It’s time for another edition of “Didn’t Get Picked.” It’s often debated how much query letters matter. I’m here to tell you that THEY DEFINITELY MATTER. As someone who receives a ton of queries (for Amateur Offerings, for The Scriptshadow 250), I  assure you, I can determine a lot from a query. In fact, I have an unofficial checklist of how I go from e-mail to full script read. It starts with me opening the e-mail. This is what happens next.

1) Can the writer put together basic sentences without any errors? If so, go to 2.
2) Is the query well-written? Does it display thought, care, passion? If so, go to 3.
3) Does the writer know how to write a proper logline? If so, go to 4.
4) Is the idea a good one? If so, go to 5.
5) Read the first page of the script. Does it pull you in? If so, go to 6.
6) Read until page 5. Is the script still keeping you interested? If so, go to 7.
7) Read until you get bored. If you’ve done your job, I will not want to put your script down until the last page.

Obviously, you can’t get to number 7 without first getting through numbers 1-4. I’d say about 50% of the queries I read don’t get past number 2. But if you get past number 2, there’s a good chance you know a good idea from a bad one. Or that you can at least craft a solid logline. So, many who get past 2 at least get me to read their first page. Of the people who get that first-page read, I’d say 25% of them get past number 6 (read at least five pages). Of those who get that far, I’d say I finish about 5% of those scripts. And I’m guessing the industry average is similar.

The lesson here being that nobody even touches your script unless your query letter and logline are solid. The frustrating thing about this is that writers don’t receive queries. So they have little reference for what it’s like to read a query letter. How can you get good at something if you can’t study it? Well, that’s what today is about. I’m going to put up some real-life queries that were sent to me and explain why they didn’t make the cut. We’re not here to bash people or to tell them they suck. We’re here to help each other learn. Let’s get started!

SOCCERROCK by xxxx xxxxxx

A retired pro soccer player from the United States has his career
resurrected to help the British Secret Service capture an elusive
terrorist cell and Kris Sanderson is also reunited with Dead Egypt,
the world’s most famous heavy metal band.

The world’s most popular sport is soccer. More countries are
registered with soccer’s governing body, FIFA (Federation
International Football Association), than in the United Nations.
From the slums of Argentina, to the sub zero temperatures in Siberia,
someone is playing soccer as you read this. Since the days of Elvis
Presley, to the sold out stadiums featuring Metallica, rock & roll
music is a global phenomenon. When you combine these two genres, the
results are electric and this is truly an original concept. Almost
every soccer movie ever made involves kids and cute animals, and is
usually a G-RATED affair. Every other sport has films of a more adult
nature. Hockey has “SLAP SHOT”, baseball has “MAJOR LEAGUE”, football
has “THE LONGEST YARD”, and golf has “TIN CUP”, just to name a few
examples. Where is the great adult soccer movie?? Using my experiences
as a professional soccer player for twelve years, as well as being a
sports writer and roadie for rock bands, SOCCERROCK is an
action/adventure story that is void of all the corny formulas that
exist in every Hollywood soccer production.

You want to start out a query letter by introducing yourself. Even if it’s a quick introduction. To jump right into your logline without saying anything is jarring. I’ll excuse this if the writer uses my format preference (genre, title, logline, why you should read), but as you can see, that wasn’t the case here.  As it turns out, I didn’t have to read any further to know that the script was in trouble. As passionately as the writer pitches his project, the logline indicates a story so unfocused as to be unreadable. From my experience, if a one-sentence logline is unfocused, the script will be extremely unfocused. There are three separate ideas here. A soccer idea. A heavy metal band idea. And a British Secret Service idea. True, the mixing of these elements is what makes the idea unique, but that doesn’t matter if the script sounds all over the place. I’d encourage the writer to focus on one subject with his next script.

Hi,

thanks for taking the time to read this email (and hopefully the script). I’m a Welsh based writer working in the tv industry as an assistant director. For the past two years I’ve placed in the quarter finals of the Nicholls with this script, and have used the notes from them to improve the script to get it to a stage where I think its ready to be pushed out into the industry.

