I’ve been working hard on my dialogue book.

One of the most frustrating things about writing the book has been finding recent movies with good dialogue to reference!  Most great feature film dialogue went out the window in the early 2000s with the death of the indie film. If any of you have suggestions for good dialogue movies post-2015, I’d love to hear them in the comments.

For this reason, I decided to go in the opposite direction and throw in one of the most famous dialogue movies of all time and one I’m not intimately familiar with – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. I think I even did an article about this movie years ago but I don’t remember a lot from the film other than the characters all seemed very angry.

Rewatching it was strange because I’ve been writing all of these dialogue tips in my book, believing they were inarguable, only to realize after Virginia Woolf, that there’s more to this dialogue thing than meets the eye.

A rule I was absolutely certain of was that, going into a scene, at least one character needed to have a goal. I didn’t think dialogue could survive without that. Because, otherwise, people are just talking to fill in the space. There’s no purpose to what they’re saying.

Well, with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, which is about an aging couple who works at a prestigious university and a young couple who come by for some late-night socializing – I realized that this divine dialogue truth wasn’t as universal as I thought.

The characters here would often speak without a clear goal, and for long periods of time. In fact, there were even moments where characters only spoke to break the silence. I mean I guess you can say that “breaking the silence” is a goal, so maybe my precious rule is still in tact. But I didn’t think that a scene could survive when the goal was that weak.

As I continued to watch the movie, I realized that there was one dialogue truth that is always present – and that is CONFLICT.

This whole movie is slathered in conflict. There isn’t a single frame that doesn’t have it. So even though the characters are not always speaking with purpose, the dialogue is still entertaining due to the fact that conflict is present.

And it’s conflict on multiple levels, which I think is the reason it’s able to be so good in spite of its lack of clear goals. If you’re doubling up on conflict, that extra dose could be the substitute you need for a goal-less scene.

What do you mean “doubling up,” Carson?

For starters, the central married couple, Martha and George, hate each other. She hates him because he’s not enough of a man (by the way, this is the first fictional story I know of that implores the insult, “Simp”). And he hates her because she’s constantly cruel to him (not to mention, her college president father’s superior presence always hangs over him).

This creates the undercurrent of tension in every scene. It is, what most people refer to as, “subtext.” Even without saying anything, they’re already saying stuff.

Then this young couple comes along with their perfect young bodies and whole life in front of them and it just sets George off. He uses them, then, to spit out various levels of provocation and frustration. That’s where the second level of conflict is occurring – on the surface.

This doubling down ensures that every line of dialogue has bite to it. Here’s a scene from early on in the movie where Nick, the young professor, is starting to get prickly in response to George’s aggression…

I think the issue I’m grappling with here is that while there isn’t an obvious purpose to George’s interaction with Nick – George is not, for example, trying to get Nick to invest in a business venture of his – I’m wondering if there’s some directive to this conversation that can be quantified, and therefore taught.

George is obviously riling Nick up. That is his internal “goal” in the moment. But why? And is it something that I should be teaching writers to do? Have their characters start sh@# with other characters for no reason. Yes, you get conflict-heavy dialogue. But it’s without structure, without a point.

I think that Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf pushes up against that older belief that movie dialogue should mirror real-life dialogue. In real life, people are mean to other people because they hate themselves or hate their life and they’re just stirring the pot to stir it. They don’t have some divine goal in the moment other than to spew out their thoughts and hurt someone else.

Even as I’m writing that, I go back to this idea of: well, maybe all good dialogue does have a goal, then. Because isn’t trying to hurt someone with your words a goal?

In digging a little deeper, I noticed that while there isn’t some big goal George is trying to achieve, he is a LEADER.  He is pushing the scene forward.  And that’s worth bringing attention to.  Because maybe the real baseline to good dialogue is that someone is pushing the scene forward.  George is a force here.  He is trying to agitate and aggravate Nick.  We’re then curious to see if Nick will crack or fight back.  Maybe that’s enough.

What you don’t want in a scene is two characters who are passive. The only thing worse than one character who tries to stir sh#@ up for no reason is zero characters who try to stir sh@# up for no reason because then the scene is lifeless.

Another complication to figuring out this odd movie is that it was originally a play. In plays, you have to fill up 90 minutes of talking somehow.  Movies are more visual, which allows you to do more showing than telling. So is this just a case of a playwright filling up space with dialogue cause he has to? Dialogue that wouldn’t normally be in a movie?

