The five finalists, other contest entries that will get a review next week, and that mysterious script that Carson calls “The best screenplay I’ve ever read in my life.”

Who would’ve thought it would only take me a year to get through 2000 scripts? Well, lookie-loo, we’ve made it to the finish line. YAAAAYYY! Now, as I told you guys, this contest has always been about finding movies to produce. So whenever I came across a difficult decision – this script or that script – that’s the criteria I used: “Do I want to produce this?”

I bring this up so you don’t feel bad if you didn’t make the cut. There were some strong entries that either were too hard to market, too expensive, or not something I personally felt I could add anything to. The good news is, some of those scripts will still get exposure.

Starting on Monday, I’ll review the five scripts that just missed the finals. The first of those will be the winner of the “ALMOST” group that you, the readers, voted for. That’s Katherine Botts’ script, Possessions. Then I’ll review the 9th best script on Tuesday, 8th best Wednesday, then 7th, then 6th. Then, on Monday, January 25th, I’ll announce the winner of the contest.

Now, onto that big buzzy mysterious script everyone is talking about. Yesterday, in the comments, I dropped the bomb that I had just read the best script I’d ever read in my life (yes, out of 8000 screenplays). Why, then, is it not a finalist? Because it’s un-produceable. It’s so dark and depraved and hard to stomach that it just can’t exist in today’s marketplace. Imagine Seven meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Now imagine being 100 times more depraved than the combination of those two movies. What I just said is not hyperbole. It’s that dark. However, the storytelling is SO AMAZING. The way the writer crafts the story is so INCREDIBLE. It is the most unforgettable screenplay I’ve ever read, hands down. It’s just impossible to make is all.

But I don’t think the script should disappear. So what I’m going to do is chat with the writer next week and decide how to get this out there. What I may do is review the script on that final week of January so, at the very least, the writer gets some exposure. Because the world is his if he wants to be a working screenwriter. He’s one of these one in a million guys.

Okay, now onto our five finalists! I’m listing them in no particular order. Make sure to give them a big congratulations in the comment section!

Title: Kinetic
Genre: Action/Thriller
Logline: Following a harrowing phone call while out on the road, a long haul trucker with a tormented past must deliver a tank of liquid crystal meth before sundown in order to save his pregnant wife. 
Writer: Chris Dennis
Why It Made The Finals: This is Die Hard with a truck. The moment I knew it was a movie was when the main character, a former drug-addict, is forced by his captor to snort a line of cocaine while driving, instantly transforming him into his old crazed soldier self. He immediately destroys the captor and steels this “hulk” version of himself to rescue his wife no matter what. It’s an old-fashioned action movie that’s executed perfectly. That’s the key with these scripts. If the concept is familiar, the execution has to be incredible. And Chris nails it in that department.

Title: Tighter
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Logline: When a Japanese rope bondage workshop is taken hostage by masked intruders, a couple must find a way to escape their captors while tied together at the wrists. 
Writer: Arun Croll
Why It Made The Finals: I love this idea. There are a million hostage scripts. I read them all the time. Even though they’re so ubiquitous, I don’t fault anyone for writing one because ‘hostages’ is a built-in high-stakes scenario. It’s the all-important “S” in GSU. But the problem is, nobody ever gets creative with it. Hostages in a bank. Hostages in a building. Hostages on a ship. Arun’s setup was clever. Imagine someone taking you hostage when you were at your most vulnerable – already tied up. That, along with the BDSM component, lends this weird energy to the hostage situation that immediately makes the movie feel fresh. Tighter was really fun.

Title: Crescent City
Genre: Action-Horror
Logline: A woman with the ability to control ghosts is forced to protect a witness being hunted by supernatural assassins.
Writers: Andy Marx & William McArdle
Why It Made The Finals: I knew this one had a shot from the first ten pages. A getaway driver takes a crew that just robbed a bank to a safe house. She explains to them, when they get there, “Nobody will come looking for us here.” “Why not?” They ask. “Cause this house is haunted.” A haunted safe house is something I’d never heard of before. Another fresh idea. What really got me excited about this one was the franchise potential. The main character is able to control ghosts. So there’s this deep mythology about a voodoo cop-crime underworld that’s going on right next to the regular world. It had shades of John Wick in that sense. These two writers also wrote a script that nearly made the finals called “Maniacal,” about masks that take over their human host bodies and turn them into crazed killers. Really fun! And proved to me that these writers have the goods.

