It’s time for my top ten amateurs scripts of the year! There’s a small caveat. A few consultation scripts which would’ve made the list are being kept off at the writers’ request. But don’t let that get you down. It just means more slots for Amateur Offerings scripts! Now none of these scripts are perfect. Hell, none of the professional scripts from yesterday were perfect. These are amateur writers which means they’re still learning. With that said, there’s promise in each and every one of these screenplays. Which is why I’m drawing attention to them. Let’s take a look. And don’t forget to share your own favorite amateur screenplays in the comments section.

Number Ten – “Typee”
Logline: After jumping ship on a remote island, a sailor must escape from his new captors, a fabled tribe of cannibals named the Typee.
Writer: Kent Sariano (based on the novel by Herman Melville)
Why: I’ll be honest. This script needs a jolt of energy. But there’s so much to work with here. You’ve got an island full of cannibals for God’s sake! But the bigger story is how clever the writer was. He found a kickass loophole in the system. Find a little-known but once-popular book that’s in the public domain and adapt it. The pitch to this one is top-notch. “Did you know Moby Dick wasn’t Herman Melville’s most popular book? This was.” What exec isn’t going to want to read that?
Script link: Typee

Number Nine – “Sway”
Logline: Sway, a talented high school pianist with a hard home life, gains the power of mind control but must strengthen it if she hopes to escape the clutches of her abusive, drug-pushing cousin.
Writer: Brittany Lamoureux
Why: As I was going back through all the amateur scripts this year, I’d originally forgotten about Sway. However, the second I opened up and started reading the review, the script came flooding back. While there’s some work that needs to be done hashing out the mythology behind our hero’s powers, the imaginative way in which the script deals with sexual assault feels like something Hollywood would want right now. This script needs a strong producer to help guide the rewrites. But there’s no doubt that there’s something here.
Script link: Sway

Number Eight – “Raw Meat”
Logline: When troublesome student, Mason, gets sent to an isolated boarding school under suspicious circumstances, he discovers that the teachers are secretly killing the students and then eating them.
Writer: James Michael
Why: There may not be a screenplay on this list that has more potential as a movie than this one. Not only is the setup ideal for a horror flick. But it’s got a kickass mythology at its core. James needs to do the hard work of adding more detail to his world. I’d also keep building that mythology. But under the right direction, this could one day be a Blumhouse film.
Script link: Raw Meat

Number Seven – “Ice Cream Don’t Melt In Englewood”
Logline: When an African-American businessman witnesses Chicago cops gunning down a teen, it fractures his relationship with his family, who urge him to expose the truth – unaware that he’s been offered a secret business deal to side with police.
Writer: Richard Ehrenreich
Why: Some of you may remember this script from Amateur Offerings. It didn’t win the week but Richard would later send me the script for a consult. I loved the dilemma at the center of the story. Our hero, a black man, witnesses a black teen get shot, but is pressured by the community to say otherwise. When I read it, it still felt a few drafts shy of realizing its potential. That dilemma is the whole movie. It has to feel like the most difficult choice of our hero’s life. With that said, the ice cream scene is the next iteration of the famous deli scene in The Wrestler. I can imagine it playing on the big screen of an awards show.

Number Six – “Deep Creeks”
Logline: After finding and rescuing a famously kidnapped young girl from a camp high in a desolate mountain range, an aging backpacker has to navigate the rugged terrain to get her to safety while being hunted by her abductor.
Writer: Chris Rodgers
Why: There’s something both simple and primal about needing to save a helpless person. Which is why it’s the core element of so many great movies. I liked how this script mirrored a headline-grabbing real-life story yet made it its own. That’s a clever way to make your material marketable (Noah Hawley is doing the same thing with the upcoming Pale Blue Dot). I also endorse the advice I gave this writer about character in this review, as strong character work is a common weakness in amateur screenwriting. Check it out.
Script link: Deep Creeks

Number Five – “Truth or Consequences, New Mexico”
Logline: After the arrest of David Parker Ray, one of the most sadistic men in US history, the consequences of his heinous crimes unfold through the eyes of different characters in search of countless missing victims.
Writer: Kit Anderson
Why: I don’t know where the serial killer genre is headed in the #MeToo era. People aren’t looking for movies about women getting raped and killed these days. However, this is such a unique story, and Kit tells it in such a unique way, that I feel like the script deserves attention. And since the industry is so cyclical, you know that sooner or later, movies like this will come back. Maybe in a different form than we’re used to. But they’ll come back. And when that happens, Truth or Consequences should be one of the first scripts considered.
Script link: Truth or Consequences New Mexico

