Is today’s thriller the best script of the 2021 Black List so far?
Genre: Thriller
Premise: A ride-share driver who’s just purchased his dream car, a 1969 Ford Mercury Cyclone, goes on the Tinder date from hell.
About: Today’s writer, Stefan Jaworski, started writing for TV in Sweden. He has made a few inroads writing here in the U.S., with the TV series, “Those Who Kill,” and the 2021 film, “The Devil Below,” about a group of amateur adventurers who specialize in exploring remote and forsaken places. This script of his landed on last year’s Black List.
Writer: Stefan Jaworski
Details: 92 pages
We are BACK on the script review train, checking out a top 10 script from last year’s Black List. I know the writer has been at it for a while as my files show he had a script in circulation all the way back in 2010. This is a long game, everyone! Gotta keep at it.
[NOTE: Spoilery summary – you should probably read the script first!]
Our 20-something lead is Michael Smith, who we meet buying a car, a 1969 Ford Mercury Cyclone, from an old man. I don’t know much about cars but according to our characters’ conversation, the Cyclone was the fastest car you could buy in 1969.
Michael then texts his date, Laura, that he’s coming to pick her up. Laura’s someone he met on Tinder (or Hinge, or Bumble) and they seem to have a great connection. He picks her up in Beverly Hills and they immediately begin some meet-cute dialogue, talking about what sort of superheroes they would be.
After they picnic at Griffith Park, Michael and Laura are engaged in another lovey-dovey conversation while on the freeway when – BAM! – a black SUV rams them from behind. And then – BAM! – rams them again! Concurrently, Laura starts getting all these text-dings on her phone. Michael speeds off the highway and gets to a safe place and stops.
It’s here where Laura comes clean. She has a baaaaad ex-boyfriend. He’s threatened to kill her ever since she left him. He’d disappeared for a while so she thought she was free and clear but I guess not. Laura confides in Michael that she’ll never be able to ditch this guy. He’s too crazy. She’s been planning to escape to this town in Mexico. Maybe tonight needs to be that night.
She’s sorry she got him involved and demands Michael let her go and forget about all this. But Michael is not the kind of guy who leaves a damsel in distress. He will help her escape. What does she need? She’s got to go to three places, she says. Her real house (which is on Skid Row – NOT Beverly Hills), her sister’s, and a friend’s. She needs some personal things before she disappears forever.
But as soon as they’re on the road again, Laura’s ex, Jason, once again comes barreling into the picture, trying to kill them at every turn. When Jason sends a message that if Laura doesn’t surrender, he’s killing everybody she knows, Michael has no choice but to deliver her to Jason’s house.
They show up at the house, head inside, but there’s no Jason. That’s when Laura turns to him and apologizes. Apologize for what, Michael says. For what’s about to happen to you, she says. Michael hears sirens in the distance.
That’s when he realizes he’s been set up. He doesn’t know why. But he knows he has to make a choice in that moment that will change his life forever. And he decides to get in that 1969 Ford Mercury Cyclone… AND ESCAPE AT ALL COSTS. Little does Michael know, his problems are just beginning.
Okay, let’s talk about first acts since First Act March is still going. You probably noticed that, because of the setup, there was no way to first set up our main character’s world. We meet Michael buying his new car. And then we go straight to the date.
This is a good example of the basic challenges you encounter whenever you’re trying to follow a particular screenwriting blueprint. Every story is unique and therefore they don’t all fit the same beat-sheet.
In this case, you have to set up Michael’s world THROUGH DIALOGUE, specially the dialogue of this first date with Laura. That becomes the stand-in for being inside Michael’s world. The good news is that the situation is organic to that information being shared. This is the first meeting between these two. So it makes sense that they’d ask those kinds of questions.
We learn why Michael loves this car so much. That it has a strong connection to his family. We learn that he’s an Uber driver. We learn that he’s a loner and that online dating is new for him. Likewise, we learn things about Laura. In other words, if you can’t get one of these first act components into your screenplay, you have to find substitutions and do the best job you can.
The inciting incident (the SUV ramming them from behind) comes a little late – page 18. That’s even later than usual since the script is only 90 pages long. For a 90 page script, you probably want to hit your inciting incident between pages 10-12. However, the writing is really lean. There’s a lot of dialogue early. And the action lines are 1-2 lines long. So it certainly doesn’t feel like 18 pages have gone by. In fact, that’s a feather in the cap of the entire script, which is written in a really fast fun-to-read style.