Title: Mother Redeemer
Genre: Psychological Horror/Thriller
Logline: When Allie – a devout member of the Children of Ra – receives a sign from their God that she will soon be the mother of Earth’s messiah, she must find a way to protect herself and her divine child from the cult’s corrupt leader, who intends to use the newborn for his own malicious purposes.
Writer: Brian Accardo
Why It Made The Finals: I’ve wanted to make a movie about cults for as long as I can remember. Which is why not one, not two, but three cult-themed scripts made the semi-finals. It ended up being an embarrassment of riches as all three of the scripts were strong. But there’s something about the heroine in Mother Redeemer that was a cut above. She had a couple of AMAZING moments in the third act. We’re talking kick-ass movie lines people will be quoting in 20 years. It also allows me to make another movie that I’ve been dying to make, which is my version of Rosemary’s Baby. Which is essentially what this is but with a cult twist. Fun fact – the writer, Brian, SPECIALIZES in writing cult scripts. So he’s been perfecting this genre for a while.

Title: That Wind Come Down
Genre: Thriller
Logline: After taking the fall for a horrific crime and spending twenty five years in prison, a neurologically disabled ex-con must confront his troubled past as he desperately tries to find a kidnapped young woman who’s disappearance may be connected to his past transgressions.
Writer: Chris Rodgers
Why It Made The Finals: It’s pretty straight forward, really. I know, for a fact, that a big time actor will want to play the lead in this movie. Being neurologically disabled, this is a different type of hero than we’re used to. It’s the kind of acting challenge actors dream of. Get the right director on this thing and it might even lead to an Academy Award nomination. The writer, Chris, is the real deal. He had another script that could’ve made the finals, but it just happened to be one of the other cult scripts that lost out to Mother Redeemer. Chris has been writing for a while. In fact, he was an Amateur Showdown winner all the way back in 2013!

I want to finish this off by thanking everyone who entered. Just because you didn’t make the finals or the semis, don’t let that discourage you. There are a lot of reasons a script might not have been picked, the least of which is that it’s not the kind of movie I like. Someone else who does like those types of movies may have loved your script. Had they been running this contest, you may have been the winner. There’s lots of subjectivity in the industry. As long as you keep studying and keep learning and keep writing and keep sending your scripts out there, you will eventually find fans of your work. Good luck and keep us all posted on your success! :)

P.S. Tomorrow, the SCRIPTSHADOW LAST GREAT SCREENPLAY CONTEST finalists are announced!

We’re almost there!

We’re exactly one day away from the announcement of the finalists in the Scriptshadow Last Great Screenplay Contest.

But before we get there, I wanted to share some final thoughts about the competition. When you’re reading 3-4 screenplays a day, a clarity comes over you about why some screenplays work and others don’t. It has something to do with seeing good writing and bad writing side by side.

The biggest difference between an okay script and a good script is that okay writers put the onus on the reader while good writers put the onus on themselves. What I mean by that is, okay writers feel that the very act of writing a screenplay should get them points from the reader. “I spent all this time on this. I created all these characters. I wrote seven drafts. You owe me your appreciation.”

Good writers don’t care about that. They know that’s the last thing that is going to affect a reader’s interest in their screenplay. Instead, they know only one thing matters: Does the reader want to keep reading?

Do they want to keep reading after the first scene?
Do they want to keep reading on page 10?
Do they want to keep reading at the end of the first act?
Do they want to keep reading at the midpoint?

Having a vague belief that the reader wants to keep reading at those checkpoints is not what I’m talking about. I’m saying you’ve specifically designed your story in a way that you’re using story devices in those moments that keep a reader interested.

You’re using suspense. You’re using mystery. You’re creating intrigue. You’re creating worry. You’re creating tension. You’re offering questions that need to be answered. You’re using conflict. You’re throwing difficult challenges or complications at your characters. You’re building a sequence towards a clear climax. You’re setting up interesting unresolved problems between characters (that readers have to stick around for to see them resolved).

Let’s look at yesterday’s script, which did a great job keeping the reader invested all the way up to its climax. The first part of the script is a “building” sequence. That means you’re clearly building towards a mini-climax (a climax that’s going to come within the next 8-15 pages). Tom meets Sandra and they start dating. Everything is going well. But, uh oh, Sandra’s troubled brother enters the picture. He owes a lot of money to someone and if he doesn’t pay it, they’ll kill him.