Number Four – “Greenhorn”
Logline: A PTSD-afflicted Marine must fight for his own survival when he finds himself held captive in the Alaskan wilds by a family with a horrifying secret.
Writer: Ryan Lee
Why: Okay. Yes. You caught me. I like movies that take place on islands (between yesterday and today, this is my third island-themed script). It’s easy to back this preference up. Islands pose an ideal dramatic setup. If something goes wrong on an island, there’s nowhere to escape. Greenhorn is sort of a mixy-mashy story that takes place on both a boat and an island. And you could argue it isn’t sure which of those settings it wants to focus on. Regardless of that, this is a really fun imaginative adventure that I haven’t forgotten since I read it.
Script link: Greenhorn

Number Three – “Sati”
Logline: After the death of her Indian husband, an American woman travels to the remote village where his family lives, only to sense that a terrifying ritual is being planned for his funeral.
Writer: David Boito
Why: Sorry guys. This was a consultation script. So I can’t send you to a review. “Sati” reminded me of two of my favorite horror movies, Rosemary’s Baby and The Wicker Man. It has this slow burn to it as our heroine helps a strange and distant family prepare for the funeral. The moment I realized where the movie was headed, sweat started pouring down my head. I thought, “How could you possibly go there???” From there I whipped though the pages, praying that what I thought was going to happen wouldn’t happen. I told David to keep working hard on this script as I see a ton of potential in it.

Number Two – “Broodmare”
Logline: A man goes with his fiancé to right his wrongs at his ex girlfriend’s horse ranch, only to find sinister happenings.
Writer: Michael Voyer
Why: Some of you may think this is cheating, since Broodmare made the Blood List. But when I consulted on the script at the beginning of the year, Michael was still an amateur screenwriter through and through. In fact, Michael has been featured on Amateur Offerings before, with his script Hollywood Party Massacre (you could see he had talent even back then). When I got this script, I knew all Michael had to do was get rid of one needless subplot and this script was gold. And that’s exactly what happened. His manager told me that he hadn’t sent out a script more universally praised all year. And I hope to the seven screenwriting gods this gets made as I can’t wait to hear how people react to “that scene.”

Number One – “The Janitor”
Logline: A mob rib breaker turned high school janitor seeks to redeem his violent past by preventing a young girl from making the same mistakes he did, but when drugs and gangs overrun her school, he must risk his cover to clean it up.
Writer: Matthew Lee Blackburn
Why: There was no amateur script all year that had better character work than this one. It was raw. It was real. It was the only time I read an amateur script in 2018 where I forgot I was reading. The script is messy in places. It starts off rough. But once it gets going, it’s got this beautiful relationship between this girl and this janitor that reminds you of movies like Good Will Hunting. I didn’t root harder for a character all year than I did this girl. I can’t thank Matthew enough for making me remember why I read through so much subpar amateur material. It’s to get to scripts like this! :)
Script link: The Janitor

Genre: Horror
Premise: When troublesome student, Mason, gets sent to an isolated boarding school under suspicious circumstances, he discovers that the teachers are secretly killing the students and then eating them.
Why You Should Read: Some of you might remember me posting the logline for this script in the comments some time ago (under the title ‘The Dead of Winter’), as well as a link to the script. The goal was to get some real feedback so I could attack my next draft with an actual purpose. The comments I received were amazing, which resulted in a totally new direction, turning this script from what was once a psychological horror/thriller to a straight up horror film. On top of that, I used Carson’s logline service – which I really, really recommend if you want to get your logline in order (shameless plug) – and now I believe I have a great horror script ready to go. — But most importantly, I took Carson’s advice in the first place and actually wrote myself a horror. More than that, I wrote a high-concept horror set in a single location that would require minimal special effects/costs to produce and make. Do I think that this will be made? I sure hope so! But if not, I believe it’s a step in the right direction.
Writer: James Michael
Details: 107 pages

Merit Leighton for August?