We also get the refusal of the call. Michael is tasked with either helping Laura escape or forgetting this night ever existed. And, at first, he decides not to help. But then, of course, he can’t leave her in danger. So he decides to go on the journey. That launches us into the second act, where we get this clever 3-step process that Laura must first execute before she can leave.
I say “clever” because think about it. If all they have to do is get on the 405 south to Mexico, there ain’t a lot you can do plot-wise. By forcing them to zig-zag around Los Angeles, you give the characters more opportunities to run into the bad guys.
In my last newsletter, I spoke about Richter scale moments. Here’s what I said: “The idea behind Richter scale storytelling is simple. Every script needs big moments, moments that “register” with the reader. These are your Richter scale moments, where you hit your reader with plot beats that register 7.0, 8.0, and 9.0 on the Richter scale.”
“Mercury” is one of the best examples I’ve seen of having consistently strong Richter scale moments. Spoilers follow. We get the arrival of the car-bashing crazy ex-boyfriend (8.0 on the Richter scale). We get the moment 40 pages in where we realize she’s set him up (9.0). We get the moment where the mob makes him retrieve what Laura and Jason stole from them (7.5). One after another these Richter scale moments keep coming. It’s great.
Another thing Jaworski does well is he sets up and pays off every single beat of the story. Nothing feels random. For example, there’s this moment in the script where the mob has told Michael that if he doesn’t find their money by sunrise, they’re killing him. And he has NO IDEA where Laura and Jason (who have the money) are. So what does he do?
Jaworski subtly sets up several different times, early on, that Micheal is an Uber driver. And, after Jason rammed into them and Laura came up with that fake plan to get her stuff from her place, she had to confess to him that she didn’t really live in Beverly Hills. She lived near Skid Row and took an Uber to Beverly Hills where he picked her up. He asks why she lied to him and she says, “I was afraid you wouldn’t like me.”
When Michael remembers this moment, he realizes he can use his knowledge and back door access to some Uber information to find out where her Uber originated from, which gives him a destination. There were a ton of moments like this, which were really well thought-through.
And I can hear some of you already saying, “Well, that’s not *that* well thought-through, Carson.” No no no no no. TRUST ME. Read ten other random scripts from this Black List and find me one that puts 10% of the effort into setting up and paying off plot beats that this did. You won’t find one. This has been my biggest beef with the 2021 Black List. Every single script is messy. This is the one script where you can tell the writer actually put in the work.
It’s for all these reasons that, as of this moment, Mercury is the best script of the 2021 Black List. I highly recommend it.
Script link: Mercury
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: There’s a moment early on in the car (before all the chaos starts) where a song comes on the radio. Here’s how it’s described: “She blinks when the radio shifts to a melancholy POP-ROCK SONG. That echoes loneliness and longing. A favorite of Laura’s.” This is how you introduce music in scripts. Do not give us actual song titles. Everybody likes different music. You may love Britney Spears’ amazing breakout single, “Baby One More Time.” But for others, it is like listening to audio lava. So, instead, give us the genre and the mood of the song, like Jaworski does here. That’s enough to convey the mood you’re looking for.
Stop making excuses and just get the pages written
Here are the previous “How To Write a First Act” posts…
Day 1: Writing a Teaser
Day 2: Introducing Your Hero
Day 3: Setting up Your Hero’s Life
Day 8: Keeping Your Scenes Entertaining
Day 9: The Inciting Incident
Day 10: Refusal of the Call
Day 15: Dealing with Exposition
Day 17: GSU
It’s funny that I can espouse all the screenwriting knowledge in the universe, much of which will make you better writers, better teachers, and more knowledgeable about the screenwriting process overall. Yet the most common issue in screenwriting still seems to be GETTING THE PAGES WRITTEN. I’ve noticed in the comments section some of you saying you are 10 pages behind or 15 pages behind. You weren’t able to get the pages down and so I’m here to tell you today, IT’S TIME TO GET THE PAGES DOWN.
I once had this writer hire me for a consultation. He wanted me to consult on his opening scene. I said sure, of course. He sent it to me. It was pretty good. I gave him some notes and wished him luck. A year and a half goes by and I get another e-mail from this writer who wants another consultation. I was like, “Sure, you have a new script you want feedback on?” He said, “No. I’ve written the second and third scenes in my screenplay that you read last year.”