This is a complication in the relationship. Readers naturally want to then see if your characters can overcome this complication. We also get the sense that Sandra might not be who she says she is. So we’re worried that Tom may be getting played (another complication). More importantly, we’re still building the storyline. The two get closer. The brother’s problems get worse. Until, finally, they have to deal with it. Tom gives Sandra the money to pay off her brother’s debt. And the next day, she disappears.

We then cut backwards in time to Sandra months ago. She’s a coked-out hooker. Huh? A mystery (or you could call it a question): Why is Sandra a coked-out hooker? Gotta keep reading to find out! We then build our second sequence. Sandra meets a mysterious guy (mystery!) who offers to help her out. This new guy, Max, then takes her under his wing and builds (a key word here – when the reader can feel you building towards something, they’re more likely to stick around) her into a con artist. But then we start worrying that Max may be doing the same thing to Sandra that Sandra was doing to Tom. And we have to keep reading to find out!

That’s such an important thing I just said so let me repeat it. You want to create a series of situations where the only way for the reader to find out what he wants to know is to keep reading. If you don’t pose any questions, the reader doesn’t need any answers. You need to dangle a series of carrots in front of the reader at all times. If you give the donkey (your reader) any of those carrots to eat, you must replace it with a new carrot. The less carrots you dangle in front of the reader, the harder it is to keep them invested. Most good stories have 3-5 carrots dangling at all times.

Conversely, I was reading a script from the contest and after a strong first scene (which is why the script advanced) it went 25 pages of straightforward setup. Setup of characters. Setup of their situations in life. Setup of where they lived. There was no thought at all put into keeping the reader invested during this time. I was bored out of my mind. Which is what I’m talking about. A good writer never lets that happen. Even when the task is difficult. I would guess that this writer’s argument would be, “Well, I had a lot of characters to set up. I didn’t have a choice.”

No. No no no no no no no no no no.

You never have an excuse to NOT ENTERTAIN the reader. Don’t ever sell yourself that lie. That lie is why you haven’t broken in yet.

Earlier this year, I read an Agatha Christie type script – a bunch of characters come to an island to visit a mysterious rich guy – and the writer had a dozen characters to set up. Did he spend the first 20 pages giving us a boring rundown of each character? No, he set up a few characters on the boat ride in. Then when they get to the house, the caretaker is waiting at the front door but he’s difficult. He has a set of rules about who gets in and who doesn’t. This leads to a few heated arguments. In other words, the writer built a scene around CONFLICT to keep the reader entertained while he was introducing his characters.

Now you may say, “Big deal, Carson. That’s not hard.” Tell that to the thousand-plus scripts I’ve read that introduced their characters in the most boring way possible. This writer could’ve easily had the caretaker be nice. Offer no resistance at all. Open up the door. Everybody walks in. Continue the character introductions for another five pages. And we’re already bored. You have the option, at every point in your screenplay, of asking, “Is the reader entertained right now?” If there is even a small chance that they are not, you need to start troubleshooting and figure out how to keep them invested. Add some conflict. Add some mystery. Build towards an approaching mini-climax (something that’s going to come to a head within the next 8-15 pages).

I realize it’s hard to quantify this stuff into a clear set of rules. But basically you want to change your mindset from being a “writer” to being a “designer.” You’re designing a series of sequences in your screenplay that are constructed to keep a reader’s interest.

You’re not writing “whatever comes to mind” and hoping for the best. If you write like that, your reader will lose interest at some point. Unless you’re one of those 1 in a million writing geniuses. But I wouldn’t bank on that. Instead, design each segment of your story to be impossible not to keep reading.

There’s one caveat to this. You have to know how to create strong interesting characters. Nothing I’ve said above works unless we either like or are intrigued by your main characters. I recently read a script by a beginner writer that technically checked a lot of these boxes I talked about. But the characters were way too thin. They didn’t act like real people at all. So even though the writer created conflict between his characters, even though he came up with plenty of complications for them to endure, I was still bored because I didn’t care about anyone.