James Michael asks a great question at the end of his “Why You Should Read” pitch. “Do I think that this will be made?” It’s a question a lot of writers never ask, despite it being, arguably, the most important question of all. If a producer reads your script and doesn’t think it can (or should) be made, you’re done. So it’s important that you conceive your ideas through that lens. To James’s credit, this is the kind of movie that gets made. The marketing practically writes itself. But getting the concept right is only half the battle. You have to deliver on that concept. Let’s find out if James was able to do that.

17 year old Mason Crane has just arrived at a remote boarding school in the Wyoming Mountains. Having recently lost both of his parents, Mason is far from thrilled to be plopped down in the middle of nowhere where he doesn’t know anybody. Especially this place, Rotfisch Academy, where all anyone seems to talk about is how you need to “stay out of the woods.”

Mason begrudgingly makes a couple of friends – Sheldon, a goth weirdo, and August, the smartest girl in school – and immediately pulls them into his conspiracy theory. There’s something in the woods connected to the infamous Donner Party, who died in this very spot 200 years ago, after eating each other in a last ditch attempt to stay alive.

They don’t believe him, so he goes about proving it, finding success almost immediately. Mason runs into a dead student’s body hung from the middle of the kitchen, his blood dripping down onto the floor. He runs to August to show her, but when they come back, the student has been replaced by a pig.

A week later, Sheldon goes missing. But despite Mason pleading his case to August yet again, she STILL doesn’t believe anything sketchy is going on. When Mason finally decides to head into the woods and find out what’s really going on, he’s captured and killed! That’s right. Our main character is dead by the midpoint!

We shift the story over to August, who teams up with a new character, the preppy Julian, and the two look into the disappearance of Mason. What they eventually learn is that Mason was right. Something is going on. The teachers are werewolves descended from the original Donner Party, who, just like the infamous Donners, need to feast on human flesh once a year to survive. August and Sheldon must now escape the remote school, a task that becomes exponentially more difficult when the teachers realize August has discovered their secret.

Like I said above. This is an ideal setup for a movie. I can see the poster and the trailer already. James also makes some cool and daring choices in the script. I loved the Donner stuff. One of the hardest things about writing a horror movie is creating an original mythology that supports the proceedings. I’m not sure I love the werewolf angle. But the idea that this school is situated on the original Donner Party trail and it’s run by descendants of that party who need to feast on human flesh every year, just like their ancestors, that’s good stuff.

I was also shocked when James killed off Mason, his hero, halfway through the movie. While I’m not convinced it was the best decision, it was certainly a bold one. I tell you guys all the time that you need to take a couple of big chances in your script if you want to write something great. So kudos to James for taking that chance.

Where the script runs into trouble is in its plotting, which feels too simplistic the majority of the time. The first mistake James makes is that he doesn’t flesh out his world. There’s no sense of reality to the school life here. I realized, at one point, that we were halfway through the movie and I hadn’t been in a single character’s dorm room.

It was like there was this whole half of the school missing. One of your jobs as a writer is to establish your world convincingly. And a boarding school is a specific world. Therefore, you need to do the research, figure out how things work, and put us in that day-to-day environment. The first thing that comes to mind here is Dead Poet’s Society. In that movie, we see those kids inside of class, outside of class, in their dorm rooms, going out together. We never had anything like that here. James was so laser-focused on moving the plot forward that he forgot to lay out the world from which that plot would emerge.

A side-effect of this is that everything started too quickly. Mason sees a monster running through the forest in the very first scene! How can there be any mystery if we’re seeing a monster right away? And once we get to the school, he’s convinced this place is evil before he’s even taken a nap.

It reminded me of the difference between a beginner and veteran comedian. The beginner comedian gets on stage and starts jumping around throwing big crazy jokes at you left and right, desperate to make you laugh. He’s afraid that if he even slows down for a second, you’ll realize you’re bored and leave. Contrast that with a seasoned comedian (think Jerry Seinfeld), and you’ll see him take big pauses during his jokes. Sit in the silence in between them. He’s totally comfortable. And that’s what I needed from James. Trust your idea. Set up your world. And THEN get to the crazy shit happening. The crazy shit doesn’t need to start happening on page 2.

Another problem was the dialogue. It didn’t sound like teenagers at all. One of August’s early lines, in reference to Mason, is “I know that. But I’m still worried about him… who knows what he’ll do if he’s even half inclined.” I could spend a year in the halls of the high school up the street and not hear a single student use the phrase, “…knows what he’ll do if he’s even half inclined.”