Naturally, I assumed he’d taken time off and recently decided to start writing again, which is what I asked him. He said, “No. I just want to get it right.” Now, anyone reading this story can do the math. A screenplay has about 50-55 scenes in it. If you’re writing one scene every year, and I’m conservatively estimating you’re 30 years old, there’s a very good chance that you may not finish your screenplay before you die.
It was so ridiculous that I assumed he had to be messing with me. But he wasn’t. It was the most severe case of fear in regards to the pursuit of screenwriting that I’ve ever come across. He was convinced that this was the correct way to go about writing a screenplay. He was going to meticulously work on every single scene until it was perfect. I’m not even going to bring in the pressure this put on me. What were the ramifications if I told him a scene sucked? I could set him back an entire decade!
The reason I bring this up is because human beings have this weird tick whereby whatever it is that they want the most, they deliberately construct a series of artificial obstacles in front of it in order to ensure that they never succeed. A common example of this is getting into the extreme nuts and bolts of screenwriting. Convincing yourself that you have to understand every single rule down to the most meticulous detail before you can write a script.
I get it. I talk on here all the time about how high the bar is to break into the industry. You hear that enough, you become convinced anything less than perfection is pointless. However, I can promise you that while half-assing it isn’t going to get you anywhere, going to the other extreme and overanalyzing and overstudying everything to the point of paralysis isn’t going to get you anywhere either.
At a certain point, you have to get the damn pages down.
One of the reasons I came up with the First Act Challenge was to circumvent this issue. We are taking away the overwhelmingness of having to write 110 pages with a perfectly thought out beginning, middle, and end. By only having to write the first act, you’re off the hook. You don’t need to have any idea what happens after page 25 of your screenplay if you don’t want to. You just have to get those 25 pages down.
You cannot convince me, under any circumstances, that writing 25 pages is hard. A screenplay page is 95% white space. It’s the easiest page of all the writing mediums to write except for, maybe, poetry. I’ll tell you what is hard, though: Writing 25 pages that need to live up to an artificially created perfection you’ve demanded of yourself. Yeah, that’s hard.
I get it, guys. When you write a sh#tty scene, you feel sh#tty. So it’s easier to not write the sh#tty scene than to write it. But I’m telling you that this is a horrible habit to create as a writer because it establishes that not writing the scene always takes precedence over writing it.
For a lot of you, this is a deep-set problem that goes way beyond anything that has to do with screenwriting. This is a mental block. And until you address it, and what it is that’s blocking you, you’re never going to be able to complete any assignment, whether it be a screenplay, an act, or even a scene. You assign too much importance to it, and once that happens, the thought of failing at that assignment convinces you that not writing it is the better option. Because not writing it means you will never have to face failure.
Let’s not split hairs here. That’s what this is really about. It’s a fear of failure that’s stopping you. And those of you who have been doing this the longest, have the most fear of all. Because every time you write something and it doesn’t garner interest, you consider it one more nail in your “Am I actually good at this?” coffin.
So what I’m going to do is I’m going to give you a gift. It’s a simple mindset change that should solve this problem for you. You ready for it?
STOP TRYING TO BECOME A PROFESSIONAL SCREENWRITER
From now on, I only want you to write to enjoy writing. With every project you begin, you are no longer trying to break into Hollywood. Instead, just write for the enjoyment of writing. Write to feel good. Write to feel accomplished that day. Write that movie you’ve always wanted to see that you’ll now get to see because you wrote it. And then, when you put the script out there in the world, if something good happens with it, consider it gravy. If not, you still win.
Once you start writing for yourself, you’ll find that all those artificially created obstacles that you convinced yourself you needed to overcome before you were able to write that great American screenplay – they’re gone. Because it doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is that you’re enjoying yourself. And if you’re not enjoying yourself? Then, honestly, I don’t know why you’re writing at all. Is the goal to be miserable? How is that working for you?
You have to release all this judgment that’s dictating your writing. Once you segue from “is this good enough?” To “am I enjoying myself?” writing is going to be so much easier.
But Carson, we’re supposed to submit this to you for your contest. We want our first acts to be as good as they can possibly be. Let me alleviate your fears here. A first act that you send to me is going to have a one million percent higher chance of me liking it than a first act that you never sent to me because you never finished it.
I know this is a little confusing because this site focuses on the minutia of screenwriting and now it sounds like I’m saying none of that matters. No, it matters. But if I’m being honest, I could give you one sentence that would take care of 80% of what you needed to know to write a good screenplay. And it would be this: Write as much as possible and read as many screenplays as possible. That would be it.