I’m not going to get into what makes a good character because that would take another 40,000 words. But I’ll leave you with a tip. Think of each character as their own individual story. Because they are. They’ve lived this whole life up until this movie started. Draw from that life to create the things that make us interested in them. There are a lot of qualities that make characters likable or interesting. The Queen’s Gambit used a popular one – a girl who loses her mother in a car crash and is forced to live in an orphanage. Who’s not going to have sympathy for someone in that situation?

Make no mistake. The writer didn’t just stumble onto that. He DESIGNED it. He designed the character’s life in a way so that you would feel sympathy for her. It was calculated. Which is exactly how you need to be. You need to design characters we like or are interested in. And then you need to design a series of sequences in your screenplay that are impossible not to keep reading.

That takes humility. You are admitting that just throwing your stream-of-conscious thoughts onto the page isn’t enough. You need to design it. Then, and only then, will writers lose themselves in your work.

Seeya tomorrow with the CONTEST FINALISTS!

Genre: Con
Premise: (from Black List) A chain of scam artists goes after one wealthy family with the perfect plan to drain them of their funds. But when love, heartbreak, and jealousy slither their way into the grand scheme, it becomes unclear whether the criminals are conning or the ones being conned.
About: Oddly, this comes from the team whose only other feature credit is the wacky Jonah Hill comedy, The Sitter. It finished top 10 on the 2020 Black List. Apple and A24 snatched the spec script up when it went up for auction. Julianne Moore will play Madeline.
Writers: Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka
Details: 117 pages

This genre has disappeared as of late and I’m trying to figure out why.

It could be as simple as nobody’s written a good con-man script in a couple of decades. I’m trying to remember the last one they released. Was it that Will Smith Amber Heard abomination? The box office results of that one probably didn’t help any subsequent con man movies get made.

I think the issue is that when you write one of these, they can’t just be “movie smart.” It’s one of the few genres where the writer has to be a lot more intelligent than the audience. Because if they aren’t, the cons aren’t clever. And if the cons aren’t clever in a con-man script, then what are we even doing?

Most of the cons in these scripts are “movie-clever.” You know how you’ll watch a movie and there’s a party scene and one of the characters will make a joke and everyone in the scene will laugh but nobody in the audience will laugh? That’s a “movie-joke.” It doesn’t make real people laugh. Same problem with bad con-man scripts. The cons work on the movie characters but the audience wasn’t fooled at all.

I’m hoping this is one of those rare con-man scripts where I’m genuinely outsmarted. Let’s see.

20-something Tom is living a pretty lonely life in Philadelphia when we meet him. It doesn’t help that he owns a bookstore that has no customers. Luckily, that changes when 20-something cutie pie Sandra shows up. Sandra is looking for a book for school and just as Tom is about to ring her up, he does something he never does – he asks her out to dinner.

The two have a great first date, then a great second date, and after a couple of weeks, they’re spending every second together. Tom is on cloud nine! That is until one morning at Sandra’s place when some guy shows up yelling at Sandra. She tells him to leave and explains to Tom that that was her brother. He owes a lot of money to some bad people. How much, Tom asks. 350,000 dollars.

Despite us screaming through the screen at Tom to NOT DO IT, Tom gives her the money (it turns out Tom was secretly rich). And then, magically, the next day, Sandra no longer lives in her apartment. She’s gone.

We then cut back in time to meet… Sandra. But this Sandra is much different than the previous Sandra. She’s a hooker-junkie. Pissed at the lack of money Sandra is making, her pimp makes her approach some lonely guy at the bar. This is Max. Max is in his 30s and can best be described as neutral. After some small talk, Max informs Sandra that he’s going to take her away from this life and help her find a better one.

Cut to our “Neo training sequence” where Max teaches Sandra how to be a lady. He teaches her to sound like she knows about things she doesn’t. And, most importantly, he teaches her to find and play a mark. Pretty soon, Sandra is ready to be a real live con woman.

Then we cut back even further in time to meet… Max. It turns out Max is a screw-up who constantly crawls back home for money. Even his own single mom, Madeline, is embarrassed for him. And this is the worst time for Max to be asking for money since his mom has finally found someone she likes – Richard. Richard is handsome and successful and a genuinely good person. Please, his mother tells Max, don’t screw this up for me.