Even when the characters act more like teenagers, it sounds off. Here’s Mason telling off August: “You’re the type of student that sniffs a teachers farts and tells them it smells like roses. You always go straight to their defense.” I think I winced three times reading that line. Bo Burnham, in crafting one of my favorite movies of the year, Eighth Grade, said in an interview that the key to getting his dialogue right was listening to hours of youtube videos of teens at parties. If you want to get the dialogue right, go to the source.

I think there’s something to this script, especially with this Donner Party angle. It’s such a great launching point for horror. But James needs to live in this world longer. I got the sense that outside of the kitchen, the classroom, the dining room, the hallway, and the woods, that he had no idea what any of the rest of the school looked like. Do the hard boring work. Get to know the school better. Get to know how real boarding schools operate. And build up the characters and their lives before the shit hits the fan. That’s my advice. Good luck! :)

Script link: Raw Meat

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

What I learned: This script needed a B-story. As constructed, it only has an A-story (looking into the school’s secret). If you only have an A-story, your plot is going to feel thin. Imagine if Good Will Hunting only had its A-story (the therapy sessions). It would’ve gotten boring fast. You needed the side story with the friends and the love interest to provide a full spectrum of plotlines to explore. Raw Meat, at least through its first half, needs a B-story STAT.

Today’s batch of scripts comes with, probably, the most original-sounding idea I’ve heard all year. I have no idea if the execution matches up with the imagination, but it should be fun finding out. Also, a head’s up. Just like Halloween, I’ll be doing a HOLIDAY AMATEUR OFFERINGS right before Christmas. So if you’ve got that great Christmas or Hanukkah or New Years or “I Hate The Holidays” script just waiting to be discovered, you’ll want to get it ready!

Another heads up. I’m probably going to review The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (on Netflix) on Monday. Interested to see if the Coen’s, two of the best screenwriters ever, have got their mojo back. So check it out if you want to be part of the discussion. If I change my mind and decide to review something else, I’ll give you a head’s up in the comments.

If you haven’t played Amateur Offerings before, all you have to do is read as much of the 5 screenplays below as possible and vote for your favorite in the comments section. Voting closes on Sunday night, 11:59pm Pacific Time. Winner gets a review next Friday. — If you’d like to submit your own script to compete in Amateur Offerings, send a PDF of your script to carsonreeves3@gmail.com with the title, genre, logline, and why you think your script should get a shot.

Title: MARENIGHT
Genre: Musical Drama
Logline: In the late 1800’s, a Native American teen finds his remote western town under siege from an extraterrestrial force.
Why You Should Read: As a writer, sometimes you get an idea that comes fully imagined in your mind including the score. Luckily, I have some limited ability to tinker out a tune on a keyboard and I applied that to this story. I’ve never done anything musically on this scale before, however. Certainly no experience with music software, but I’m pleased that in presenting a musical, I’ve also created 23 tracks that give an idea to those who always say upon reading a musical script, ‘Well, I need to hear the darn music!” Those sample tracks are marked throughout the script and can be found here.
As a musical, this is a story that wears its heart on its sleeve. I’ve written the story and score to be accessible and appeal to the older audience, young people who like singing with their spectacle, and the gay crowd who like to see a prominent character they can identify with. All have been from beginning of time the backbone of support for the musical in all its forms. I’ve attempted to make the “strange attractor” in this story as big as it is, to take a balcony seat to the central relationships, the human element. I hope that’s apparent, but I also hope the spectacle, the odd and atmospheric will delight.
If chosen, it gets its premiere here with an audience of readers that know their stuff and hit the high notes every time in critiquing entries and making them better.. I do hope I get the chance to hear them sing.

Title: Raw Meat
Genre: Horror
Logline: When troublesome student, Mason, gets sent to an isolated boarding school under suspicious circumstances, he discovers that the teachers are secretly killing the students and then eating them.
Why You Should Read: Some of you might remember me posting the logline for this script in the comments some time ago (under the title ‘The Dead of Winter’), as well as a link to the script. The goal was to get some real feedback so I could attack my next draft with an actual purpose. The comments I received were amazing, which resulted in a totally new direction, turning this script from what was once a psychological horror/thriller to a straight up horror film. On top of that, I used Carson’s logline service – which I really, really recommend if you want to get your logline in order (shameless plug) – and now I believe I have a great horror script ready to go. — But most importantly, I took Carson’s advice in the first place and actually wrote myself a horror. More than that, I wrote a high-concept horror set in a single location that would require minimal special effects/costs to produce and make. Do I think that this will be made? I sure hope so! But if not, I believe it’s a step in the right direction.