Come on, guys. I want a lot of submissions for this contest. So stop creating excuses why you can’t write and just get the pages down. You still have 5 weeks. Even if you haven’t started yet, you could get a first act written in that time easily. Hell, I’ve given you a blueprint for writing an entire script in one weekend!
I love you guys. I believe in you guys. Now get the f$#*ing pages written.
:)
Genre: Drama
Logline: A young woman struggling to find her direction in life begins to doubt the relationship she’s in with a successful graphic novel cartoonist.
About: This movie has taken over the festival circuit the last year, winning every prize under the sun. It sits at a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and is the front-runner to win best international feature next week at the Oscars. You can watch a breakdown of the most famous scene in the movie from the director, here.
Writers: Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt
Details: 128 minutes
Carson.
Does not like.
Indie films.
I’ve heard the criticism.
Like an octopus using its eight tentacled legs to grab onto anything so it cannot be taken from the sea, Scriptshadow clings tightly to traditional formatting and Hollywood structure so that it never has to face an indie film.
Au contraire mon frère.
I can appreciate artsy-fartsy character-driven screenplays. My argument is that they’re A LOT HARDER to pull off. The reason for this is the distinction between character and plot. Audiences connect with the characters. But they’re motivated by the plot. Interesting things need to keep happening in the story to keep them invested, and those things need to happen in a structured logical way so as to not feel random and messy.
The Worst Person in the World is one of the few movies I’ve seen that’s been able to withstand the randomness and messiness that sinks its competitors. There is zero plot in this movie. No structure to speak of. The screenplay uses chapters to create a semblance of structure but whenever a script uses chapters, it’s a sign that they don’t have a plan. And yet, somehow, “Worst Person” thrives.
The movie follows a young woman in Oslo named Julie who doesn’t really know what she wants out of life. She’s artistic but can’t seem to commit to any artistic endeavor. As a result, she ends up working at a book store while she figures it out.
Meanwhile, she meets Aksel, the author of a graphic comic with vaguely misogynistic undertones. Aksel is a good decade and a half older than Julie and she admires that, unlike her, he knows exactly what he wants out of life.
But that difference results in a difference in lifestyles and Julie soon finds herself going to a boring upscale parties with Aksel’s friends, who already have families, something she’s not sure she wants.
She excuses herself from one of these parties early, and on the way home meets Eivind, the polar opposite of Aksel. Eivind is like her – someone who lives in the moment, who doesn’t take life too seriously. Several months later, they decide to couple up, and Julie leaves Aksel.
As you might expect, everything is wonderful with Eivind at first. But whereas her life is now fun, it has lost the intellectual conversations, the maturity, the responsibility. Sure, she no longer lives in the shadow of a successful writer and therefore doesn’t have to face all the expectations that come with that. But is that a good thing? That’s Julie’s achilles heel. She always wants what she doesn’t have.
****MAJOR SPOILERS START NOW****
A year into her relationship with Eivind, Julie runs into one of Askel’s friends and he has bad news for her. Askel’s been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It’s incurable. He will die. This leads us to a final act where Julie reconnects with Askel, spending his last days with him, as she, once again, questions what she wants out of life. There is no Hollywood movie miracle that comes to save Askel, and his death leaves a hole in Julie’s heart that will never heal. As sad as it all is, you gotta keep going, so that’s what Julie does. She turns the page and begins the next chapter.
****MAJOR SPOILERS OVER****
I’m endlessly fascinated by movies like this because I’m not supposed to like them. I need a plot. And there was no plot within 12 parsecs of this screenplay.
So why did I still like The Worst Person in the World?
One thing Joachim Trier does well is create characters who are messy enough to feel like real people, but not so messy that they seem made-up. I read a lot of amateur screenplays where characters act one way one scene (they help an old lady across the street) and the complete opposite the next scene (they rob a convenience store). That’s not a nuanced character. That’s straight up confusing.
There has to be an internal consistent logic to a character yet with just enough messiness to make them realistic. Cause if a character is too consistent, they come off as on-the-nose. Like if a character is angry and yells all the time, yes, that character has an internal consistent logic. But do they feel like a real person? No, they feel like a cliche.
Trier is quite good at finding the balance. Julie is defined by her lack of commitment, which allows her to be fiercely loyal and, also, borderline promiscuous. She can play the responsible adult one day, and the out-of-control partier the next. Not only does this capture the messiness of real life but it makes for an unpredictable character, which is essential in a movie that has no plot. Because if we don’t have a plot to keep us turning the pages, we need some other tool to do so. Wondering what our hero is going to do next is that tool.