This is where you come in Mr. Reeves. Hopefully you’ll agree and feature this script on your website and offer some good notes. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Title: Big Red
Genre: Sci-Fi / Family
Logline: Erin is a child orphan who runs away with a fugitive robot to find a new home.

Okay, so this time we have someone who greets me! That’s good! Unfortunately, the first letter of the opening paragraph isn’t capitalized. That tells me the writer hastily sent this query out and therefore doesn’t care enough about the craft. Later I also see an “its” instead of the correct, “it’s,” and that pretty much ensures the submission won’t make the cut. I’m looking for writers who care, who take this seriously, and who put effort into the written word – ALL the written words. Finally, the logline doesn’t introduce any conflict into the story. Someone runs away with a robot. But then what happens to ruin their plan? You need to include the key conflict in your logline.

Carson,

Hope your weekend was productive. I’ve been a fan of your site for nearly five years. It’s been a huge part of my screenwriting education. Below are the details of my Amateur Offerings Weekend submission.

-MAQ

Title: Page Turn Her
Genre: Drama/Comedy

Logline: A love-struck ad writer finds a magical journal that controls his unrequited crush’s actions, but he hesitates using it because the men who get close to her have a tendency to die.

Why you should read: I’m a longtime Scriptshadow reader whose last script, “King of Matrimony,” made it into Amateur Offerings Weekend. Based on the comments, I thought it would have been selected. Regardless, this new script is better in every way.

I have to give it to Michael. The man is persistent! He consistently submits his script every week, so I feel like the least I can do is explain why I haven’t chosen him. This is actually a pretty strong query. Michael keeps the introduction brief and catches my attention with flattery (been a fan of the site for five years). He can obviously write a clean sentence. There isn’t anything wrong with the query itself. It’s when I get to the logline that I have a problem. The logline starts out as a sort of magical What Women Want type film (ad writer who finds a magical journal that allows him access to his crush) but then becomes something much darker at the end (people are dying??). Put simply, it feels like a confused idea. Making matters worse is that it’s listed as a “Drama/Comedy.” So in addition to the comedy element (magic journal) and thriller element (people dying who get too close), there’s also a dramatic element? I don’t know if this idea needs to be scrapped or Michael just needs someone to help him focus it. But for future reference, you want your idea to be clean and easy to understand. If it results in even the slightest bit of confusion, rethink it. Hopefully this helps, Michael. And keep writing!

Title: The Psycho Sweethearts Reality Show

Genre: Dark Comedy/Satire

Logline: A reality show follows newly wed husband and wife serial killers as they try to keep their sanity as their celebrity increases.

Writer: Writer’s Anonymous

Why You Should Read: I was chatting with a group of friends when reality shows came up. I watch NOT ONE currently and never will again which I’m extremely proud about when a idea hit me.

Hey, maybe, I would watch a reality show if it were on street gangs, mafia, drug cartels, serial killers, spies, banksters or even the Illuminati. That idea thoroughly cemented in my head, I decided to try this idea for my next script. Finished the first draft in a month and rewrote it a month or two later. I believe I have something “SPECIAL” for the Scriptshadow community though I readily admit may be a draft or two away.

Scriptshadow community, you’re happy to run with the other ideas if you want.

This is a superficial script on superficial couple in a superficial world and I need all the constructive criticism you can give me.

I tried to keep the formatting of the e-mail to show that it had 2-3 line spaces between each section but it wouldn’t stick. Wonky formatting is an easy way to dismiss a writer. If you want to know how your e-mail is being seen, open up another e-mail account (if you’re on gmail, get a Hotmail account) and send your query to that e-mail. It’s an easy way to see how your query looks.

There are some other red flags here as well. How are you going to write about something you know nothing about? Just about the only way to give us an authentic story is to know as much about your subject matter as possible. Case in point: I think there ARE reality shows for all the subjects he mentions but because he doesn’t know anything about reality shows, he doesn’t know that. This said to me this was more of an experiment than a script the writer actually cared about. The last sentence also has an error in it: “This is a superficial script on superficial couple in a superficial world…” Writers have to remember that this is a PROFESSION they’re trying to break into. So you have to present yourself and your script professionally. If you didn’t put 100% effort into a 200 word e-mail, there’s no way you put it into a 20,000 word screenplay.