I’m going to keep working on this because it’s my belief that the best dialogue has purpose. And that purpose comes from a character who has some sort of goal or “want” in the scene. I may have to dig deeper into Virginia Woolf to see if the film is, indeed, achieving this and I’m just missing it, or if there are deeper secrets yet for me to learn about dialogue.

In the meantime, feel free to provide your own thoughts on this movie, your own suggestions on good dialogue movies post-2015 from screenwriters not named Tarantino (I’ve got enough of him in the book). Share your own dialogue tips. And leave suggestions on what aspects of dialogue you want explored in the book. Feel free to share your dialogue struggles as well. The more I know about what perplexes you guys, the better I can make the book.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf is on HBO Max.

$50 OFF A SCRIPTSHADOW SCREENPLAY CONSULTATION! – The Labor Day deal may be over but you can still save some money on a script consultation!  I have a 4 page notes package or a more detailed 8 page option designed to both fix your script and improve your writing.  I also give feedback on loglines (just $25!), outlines, synopses, first acts, or any aspect of screenwriting you need help with. This includes Zoom calls discussing anything from talking through your script to getting advice on how to break into the industry.  If you’re interested, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com and let’s set something up!  

Genre: Drama
Premise: After a woman becomes one of the first female presidents of a 1950s publishing house in New York, she draws a former college classmate into her orbit, who soon finds her literary empire is not what it appears to be.
About: This script finished on last year’s Black List. The writer, Laura Kosann, has one feature film credit, called The Social Ones, about social media influencers. She also won the Nicholl Screenwriting Contest, with her script, The Ideal Woman, about a housewife indirectly involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis. In a flashpoint of serendipity, connecting today’s script with popular culture, you can watch a conversation Kosann has with Olivia Wilde about that screenplay here.
Writer: Laura Kosann
Details: 111 pages

Haley Lu Richardson for Helena?

A strange thing has been happening. All the Black List scripts I’ve been avoiding are ending up being better than the scripts that I actually wanted to read from the list! What does this mean? Does it mean loglines are worthless? Does it mean ideas don’t mean anything?? That only the content matters? Does it mean I’ve been woke this whole time and didn’t even know it? So many questions. So few answers.

Today’s script is an interesting one because it’s spotlighting this strange funk we’re in as a screenwriting community where we’re all sort of brainwashed into writing the same stuff. Whenever you’re pushed towards writing a certain way, you’re not being true to yourself.  And when you take yourself out of the equation, it’s impossible for your writing to stand out.  Your point of view is what makes your writing individualistic.

Now today’s script may very well be true to Kosann. I’m not saying it isn’t. I just know that I read every script in town. And anything that deals with social issues in the 2020s is written one way and one way only. That may make sense to you on a personal level. It may line up with your beliefs. But I can promise you, it’s making you a worse storyteller. Cause if I can predict what you’re going to write on page 80 after only reading your first 5 pages, you’re allowing your personal beliefs to sabotage your ability to surprise the reader.

When all is said and done, I’m happy with where Kosann took this script. But it doesn’t make up for everything that happened beforehand, since a lot of this script tows that familiar company line I’ve been reading in every screenplay for the last three years.

It’s 1946 at Vassar College. This is where innocent and sweet Helena Beam meets girl-boss energy Bow Brooks. Cut to 10 years later and Bow is running one of the biggest publishing houses in New York. She specializes in finding female writers.

After Helena has several miscarriages and is at an all-time low in her life, she runs into Bow and Bow offers her a job as her assistant. Helena’s husband isn’t fond of the idea but Helena takes the job anyway.

Helena is tasked with finding any female talent she can and so Helena puts all her effort into it. But the more she hangs out with Bow, the more confused she gets. Bow doesn’t seem interested in men and spends a lot of personal time with the female writers she’s signed.

After Helena does some digging, she uncovers the unthinkable (spoiler!). Bow is pulling a Milli-Vanilli! She’s taking female books and saying they’re written by men! When the press gets hold of this info, Bow’s empire comes crumbling down.

I’m telling you, someone needs to create a Reverse Bechedal Test. Cause, at this point, it’s getting silly. No man makes it out of this story unscathed. One of the first ones we meet tries to force himself on Bow. Helena’s husband is VERY DISCOURAGING about the fact that Helena can’t have children. We even have a female writer’s husband THREATEN TO KILL HER at one point. Lol.