Since this is the month of the First Act, today’s screenplay is a good example of what happens when you don’t have a first act. There is no inciting incident in the first 30 pages. If pressed, I would say that the inciting incident would be when Julie meets Eivind. But that happens around page 40.
Still, it’s not a traditional inciting incident in that it doesn’t introduce a goal into the story. In fact, after Julie and Eivind meet, they go back to their lives for 20 pages. Only then do Julie and Eivind meet again and decide to get together.
At this point in the movie, the only thing going on is character relationships. There is no goal. There is no purpose. Which is why it’s so hard to pull these movies off. And it leads to the biggest problem with no first act which is that you don’t lay out a blueprint for where your story should end. If there is no goal, there is no end-point. This forces the writer to come up with something big and important late so that the movie can end. And there aren’t a lot of options you can use that don’t feel lazy, random, or forced.
****SPOILERS****
Trier chose cancer. And I’d be curious to know if he had that figured out ahead of time or if he came up with it when he realized he needed to end the story somehow. I would guess it’s the latter because it usually is when you throw cancer into the plot late. Cancer tends to be a cliche story option since it’s so ubiquitous in storytelling. Anything that’s used extensively in soap operas is probably not a go-to story choice.
But, again, you lock yourself into these choices when you don’t have a plot. And Trier understands character well enough that the choice feels authentic. Would I recommend other writers do this? Not in a million years. Like I said, I read all the failed versions of The Worst Person In The World and they all feel like a blindfolded writer stabbing at story choices in the dark. “Uhhhhh… CANCER! I’ll give someone cancer! Yeah, that works.”
There was one scene in particular that showcased how Trier was heads and tails above everyone else in this department. Julie and Askel are chatting at the hospital and Julie reveals that she’s pregnant. This is a bombshell to Askel, who desperately wanted to have kids with Julie but she always resisted. Julie asks Askel to repeat to her what he used to tell her, which is that she’ll be a good mother, in order to give her confidence. Watching Askel have to tell the woman he loves that she’ll be a good mother to a child that isn’t his while knowing he will die without ever having a child himself is one of the most heartbreaking conversations I’ve ever seen in a movie. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen so many layers going on in a conversation.
It was scenes like this that were the movie’s biggest strength and biggest weakness. It hits hard. And if you’re someone who likes to feel the full spectrum of emotions, you’re going to love this movie. But if you want your deaths packaged in that feel-good “everything’s going to be okay” shell, like when Aunt May dies in Spider-Man No Way Home, this movie is going to mess you up for weeks. Cause it’s too real. And it doesn’t try and soften the blow.
****END SPOILERS****
Despite its sad ending, the movie has a lot going for it. There’s no question that the lead actress is a breakout star. She’s one of those actresses you can’t look away from. Even when she’s doing nothing, you’re still interested in watching her. I don’t know much about acting but I hear that’s a quality all directors look for in an actor.
The directing is really good. I immediately put Oslo on my “Cities to Visit” list after this. The place looks absolutely stunning. The cinematography was amazing. There are several director-y sequences that were fun, like when Julie did mushrooms. Both Trier’s casting and the performances he got out of his cast were top-notch.
Trier also has this ability to make scenes feel natural. You would’ve thought that the scene where Julie crashes a random party on her way home, when she meets Eivind, was done by finding a real party and taking a couple of cameraman into the house and shooting everything improvised. That’s how natural it felt. But I know that’s not the case. Everything had to be meticulously planned and constructed.
That’s what separates Trier, a director I’m shocked hasn’t been snatched up by Hollywood yet, from the competition. I was thrilled, and surprised, when I checked his IMDB to see that he also wrote and directed one of my favorite movies from 2017, Thelma. So he’s not a one-hit wonder.
The Worst Person In The World is not going to be for everyone. But if you’re like me and resist art-house fare because it’s slow and boring, I can assure you that this film is better than 99% of the artsy-fartsy movies out there. It’s definitely worth checking out.
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the rental
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: If you’re forgoing plot, make sure your main character is some variation of unpredictable. Because they will be responsible for carrying the weight of us wanting to turn the page. And if we always know what they’re going to do before they do it, we’ll grow bored. We need that uncertainty, that mystery in their actions, to make up for a plotless story.
What I learned 2: The actress who played Julie, Renate Reinsve, famously quit acting the day before she received this part (to become a carpenter). So if you’re ever considering giving up your artistic pursuit, hang in there! You never know when that big break is coming.
