This was a fun experiment. It took me back to the days when I read 8 scripts a day. When you’re looking at that much material within that short of an amount of time, it’s easier to identify what doesn’t work. And the biggest thing I discovered by reading so much material back to back is how generic most screenplays are. For example, I read 30+ opening scenes that dealt with cops arriving on a murder scene. 20+ opening scenes that dealt with a bank robbery. 15+ opening scene with characters starting their day. But it wasn’t just the generic nature of the setup. It was the generic nature of the execution. A bank robbery can be a compelling scene. But not if you follow the obvious beats (Get down on the floor. Give me your money. Run out and drive away). If anything, this exercise taught me that writers aren’t aware of just how much content they’re competing with and, therefore, how important it is to differentiate your work.
The next big issue I ran into was that a ton of these scripts started slow. Let me reiterate what this challenge was about. It was about hooking me from the VERY FIRST WORD and never letting go. I don’t know why anyone would think that a slow pan across a desert horizon was a good idea. Or the 40+ script openings that focused on how light was hitting something. Or plopping me down in a room with two characters chatting away. No doubt a sizable portion of these entries were writers sending their latest script in regardless of the exercise. But for those who understood the exercise and still started slow? Or even medium? Shame on you. You knew the rules. Hook me immediately. Not hook me on page 2 and a half.
Every once in awhile I felt bad because I wanted to give writers a fair shot. So I would read past the point where I got bored. But in every one of those cases, I was proven right. The script didn’t get better. It almost always got worse. And it’s frustrating because I feel like this is my fault. We talked about this for an entire month, with me going into detail about what works and what doesn’t and, still, writers are making basic mistakes. There were so many times where I would read the first half page, stop, stare at my computer, and wonder why anyone would think this would hook a reader.
To give you some stats. 80% of the scripts, I didn’t get past the first half-page. I’d say, of the 20% where I kept reading, 70% of those I didn’t get past the second page. The most common problems were…
1) The writer couldn’t construct a sentence.
2) The writing or the scenario was confusing.
3) The writer was more concerned with setting up characters than entertaining the reader.
4) The writer was more concerned with setting up their world (exposition) than entertaining the reader.
5) There was nothing original or unique about the writing or the situation.
6) The scene was straight up boring. Nothing was happening.
That last one bothered me the most because you’d think “Don’t be boring” would be obvious. And yet time after time we’d get these scenes that didn’t contain a single entertaining element within them. No drama, no conflict, no mystery, no comedy, no dramatic irony, no dialogue that popped off the page. I thought about this a lot and wondered why were writers violating something that was so obvious to me. I think the problem boils down to too many writers assuming you “owe them.” You owe them your focus. And when you’re writing with that mindset, you don’t care about keeping the reader’s attention. I can tell you right now, that’s a deadly mindset to have. If you want the reader to like your script, you HAVE TO GRAB THEM. And the only way to do that is to assume they’ll get bored unless you’re giving them your best.
If you could construct a sentence, if you could convey action clearly, if you started with a scene that could conceivably grab the reader, you made it past page 1. But now it’s a matter of, “Are you giving me anything new?” Anything new at all. It could be a reversal (that Silence of the Lambs example I used in a previous post where we’re led to believe the person being restrained is the victim, when in actuality, they turn out to be the bad guy). It could be a strong sense of detail that pulls me into the world. It could be pure talent, like Diablo Cody’s Juno dialogue. ANYTHING. If you did that, you got past page 2. But from here, you had to prove that you could construct a compelling scenario. For example, a writer might’ve opened on a shocking murder scene. Okay, you have my interest. But if the scene doesn’t build and contain conflict and move towards a satisfying conclusion, then I immediately lost interest.
If you could set up a compelling scenario, you got me to read the whole thing. And there were about 15 entries that got me to read all 10 pages. Four of those didn’t leave me with a good enough taste in my mouth to celebrate them here. The remaining eleven were all good. So here’s what I thought we’d do. I’m going to post the eleven winners here today and we’re going to do an impromptu 10 Page Amateur Offerings (which will last through the weekend). You guys will read the eleven entries and vote on your favorite. The winner will get a review next Friday. If the writer has a full script, I’ll review that. If they only have the ten pages, I’ll do an in-depth review on the pages, focusing on things we don’t get to normally explore when covering an entire screenplay. The winner will also get a feature consultation package from me! So really think about who you’re giving your vote to.
And I want to say one more thing to those of you who don’t find your pages here. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer. It doesn’t mean you failed. But you do need to redefine what grabbing a reader means. Because I know a lot of you are talented. And in almost every case with you talented writers, you wrote something better than average. But you didn’t write something that grabbed me. You didn’t write like your life depended on it, I guess you could say. If there’s anything I’ve learned from this, it’s that busy people whose lives revolve around reading and hearing ideas all day don’t have any patience. And you have to write with that in mind. Like I said when all of this started, write 10 pages that are impossible to put down.
Okay, here are our 11 finalists! Good luck to everyone! Oh, and these are my titles for the scripts, not the writers.
Entry 1: Late For A Flight
Reaction: Biggest “Oh s&*%” moment.
Entry 2: The Leper Cave
Reaction: Creepiest entry?
Entry 3: The Woman Who Disturbed the Rat
Reaction: Most talented writer in the bunch?
Entry 4: Cop Stop
Reaction: First entry that I read all ten pages of!
Entry 5: Waking Up in a Pool
Reaction: Top amnesia entry.
Entry 6: Confused Soldiers
Reaction: You knew time travel had to make it into a Carson contest somehow!
Entry 7: The Art of Pick-Pocketing
Reaction: Script I was most surprised I liked.
Entry 8: Pterodactyl Bliss
Reaction: Writer best suited for the current Godzilla franchise.
Entry 9: Roman Plagues
Reaction: Script that best took me back to a different time and place.
Entry 10: Don’t Take the Phone
Reaction: Fastest pages in the whole challenge.
Entry 11: Cocaine Problems
Reaction: Darkest entry of the bunch.
