Today I discuss one of the most advanced topics in all of screenwriting – SHIFTING REALITY!

Week 0 (concept)
Week 1 (outline)
Week 2 (first act)
Week 3 (first half of second act)
Week 4 (second half second act)
Week 5 (third act)
Week 6 (evaluate your first draft)
Week 7 (rewrite plan of attack)
Week 8 (begin the rewrite!)

Today I want to introduce the concept of SHIFTING REALITY. It’s a concept specifically born out of rewriting and I consider it to be one of the most advanced screenwriting topics there is. So if what I’m about to tell you feels like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, it’s probably because you’re not ready for it yet.

What’s “shifting reality?” Shifting reality, in screenwriting terms, is this concept whereby whenever you change a variable in your screenplay, it moves that stage of your screenplay up one level. Meanwhile, all the other variables are still on the first level.

So if you imagine a building, the first draft of your script would be the first floor. Then, once you make a change in your script (for example, change the location of your story from California to Mexico), that moves THAT VARIABLE up to the second floor. HOWEVER, everything else in your script is still on the first floor.

At first, this may not seem like a big deal. The shift is slight enough that everything about the script still technically “works.” But the problem is when you keep changing a variable while everything else stays the same. For example, let’s say your original location was California. Then, for the second draft, you set the story just below the Mexico border. However, after reading that draft, you realize the story probably works better if your main character is from Mexico. So, in the third draft, you change the nationality of your hero to Mexican.

At this point, your main character is on the third floor. But the rest of your script is still on the first floor. This is when shifting reality starts to affect your screenplay in a big way. You’re making changes to major variables and not updating the rest of the variables to reflect that.

Have you ever seen a movie where, out of nowhere, there’s a scene that’s tonally different from the rest of the film? Maybe the rest of the movie is a drama and this scene is a comedic one. The average person is confused when this happens. But I always know what happened. That scene was a victim of not keeping up with the rewrites. It was a scene written early on when the script was more of a comedy. The writers liked it so much that even as they moved all the rest of the variables up, they never adjusted that scene. So while the script finished up on the tenth floor, that scene was still on the second floor.

Here’s the scary part. I’m using one variable as an example. But imagine you’re changing multiple variables each draft. You’re changing your hero from a man to a woman. You’re changing the setting from the 80s to modern day. You’re changing the love interest from a jovial risk-taker to a regimented taskmaster. The friend character who becomes a villain at the midpoint? You’re keeping them a friend the whole way through now. And instead of the story taking place in New York, you’re going to have it take place in a small town to make the movie more charming.

If you’re making all of these changes and you think you can still keep 60% of the dialogue scenes in your script? You’re crazy. Well, you’re not crazy. But you’re not realizing how big of an effect those changes are having on the rest of the story. Even if you just changed the main character from a man to a woman, a huge chunk of your first draft is going to be left behind.

I’ve actually had this conversation a lot lately because everyone’s turning their male protagonists into females since that’s what the market wants. And everybody thinks that, literally, all they have to do is swap out the names and keep the rest of the script the same. That the a female character who SOUNDS like a male character will actually be revolutionary.

I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you but it never works that way. I’ll give you an example from a recent conversation.

Writer: “I’ll just make the main character a girl and not change anything else.”
Me: “Okay, so does your love interest remain a woman then or are you changing her to a man now?”
Writer: “Um… she’ll stay a woman.”
Me: “Okay, was our heroine always a lesbian or was she once straight?”
Writer: “Um… she once dated guys but then she realized she was gay.”
Me: “What made her realize that? Did she have a bad experience with men that pushed her towards women or was it something she always knew but repressed until recently?”
Writer: “Um, she was assaulted by a guy in college. That changed the way she looked at men.”

Already, within three questions, this character’s life experience sounds completely different from the original male protagonist’s. Which is the point. Once you change a variable, it changes so many other variables. If you ignore that and stubbornly keep all the other variables the same, your script is going to read weird.

Here’s the good news. You want to see shifting reality as something that CAN WORK FOR YOU. Not AGAINST YOU. When you shift any major variable in your script, it opens the door to change problem areas in your script. That character you always hated or that act that you always hated? If you look at those things through the lens this new change brings, you realize there are solutions that weren’t there previously.

