Due to a combination of movie economics and the audience’s desire for balance, you need to include “slow” scenes in your script. I put “slow” in quotes for a reason. As you’ll soon find out, “slow” is a relative term. However, I would argue that learning how to write entertaining slow scenes is one of the biggest steps to becoming an advanced writer. I say that as someone who’s read tens of thousands of slow scenes that were abysmally boring.
The reason beginner and intermediate writers struggle in this area is because they don’t have a plan when they’re writing these scenes. Their “plan” boils down to having characters talk and hopefully that talk will be interesting. If that’s your plan, you’re writing a lot of lousy scenes. And because readers have such a short leash (look no further than in the mirror – you guys give up on an Amateur Showdown script after one paragraph!), one boring scene could be what does your script in.
Before I explain how to make slow scenes entertaining, I must first explain what makes a scene boring. There are a few scene-types that are particularly crippling. The most common is the Coffee Shop Scene. The Coffee Shop Scene doesn’t need to take place in a coffee shop. It’s any stand-in scene where two characters get together to talk about stuff. We’re not moving the plot forward. We’re not solving any issues. The characters talk about or debate something. The scenes exist for no other reason than to hear the characters talk. In short, there’s no dramatic purpose to the scenes at all.
But there’s an even worse version of the Coffee Shop Scene, which is the Backstory Monologue Scene. This is that serious scene where the main character shares their traumatic backstory. Unless the backstory has a revelation in it that literally makes the reader gasp, these scenes are screenplay killers. Remember in Chinatown, there was originally a Backstory Monologue Scene about what happened to Jack Gittes in Chinatown. Robert Towne knew that 98% of Backstory Monologue Scenes put the audience to sleep, so he got rid of it. That’s how crippling these scenes are. The screenwriter thought it better to get rid of the scene that literally explained the title of the movie than keep it in.
Then we have the Chain Link Scenes. These are the 2-5 scene chunks (sometimes longer in dramatic films) that exist between the bigger plot points. Often times it’s a combination of Coffee Shop Scenes, exposition scenes, and scenes that reveal stuff about our characters but aren’t entertaining in and of themselves. Chain Link Scenes are an easy way to tell whether you’re dealing with an advanced or beginner writer. Beginner writers will expand their links out to 8-10 scenes before anything major happens in the story. And the scenes have next to ZERO dramatic value. In other words, NOTHING interesting or entertaining is happening in them. The writer believes that as long as they’re writing something down – anything – then the reader must be entertained by it. Figuring out how to tackle these scenes is the focus of this post.
The best way to keep a slow scene interesting is to have something dramatically interesting happen within the scene. Let’s take the famous scene of Luke Skywalker chatting with C-3PO and R2-D2 for the first time. This is a slow scene trap. A bad writer could’ve had Luke talk to the droids, learn a little about the Empire, and complain about his boring life on the farm. Instead, what Lucas does is, while Luke is cleaning R2-D2, have the famous recording of Princess Leia pop out, talking about Obi-Wan Kenobi. The revelation isn’t only exciting in itself, but it propels the story forward because now Luke has to get this message to Obi-Wan. So whenever you’re writing a scene that could be considered “slow,” throw a revelation in there that moves the story forward.
A big way to infuse a slow scene with some entertainment value is to up the conflict. I’m assuming that there’s already conflict in your scene. I hope so, at least. If there’s no conflict at all, there’s a good chance you’re boring your reader. I’m here to tell you that conflict is 1-10 scale. If your scene is boring, you may only have the conflict dialed up to 3. So look for ways to bring it to a 7. In Netflix’s Murder Mystery, there’s a scene where Jennifer Aniston sneaks into the bar lounge of the plane. The scene is purely plot setup. It’s where Aniston meets Charles Cavendish so he can invite her to the boat where the murder will take place. The scene is technically slow, but there’s a ton of sexual tension between Aniston and Cavendish, to the point where you wonder how far she’s going to take it. And that makes this exposition-laden scene move a lot quicker than its run-time would suggest. Had the writer sent Sandler in to meet Cavendish instead, there’d be no sexual tension, no conflict, and the scene would’ve moved a lot slower.