It would be sad if it wasn’t so funny.

And the thing is, there was ZERO reason for Helena’s husband to be unsupportive. Bow is the bad guy in this movie. It was the perfect opportunity to create a supportive husband who could guide Helena through Bow’s evil emergence.

But nope.  Gotta keep all men evil in 2022!  There’s even an “all men are evil” She-Hulk monologue in here.

All that aside, the script has bigger issues.

This is a script built on its twist and what do we always say about that? When your script is built around a third act twist, it will likely die in its second act due to it running out of ‘story oxygen.’ If you’re saving up everything for that big finish, you won’t give the audience enough entertainment in the meantime.

Most of the second act we’re watching people hang out in rooms and talk about the publishing world. We’re getting these hints that something’s not right, which creates a little suspense. But a little suspense is not going to power a second act that lasts 55 pages. You need more than that. And there weren’t enough storylines to keep the reader invested.

I will say that I liked Bow being bad. I wasn’t expecting that for the reasons I brought up at the beginning of this review. You’re kinda not allowed to make women bad in movies right now. I mean, you can, of course. But most writers are afraid to. They believe they need to tow the company line. And the company line right now is that all female characters must be perfect. I literally just got done with a set of notes where I had to make the writer aware that all FIVE of his female characters were bada$$es. I don’t even consider this his fault!  I think he just assumed what every writer assumes right now, which is that if there’s a female character in a script, she has to be a bada$$ or a Mary Sue.  There can’t be a lick of negativity associated with her.

Here’s the funny part. This is a DREAM SCENARIO for you screenwriters. If everybody is only writing something one way, it gives you the opportunity to be the one person who writes it the other way. And, in doing so, surprise the heck out of the reader.

Which is what Kosann was able to do, at least with her ending. This should inspire you.  All of you should be asking the question, “What am I not allowed to write in a script right now?” And then you should seriously consider writing EXACTLY THAT. Not in an “F YOU” way. You have to do it in a clever fashion that’s organic to the story you’re telling. But just think about how many people you can surprise by writing the things you’re not supposed to. Smart writers used to have this as one of the primary weapons in their writing arsenal. Today’s writers have forgotten about it altogether.

I liked the final act here. But not enough happened in the first two acts. There needed to be more plotlines and more fun plot developments happening.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned:There were no DISRUPTORS in this script. I kept waiting for a plot development that would DISRUPT the story – the kind of beat that makes you sit up and go, “Ooh, something’s happening.” In Black Panther, we’ve got this easy-going first act where everybody is casually gearing up for the next chapter in the kingdom. Things were starting to feel a little slow. And then – BOOM! – Killmonger shows up at that museum and steals the artifact. That’s a disruptor. All scripts need disruptors – sometimes big, sometimes small – to shake the reader up, to keep them uncomfortable. This script didn’t have that until it was too late.

Genre: Fantasy
Premise: An elf is the only one of her people convinced that an evil force thought long extinct is waiting in hiding to, once again, rule the land.
About: The show that Amazon paid a billion dollars for is finally here! The first two episodes are available on Prime. The streamer recently announced that over 25 million people saw the first two episodes, although such claims should always be taken with a grain of hobbit salt as these are not independently verified numbers. Meanwhile, Amazon has taken the unprecedented step of suspending reviews on the site so as to “weed out” online review bomb campaigns, effectively crafting whatever rating they choose. Even more staggering than that, however, is that screenwriters John D. Payne and Patrick McKay had ZERO credits before Lord of the Rings. Let me say that again so it can sink in. Amazon gave two writers with no experience whatsoever, a billion dollars to make a Lord of the Rings show. Wow. Just, wow.
Writers of both episodes: John D. Payne and Patrick McKay (inspired by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien)
Details: Both episodes are a little over an hour

Lord of the Rings, the TV show, may be one of the strangest shows I’ve ever seen in my life. One of the ways to identify a quality production is in the actors. The actors are either big names that you know or high quality working actors whose faces you instantly recognize. So the fact that I don’t know a single actor in this entire show is very difficult for my brain to resolve.

Also difficult to resolve is the budget. And the fact that when I see that number – 1 billion dollars – I expect to encounter top-notch next-level screenwriting. There aren’t many mythological worlds as fertile for storytelling as Middle Earth. It is the prototypical adventure mythology. So I was expecting to get my socks knocked off. Let’s see if that happened.