I’ll give you an example. In the early drafts of Back to the Future – the ones being rejected by every studio in town – the time machine was a refrigerator. Not surprisingly, one of the big complaints about the script was the third act. It was a mess. It had something to do with going to a nuclear test site and using the energy from a nuclear bomb to power the time machine so it could get back to the future (yes, Spielberg would hold onto this idea for Indiana Jones 4). The third act didn’t feel consistent with the rest of the movie.

Then, at some point during the rewrites, Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis came up with this idea that the time machine be a car. Staying within our analogy, this meant that the time machine went up a floor. But the rest of the story, specifically the third act, was still down on the previous floor. It was up to Bob and Robert, then, to see the rest of the story through this new lens. If they’re still thinking in terms of the last draft, they’re probably thinking the car is going to be out by the nuclear test site and they’re going to have to drive around the explosion really fast to get the energy needed to jump back to the future.

No.

If the car is the time machine, you don’t need the nuclear test site anymore. You make the car itself nuclear. Hold on, but wait. If the car is nuclear and they don’t have access to nuclear fuel, how do they get back? Well, what are some things that have a lot of power back in the 1950s? Lightning. Lightning has a lot of power. Okay, but how do you bottle up lightning? Well, it’s the past! So, theoretically, if there was a storm, Marty would know about it. So he’d know lightning was coming. Okay, but how do they catch it? Hmmm… maybe it hits the town square clock tower. Yes! And that day becomes infamous in town, so Marty would know the exact time the lightning struck. Now we know how to capture the lightning.

Since we’ve all seen Back to the Future, this sounds obvious to us. But these things are never obvious when you haven’t thought of them yet. And this is exactly what I’m telling you. When you move a variable up a floor, it provides you opportunities that you were previously blind to. You know how, in a video game, you’ll come to a locked door and a message will read, “You don’t have the skills to open this door yet.” It’s only when you achieve a few other things in the game that you have the special knowledge to come back and pick the lock. That’s what variable changes do. They allow you to go back and open up doors that you couldn’t get through before.

I know this is a bit confusing. But the main two things to remember are, one, whenever you make a big change, make sure to update all of the other variables in your script to reflect that change. And two, every major change you make opens up new lenses to see your script through to fix problems you thought were unfixable. I encourage you, whenever you make a major change to IMMEDIATELY think about how it affects the biggest problems in your story. I’m willing to bet it will solve at least one of them.

Keep rewriting my friends. A little over a month left until the Comedy Showdown deadline!!!

It’s funny how we see the past through the lens of entertainment. We remember it as this perfect place where only the greatest movies and television were produced. Ask any old timer what they think of movies today and you’ll get a 30 minute monologue about how great the 70s were. “Back then it was about the artist,” they’ll claim. “Back then it was about art.” Well here are a few titles from the top 10 of 1971’s box office: “Diamonds are Forever,” “Summer of ’42,” “Carnal Knowledge,” “Bedknobs and Broomsticks,” “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song.” I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t exactly say these movies were memorable.

So when I lament on how good TV shows used to be ten years ago (Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Friday Night Lights, The Good Wife, Lost, early Walking Dead), I have to recognize that there were a heck of a lot of bad shows as well. I mean we had alien eye-roller, Falling Skies. That unforgettable foray into the world of air travel, Pan Am. Everybody’s favorite cop team-up, Franklin and Bash. And a million other duds.

So when I wonder aloud why TV seems to suck these days, I’m not sure I couldn’t pick out just as many good shows today as I could a decade ago. Off the top of my head I can think of Succession, Fleabag, and Black Mirror. I love all those shows. So maybe I’m using the same selective memory pincers as those 70s film cinephiles.

And yet it still FEELS different. I think because we’re moving into this new era of Tentpole TV. When you say TV shows are going to get feature level production budgets, expectations rise. That’s the problem. When you tell me I’m going to get, essentially, a new 4 hour Star Wars movie in a season of The Mandalorian, I’m pumped. But when it turns out the only thing worth my time was Baby Yoda, we’ve got problems.

Because I think a lot of shows are using The Mandalorian as their template for creating Tentpole TV. But what if The Mandalorian is the ultimate emperor walking around without clothes? Without Baby Yoda, what is that show? Was there a single other memorable character in it? I’d argue there wasn’t.