But what if I told you Max couldn’t screw it up for his mom. That’s because, this isn’t really his mom! It’s his mentor! The person who taught him how to con! And they’re lovers now. Or, at least, Max believers they’re lovers. His fake mom may very well be taking Max for a ride. But that’s okay. Because Max has just found out something very important about Richard. That his son owns a bookstore in Philadelphia. That’s right… Richard’s son is Tom! Duh-duh-duhhhhhhhh!

The dead horse I beat over and over again on this site is: FIND. AN. ANGLE. Find an angle. There are lots of ways to tell a story. You can, of course, use the tried-and-true “straightforward” approach. No gimmicks. No games. A simple linear narrative approach. And that’ll work if the idea is really strong. But sometimes you need a snazzier approach.

That’s what we got today. Telling this story in reverse order while switching the central character each time was genius. Like I said at the beginning of this review, the con-man genre is inherently predictable. So if you tell it in a linear fashion, it’s too easy to guess what’ll happen. The very nature of us changing perspectives and times every 20 pages eliminated our power of prediction. Cause I didn’t even know where the story was headed, much less who was conning who.

But the writers didn’t stop there. They knew that for any screenplay to work, it has to connect with the reader on an emotional level. There are a handful of emotions to choose from. Here, they use anger. The manner in which Sandra took advantage of Tom was so cruel that we wanted to see her go down. So the writer wisely made that the final storyline.

It turns out that Madeline screwed Max over because what she was really interested in was getting Richard’s money when he died (he was in poor health). So the story picks up at the wake, with Tom meeting Madeline as the lawyer informs them that Tom’s father left all of the money to Madeline (in part because Tom proved he wasn’t financially responsible after being conned out of 350 grand). Madeline is elated, of course. But what she doesn’t know is that Tom has spent the last couple of years looking for the woman who conned him. And he’s finally found her. Of course, wherever Sandra is, her connection to Max won’t be far behind. And guess who’s connected to Max? Madeline.

So it isn’t just about the cons here. It’s about the emotional payoff. Do we get to see what we really want to see – which is for these three people who took advantage of Tom to go down. And that, my friends, is how you write a good screenplay.

A side note here is that the dialogue was only slightly better than average. However, I think that’s why it worked. A lot of times in this genre, the writers try to show off their dialogue. Everybody’s got a clever comeback. People are using double-entendres. A lot of the dialogue is dripping with sexual innuendo. That’s fine if that’s the kind of story you’re writing. But these writers wanted this to feel realistic. If you want a story to feel realistic, you can’t over-stylize the dialogue. It’s got to feel authentic.

Which is a good reminder. Everybody talks about how important dialogue is. But if you’re not great at it, there are stories you can tell that don’t require you to be great. So just pick those stories.

My only problem with this script is the ending. I’m not going to go into specifics because it’s super-spoiler territory. But I think the writers bit off more than they could chew. The beauty of the first 90% of this screenplay was how simple it was. Yes, we kept changing times and characters, but once we got into a time-period, it was straightforward. The ending betrays that simplicity, which is unfortunate, because before that, this was a ‘mega-impressive.’ It was, honestly, almost perfect. Hopefully they clean the ending up before they shoot. Either way, this was still a really good script.

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

What I learned: Make sure we know what’s at stake!! I find out AFTERWARDS that the Richard con was a half billion dollar con?? No no no no no no. That information needs to be clear BEFOREHAND. We, the reader, will be way more invested if we know that kind of money is at stake. Before that, I thought Richard maybe had 5 million dollars or something. I was like, good for you. You can get a three bedroom apartment in midtown. I didn’t realize how big this con actually was.

Is Karma the next Matrix, the next Wanted, or the next Assassins Creed?

Genre: Action/Supernatural
Premise: After an aimless woman wakes up from a short coma, she begins exhibiting special abilities.
About: David Guggenheim is one of those writers who experienced the screenwriting dream. It’s one thing to sell a script. A lot of writers have done that. But to get a script made into a movie is a rare thing. When Guggenheim sold his first script, Safe House, it just happened to be exactly what Universal Studios was looking to make at the time. So they fast-tracked it, and 8 months after Guggenheim sold his screenplay, his film was being made. That’s insane. And the thing is, when you get a produced credit from one of the big studios, you’re set for the next decade at least. And probably for life. Because writers who get stuff made are highly coveted. People think if they’ve done it before, they can do it again. So you’re going to keep getting work. Guggeneheim would eventually parlay his success into the show, Designated Survivor. On this one, he’s partnering with super-producer, Simon Kinberg.
Writer: David Guggenheim
Details: 128 pages

It’s the first spec sale of the year!