A lot of stuff happened in this story so I’ll try to briefly summarize it. A young elf named Galadriel is looking for the evil sorcerer king who killed her brother, Sauron. But everyone else is telling her that Sauron hasn’t been seen for decades and is dead. Doesn’t matter to Galadriel. She continues to search for him. She knows he’s alive!

Then there’s Nori Brandyfoot. She’s a hobbit-type creature who’s very curious, even if her hobbit town explicitly says not to be curious. She loves exploring, to the chagrin of all the elders in the group. She eventually finds a homeless guy who speaks a strange language so she can’t understand him. Kind of like her own personal E.T. situation. Although he’s not as nice as E.T.

You’ve then got this angry looking elf guy, Arondir, who’s in love with a human (I think she’s a human at least) but they’re not allowed to be together for some reason. They spend a lot of scenes speaking in a very serious tone about stuff we don’t understand.

Finally you have elf, Elrond, Galadriel’s buttoned-up buddy, who thinks Galadriel is way too obsessed with Sauron. He’ll later be tasked with bringing some dwarves on board for a new defense project. And that’s pretty much it. There are a few other things that happen but those are the broad strokes.

So, did it blow my socks off?

Unfortunately, no.

Let’s get into why.

We all know first scenes are important.

But I don’t think there’s ever been a more important first scene than the one that begins a billion dollar TV show. The scene being chosen in that scenario is going to tell you a lot about what these writers are going for and it also shows you if they know what they’re doing. I can spot a weak screenwriter 99% of the time in their first scene due to the fact that it’s unclear what the scene is trying to accomplish. Or if it is trying to accomplish something, it’s doing so in a muddy manner.

Here we meet Young Galadriel, the hero of our series, as she crafts an origami swan that she then sends down a stream. As soon as she does this, a bully crew of kids run along next to the swan, throwing rocks at it and trying to drown it.

The scene is a success, in my opinion. For starters, it lets us know that the writers are prioritizing their characters. They didn’t start with some big battle. They started with a character scene. And they used a tried-and-true scenario to make sure audiences liked Galadriel – have her get bullied. And they did so in a non-obvious way.

The non-obvious part is important because they easily could’ve had a group of bullies walk up to Galadriel and start pushing her around. By trying, instead, to destroy something Galadriel created, it added an “indirect” flavor to the trope that made it unique. Which is exactly what every screenwriter should be trying to do.

So that gave me hope.

Unfortunately, that hope didn’t last long.

I’ve heard a lot of criticism over the last few days about how the show is “wandering.” It’s not clear what’s going on. We’re just meeting a bunch of people. I think that’s due to arrogance. Most TV shows have to worry about getting canceled. Therefore, it is in their best interest to make every moment, especially early on when you’re trying to build an audience, as entertaining as possible.

The Lord of the Rings may be the first show in history that is guaranteed six seasons. Amazon didn’t buy one of the most expensive properties ever to only film one season. They’re in this for the long haul. For that reason, they don’t care about entertainment right now. More than any other show I’ve seen, they want to set up their world for the fireworks that are going to happen later.

With that said, the show is not without direction. There is a name that keeps getting brought up again and again – Sauron. Sauron is this big evil dude who used to rule over this land. He disappeared. And everyone thinks he’s gone for good except Galadriel. Her dogged pursuit of this ghost is the primary carrot being dangled in front of the viewer that is, theoretically, going to keep us watching. We want to be there when this guy shows up.

Dangling carrots is, arguably, the whole shebang in storytelling. You tell them something big or flashy or weird or fun is coming and they’ll want to stick around to see it. It’s called anticipation, and is a very effective device.

The show’s real problem is the one that plagues every pilot that’s ever been written.

Do. We. Like. The. Characters?

Do we care about them?

Do we want to root for them?

Are we interested in seeing their storylines unfold?

Unlike Peter Jackson’s films, this Lord of the Rings doesn’t have Bilbo or Frodo or Legolas or Gandalf. It doesn’t have anyone we know. The reason that’s important to note is because it means you’re sending these brand-new characters out into the world on a wing on a prayer. As every professional screenwriter knows, you can do everything right in crafting a character, and still create someone boring. It’s because there are so many variables involved in creating fictional human beings. Even one misstep in the concoction could be the deal-breaker.