Wandavision and Falcon and the Winter Soldier didn’t do anything to change my opinion. Wandavision was unique. But what have I repeated ten million times on this site? Different doesn’t mean better. Your primary objective when creating anything different is that the difference have a positive effect. That it changes the formula in some way that makes the viewing experience more enjoyable. Wandavision was a mystery where we didn’t care what the answer to the mystery was. It was inert, odd and, altogether, kinda dumb.

Falcon and the Winter Soldier was dead on arrival. It took two characters who nobody cared about other than hardcore Marvel fans and tried to build a show around them using a stripped down version of action movie language (or a souped-up version of action TV show language, depending on how you look at it). The characters were so dull that none of it mattered. Disney made the error of assuming superhero quality action would make these people more interesting somehow. Instead, the opposite occurred. We were reminded, in the increased number of slow moments, just how boring the characters were.

This was always my worry with Tentpole TV. It’s something I brought up as The Mandalorian approached. In big-budget tentpole movies, characters are always speaking under heightened circumstances. “What are we going to do about Galzizar? We only have an hour before he destroys the world!” When you take away the stakes and urgency, all you have is characters talking. And superheroes (or Star Wars heroes) weren’t designed for long-form pontificating. They were designed to be larger than life. To blurt out their philosophies in quick bursts, between fighting Megatron and Count Dooku.

What happens when you put Iron Man in an entire episode of passive conversations? Does he feel like Iron Man anymore?

Which brings us to Jupiter’s Legacy, Netflix’s first attempt at superhero Tentpole TV. I have to admit I was curious when I saw the trailer. Visually, it’s different. These are not your typical superheroes. And how bout those costumes? They might be the most beautiful superhero costumes I’ve ever seen.

I didn’t know anything about Jupiter’s Legacy going into this but it seems to be specifically constructed to fix Tentpole TV’s problems. It’s about a family of superheroes who try to balance their superhero duties with their family life. Passive conversation is baked into the premise.

But boy, the final result is frustrating. It’s not a bad show. I want to be clear about that. The tone is fresh enough that you’re never entirely certain where they plot is going. And that’s a critical component to any good show. We might have *ideas* about where the plot is going. But we should never be sure. Despite that, the show too often took the safe route.

For those who haven’t seen it, Jupiter’s Legacy is about a family of superheroes, the patriarch being Sheldon Sampson, aka, The Utopian. You have his brother, Walter. You have his wife, Grace. And you have his two kids, Brandon and Chloe. We start out with Brandon and Chloe as young kids, playing in the yard, and then, all of a sudden, Chloe gets angry and uses her yell-power, which freaks out the kid they’re playing with, who runs away. Sheldon is mad at Chloe for using her power.

Cut to the present day and we see Brandon, now in his early 20s with his own superhero costume, try to stop an Iron Man type woman from robbing a bank. She’s way stronger than him so she’s about to kill him, and then Superhero Sheldon shows up and saves the day. Afterwards, Sheldon yells at his son, telling him that he’s not ready yet.

After a lot of talking heads scenes, a Thanos-like villain (I think his name was Brainwave) escapes from prison and the entire family, plus a large chunk of fellow superheroes, fight him on a hill. This Brainwave guy is really strong so he’s able to hold everybody off. That is until Brandon breaks the superhero code and (spoiler alert), hits Brainwave so hard he dies. Once again, Sheldon chastises his son. That is until they find out this was not the real Brainwave. Cliffhanger!

Recently we’ve been talking about situations. Situations are clear blueprinted dramatic setups that audiences are familiar with, such as a bank robbery. But there’s a very specific trick to getting them right. You must lead the audience to believe you’re going in the direction they think you are, then take them in an unexpected direction. Otherwise – and this is important so pay attention – WE DON’T NEED TO WATCH THE SCENE.

Why would we need to watch a scene that plays out exactly how we think it’s going to play out? Why are we doing your job for you? Your job, as a writer, is to be ahead of the viewer. Not to be the transcriber of the viewer’s thoughts.

The bank robbery scene in this pilot plays out in too familiar of a fashion. Of course someone saves the doomed son at the last second. Of course it’s the dad. But that’s not the scene that got me riled up.

