars, so I came up with an alternative. Some screenwriting resolutions. I’m going to give you ten resolutions but you only have to pick and adopt three. Choose wisely.
Resolution #1 – Write for at least two hours a day.
One of the fastest ways to get better is to write more. If you want to get good at anything, you have to prioritize it. So if you can’t carve out two hours a day to write, I would ask you, how much do you really want to be a screenwriter? Cause it doesn’t sound like you want it that much. Think about it. When has anyone ever become great at anything that they didn’t dedicate at least two hours a day to? Open up that laptop and don’t leave until those two hours are up.
Resolution #2 – You will find out if a concept is good BEFORE you spend six months writing it.
This has to be one of the most common mistakes I run into. People send me loglines for consultations all the time ($25 – carsonreeves1@gmail.com) that are so problematic, there is no version of a screenplay that can save them. The issue? They’ve already written the screenplay. Look, I understand that when we get an idea we love, we just want to write it. We have such tunnel vision that we don’t care what anybody else thinks. But screenwriting is an emotionally taxing endeavor. You can only write so many scripts that don’t go anywhere before you give up. For that reason, you don’t want to waste any of those slots on a lousy idea. Send your logline out to some friends and ask them for brutal honesty. Is this any good? And don’t get defensive. If five people aren’t that excited about your biopic into the origins of banana bread, consider another idea.
Resolution #3 – You will read at least 25 unproduced screenplays.
I thought that I knew everything about screenwriting before I’d read a single unproduced screenplay. I then read 1000 screenplays and learned 50-100 times as much about screenwriting as I knew up til that point. I read 1000 more. Same thing. 1000 more. Same thing. The biggest thing that reading screenplays did was shine a light on all the blind spots I had. When I read a beginner screenplay, I’d see them doing the same things I did in my scripts. “Oh,” I realized, “I can never do that again.” Or when I read a really good screenplay, I’d notice how much clearer and visceral the prose was than all my screenplays. It helped me identify where the bar was. Before reading scripts, I thought the bar was so much lower than it actually was. 25 screenplays is 1 screenplay every 2 weeks. You can do that.
Resolution #4 – Improve your biggest weakness as a writer.
What’s your biggest weakness? Is it plot? Structure? Character? Dialogue? Concept? Theme? Do your scripts lack conflict? Do they not build? Do your second acts get progressively more boring? Whatever you’re bad at, set aside some time every week and work on it. You can do that by googling, “How to write good second acts” and read 50 articles on how to get better. You can write a practice script that specifically focuses on the thing you’re weak at. For example, if it’s dialogue, you can write a practice script that has two characters in a house that’s almost all talk. So many writers ignore the things they suck at. But if you want to get good at this, you have to strengthen your weak links.
Resolution #5 – Write out a plan for the year.
I know we all make fun of Vin Diesel now (and believe me, I’m right with you). But there was a time when that dude was the biggest movie star in the world. And I remember him saying in an interview that, when he was a nobody, he sat down and wrote out this very specific three year plan. He’d write and shoot a short film. He’d submit it to Sundance. He’d use it a promotional tool. He’d get an agent off the buzz. He planned the types of roles he wanted his agent to send him out for. He had it all mapped out. That’s what you need to do. Divide the year into four quarters and have a goal for each quarter. If you want to get even dirtier, set clear goals for every month. Too many writers operate under this lie whereby they wait for inspiration to strike. Unless you want to snap your fingers and see a decade go by, that’s not how you become successful. Come up with a plan and execute it to the best of your ability.
Resolution #6 – Add one new writing weapon to your arsenal.
I’ll never forget the day I learned about dramatic irony. It was like I’d seen all of these great movies and shows with these scenes that always worked and yet I could never quantify what they were doing to make them so awesome. Then I learned they were using dramatic irony – the act of telling the audience something that a key character in the scene was unaware of. John McClane meeting Hans Gruber up on the roof and thinking he was a hostage. There are a bunch of little screenwriting weapons like this that can improve your writing. Suspense. Scene agitators. GSU. Using conflict in every scene. Adding a ticking clock to a scene. Identify one of these, read up on it, then become an expert at it. Your writing will take off.
Resolution #7 – Shift your mindset to a positive place.
In any artistic pursuit, everybody who’s on the outside has a level of disdain for those on the inside. A lot of it comes from a belief that you’re better than a lot of them. And you don’t understand why they’ve made it and you haven’t. I’ll be honest. In some cases, you are better than someone who’s making millions of dollars screenwriting. I can think of two names right now – one who’s about to have a major movie release – where everybody who’s ever won an Amateur Showdown is hands down a better writer than those two. But here’s the thing. It doesn’t help you to expend all that energy being frustrated by that. In fact, it hurts you. It’s much better to focus your energy on writing a great script. I know some people won’t agree with me on this. But I’ve found that, in my life, when I focus on just coming up with good content and not worrying about other peoples’ success who are less talented than I am, I write much better and I’m much happier overall.
Resolution #8 – Come up with one great character.
Most of the scripts we write are born out of an idea we have for a movie. And that’s fine. I’m all for coming up with good movie ideas and writing them. However, this often leads to us retrofitting characters into that idea. Idea first. Character second. Yet when I look at all of the greatest movies throughout time, the one constant I see is great characters. Neo, Jack Sparrow, Travis Bickle, James Bond, The Terminator, Hans Landa. So I’m imploring you to try something new. When you come up with your movie idea, I want you to ask the question, “Can I create a great character within this idea?” So you’re attacking the script on two sides, both conceptually, and as a show-stopping character vehicle. A great character is going to turn a good script into a great one.
Resolution #9 – Speed up your plot.
I have read, maybe, 10 scripts out of 10,000 that I could argue moved too fast. However, I could point to several thousand screenplays I’ve read that moved too slow. The reality is that most scripts move slower than they should. This is because we assume we need to include more than we do. But as I was telling someone the other day, one of the things pros are really good at that amateurs are not, is that they can do in one scene what amateurs take three scenes to do. So their scripts move along a lot faster. I’m not saying you need to redefine the way you write. But any little opportunity you have to move the story along, take it. You don’t want to sit inside any section for too long in a screenplay. Save that for when you write your novel.
Resolution #10 – Finish 2 Screenplays, no less, no more.
You should be shooting for two scripts a year. That’s one script every six months. Which is totally doable if you’re writing 2-3 hours a day. The problem I’ve found with writers who only write one script a year or one script every two years is that they’re not developing their overall screenwriting skills because they’re only improving the skills that help them write that one story. Every script challenges you in different ways. So if you want to get better as a writer, you need to write more than one script. On the flip side, I don’t think you should write more than two screenplays a year. The writers I’ve run into who write 3, 4, even 5 scripts a year – their scripts are sloppy. They’re not developed properly. It’s more of an ego thing for them. And look, I’ve been there. I was once writing scripts every two weeks. I bragged to everyone I knew about it. But, looking back at those scripts? They were terrible. Two screenplays is the perfect amount. That’s what you should be shooting for.
I’m really excited for what this year is going to bring the screenwriting world. Especially here at Scriptshadow. I can’t wait to see which of you break out in 2022. Happy New Year!!!