In addition to Galadriel, we have her Elven town mate, Elrond. Elrond needs to recruit some dwarves to build a weapon for his city. Elrond is… bland. There’s nothing interesting about him at all.

Then we have Nori, a young girl who’s of some kind of Middle Earth persuasion. Sort of like a hobbit, I think. She finds a strange man who’s fallen from the stars. She’s sweet enough. Earnest. She’s definitely not unlikable. But will I remember her character in a week? Definitely not.

We also have Arondir and Bronwyn, our romantic couple who have been kept apart by… I don’t know what. I think they’re both different species or something. These two are probably the most boring of the bunch. There’s literally nothing memorable about them.

Contrast this with House of the Dragon. You’ve got the king who just killed his wife. You’ve got his daughter who’s got this fascinating look to her. You’ve got the king’s cousin, who’s ready to lay waste to the king’s kingdom.

Almost every show that’s ever been made has been thrown into the gauntlet of, “Do audiences like these characters?” If the answer is yes, the show continues. If the answer is no, the show dies a quick death. That isn’t an option here. We will get six seasons of this show even if 10 people are watching by the end of it. To build that kind of story on a foundation of characters this weak? It’s never been attempted before. But we’re going to find out what happens.

Now, there’s always the possibility that these characters become more interesting over time. But, in my experience, you either like characters right away or you don’t. And the cool thing is, when you like them right away, the show is golden. In other words, if you get the equation right, you’re rewarded. If you get it wrong, like this, you’re in deep doo-doo.

Obviously, the true test of any pilot (or, in this case dual-pilot), is, will you keep watching? That’s the only question that matters. I will not. I’ve found very little to get excited about here beyond Sauron. I would like to see what goes down when he shows up. But am I willing to suffer though a lot of bland conversations with bland characters to get there? I’m not. So, for me, I’m out.

[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the stream
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: A great way to construct characters in TV shows is to ask yourself, if the audience met this character then didn’t watch the show again for a month, would they remember her? If not, that character is probably too bland and you need to either pump them up somehow or replace them with a character that creates far more impact.

Check your inboxes!

This is a good one, people! We’ve got a Kinetic update, a book announcement, opportunities for writers to sell a script (if you’ve got a holiday screenplay), we’ve got the hardest Consultation Deal trivia question, maybe, ever. I talked to a professional screenwriter about his eight year journey of selling a script. I review a BANANAS action screenplay that has the single most expensive set piece I’ve ever read. So yeah, if you’re not already on my mailing list, this is definitely the month to hop on. E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com and I’ll send the newsletter over. And yes, everybody who signs up receives the dog in the photo.

LABOR DAY DEAL! – I’m taking $200 off my screenplay consultations if you order them this weekend! If you want to get super cheap notes now or on a future script, e-mail me at Carsonreeves1@gmail.com. Use subject line “Labor Day” and let’s rock n’ roll!!

I just like putting up Matrix pictures.  This has nothing to do with the article.  

Just like when I review a script on the site, I have “what I learn” moments when I do script consultations as well. Of course, most of these things, I’ve already learned. But if there’s one thing I’ve come to realize about screenwriting, it’s that you occasionally need to be reminded of things.

Which was the motivation for today’s article. I thought it would be fun to share the big lesson I learned (or, was reminded of) in each of the last ten script consultations I did. It’s going to be a little tricky because I can’t share the details of the scripts. But if I need to get detailed, I’ll just adjust the concept and specifics to keep everything private.

Afterwards, I’ll provide you with a ranking of how often I come across this particular issue in screenplays. 1/10 means I barely come across it. 10/10 means it’s one of the biggest issues in all of screenwriting. Okay let’s get into it!

1) Fear of being on-the-nose – For an airplane pilot, the scariest thing that can happen is that all of your engines go out mid-flight. For a surgeon, the scariest thing that can happen is that the patient goes into cardiac arrest during the surgery. For a screenwriter, the scariest thing that can happen is someone telling you that your script is on-the-nose. We actively avoid “on-the-nose” to such a degree that we actually create the opposite problem for ourselves, which is that the specifics of our plot, characters, and theme are so vague that the reader has no idea they’re even there. For example, if you wanted to build the flaw of “selfishness” into your main character, but were so terrified of being on-the-nose you only mentioned the selfishness a couple of times in the script, then when that character transforms in the end and becomes selfless, we’re utterly confused. Cause we never knew the character was selfish in the first place. — In my experience, the writers who are obsessive about avoiding on-the-nose moments are being too vague in general. It’s okay to draw attention to things that are important in your script.