The scene that infuriated me about Jupiter’s Legacy happens early on in the pilot, in modern day, when the Sampson family is having Thanksgiving dinner. Just as dinner is about to begin, a drunk Chloe shows up. Awkward looks from everyone. She sits down and the dinner begins. I want you to imagine this scene for a second. How do you think it’s going to go?

If you’ve seen any TV show or movie IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE before, you know that Chloe’s going to sit down. She’s going to be mouthy. Because she’s drunk, she’ll be out of control. She’ll start taking digs at everyone. The parents will stay calm at first. But then, eventually, the dad is going to chime in that Chloe’s acting inappropriately. Chloe’s going to shoot back some on-the-nose remark about the lack of parenting coming from Sheldon’s end (something to the effect of, “You were too busy saving the world to save your own children”).

And what do you know? That’s the EXACT SCENE we got.

And as soon as we got it, I knew this show was doomed. Because I knew that any writers’ room that would allow this scene to be written was not capable of creating compelling television. Maybe if this was season three episode six when you’re up against the clock and need to rush a scene out quickly. “Lost” once had an entire episode of Jack flying a kite. But the pilot episode!!?? This is first-time screenwriter first screenplay level stuff. Good screenwriters know that you have to play with the formula, not check all the boxes. You have to ask the question, “What do they think I’m going to do with this scene?” And then, no matter what, DON’T WRITE THAT SCENE. The fact that they still wrote that scene…. I’ve read enough scripts and have seen enough movies to know that shows don’t recover from scenes like that.

Despite this, Jupiter’s Legacy has a cool final scene – the one where all the superheroes are fighting Brainwave. But like I said earlier, we’re still trying to figure out if Tentpole TV can pull off the slower character-driven stuff. And as long as these shows keep making the mistake of writing dysfunctional family dinner scenes (and scenes of that ilk) EXACTLY how we expect them to go, they won’t justify their existence. In a sad way, that could be their legacy.

As you continue to battle through the rewrite of your AMATEUR COMEDY SHOWDOWN script, I thought to myself, how can I help these writers make their script funnier? That got me thinking about yesterday’s script review and the concept of SITUATIONS. Here’s how I defined situations in that review…

A situation, in screenwriting terms, is a familiar event, with genuine consequences, where the reader understands the rules and can, therefore, participate in the fun.

A bank robbery is a situation. A breakup is a situation. A battle of wits, such as when the Man in Black took on Vizzini in The Princess Bride – that’s a situation.

The great thing about comedy is that comedy and situations go together like peanut butter and jelly. So that’s what we’re going to do today. We’re going to add one “Situation” scene to your comedy. And we’re going to make it hilarious.

So what I’m going to do is list ten situations for you and you’re going to choose which one of those would fit best in your script and write the funniest version of that situation that you can think of.

Here’s your list:

1) A breakup – Breakups are some of the easiest scenes to make funny. They’re inherently comedic. A word of advice, though. Be creative about where they take place. For example, it’s probably funnier to have someone break up with their boyfriend at the beginning of a flight than in their car. Add a guy who’s terrified of flying and you’ve got yourself a scene.

2) Underage kids trying to buy beer (or get into a club) – We’ve seen this situation a million times before yet audiences will watch it a million times more. There’s something about watching underaged kids try to pull one over on the cashier/bouncer that never gets old.

3) Job interview – Job interviews are packed with tension and you can find a ton of comedy in tension. They can also pop up in unexpected places. One of the funnier scenes in Deadpool 2 was the job interview sequence. Step-Brothers also has a good one.

4) Meeting the parents – The first time someone introduces their boyfriend or girlfriend to their parents is a situation. Try to create clear boundaries to make the scene better. For example, if you force them to sit through dinner at a restaurant, that creates more tension than if they come over to the parents’ house, say hi, and everybody goes their own way. Remember that the more boundaries and rules that are in place, the better a situation works.

5) A dreaded gym class game – Those gym class games, from basketball to soccer to dodgeball, are inherently funny because we’ve all been through them and know the rules. You have to go through the torturous process of getting picked. Then you have to play a game you suck at. You always come out looking bad. Before you say this is too specific since it only covers school years, remember that they made an entire film about adults in this situation (Dodgeball). If you’ve got a workplace movie, maybe it’s a game they play during a retreat.