Another movie where we can see the power of conflict is The Dark Knight. There’s a moment about 15 minutes into the film where we get a series of weak scenes. First we have Commissioner Gordon asking Harvey Dent for a favor. It’s a dry scene with a teensy bit of conflict, but mostly boring stuff. This is followed by a board meeting for Wayne Enterprises to potentially buy another company. The scene has a nice little joke where Bruce is asleep the whole time, but again, it’s sort of boring. Then we have Bruce asking Lucious Fox for some adjustments to his bat suit. There’s no entertainment value to these scenes whatsoever. If there’s a lesson to learn from them, it’s that if you’re going to have a slow scene, try to keep it as short as possible. All of these scenes may be slow but they’re also short. Anyway, we then get to the scene where Bruce bumps into Rachel at a restaurant. Rachel is on a date with Harvey. Bruce, meanwhile, is on a date with a famous Russian ballerina. Now THIS is what you call a good slow scene. Technically, it’s just characters talking. But the tension and the conflict and subtext going on here is top notch – Bruce’s obvious attraction to Rachel, the dick-measuring contest between him and Harvey, Rachel’s jealousy over Bruce’s perfect 10 date. All of that leads to a big juicy fun scene.
Conflict Pro-tip here. If your script revolves around two main characters, make sure those characters are like oil and water. If you do that – and I’m going to put this in capital letters because that’s how important of a tip it is – YOU WON’T HAVE ANY SLOW SCENES. You have built in conflict in every scene in the movie without having to do anything. Go watch Zombieland. Tallahassee thinks Columbus is an annoying geek. Tallahassee will do anything to be Columbus’s friend. They’re never on the same page. Same thing with Hell or High Water. Those brothers see the world in completely opposite ways. This ensures that even though there’ll be numerous “slow” scenes, the scenes will always have some level of entertainment to them.
Yet another way to write a good slow scene is to not write the scene at all. Often, I’ll read a scene where two characters are talking to each other about, say, their day. One of them points out they got into a fight at work with someone and now they’re in a war with that person. Ask yourself this. What’s more interesting? Two people talking about a fight at work or the actual fight at work? In other words, the scene you should be writing is the one at work. That’s the scene with entertainment value in it. Two people talking about that is boring.
One more way to make a slow scene work is to place a problem at the center of the scene. This works especially well in exposition-heavy scenes. Naturally, the bigger the problem, the better the scene will play. In Infinity War, one of the early scenes has Dr. Strange, Tony Stark, and Bruce Banner discussing the problem of the Infinity Stones and how they need to get them before Thanos does. It’s a lot of exposition and even more talking, but the scene plays well because the problem – obtaining the stones – is so big (the conflict between Stark and Strange also elevates the scene – power of conflict, baby!). But make no mistake, a problem can be just as powerful with personal stakes. For example, if a wife just got offered her dream job but it’s in another country and the husband doesn’t want to move the family there, the subsequent scene of them deciding what to do will be entertaining.
Finally, if all else is lost, make sure something is always PULLING at your character. Your character always has to be somewhere OTHER THAN THE SCENE THEY’RE IN. They’re only here because they have to deal with whatever issue has come up in the moment. But we always feel the PULL of needing to be elsewhere. What this does is create a unique form of conflict where both us and the character are on edge. And that’s a good thing. It means there’s always something that needs to be done. This makes sense when you consider the primary setup that leads to boredom, which is two characters with all the time in the world sitting down and talking about anything they want. That’s the ultimate boring slow scenario. If you want to watch a movie that does this “PULL” better than any movie in history, watch Back to the Future. Marty always needs to be somewhere else. And that tension makes even the movie’s slowest scenes move at a rocket-fast pace.