Title of script: HIT YOURSELF

Genre: Thriller / Dark comedy

Logline: When a retired hitman is hunted by his former employers for refusing to kill a homeless witness, they murder his best friend, causing him to seek revenge by writing a book, exposing their secrets to the public. But when it fails to sell, he is forced to pick up the gun, one last time.

Why you should read my screenplay:
This being my very first attempt at screenwriting, I feel it is a good example of just how much one can learn within a six month period. While the story itself went through several changes, the characters do not let their fictional roots ruin their ability to feel real.
The ghetto / drug area setting is very real, as I used real life experiences for my backdrop.
My style differs from the everyday writer, as I tried to take risks which I knew could either lose the reader, or keep them interested.
The main story and subplot blend together nicely, with some great twists. The further you read, the more things make sense, and things you thought seemed pointless become clear, up to the final image.
Finally, while it is a fairly simple story, showing how karma really can be a bitch, no matter how guilty you feel for your actions, it still manages to challenge you, as you keep track of timeline jumps and plot points that make you realize that what you thought you knew, was wrong. Not everything is what it seems.
Thanks for your time!!
Phil Golub

This isn’t a bad query. But there are a few reasons I didn’t pick it. First, the logline is more summary than logline. A logline sets up your concept, your main character, and the main conflict. It’s very succinct.  This one rambles.  You can also spot some story issues within it. Everything seems okay when we’re talking about a hitman being hunted, but then all of a sudden someone is writing a book? And we have to wait for that book to be released before the real story can begin? Writing and releasing a book takes, what? 6-12 months? What are we doing in the story during that time? Watching the character write? That’s not going to sell any tickets. You could do a time jump over this period, of course, but then you have a big weird time jump in the middle of your movie. Hitmen movies shouldn’t have time jumps. They should happen within a contained time frame.  Imagine if Taken had a 1 year jump at the midpoint.  It wouldn’t be Taken.  As if to confirm my fears, the writer than tells me this is his first screenplay. I get that some people use Amateur Friday to learn. But you don’t want to tell anyone this is your first script in a query. Everybody in the business knows that first scripts are terrible (with the rare exception – usually from writers who have written in other mediums). So the query reader immediately loses faith in you. Finally, the “why you should read” reads too formal (“I feel it is a good example of just how…). There’s a lack of freedom to the writing that tells me the script will feel the same. Writing should feel effortless to the reader, not like you’re proving a point in a senior thesis.

To all the writers whose queries I featured today: Don’t let any of this discourage you. You’re now armed with more knowledge so that your next script and  next query will be better. As long as you love screenwriting and dedicate yourself to it, you’ll eventually write something great and pitch it perfectly. But you need these speed bumps along the way to learn how to do it right.

Genre: Action
Premise: A group of hot-shot car enthusiasts help a secret government black ops group take down a terrorist, all while avoiding the vengeful brother of a man they put in the hospital.
About: This is the latest installment of The Fast & The Furious phenomenon, and easily the most talked about. That’s because one of its key actors, Paul Walker, died, ironically, in an unrelated car accident during shooting. They had to stop production for a few months to rewrite the script, since they only shot half of Walker’s scenes. They eventually brought in Walker’s lookalike brothers to finish the film, and went to Peter Jackson’s WETA digital effects company to do some cut and paste jobs with Walker’s face. The film came out this weekend and was the first to make 9 gablillion dollars at the box office.
Writer: Chris Morgan
Details: 137 minutes

So let me see if I got this right. Michelle Rodriquez has amnesia and can’t remember she’s married to Vin Diesel. A guy named Deckard Shaw, who’s part of a double secret probation London Black Ops organization, destroys a hospital because he’s mad that they’re not giving his patient brother enough attention. He then leaves his brother in said burning hospital to go fight the people who hurt his brother in the first place.