What I learned 3: In indie movies, a lot of times, your hero will fail to overcome their flaw. Julie’s flaw is her indecisiveness. She cannot commit to anything. As the movie comes to a close, she still hasn’t figured this problem out. She ends pretty much in the same place she started. This can be frustrating to mainstream audiences but intellectual audiences love this stuff as it’s more reflective of real life.
The Final Essential First Act Ingredient: GSU!
Day 1: Writing a Teaser
Day 2: Introducing Your Hero
Day 3: Setting up Your Hero’s Life
Day 8: Keeping Your Scenes Entertaining
Day 9: The Inciting Incident
Day 10: Refusal of the Call
Day 15: Dealing with Exposition
Okay, let’s summarize everything we’ve learned so far about the first act.
We’ve either written or not written an opening teaser scene depending on our genre. We’ve introduced our protagonist in a strong memorable way. We’ve set up that protagonist’s life, including their friends, their family, and their job. We’ve set up an antagonist. We’ve constructed our scenes so that they’re entertaining and not only there to convey information. We’ve introduced an inciting incident that has rocked our hero’s world, creating a problem. Our hero is then forced to make a choice: Do they or do they not go off on a journey and try and solve this problem? The hero will, in most cases, refuse this call to adventure. Just like us, heroes hate change. They would rather stay in their comfortable little bubble than do anything dangerous. However, in the end, whether a secondary plot beat forces them to or because they decide on their own, they accept the call to adventure and off they go, into the second act.
That’s it, right?
We’re in the second act now. We’re done. Finito el first acto.
Not quite.
Because there’s one last thing you need in place before you leave your first act.
GSU!
Long-time readers of the site know what GSU is but for those don’t, here’s a quick recap. “G” stands for “Goal.” It is the character goal that will drive the majority of the story. In The Batman, the goal is to find and stop a serial killer (The Riddler). In Jungle Cruise, the goal is to find the treasure in the jungle. In Old, the goal is for the beachgoers to get off the beach before they all die of old age. In Marry Me, the goal is… actually I have no idea what the goal is cause I still don’t understand that movie or why anybody made it.
In some scenarios, the goal will be driven by characters other than the hero, such as the villain. In Empire Strikes Back, the primary goal is Darth Vader’s. He’s trying to find Luke Skywalker. I bring this up because writers get confused as to what to do when their hero doesn’t have a goal. In those cases, somebody else in the story has to have the goal. If no key character has a strong goal going into the second act, boy are you making things hard for yourself.
“S” stands for “Stakes” and you’ll note that you can’t have stakes without a goal. The goal causes the stakes. For example, let’s say your character needs to find 50,000 dollars or else the bookies he owes money to will kill him, like Uncut Gems. The goal (getting the money) is what dictates the stakes (or else they kill him). You want the stakes to be as high as you can make them relative to your story.
What I mean by that is, if you’re writing a romantic comedy, it doesn’t make sense for the stakes to be life or death. Life or death stakes are for different types of movies. But if we establish that the girl our hero wants is someone he’s been in love with for 20 years, and this is the only chance he’s going to get to be around her, then those stakes are high relative to the movie. You’ve got one chance at the girl you’ve been in love with your whole life.
“U” stands for “Urgency.” I cannot stress enough how valuable urgency is to a story. I’ve told countless writers in consultations to tighten up their timeline with some sort of urgent deadline and their script ALWAYS gets better. Take the example I just used above about a guy trying to win over the girl he’s been in love with for 20 years. Let’s say that this girl is only in town for one weekend. That makes his job infinitely harder than if he has an entire year to win her over.
That’s what urgency does. It doesn’t just make your hero have to complete his goal. It makes him have to complete his goal RIGHT NOW. Next month will be too late. Next week will be too late. Maybe even the next day will be too late. You still have to come up with a ticking clock that’s organic to your story. For example, Mark Watley in The Martian was stuck on Mars for an entire year. But that’s because it takes time for spaceships to get to Mars. But you should make the urgency as tight as the story will allow you to.
The reason you want your GSU set in the first act is because it’s what powers your second act. The weaker your GSU is, the more you’ll struggle in that second act. When writers come to me and say, “I ran out of juice in the second act. I couldn’t think of any more scenes,” it’s almost always because their hero’s goal wasn’t clear enough or strong enough. A hero with a strong goal will always have something to do. Because they will always be taking steps to get to their goal.