Title: BURDEN
Genre: Drama/Superhero
Logline: A struggling single mother’s world is turned upside-down when Atlas, the world’s only superhero, decides to transfer his powers over to her.
Why You Should Read: Hey, Osagie here! Love reading SS, deciding to put myself out there with AoW. The impetus for this two-hander script was a stressful period where I wondered how other people dealt with overwhelming liability, leading me to imagine how a real-world “superman” or “superwoman” would cope. And so a “hero” finds his way out of the job by thrusting it on a single-mother, already making her own reckless choices in her normal life. How’s this flawed character supposed to handle the weight of the world on her shoulders? How would any real person deal with “great power and great responsibility”? The superpowers drive the plot, but the characters drive the story. Hopefully my focus on real-world situations and characters meld well within the fantastical, sometimes discounted, element of superheroes. “I just tried to write characters who are human beings who also have superpowers” – Stan Lee

Title: SMITH 23
Genre: TV Pilot – Sci-Fi
Logline: After global warming and several wars have taken their toll on Earth, most of humanity has been thrown into starvation and anarchy while the elite thrive in a few fortified cities, the last bastions of civilization. From the teenage prostitute to the genocidal leader of the powerful city-state Smith 23, all struggle to survive in this new uncharted existence.
Why You Should Read: This script offers something for everybody. Important issues like sexual exploitation, global warming and income inequality should appeal to the Scriptshadow gatekeepers while big set pieces, and old-fashioned sex & violence will entice Larry The Lyft Driver. More importantly, over the years I’ve figured out that the only way to present this stuff is through character. These characters are not necessarily likable but always interesting.

Title: Ushar
Genre: Romantic drama
Logline: A trepid documentary filmmaker falls in love with a beautiful African tribeswoman, and then discovers that the native women sacrifice their husbands as part of the wedding ceremony.
Why You Should Read: I’ve been writing short fiction since I was 9 years old, and trying to break into the film industry since high school. I try to watch movies on a daily basis, and I’ve written a handful of screenplays, many of them unfinished. However, I felt Ushar was such a good concept that I sent it out to Script Pipeline — I even paid to get some script notes. Needless to say, although I didn’t place in the competition, I did get some very positive feedback, including some things to think about for future rewrites. However, to my knowledge, that was just one judge’s opinion, and I would like to send my script out to as many people as I can, if anything just for some exposure. I don’t care if someone says my script sucks, but I’d really like to get a sense of where I’m at in this crazy world of screenwriting. I thought you could help.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: In the fast-rising sport of Bricklaying, an anti-doping agent and disgraced former champion must take down the champion’s former nemesis, who they suspect is using a bricklaying-enhancement drug known as “Brick Dust.”
Why You Should Read: Bricks of Glory was inspired by a real life event called the Bricklayer 500 which takes place in Vegas every year. They take the top 20 bricklayers from around the world and compete to see who can build the highest (and most structurally sound) brick wall in 60 minutes. A friend of mine’s husband won the Regional Competition in my area so I went to Vegas to watch the show and attended the World of Concrete convention as research. Man, what a trip. I mean they seriously treat this like a major sporting event! I find it so hilarious! So in my script, I completely exaggerate this and make it a much bigger, funnier, spectacle of a sport. Bricklayers use flair, like lighting their walls on fire and juggling bricks, and the competition is so fierce, they resort to taking performance enhancing drugs. I’ve put a lot of work into this script, even doing table reads with stand up comedians to help me punch up the jokes. But if you want to see what inspired it, here’s a video recap of the Bricklayer 500 which should sell it better than I ever could: https://youtu.be/zR69ZFdldH0
Writer: Alison Parker
Details: 103 pages

It’s been 20 years, but the sequel to one of my favorite movies ever – Braveheart – has FINALLY come out (The Outlaw King). Yes, the adventures of Robert the Bruce, starring Chris Pine, arrived on Netflix this morning. The film is stuck at 60% on Rotten Tomatoes. But keep in mind that most of those reviews came in before the director cut 20 minutes from the film after festival showings, massively streamlining it. I’ll be watching Braveheart 2 this weekend and reviewing it Monday.