6) The big boardroom presentation – These work best when your hero is the presenter and there’s a ton of pressure on them to do well. But you don’t have to write them that way. You can have your hero be a nobody in the boardroom but be unexpectedly called upon to offer his opinion. He can then fail spectacularly.

7) The hustle – The hustle is a great situation. Whether it’s pool, chess, or basketball, you establish that someone is going to be hustling someone else and then watch the game unfold. Always entertaining, especially if you flip the script (and the ‘hustled’ is the real ‘hustler’).

8) Stuck in line at the DMV – The never-ending torture that is being stuck at the DMV – in endless lines, talking to people who aren’t helpful, forgetting documents you were supposed to bring, being forced into a surprise driving test (another situation!). Lots of hilarity here. Zootopia uses this one.

9) Walk of shame – Waking up in an unfamiliar bed with someone you don’t know and having no idea how far away from home you are and how you’re going to get back is an age-old situation that offers all sorts of comedic possibilities. The more obstacles you can throw at the character, the better.

10) Getting pulled over by a cop – Always a fun situation to play with because we’ve all been there, understand the rules, and there’s a clear goal to the proceedings (try not to get a ticket!). The more your character has done wrong, the better, since they’ll have more to hide.

The above are general situation templates but there are tons of situations specific to whatever subject matter you’re writing about. People stuck in a shack in the woods with zombies trying to get in through every window – that’s a situation. Being inside a convenience store when men come in to rob the place, that’s a situation. A guy standing on top of a building, deciding whether to jump or not with a bunch of people trying to stop him – that’s a situation.

You’ll notice that the higher the consequences of a situation, the more interesting the scene tends to be. So if you have someone who’s standing on top of a building ready to jump… that’s a very high-consequence situation. The Office had a famous one of these where Michael fakes like he’s going to jump off the building so that his employees will appreciate him more but then, the more he talks to everyone, the more he *actually* wants to jump, which turns it into an increasingly serious situation.

By the way, what *isn’t* a situation? Situations dissolve whenever the boundaries become faded and the rules less clear. For example, a wedding ceremony is a situation. There’s a clear beginning, middle, and end, with high stakes attached to it (since usually, in movies, somebody’s going to try to stop the wedding). But a wedding post-party is not a situation. It’s just a vague chunk of time dedicated to people having fun. There are no rules. There is no clear climax. That doesn’t mean funny things can’t happen during it. But whenever something has less rules and less structure, the tendency for it to become unfocused and boring increases.

Actually, whenever you’re in non-situation territory, like a wedding after party, I encourage you to add as many of your own rules as possible, to create an “artificial situation.” For example, if Best Man Joe is trying to win the heart of Maid of Honor Jane, maybe his goal is to profess his love for her at the after party. Now the after party has structure (since there’s a goal and, therefore, something to look forward to) which makes it an artificial situation.

Finally, situations work best when they’re used within concepts where you wouldn’t expect them. For example, you don’t expect a trip to the DMV to be in the movie Zootopia. Or if you’re writing a Star Trek parody, throwing in a walk of shame scene could be a really unexpected way to have some fun in that universe. You want to look for ways to flip the script. For example, instead of following a group of teenagers who are trying to sneak into the club with fake IDs, maybe your movie is about a group of adults who, at some point, find themselves trying to sneak into a kids party where they have to pretend they’re under 18. In other words, you never want to execute situations exactly as expected. You want to look for little twists and turns to make them fresh. One of the best examples of this came from Notting Hill where we get the situation of a ‘FIRST DATE.’ Hugh Grant shows up for that first date and finds himself in the middle of a publicity tour.

Situations are great for any genre but they can be really fun to play with in comedies. So have at it!

Today’s script contains hints of one of the most famous scripts of all time, “Killing on Carnival Row.” Could it possibly be as good as that script?