Batman has a very strong goal. There’s a dude out there killing people. You’ll never run out of scenes to write with a setup that powerful because the goal is so clear: Find this guy and stop him. By the way, this is why so many movies and TV shows have murderers. Because murders set up such a clear and concise goal: Someone has to find them.
Now there are movies where the GSU is weaker. I’m not saying those movies should never be written. But I will tell you right now, they are way harder to write due to the fact that a lack of GSU equates to a lack of narrative momentum. If characters aren’t desperately pursuing their goal, it means they are either stagnant or reactionary.
Even The Dude (The Big Lebowski), the laziest main character in film history, is active because he has a goal – to retrieve money for the rug two thugs ruined.
If you *are* writing more of a character piece set in the real world and feel that a giant goal would swallow your story up, still try to find SOME GOAL that keeps your character active. Or I promise you, you’ll have nothing to write within 15 pages of the second act. For example, the Apple film, Coda, is about a deaf family who make their living fishing. You could’ve easily written an aimless second act that followed the family fishing, and fishing, and then fishing some more. But instead, they added this goal where the main character, Ruby, was trying to make it into a prestigious art school through singing. That pursuit is what structured the second act narrative.
I can’t stress this enough. A weak second act is almost always the result of a first act that doesn’t set up strong GSU. It should be noted that goals *can change* during a movie. The goal that sets your character off on their journey is not always the goal they must accomplish in the third act. That’s because some movies will start with small goals and then keep throwing things at the hero in the second act that require them to pursue bigger and bigger goals. For example, The Dude starts off trying to get reimbursed for the damage to his rug. But he ends up having to retrieve a giant bag of money after his situation escalated later on. Or, in Star Wars, Luke starts off trying to deliver a droid. But he ends up with a much bigger goal: Destroy the Death Star.
But you should still have as big of a goal coming out of the first act as you can muster.
This concludes the main part of writing your first act. You should’ve written 24 pages by today. You will have written 30 pages by the end of the weekend, which means you’ll be finished. Again, I like first acts to be 25 pages. But since this is a first draft, we want to go a little long, as we’ll get back in there and edit it down next week.
Next First Act Post: Monday, March 21
Pages to write until next post: 6
Pages you should have completed by Thursday: 30 (all of them)
Genre: Sci-Fi/Drama/Thriller
Premise: (from Black List ) In the year 2065, a fiery teenager with a wild imagination, her paraplegic mom, and their clueless robot struggle to navigate the post-apocalypse; but when the mother’s wheelchair breaks, the trio must venture out into the dangerous “outside” for a chance to survive.
About: Today’s script finished with 11 votes on last year’s “best scripts of the year” Black List. Screenwriter Kryzz Gautier has written and directed a lot of short films. Her biggest credit up to this point is writing the Bioshock 4 video game.
Writer: Kryzz Gautier
Details: 114 pages
We’re going BACK to the Black List. This time for a little first act introspection. Today’s script takes on all of the challenges we’ve discussed about first acts and because the writer seems new to the medium, things get messy. But that’s okay because we’re all just trying to get better here. So let’s take a look!
Wheels Come Off follows 16 year old, Manoella Cortez, who lives in a city I can only assume is New York, a couple of decades after some massive catastrophic event has left the city in shambles.
Manoella spends most of her days with her 2 foot tall robot, Tony, scavenging apartments for food. Sometimes this means stealing from the dead. Sometimes it means stealing from the living. Which Manoella doesn’t feel bad about because she’s got to support her wheelchair-bound mother, Carla.
But when they run out of food, the two must go into the city together to try and accomplish a major food score. Unfortunately, they steal from the leader of a gang, Erick, who makes it his mission to find and kill both mother and daughter (and robot).
Along the way, our heroes meet up with a group of disadvantaged people (one has cerebral palsy, one is deaf, one is blind, etc.) and Manoella falls in love with their leader, a young woman named Ari.
But when Carla’s health deteriorates due to an injury, they must locate the last person she wants to speak to, Manoella’s father, who ran the robot company that may have caused the apocalypse. The extent to which Manoella cares for Carla will be put to the ultimate test when evil Erick figures out where they’re going and is determined to stop them.
Okay, let’s talk about what I liked here. I like that this is based on real life. Kryzz says on the title page that this script is inspired by her real life struggles while taking care of her disabled mother. It’s some of the oldest, yet, most valuable, writing advice you’ll hear: Write what you know. Because when you write what you know, you write specifically. “Specific” is the opposite of “general” which means you avoid writing a generic story.