And if it’s going to be the first, it’s gotta be big! Big concept. Big page count. Big rating on Scriptshadow, though? Let’s find out.

Rachel is a 30 year old grade-school teacher who’s sleepwalking through life. It’s not that she isn’t motivated. But she has no direction. Her one love – painting – is something she happens to be terrible at. Her younger sister thinks she’s dying of boredom and wants Rachel to move to Chicago with her.

Meanwhile, we get a look at some Indiana Jones motherf#$%#r running through caves and throwing ancient daggers at people. This is Boone. Boone is a force to be reckoned with, according to Aegis International, a private security company that has dedicated all its resources to capturing Boone, something it’s been unable to do.

But that’s about to change. One day Rachel gets blindsided by a car, then a few days later wakes up in the hospital just as the doctor is trying to decide what to do with her. Rachel makes a suggestion, citing, word for word, an operating procedure from a 1915 English medical journal. Huh? How did she know that?

But that’s not all Rachel knows. A couple of days later, in the elevator, she has a fluent conversation in Arabic. But Rachel doesn’t know Arabic. Freaked out, Rachel heads home, only to have Aegis CEO John Gartner burst into her apartment with a team of men. He explains that she needs to come with them now! A minute later, a car BARRELS THROUGH THE WALL. It’s Boone! Who starts shooting at Rachel. Chaos ensues and Rachel flees!

John finds Rachel later and explains to her that she’s special. And if she wants to find out how special, she’ll come with him. He flies her to Aegis in France, where they begin the training sessions! You’re a “past-lifer” he explains to her. Someone with the ability to recall your past lives. This means that any skill anyone in your past lives had, you can obtain. “How?” She asks.

“Follow me.”


Rachel is placed in the “womb,” which allows her to be guided through an advanced form of regression therapy. Here, she can go directly into her past lives. And with every life she experiences, she retains their skills. Magician, samurai warrior, pianist, chess prodigy, you name it. Get in my way and I’ll check-mate yo a$$. Most past-lifers can only access up to 15 of their past lives. But Rachel is special. She completes 15 in her first day!

A newly energized Rachel is now ready to take on her nemesis – Boone. Aegis locates Boone hiding in Germany. So off they go. Oh, but if you think you know what’s going on, think again. When Rachel finally comes face-to-face with Boone, he tells her that it’s all a lie. That he isn’t the enemy. John Gartner is! Hmmm, is Boone just trying to protect himself? Or is he telling the truth? I know one thing’s for sure. Ya better protect your queen, b#$%h.

CHESS CHAMPION!

Okay, so let’s talk about this idea because it’s uncanny that I’m reading this after yesterday’s post about the next Amateur Showdown genre. For those who didn’t catch it, the next showdown is for HIGH CONCEPT scripts. “Karma” is the DEFINITION of a high concept. Here, the writer takes an idea that was accessible to everyone – past lives – and sexes it up. What if you could access those post lives? What if you could access the abilities of the people who lived those lives? You would be… superhuman. And just like that, you’ve got a high concept.

A common through-line with high concept ideas is that, when you hear them, you wonder why you didn’t come up with the idea yourself. We’ve all read that news story about the person who wakes up from a coma and all of a sudden starts talking fluently in a language they don’t know. Why didn’t we ask how to turn that into a movie? Guggenheim did, and he’s reaping the benefits.

It’s also an example of how to come up with a high-powered movie ready version of an idea as opposed to a boring variation of that idea. Cloud Atlas was also about past lives. But instead of packaging it in a cool action format, it expanded it out into a three hour drama. Which of these ideas do you think an audience is more interested in?

So Guggenheim gets an A+ in that department.

But I have the same issue with this script that I do with a lot of Guggenheim’s scripts. The execution is too by-the-book. I understand that these Matrixy concepts need to go a certain way. But if I’m predicting things that are happening 60 pages ahead of time, that means you’re not taking any chances. Don’t get me wrong. It’s still fun. But there’s a difference between those summer movies you see once then never watch again and the ones that you keep coming back to. The ones you keep coming back to are the ones where the writers took chances.

