Today I want to share with you something I never figured out while I was writing screenplays. This was such a game-changing revelation that had somebody told it to me early on in my journey – as opposed to 15 screenplays in – I’d be writing this entry from the set of a 200 million dollar Disney production as opposed to a couch that has about a dozen uses left in it. I’m talking about understanding what a movie is actually about.
When I started writing, I was under the impression that movies were about the idea. So, in other words, if I came up with an idea about an asteroid that was heading towards earth, I thought my movie was about an asteroid heading towards earth. And you may be thinking, after reading that sentence, that the movie IS about an asteroid heading towards earth. But you’d be wrong. What I’d eventually come to realize is that the prototypical movie idea is only your first act. That’s where you showcase your concept. You have someone discover the asteroid. You have leaders deliberate what to do about the asteroid. You have the planet get wind of the asteroid. You have everybody freaking out. But guess what? That only takes you to page 25.
One of the Matrix moments for me was realizing the movie isn’t about the idea at all. Well, it is. That asteroid is going to be a part of the story all the way through. But the real movie is about what happens once your idea has been established and you’re into the second act. Which is ironic because that’s the act most writers are the least interested in. To them, the second act isn’t a playground to charge into excitedly. It’s a giant wasteland of space that one must “get through” in order to arrive at the more punctual and structured third act.
Let me try and say this another way because Armageddon isn’t the best example for what I’m proposing. It’s possible to have an idea but not have a movie. Let’s say your idea is to have several characters wake up in a mysterious room, each with a different tattoo on their hand and they no idea how they got there. That’s an idea. You can get a first act out of it. But what happens next? I’m sure we could come up with some plotlines. But the reality is that there’s no meat to this story, no second act. So whenever you come up with an idea, you shouldn’t worry about the first act. The first act will take care of itself. You should be thinking about what comes next. That’s going to be your movie. In the spirit of this concept, here are the five questions you should ask yourself when trying to figure out if you’ve got a full blown movie idea.
1) What does your hero do after page 25? – This will simply determine if there’s something to do in the story. And this is all tied back to the goal. Essentially, page 26 is when the journey begins. So you need a character (or characters) who are going after something. I don’t remember exactly what happens in Armageddon but I think one of the characters goes out to put the team together. Later on, the recruited characters become the drivers of the story. But as long as we’ve got someone going out and trying to accomplish something on page 26, that’s a sign you have a movie. It’s not everything. But it’s the first piece.
2) Does your hero or a main secondary character have a flaw? – Your second act isn’t always going to be “go go go.” You’re going to have slow spots, which is why the second act is so challenging. You have to know how to keep those slower moments engaging. One of the ways you do this is with a character whose internal life is at odds with the external circumstances. So to use a basic example, if a character is closed off to life and prefers to stay in his little bubble, then you want a narrative where that character is forced to do a bunch of crazy stuff. Therefore, before every scene begins, you’ve already got a compelling situation lined up. The classic example of this is Cameron in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. He hates doing things, being out, challenging himself. And yet every scene is forcing him to do this stuff. This is really powerful when you get it right and it makes second acts a lot more entertaining.
3) Do you have at least three unresolved relationships you’re exploring? – Now we’re getting to the meat of it. This is what your movie is REALLY ABOUT. It’s about characters interacting with each other. And if those characters are getting along, watching them interact will be boring. It’s only fun when they’ve got unresolved stuff with one another. Maybe it’s unresolved problems from their past, maybe it’s a disagreement on how to do things, maybe it’s fundamentally different worldviews – whatever it is, there’s got to be conflict there. But there’s a catch to this. It can’t be surface level “follow the rules” conflict. It has to be genuine. You, the writer, must be genuinely emotionally invested in these conflicts. This is why so many famous authors will tell you to draw from real life. Because if the broken friendship between your heroes Axe and Clay is really about your own broken friendship with your former best friend, then everything you write with those characters is going to have an air of authenticity to it. But if you’re just doing it because I’m saying you have to or because William Goldman said you had to, it’s not going to work. This is the crux of this whole article, guys. It’s not about whether the ship sinks. It’s about what happens to Jack and Rose. If exploring your characters and their issues doesn’t excite you, then, I’m sorry, but your second is going to suck.
4) Is there enough journey for the journey? – Despite the fact that the real focus should be on the characters, you obviously still need plot to push the story along. And one of the most common errors writers make is getting to that second act and realizing that they don’t have as much plot as they thought they did. So what you want to do is make sure you’ve got (at least) three big things that are going to happen in the second act. If you’re writing a straight up Hero’s Journey, this should be easy. Just come up with three big places that your hero will need to get to along the way and spread those plot points out equidistantly. But if you’re writing a drama or a contained horror movie, this will be more challenging. The three things are more likely to be (although they don’t have to be) things you throw AT you characters. So, if you’re writing a contained zombie movie where our heroes are inside and a bunch of zombies outside? One of your three big moments might be a door breaking down and 10-12 zombies getting in. The bigger point here is to make sure that you’ve got enough for your characters to do. I can promise you that if you head into your second act without this figured out, you’re not going to make it to the finish line.
5) Is there a force that’s always aggravating our hero(es)? – Remember that the second act’s nickname is the “Conflict Act.” So your mind should always be on, “What can I do to provide the most conflict in my story?” The idea with this tip is to make sure you have a constant aggravating factor working against your hero at all times. The most simplistic version of this is a villain. But it can be weather. It can be time. The reason you want this figured out is that whenever you’re struggling in your second act, one of the easiest ways to get the story moving again is to pit your main aggravating force against your hero. If your bank robber heroes have robbed yet another bank on page 67 and you don’t want that scene to feel like all the other bank robbery scenes, you have your “villain” cop show up and he and the hero have a little showdown. I would go so far as to say if you don’t have a great aggravating force figured out ahead of time, you’re not ready to write your script.
If all of this sounds confusing, I’ll try and simplify it. A movie idea isn’t worth writing unless you’re excited about writing the second act. And the second act is about character and conflict. If you don’t have a passion to explore those two things, then the heart of your screenplay is going to be dead. :) Good luck!
Carson does feature screenplay consultations, TV Pilot Consultations, and logline consultations. Logline consultations go for $25 a piece or $40 for unlimited tweaking. You get a 1-10 rating, a 200-word evaluation, and a rewrite of the logline. If you’re interested in any sort of consultation package, e-mail Carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line: CONSULTATION. Don’t start writing a script or sending a script out blind. Let Scriptshadow help you get it in shape first!