Genre: Serial Killer/Period
Premise: When their friends begin dying at the hands of a brutal killer, an all-female crime syndicate, The Forty Elephants, must work together to take down the predator stalking them – Jack The Ripper.
About: Dennis MaGee Fallon has been working in Hollywood as a composer and actually wrote a song for Scriptshadow’s own, Nick Morris’s, film, “Becky.” This script of his made last year’s Black List.
Writer: Dennis MaGee Fallon
Details: 118 pages

Jack the Ripper is one of the more popular subject matters for screenplays and for good reason. One, it’s free IP. Two, it’s a genre that Hollywood likes (serial killer movies). And three, it’s easy to find twists for. You can bring Jack the Ripper into modern day, which I’ve seen before. You can play with the idea that he’s not human. And, in today’s case, you can infuse a little bit of Hollywood 2020 mentality and build the story around a group of women set to take the Ripper down.

But I’m going to warn you, this is not an easy read. It’s extremely detailed and overwritten. There’s a try-hard quality to the writing that gets in the way of a good time. For example, here’s an early description of the main character’s voice: “Queenie’s got a sandpaper voice with milk and honey edges.” What does that mean? Just cause something sounds good when you write it doesn’t mean it makes sense.

And there’s a lot of that here. For example, here’s another voice description: “Her accent isn’t cockney, it’s tropical – soft and exotic – but still full of defiance.” Why all the pomp and circumstance? Just say she’s defiant.

I find that this is a younger writer problem. Younger writers feel like they have to prove that they’re “writers” so they overwrite everything. I’m not saying write your script in first grade language. I actually like the tone and mood of this script. The writer knows this place and time. All I’m saying is: don’t overdo it.

Anyway, onto the script.

It’s 1888 in London and female body parts have been found in the Thames River, all with a strange symbol carved onto them. But people aren’t that worried because serial killers hadn’t really been invented yet. And it wasn’t like they all had Twitter to keep each other updated on the latest killings.

Madame Queenie, who runs the Forty Elephants, which has the best prostitutes in the city, is struggling to pay the bills. If she doesn’t find a ton of cash quick, her prostitutes aren’t going to have a place to sleep in a month. They attempt to solve this problem using the “Dead Hooker” Con. This is when a hooker covers herself in pig blood and plays dead to a wealthy client.

Queenie then comes in, says she’ll get rid of the body, but in reality sends a couple of girls to rob the client while he’s distracted. The plan works but it turns out they robbed the wrong guy. The guy was a con man himself, pretending to be wealthy when he was really just a bum. This puts the Forty Elephants ever closer to their big nightmare, having to go back to Leather Apron, their old pimp, who made all of their lives miserable.

That’s when bigger problems surface. One of Queenie’s best prostitutes and best friends, Annie, is killed in an alley by Jack the Ripper! The murder is witnessed by an island girl, Ezz, who watches as the Ripper guts Annie alive. To make matters worse, Jack spots Ezz, who makes a run for it.

When Queenie finds out that Ezz saw Jack kill her best friend, she goes on a hunt to find the girl. The problem is, Jack is looking for her too. She’s the only one who’s seen his face so he needs to get rid of her. Who’s going to get to her first? We’ll see. And, in the meantime, we’ll watch in horror as Jack the Ripper continues to slaughter Queenie’s army.

One of things I wish I would’ve known when I was writing scripts was the power of SITUATIONS.

A situation, in screenwriting terms, is an identifiable event, with genuine consequences attached to it, where the reader understands the rules and can therefore participate in the fun.

A bank robbery is a situation. A breakup is a situation. A battle of wits, such as when the man in black took on Vizzini in The Princess Bride – that’s a situation. (edit: I include a few more examples in the comments)

Situations allow the reader to turn off their brain and have fun.

Never has the importance of situation-writing been so evident as when reading “Ripper.” The script starts off with a situation. A man wakes up with a dead prostitute in his bed with blood everywhere. We know this situation. We understand the rules. Now we can participate in whether he’s going to get out of it or not.

It’s a fun scene because the writer does what every writer should do. He makes us think it’s going one way. But it ends up going another. That’s another power of the situation. Because situations are familiar, you can use that familiarity against the reader. They’re expecting you to zig. But you zag.

However, there isn’t another situation in this script until PAGE 60!!! That is when the girls decide to dangle Ezz out for the Ripper, having her walk the streets alone, hoping to lure in and trap him. It’s the second best scene in the script behind the aforementioned dead hooker scene.

The pages in between 10 and 60 were some of the hardest pages I’ve had to read all year. They were thick with information. Thick with exposition. Thick with detail. Thick with description. Thick with character introductions.