How often I run across this issue: 5 out of 10

2) Picking the wrong point-of-view – Sometimes when you write a script, the hero is obvious. If you’re writing “John Wick,” for example, you know whose eyes the movie should be seen through. But sometimes you run into scenarios that have more characters, a less linear storyline, and, therefore, it isn’t as clear whose point-of-view should take precedence. For example, if you have a movie like Knives Out, where there are all sorts of characters to choose from, you have to think harder about which character the spotlight should be on. The answer is typically the person who’s the most active. So, in a movie like that, the detective is the most active. But you also have to take into account which character has the most interesting storyline. That will play into whose POV to follow as well. In this particular consultation script, I was posed with one character – let’s call her “the killer” – whose kills made her somewhat interesting to watch and another character – let’s call him “the detective” – who had the more active storyline, since he was investigating these murders.  An argument could be made to go with either character.  But I felt that the benefits from the discoveries that would come from the detective’s investigation outweighed watching the killer, whose killings wasn’t interesting enough to be the sole focus of the story.  The killer wasn’t Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, for example.  POV can be a difficult decision to make in some scripts.  But when it’s all said and done, go with the person whose POV leads to a more entertaining story.

How often I run across this issue: 5 out of 10

3) Execution is too familiar – No matter how many scripts we write, a pitfall we’re never safe from is being too formulaic with our execution. And there’s a specific reason for this. When we fell in love with a particular genre growing up, we fell in love with everything about it. We fell in love with the characters, the scenarios, the dialogue, the plot twists. And so when the time came to write these scripts ourselves, we wanted to do what we saw growing up!! We wanted to write those same characters. We wanted to write those same scenes. And some weird cognitive dissonance didn’t allow us to realize this was a bad thing – that readers were going to tell us that our scripts were formulaic and cliche. To combat this, you need to deconstruct the genre on some level and actively avoid writing the characters and scenarios and dialogue you were so fond of. You’re still going to write those things to a degree. But you’re actively looking to write your version of it and not just straight up copy and paste.

How often I run across this issue: 8 out of 10

4) Way too much going on – There are two primary reasons why someone might label your script this way. One, you have too many characters. Or two, you have too much plot. But, by far, the worst violations of this rule are when you do both. You have way too much plot – you’re jumping around to a million different locations and trying to cram in too many storylines. And, by proxy, because you have all this extra plot, you populate it with more charters than your story can handle. Reading these scripts is like reading college textbooks. They’re big and cumbersome and feel like you’re taking notes as opposed to enjoying yourself. I think the reason writers make this mistake is because they have the wrong mindset. Their mindset is, “I have all this stuff to get into my story. How can I best position my story to squeeze it all in?” And since that’s the objective, they feel really good when they’ve done it. It’s like, “Wow!  I was able to get every single thing I wanted into the script.”  The objective should instead be, “How can I write the most entertaining story?” If you start from there, you probably won’t ever get this criticism thrown at you.

How often I run across this issue: 9 out of 10

5) Rules of your world are too complicated – This is an issue I run into almost exclusively in the sci-fi and fantasy genres. This is your mythology. This is your world-building. And what’s great about that is, when you get it right, it’s awesome. The Matrix is awesome. The rules are cool and fun to learn. But there’s a version of The Matrix where there are 20 more rules about how things work. Where there is three times as much backstory. Where there is so much exposition, it starts to contradict itself. Time travel scripts, in particular, can become incomprehensible if you don’t simplify your rule-set. I remember I wrote a time travel script once and I must’ve had a dozen time travel rules that I thought were expertly crafted.  I felt that if anyone had me in a room and challenged me on these rules, that in just under an hour, I would be able to convince them that it all worked and made sense.  It probably took me another five years before I realized how stupid that was.  That the goal is not to be able to prove your point.  Your goal is always (always always always) to entertain the reader.  Period.  This is a reminder to everyone writing sci-fi and fantasy to err on the side of LESS IS MORE. I know you want to show us how intricate your multiple universe time-travel rule-set is.  But movies don’t have the capacity to keep track of all of that. You need to distill it down to the essentials.