The writers and scripts I’m most impressed by are the ones where I’m reading them and thinking, “I could never do that.” I mentioned The Misery Index yesterday, a semi-finalist in my contest. When I read the dialogue in that script, I knew that if you put me in a library with all the greatest writers of all time teaching me how to write for 50 straight years, I still could not be able to write dialogue like that.

Yet, in Karma, I feel like the top 30% of writers here on Scriptshadow could write it just as well as Guggenheim. I’ll give you an example. One of the major components of this screenplay is the past lives. So the writer has to come up with all of Rachel’s past lives she’s lived. Here’s a sampling of what we get… Feudal Japan, Renaissance Painter, World War 2 pilot, Shaolin Monk, a blacksmith, ancient Egypt, Sherpa on Mount Everest, pre-historic man.

In other words, past lives that you could’ve come up with after literally 30 minutes of research. There’s nothing unique here that another writer wouldn’t have come up with. I want to stress that because it’s important. Your job as a writer is to come up with things that the rest of the world and your competition (other writers) couldn’t come up with. Or else why do we need you? If you’re giving us what we already thought of, well, that’s lame. We, the audience, are supposed to be creatively inept compared to you.

So that bothered me.

But mark this one down on the list of why concept is king. Even with its weaknesses, it still works, because the concept is so fun.

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

What I learned: Often times, high concept is about taking a cool ‘what if’ scenario and placing it inside a high octane genre. Writers get this wrong all the time, so pay attention. Past lives is not a high concept idea on its own. It’s just as capable of being low concept in the wrong hands. You could write a movie about a guy who discovers he had a past life as a sheep farmer and becomes inspired to leave the city and live a self-sustainable life in Wyoming. You’ve technically got yourself a past lives script. But is it a good idea? To get the sexier logline, take your ‘what if’ scenario and plug into a bigger flashier genre, like Karma did (supernatural action). Big flashy genres include action, thriller, sci-fi, and horror. Those genres always make the idea feel bigger.

How to choose ideas that producers want to buy, next amateur showdown announcement, important end-of-contest dates, and the single worst screenwriting trope ever.

I remember being a young inexperienced screenwriter desperate to understand what it was Hollywood wanted. My thinking was, if I know what they want, I can give it to them. Which should be obvious. If your dream is to make food for McDonald’s and you’re determined to get poached salmon on the menu, chances are you’re not going to succeed. You gotta be the guy who comes up with the McGriddle.

Yet coming up with a script they’d be interested in still seemed difficult. Sure, you could write the next Tenet, but then everybody tells you it’s too expensive to make. You could write the next The Conjuring, but then everybody tells you they read ten Conjurings a month. We need something original. So then you write something original, like First Cow, and everybody tells you that nobody is going to make a movie about something that obscure.

So, what do you do???

I wish, back then, I could’ve engaged in the practice of what I’m doing with this contest – reading scripts with the explicit purpose of making movies from them. Because I’ll be honest with you. There are a LOT of good scripts in the finals. It’s an embarrassment of riches, really. Script after script, I’m impressed with what I’m reading. However, it’s so easy for me to decipher which scripts advance and which don’t. I simply ask the question: “Is this something I want to produce?” The second I ask that question, the answer of whether that script advances or not becomes clear.

So, as a writer, that’s where your head should be at when picking scripts to write. You want to ask the question, “Is this something someone would want to produce?” I understand that the answer to that question varies depending on who’s producing. But you can still get a sense of how difficult the path to victory is. If you’re writing a movie like David Lowery’s, “A Ghost Story,” for example, and getting butt-hurt that nobody wants anything to do with it, then you have to get real with yourself. Nobody ever makes that kind of movie unless the director wrote it.

I’ll give you an example. One of the best writers in the finals is David Burton. Here’s the logline for his script, “The Misery Index:” A terminally ill, improvident father spends the last day of his life touring NYC with his estranged daughter, and has only a few hours to right a lifetime of wrongs…and make 1.2 million dollars.

David is an extremely talented writer (his script made the Top 50 of the Nicholl competition). But as I’m reading the script, I’m imagining trying to sell this movie every step of the way – to production houses, to financiers, to distributors, and, ultimately, to you, the people who pay for it, and I’m thinking, “That’s going to be one long difficult journey. Even if I do everything perfect, it’s still going to be a hard sell.”