Today, we’re taking on one of my favorite AO comedy premises of 2018. I’m really excited about this since comedy gets a bad rap on this site. This sounds like a truly fun idea. And while kooky sports comedies have fallen out of favor in recent years, it’s a genre that can easily get hot again. Will Bricks of Glory be the script to do it? Let’s find out!

In the 1960s, when sports like baseball and football grew to record-breaking ratings, greedy sports CEOs looking to take advantage of their fans began charging unheard of sums for balls. The strategy backfired, and within a couple of years, fans completely abandoned ball-centric sports, sending all major leagues into bankruptcy. All of this allowed for non-ball-related sports to flourish, which is how bricklaying became the biggest sport in the U.S.

It’s now 1987 and the star of the sport is 27 year old Wayne Walker, whose theatrical style and killer catch-phrase (“Get laid!”) made him an instant celebrity. His number one fan is his young daughter, Harley, who couldn’t be more proud of her dad. That is until it’s discovered Wayne is using steroids to win! The disgraced champion is stripped of his trophies and given a 20 year ban from the sport!

Cut to 2007 and Harley now works for the World Anti-Doping Agency. Harley is given a task from the president of the agency himself. There’s a new super-powerful steroid being used in bricklaying called “Brick Dust.” The president asks Harley to reconnect with her estranged dad, get him to enter the Bricklayer 500, and exploit his contacts to identify who’s using the steroid so they can shut them down. Along the way, Wayne figures out what’s going on, but forgives his daughter, then enlists her as his bricklaying assistant. The two then team up to try and win the Bricklayer 500 together!

From the moment bricks started getting laid in Bricks of Glory, things were uneven. Alison invents a world where balls become too expensive and all sports collapse, paving the way for bricklaying to become the biggest sport in the world. My issue with this is that you don’t need it. You could popularize bricklaying without having to mention other sports. By introducing this loopy mythology, you rewrite the history books. I mean, we’re supposed to believe that since the 1980s, there has been no basketball, baseball, football, or soccer in the world. I know this is a comedy but that’s some MAJOR buy-in for a premise that didn’t need it.

From there, we have several time issues. The first part of the movie takes place in 1987. A featured scene in that section has our hero being tazed. But police didn’t have tazers in 1987. We then jump forward 20 years, where the rest of the movie takes place. So this movie takes place in 2007? That feels like a really odd year to set a mainstream comedy in if it doesn’t need to take place in that year for the plot to work. If you’re going to set a movie close to modern day, wouldn’t it be smarter to just set it in modern day?

Just to take you into the mindset of the seasoned reader, I’m assuming one of two things at this point. One, that the script is old and the writer never updated the timeline. Or two, they wanted Wayne’s heyday to be in the 80s because it’s funnier than the 90s. They also didn’t want Wayne to be too old when his ban was over, therefore choosing a 20 year ban (making him 47) as opposed to 30 years (making him 57) and accepted the year 2007 as the story year because they didn’t want to do the hard work to figure out how to get us to 2018.

I’ve told you this a million times already but I’ll say it again. If a script starts sloppy, it’s almost impossible for it to recover. I’ve already made so many judgements by this point that I’m nowhere near where the writer needs me to be – which is inside the story, not questioning anything. Again, I realize this is comedy. You can’t apply too much logic. But I also know that comedy works best when it’s simple. And it seems like way too much effort was put into an opening that could’ve easily introduced this premise in a simple way. The concept of bricklaying as a sport alone is funny! You don’t need a bunch of nonsense surrounding it.

As for the plot, I liked that the story was built around a family relationship. I think that’s smart. It grounds the story. It allows us to connect to the characters, as we’re rooting for this broken relationship to be fixed. I just found the whole steroid thing to be uninspired. Who cares about steroids in sports these days? Nobody. But there’s a way bigger screenwriting-related issue at play here. When you come up with a unique concept, you want the problems that arise to be related specifically to that concept. In other words, steroids can be applied to a hundred sports. What’s unique about bricklaying?

I like the idea that people are cheating in the sport. So maybe they suspect that the villain is using an illegal type of brick that’s 10% lighter or something. Or he’s using some caulk (is that what it’s called) that’s 50% stickier, allowing him to stack bricks quicker. Use your imagination. But steroids? I feel like I’m stuck in a time-warp with that storyline.