But most importantly, there were no situations. There was nothing where I could turn off my brain and enjoy what was happening. Instead I had to place all my focus on keeping up.

Just to be clear, there were *scenes.* For example, Queenie would go to the coroner’s office to look at Annie’s body. Or Queenie would butt heads with Leather Apron about keeping his grubby hands out of her business. But these moments are not enough to keep readers entertained. Sure, we’re getting information. And the scenes are moving the story forward. But it’s doing so in this logical unentertaining manner.

Obviously, you need logic scenes in a script. You need scenes in mysteries where the detective asks a potential witness if they saw anything suspicious last night. You can’t write situations every single time. But the ratio of situations to ‘plot muck’ needs to be a lot higher than what was shown in this script.

Because the situations are where the entertainment is. Sure, seeing dead body parts in a shallow river is an interesting image. But it doesn’t hold a candle to the entertainment level that can be created with a situation.

I do think there’s something to this script. It reminds me a lot of one of the most famous screenplays of all time, Killing on Carnival Row. The level of detail here is similar to the level of detail in that script. But I personally found that script overwritten and this one even more overwritten. It’s so dense that I couldn’t see the forest through the trees. I wish it would’ve had more fun and implemented a lot more situations. If it had done that, I probably would’ve given it a ‘worth the read.’

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

What I learned: Plot muck. Plot muck is all the little annoying not-very-entertaining plot things you include in your script. Introducing yet another detective (Detective #3) on page 64. The press coming in to take pictures of the bodies. Yet another letter sent to the press from the Ripper that basically says the same thing as his last letter. People sitting around talking about who the killer could be. Plot muck is a necessary evil but should be limited as much as possible. It gums up the script and makes for a long frustrating read. Get to the good stuff. Get to the situations!

Genre: Comedy/Drama
Premise: Eighth grader Simon Paluska dreams of being a Taekwondo Black Belt, but he’s not allowed to take lessons. So he buys a Black Belt on Amazon for twenty-five bucks. Then, he has to use it.
About: Today’s script finished in the top 20 on last year’s Black List. Randall Green wrote 2019’s The Perfect Date and has half a dozen scripts in development.
Writer:Randall Green
Details: 100 pages

Today we deal with the screenwriting boogeyman.

The dark comedy.

The funny thing about dark comedies is that they’re the comedies writers most like to write. Yet they’re the comedies audiences least like to watch. So there’s obviously a disconnect there. Which is why I tell writers to stay away from them if possible.

But they never listen. :)

And that’s because, like I said, writers love to write them! Which makes sense. Writers are thoughtful people. They see comedy in the darkest of places. So it’s a natural fit. But you must nail that perfect blend of comedy and drama to get them right. And boy is that balance elusive.

13 year old Simon Paluska is flying to California to live with his Uncle. Simon just lost both his parents to an avalanche. The only thing getting Simon through these rough times is Taekwondo. He’s just started his Taekwondo journey and loves watching old martial arts movies. He can see himself dedicating his entire life to this discipline.

We get little hints here and there that Simon was picked on back in middle school and thinks Taekwondo will solve that problem. But after Uncle Nate breaks the news that he doesn’t have enough money for Taekwondo lessons, he tells Simon to buy a black belt online and learn Taekwondo ‘on Youtube.’ Simon hates the idea but supposes it’s better than nothing.

Simon wears his black belt to the first day of school and the class bully, James, makes fun of him for it. Simon walks over, kicks James’s desk and breaks his ruler. The class is awed by this move. So much so that hotties Liv and Autumn become obsessed with Simon. They recruit him in their plan to steal a bunch of money and move to Montana. Simon is so thrilled to have the attention of any female that he agrees, even though stealing is not part of the Taekwondo code.

As time goes on, Simon realizes that Autumn and Liv are not good for him and struggles with conflicting feelings of doing what’s right and doing whatever he can to impress them. Things get exponentially complicated when Liv kisses Simon, sparking a romance. Now Simon is in it to win it, regardless of Taekwondo. But is that the right move? Should he really go along with their plan to steal 20 thousand dollars and move to Montana at 13 years old? We’re going to find out!

Let’s talk about main characters for a second.