Let me make something clear: I’m not saying it couldn’t happen. I told David himself that it’s a juicy part for an actor. If you can get someone big to play the main role, the film could get financed. But when I compare it to, say, one of the scripts I read which I think could be the next Die Hard, the decision is easy. Every step of the way, it’s going to be people jumping over each other trying to get involved in that movie.

Look, I have my passion projects as well. Every director or producer has that idea they know isn’t designed to make money unless it’s perfect. But that’s kind of the point. People would rather play their own passion project lottery ticket than someone else’s. Which is why very few passion projects get through the system unless they’re directed by the directors who wrote them.

So while I know it isn’t the perfect way to decide what to write, it should be one of the tools you use to decide. Ask yourself, “Is this a concept that a producer – someone looking for something that has a good chance of moving through the system and getting made – would be interested in?” Because a common mistake screenwriters make is only looking at their screenplays as a writer. You should at least attempt to see what your project looks like through the eyes of those responsible for selling it.

Which segues perfectly into our next Amateur Showdown. Yes, that is right, we’ve got another Amateur Showdown on the horizon. Amateur Showdown has led to script sales, agents, managers, even movies getting made! So you bet your bottom dollar you’ll want to enter your latest script. What’s the genre going to be? Drumroll please……………………

Amateur Showdown Genre: HIGH CONCEPT
Where: Entries should be sent to carsonreeves3@gmail.com
What: Include title, genre, logline, why you think your script deserves a shot, and a PDF of your script!
Entries Due: Thursday, March 4, 6:00pm Pacific Time

I already know what you’re thinking. What does high concept mean, Carson??? High concept is an admittedly vague term so I’ll keep that in mind when I go through the entries. The basic idea is that it’s a movie concept, as Michael Bolton once famously stated, “with a big sexy hook.” A family that can’t make any noise or else they’ll be killed by monsters (A Quiet Place). A future where murderers are convicted before they’ve committed the act (Minority Report). A dinosaur island (Jurassic World). A man whose memory only goes back 8 minutes tries to solve his wife’s murder (Memento). A failed singer wakes up one day to learn the Beatles never existed and he’s the only person who remembers their songs (Yesterday). A high school girl and a serial killer switch bodies (Freaky). A woman is hunted down by her supposedly dead husband, who has figured out how to become invisible (The Invisible Man).

Not on any ‘high concept’ list would be movies like Ladybird, The Way Back, The Assistant, Moonlight, A Star is Born. I wouldn’t even consider Extraction high concept. A guy saving a kidnapped kid is far from a sexy hook. Ditto, John Wick. A hitman who comes out of retirement to kill a bunch of Russian mobsters is a very basic premise.

Character-driven ideas tend not to be high-concept. It’s sort of built into the term. A high-concept idea is going to be “concept” driven. Yes, there are a few examples of high-concept character-driven ideas. “Her” is one. A guy falls in love with his AI computer. That’s a character-driven hook. But this is kinda the business. Understanding big ideas that audiences would pay for is what separates the wheat from the chaff. So “getting it” is kinda the point.

Finally, an update on the contest. Here’s the plan. I’m going to announce the finalists on Friday. And because there were so many good scripts that didn’t make the finals for a variety of reasons, I’m going to review four ‘almost-made-it’ scripts next Monday-Thursday. And then, on that Friday, I will announce the winner of the contest.

If you’re someone in the industry looking for good material and good writers, you’re definitely going to want to mark these dates down. The level of writing in this contest is better than any contest I’ve ever done and it’s not even close. There was so much strong material. And I’m excited to introduce some of those writers to the world. So tune in Friday and all next week.

I can’t wait!!!

What I learned: I couldn’t leave this post without mentioning one more thing because it had such a huge effect on me this weekend. I single-handedly quit watching Your Honor due to the ASTHMA INHALER TROPE. The asthma inhaler trope is one of the single worst inventions in the history of storytelling. It has made its way all the way up to the “TOP 5 ANNOYING MOVIE CLICHES.” For those who haven’t seen the show, Brian Cranston’s character’s son has asthma. And an asthma inhaler. The actor who plays the son so overacts the asthma attacks that I turned the show off. I couldn’t do it anymore. They were that insanely annoying. I’m going to finish this off by making a plea to the screenwriting community to retire this trope. It is cliche. It is overdone. It is evil. And, worst of all, it’s unoriginal. Let 2021 be the death of asthma inhalers in screenwriting. Thank you.