Bricklaying as a sport is a funny premise. Let’s not overcomplicate it. Set the story in the present. Wayne has been the sport’s poster child ever since videos of him bricklaying went viral a year ago. He’s recently gone Hollywood and isn’t doing the work (think Ronda Rousey). This has allowed a new young Justin Bieber like phenom to gain popularity (who beats him in the regionals). With the Bricklayer 500 coming up, everyone’s picking sides. Use the Rocky 4 structure. Wayne fears that he’s too old to hang with these young guns (which is funny since the sport has only been around for a year and he’s 28), and has to train with the original bricklayer who started it all, go “back to his roots” so to speak, to defeat this young upstart.

Script link: Bricks of Glory

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

What I learned: Times, ages, and dates. Readers are really good at picking up weird time-related issues in scripts. Which is relevant because timing is always changing in scripts. You might decide in your third draft, for example, that your hero’s brother should be 15, not 12. But then you forget to change the age later in the story, when you’ve jumped forward 5 years. You introduce this older version of the brother as 17 (12+5) as opposed to 20 (15+5). When you forget to do this stuff, it looks sloppy. It feels like you’re not on top of things. And that’s how I felt here. Just the fact that the story randomly takes place in 2007 is bizarre to me. And most readers are going to notice that. As annoying as it is, get your times, ages, and dates sorted out before you send your scripts anywhere. It seems like a small thing. But readers tend to judge this stuff harshly.

Don’t do it don’t do it don’t do it don’t do it. These are the words that have been assaulting my brain every hour for the last seven days. That would be when Red Dead Redemption 2 came out. Since then, I’ve gone to Amazon.com every hour on the hour and stared at a sleek picture of a brand new Playstation 4. Don’t do it don’t do it don’t do it don’t do it. I’ve wanted a Playstation 4 forever. But I’ve specifically not purchased one because I know I’ll waste hours of time with it. That plan has worked up until seven days ago. But every time I see a commercial for that rootin-tootin freakin video game, I want to buy it. I want to roll in its digital dirt. I want to swim in its plethora of pixels. So far I’ve held off. But I don’t know how much longer I can last.

Luckily, I found a Western for this week’s amateur offerings. That’s helped some. As for the rest of the scripts, we’ve got an electric variety. Pilots. Comedies. Thrillers. Oh, and one of these “Why You Should Reads” is quite inspirational. A lesson in assertiveness and exploring every contact you’ve got, no matter how small it seems. Check it out!

If you’ve never played Amateur Offerings before, you’ve been deducted 4 Scriptshadow points. A vote from you could mean the difference between a screenwriter starting his career and spending the rest of it in obscurity. Read as much of each screenplay as you can. Afterwards, cast your vote for your favorite script in the comments section. Voting closes on Sunday night, 11:59pm Pacific Time. Winner gets a review next Friday. — If you’d like to submit your own script to compete in Amateur Offerings, send a PDF of your script to carsonreeves3@gmail.com with the title, genre, logline, and why you think your script should get a shot.

Good luck to all!

Title: Bricks of Glory
Genre: Sports Comedy
Logline: In the fast-rising sport of Bricklaying, an anti-doping agent and disgraced former champion must take down the champion’s former nemesis, who they suspect is using a bricklaying-enhancement drug known as “Brick Dust.”
Why You Should Read: Bricks of Glory was inspired by a real life event called the Bricklayer 500 which takes place in Vegas every year. They take the top 20 bricklayers from around the world and compete to see who can build the highest (and most structurally sound) brick wall in 60 minutes. A friend of mine’s husband won the Regional Competition in my area so I went to Vegas to watch the show and attended the World of Concrete convention as research. Man, what a trip. I mean they seriously treat this like a major sporting event! I find it so hilarious! So in my script, I completely exaggerate this and make it a much bigger, funnier, spectacle of a sport. Bricklayers use flair, like lighting their walls on fire and juggling bricks, and the competition is so fierce, they resort to taking performance enhancing drugs. I’ve put a lot of work into this script, even doing table reads with stand up comedians to help me punch up the jokes. But if you want to see what inspired it, here’s a video recap of the Bricklayer 500 which should sell it better than I ever could: https://youtu.be/zR69ZFdldH0