How often I run across this issue: 5 out of 10 (but would be 8 out of 10 if this was just an assessment of sci-fi and fantasy scripts)

6)An unimportant subplot – Whenever we sit down to construct our latest screenplay, we tend to have a number of things we want to put in the script. Because these become the “OG” elements of your screenplay, you become attached to them. You think they are unchangeable. It’s sort of like laundry on your bedroom floor. The longer it sits there without you picking it up, the more it starts to feel like a permanent part of the room. This can lead to subplots that aren’t necessary for your story sticking around, draft after draft.  In this particular script there was a subplot with a character that was only peripherally connected to the main plot. So, whenever we visited this character, we felt like we were a million miles away from the main story. It can be hard to ditch these subplots. But if a subplot isn’t helping push the story forward, it’s probably not important. Even if that subplot is helping develop your main character, it probably needs to go. 95% of screenplays move too slowly. Unnecessary subplots are a big reason for that.

How often I run across this issue: 4 out of 10

7)Over-setting up the first act – This is an adjacent tip to number 4. First acts are tough because they’re the setup act. They set up the main character, the supporting characters, and the plot. When your stories are simple, like Taken, this is easy-peasy. But when your stories are complex, like Avengers Infinity War, it can be a lot tougher. Because you just have a lot of stuff you’ve gotta cram into that opening act. But, in the case of this consultation, the story was relatively simple, yet the writer tried to include way too much in the first act. For example, instead of just telling you what the main character was up to in their life, they tried to include another 40 years of their backstory. And then, as soon as that happened, we had a death to deal with, and then a funeral to deal with, and then a will reading to deal with.  Why not just open with the will reading?  As I like to remind screenwriters any chance I get, the most common mistake I see is writers making things overly complex. The solution to most problems in screenwriting is keep it simple.

How often I run across this issue: 5 out of 10

8) Concept isn’t big enough – A concept must be special. As in, this is something we don’t typically get to see and therefore is worthy of making a movie about. And the stakes need to be high. The story must feel like it matters. My primary issue with this consultation script was that the story felt too small. I needed the stakes to be bigger. If you ever want to see what it looks like when concepts aren’t big enough, check out the tail end of the 1990s – early 2000s indie era. This is when writers were getting super experimental, and, in the process, writing a bunch stories that had low stakes and no compelling central idea. A couple of films that come to mind are Gerry, a movie that has Matt Damon and Casey Affleck roaming around a desert for 90 minutes. And Bubble, from Steven Soderbergh, which was about a doll machine plant. You can still make these movies if you direct them yourself and keep the budget low. But it’s hard to compete on the spec script market with a low-stakes or medium concept script.

How often I run across this issue: 7 out of 10

9)Starts off fast, loses momentum – We seem to be aware of three important checkpoints once we get into screenwriting. The first 5 pages, the first 10 pages, and the first act. We know we need to make these segments of the script sing. Cause we need to get people into our script if we expect them to finish our script. Unfortunately, this leads to an oft-overlooked side effect, which in that we don’t write with the same level of immediacy after the first act. Granted, you can’t make every single moment in your script thrilling. But you should still have that mindset of, “The writer could be getting bored. The writer could be getting bored.” So that you continue to write an entertaining script the whole way through. This particular script started out like gangbusters. But the writer took his foot off the gas about 15 pages into the second act. And it took what was, up until that point, an ‘impressive’ script, and turned into just barely ‘worth the read.’ So don’t take your foot off the gas, people!

How often I run across this issue: 8 out of 10

10)Being too clever for your own good – Sometimes I come across really smart writers who are so driven to write something great that they forget to write something good. In other words, they unnecessarily overwrite their script. This particular script was a mystery and it was just so insanely detailed and had so many little clues and key moments along the way, along with voice overs and flashbacks and voice over from past characters playing over present storylines. It was so intricate that by the time we got to the ending, I was trying to see the story through thirteen layers of intricate plotting and therefore struggled to understand what happened. In the Sixth Sense, we get it right away that Bruce Willis is dead. If you try to overcomplicate that setup and the reveal, it doesn’t work. I’m not going to give you the advice to “dumb it down.” But writers who try to outthink everyone… you don’t need to outthink us as much as you think you do. Which brings me right back to my most common screenwriting advice: Keep it simple!

How often I run across this issue: 2 out of 10

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