In general, you want your main character making choices themselves. Not having choices be made for them. Why? Because someone who’s making their own choices is ACTIVE. Someone who’s following orders or making choices based on what others say is REACTIVE. Or PASSIVE.

I’ve read enough screenplays to know how dangerous it is to write a PASSIVE or REACTIVE protagonist. There are ways to do it, of course. But it’s so much more trouble than it’s worth. Reactive and passive people are considered WEAK. Not just in stories. But in real life. So when you make that choice, you’re constantly having to explain, through other storytelling choices, why this is someone we should still be rooting for.

When I read this logline and I saw that this little kid buys a black belt, I thought, “That’s an interesting character.” He buys a black belt and then has to fake his way through it. There’s lots of comedy potential there.

But when I got to the part where his UNCLE makes the decision for him, the entire concept collapsed. Well, maybe ‘collapsed’ is an exaggeration. But I lost a lot of interest in the character after that one change.

When it comes to your main character and the main pillar holding up your concept (in this case, a kid buys a black belt even though he’s not a black belt), you need to be particular about the choices you make because they have an outsized effect on the story.

You may stress about that scene on page 64 that you’re worried “goes too far.” But that scene can’t destroy your script. Choices that occur early with both your main character and your concept – those are the things that can destroy the script.

In addition to this, the script turns the traditional “nerd arrives at a new school” formula on its head. What usually happens in these movies is the nerd gets beat up by the bully on the first day of school. In this version, the opposite occurs. Simon humiliates the bully. Just about every screenwriting book will tell you this is a good thing. Turning things on their head allows you to explore new territory.

But every writing choice has consequences. You gain some things but you also lose some things. Your job as the writer is to make sure that what you gain is better than what you lose.

I’m going to trigger a few people here but it’s such a popular example, I’m going to use it. In Rian Johnson’s “The Last Jedi,” he makes the bold choice of killing off Supreme Leader Snoke at the midpoint. What he gained was the element of shock. Nobody saw it coming. What he lost was the vacuum that was created when the top villain disappeared from the story. It felt like the Rebels had already won. This, of course, is what led to the desperate choice of bringing back the Emperor in Rise of Skywalker. There needed to be someone to take down.

With Simon demonstrating that he wasn’t afraid of the bully at the beginning of Black Belt, we move into uncharted territory. Simon is now looked up to. Girls are draped over both his shoulders. We gain a future that we aren’t able to predict. We haven’t been down this road before.

But we lose that deep emotional need to see our underdog defeat the bully who picked on him. That’s the reason we watch these movies. We watch them for revenge. If there’s nothing to avenge, then what’s the story? I suppose the story is that Simon must keep the Taekwondo illusion going in order to stay on top. And there is something compelling about that narrative. But is it better than a bullied underdog getting his vengeance? That’s a question the writer must ask.

Yet another problem is that the script never shows us what Simon’s normal life was like. As a result, when he walks up to the bully and breaks his ruler, we don’t know if that’s normal for Simon or the first time he’s done anything remotely like that.

Sure, we get hints here and there through conversation that he may have been a dork at his old school. But movies are SHOWING NOT TELLING. You can have your character say, “I’m a nerd” 2000 times in a row. It will not have as much impact as showing him do something nerdy. I was constantly trying to figure out who Simon was in this story. And I think that’s because I never got to see him around other kids prior to his experience at this school.

Despite all this, the script is DIFFERENT.

The voice is DIFFERENT.

It doesn’t feel like the same old thing you’ve read before. And there’s something noble about that. Most writers are rewriting their favorite movies with different character names. Black Belt feels original. As a testament to that, when I hit page 50, I literally heard myself say, “Where is this going??” I had no idea.

But just because something’s original doesn’t mean it’s going to work. And I spent the majority of this script trying to figure out what it was I was actually reading. That’s the problem with destroying the blueprint. You might end up with a house that has no bedrooms. Which is unfortunate since there were a lot of times during this script where I just wanted to go to sleep.

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

What I learned: Give your smaller characters little goals. Simon’s Uncle is saving up money to buy an engagement ring for his girlfriend. It’s a small goal. But it helps make the character feel real. Fake characters simply exist, waiting for the writer to call on them. Real people are working towards things regardless of whether the writer calls on them or not. The Uncle character is the latter.