Title: The Boom
Genre: TV – One Hour Drama
Series Logline: In the early 2000s, dreamers, misfits, prodigies, and hustlers swarm to Las Vegas in search of fame and fortune during the birth of the poker boom.
Pilot Logline: After becoming an online poker sensation, a gambling addict goes to Vegas to try his hand at the real thing, meanwhile a tortured ex-gangbanger kidnaps his cousin, a sports-betting prodigy, and drives him to the same casino hoping to capitalize on his skills.
Why You Should Read: In 2003, an amateur poker player named Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker, sparking a massive increase in poker play all over the world. College students became millionaires playing online poker and moved to Las Vegas to live it up, while the existing live pros became celebrities. The Boom seeks to leverage the unique stories and characters from this time period to create the first ever series which chronicles the lives of professional gamblers in Las Vegas. It’s an ensemble similar to The Wire in that it follows a wide variety of characters and not all of them cross paths. The pilot starts with an 11 page prologue that culminates with the event that launches the series and from then on follows two separate storylines featuring four main characters, all struggling to survive in Las Vegas at the start of the poker boom. One of the things I’m most proud of with this pilot is that non-gamblers have found it accessible—so if you don’t know a thing about poker, please don’t let it prevent you from reading!

Title: Legal Pursuit
Genre: Comedy
Logline: A mocumentary following the legal exploits of the personal injury law firm Fraud, Trick & Brown and their pursuit of fortune, fame and sometimes justice.
Why You Should Read: In America today if you accidentally nail your hand to a wall because of a faulty nail gun, you’ll want to sue the nail gun manufacturer and there are plenty of lawyers that’ll nip at your heels for the case. However, if your teenager went to the hospital for eating a Tide Pod and you want to sue the detergent company for a lack of warning not to eat it, who are you going to call? You’re going to need a more ethically flexible attorney willing to blame someone else for you.

Legal dramas tackle social injustices, changing times, and debates about what real justice is and how the law should work. Legal Pursuit is a half-hour single camera comedy that shows how the legal system sadly works and follows the attorneys of Fraud(pronounced Freud), Trick and Brown. The lawyers that’ll lie, cheat and manipulate everyone they can to defend you in court and split the settlement 70/30… 60/40… Fine: 40/60!

Desperate for business in this bad economy, each client is a potential win that will keep the lights on for one more week, get them that fancy electric car, pay off their new boat or afford them a vacation to Hawaii. Oh! Legal fees, surprise witnesses and experts need to be covered too! Enjoy! And if you don’t, I’d love to hear thoughts from the SS community to help make this the best it can be.

Title: THE SHADOWED
Genre: Horror-Western
Logline: An outlaw and his gang must team-up with a company of Texas Rangers to battle with the resurrected ghosts of vengeful Navajo braves besieging an isolated border town.
Why You Should Read: My script was shortlisted in The Tracking Board’s Launch Pad competition, allowing me to become a TB Alumni. I wrote the script after chatting with stuntman Ian Van Temperley, who hoped to be able to do the horse stunts for The Shadowed if it ever went into production. Whilst doing the stunts for the TV series Galavant, Ian Van Temperley shared my Shadowed script with the show’s creator Dan Fogleman. Dan read the script and wrote back saying this: “Dan Fogelman here from Galavant. I wanted to let you know that I read your script and was very impressed! The best thing about the script was the outlaw character Wakes, along with how well your action sequences were not only crafted, but written. It’s a very hard thing to do well, and you clearly know how to describe them. Most action sequences get hard to follow and hard to “read” – that’s not at all the case here. You have a great main character and a terrific action movie here. I enjoyed reading it.”

Title: Endangered 6
Genre: Thriller
Logline: After a widowed U.S. war vet and his estranged daughter check into a Manhattan hotel to reconnect, they soon find themselves alone and trapped in the building only to discover they’re at the center of a terrorist conspiracy that will kill hundreds on the streets of Manhattan, but they’re the only ones who know… or have the power to stop it.
Why You Should Read: I’ve been honing my craft for a while and have a few specs on the hard drive to show for it. This one was a finalist last year in a thriller screenplay contest and I’d like to see how it might do here with the Scriptshadow crowd. When I set out to write this my goal was to write a fast paced thriller with a broken relationship between a father and daughter at its emotional core. It’s Panic Room on steroids. Hope you feel the rush too!