I also liked the choice to make Manoella and Carla outsized personalities. Both of them were opinionated and talked a lot, which meant a lot of their dialogue was packed with energy.
I also felt that, once Kryzz got out of the first act, the script became way more relaxed and free-flowing, which made the pages easier to read.
And that’s where I want to focus today’s review because the weakest part of the script, by far, is the first act. And since we’re talking about first acts this month, it’s a good first act to dissect. The combination of setting everything up as well as not understanding the screenwriting medium made for a bumpy ride that, if I wasn’t reviewing this script, I would’ve checked out by page 10.
Let’s start with the first line of action:
“A pair of legs sneak past wheels then exit an apartment.”
Take a hard look at this line because there’s something wrong with it. See if you can tell me what it is.
Did you figure it out?
The most important detail in the line is left out. What do the legs look like? Are they muscular? Thin? Long? Stubby? Hairy? Smooth? A man’s legs? A woman’s? Old? Young? Any one of those adjectives would’ve given us a much better feel for what was happening. But those details were left out. And this is a common occurrence with beginner screenwriters. The writer assumes the reader can read their mind.
We don’t know what’s in your head unless you tell us.
I must’ve given this advice five times this month on script consultations. Writers continue to think the reader can read their mind. I’m not saying you have to detail everything. I’m saying whatever the most important elements in a scene are, you need to detail those.
Think about it this way. The people watching this movie will be able to answer that question right? They’ll know whether the legs are muscular, thin, long, stubby, hairy, smooth, a man’s, or a woman’s. So why does the reader not get this information? The point of a screenplay is to detail what people are going to see on the screen.
What’s so ironic about this mistake is that it’s the opposite of the writer’s other major mistake in the first act, which is that everything is overwritten. We routinely run into 8 line paragraphs (Try to stay at 3 or less). And there’s a lot of description detailing the same things over and over again (that Manoella steals things from apartments).
We don’t get to the inciting incident until page 28, when Erick catches Manoella stealing a robot battery from his place and vows to kill her and her mom. As we’ve learned this week, you want your inciting incident to happen between pages 12-15 if possible.
Now this is where things get interesting because I suspect Kryzz might push back and say her inciting incident was when Manoella and her mom realize they’re running out of food and have to go find more.
An inciting incident, to me, is an event that is big and has major consequences. I don’t buy that having four days left of food when you’ve already proven to be good at finding food to be a big event with major consequences. I do consider the most dangerous person in the city vowing to kill you a big event with major consequences.
Waiting that long to introduce the story’s most important plot point puts you in a bind because it means you’re setting up character and world for the 27 pages that precede it. And while that may be great for you, the writer, since you have alllllll this space to casually set up your world, it’s terrible for the reader, who is impatiently waiting for the cool stuff to happen.
One of the reasons we stick to these stringent page checkmarks is because it forces you to set up your story faster than you want to. I know that sounds like a bad thing but it’s actually a good thing. Because when you have to set up something in a short amount of time, you think about what’s necessary and what isn’t.
I’ve said this a million times but what makes the pros so much better than the amateurs is that they can do what you do, but in half the pages. Cause anybody can set up a world with enough time. It’s the pros who figure out how to do it quickly and still be effective.
That’s a big part of what writing first acts is. It’s consolidating a bunch of information into a less-than-optimal amount of scenes, and somehow still doing it effectively and entertainingly.
If I’m being 100% honest, Wheels Come Off feels like a script that, five years ago, agents would’ve said, “You’re not ready yet.” There are too many beginner tells (oversized paragraphs, music cues, dream sequences, dual-line dialogue). But I guess now the Black List is prioritizing certain things over script quality that are propping these scripts up and it’s confusing to aspiring writers who have been told that a lot of this stuff isn’t okay.
It’s not that the script is bad. It’s actually quite heartfelt in places. But it reads no different than any of the Amateur Showdown scripts we’ve seen on the site. So I can’t endorse the script. Like almost all of the 2021 Black List scripts I’ve read, it’s messy. It doesn’t feel like the writer has a good grasp on the craft yet.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: For those who don’t understand why dream sequences are frowned upon in screenwriting, dream sequences are great for directing and actual production. They allow the director to create striking stylized sequences that are fun to look at. But on the page, all these sequences do is fill up space with words and, at worst, feel pretentious. We can’t see the striking images nor hear the intense soundtrack that make these scenes work. I’m not saying never use them. But in a perfect world, you’d keep them out of your spec script and then, when you get hired for the actual movie, put them in there.