There’s an international terrorist named Mose Jakanda who’s kidnapped a hacker who’s created something called the “eye in the sky” which can find anybody in the world within two hours. Snake Plissken, who’s now an army general for an American Black Ops team that specializes in having really expensive cars around, promises to help Vin Diesel get Deckard Shaw before Shaw gets him if he’ll go reverse-kidnap the hacker who created the eye in the sky.

The thing is, this new terrorist only travels on roads that are inaccessible to cars (huh?) so Vin’s crew has to parachute the cars onto the road via plane only. After Vin steals the hacker back from the terrorist, Deckard Shaw shows up to try to kill Vin, despite not having access to a plane that parachutes cars out of it. Vin survives, and somewhere around this point I realize that I’ve never seen Furious 6 even though I was absolutely positive I had.

For reasons that never become clear, Mose Jakanda teams up with another American Black Ops unit that has access to predator drones and uses one of these drones to stalk Vin and his buddies in Los Angeles. In the meantime, Deckard Shaw, who it’s still not clear if he’s working with Jakanda or just always shows up when he’s around, also attends this Los Angeles showdown, where he corners Vin on the top of a parking garage and fights him with crowbars, all while Tyrese yells a series of phrases through an unknown radio channel that all basically amount to, “Oh hell no! That shit did not just happen!”

To try and hold Furious 7 up to the standards of proper screenplays is kind of like trying to hold the McDonald’s drive-thru guy who needs you to repeat your order three times up to a Michelin chef. It’s not really fair.

And that’s a problem. Young screenwriters who want to write cool action movies are going to see this and think it’s what you need to write to sell an action spec. It’s not. Furious 7 is a series of set-pieces held together by threads so loose, they feel like an autistic child trying to socialize at a birthday party.

There’s a desperation as characters try to explain what they’re doing, and despite the writer’s best attempts to distract us from this reality (distractions that are almost always Tyrese yelling something like, “Oh hell no! This shit is WHACK!”), it’s clear that unless action is involved, Furious 7 is like a hipster at a biker bar.

So I’m watching all this go down and wondering, like many in Hollywood, what makes these films so successful. They started out doing solid numbers, but the third installment was a B movie and made 27 dollars at the box office. Episodes 4-7, though, became box office titans, competing with the most powerful comic book properties for yearly domination.

You might say, “Well yeah, it’s got hot women and fast cars. Of course it’s going to do well.” Ehh, but so did Need for Speed. Why didn’t that film do Furious numbers? Or you might say, “Duh, it’s because of Vin Diesel.” The problem with that theory is that Diesel isn’t exactly tearing it up at the box office outside of the Furious films.

And then, as I was watching this film, it came to me like a ray of light shining through a lone hole in the clouds. It’s no secret that the franchise plays extremely well to Latinos (they make up the highest audience for the films at 37%). What do Latinos value over everything else? Family. Family is extremely important to the Latino culture. What are the Fast and Furious films about? You got it. Family. The Fast and Furious group considers themselves a family. The characters are getting married and creating families. Vin’s sister is married to Paul Walker.  Paul Walker’s character now has a child. The Rock reveals he has a kid in the movie. The word “family” is uttered somewhere in the neighborhood of 732 times (Vin Diesel to Shaw: “I don’t got friends.  I got family.”).

There’s no doubt that fast cars and hot women are going to bring in moviegoers. But for a film to become a phenomenon, there’s got to be something more to it. You got to find a way to connect with the audience on another level. Here, that level is emotion. It’s the importance of family that makes this franchise more than a bunch of car chases.

And this is actually good news for writers. For everyone who thinks you have to sell your soul to break into Hollywood – this proves that audiences want to connect on a deeper level with their movies. Do I think Furious 7 rivals the emotional intensity of, say, The Imitation Game? No. But the fans of this series obviously do.

Now before you go off to write Terms of Endearment with cars, let’s back up to the make-or-break component of any action script – the set pieces. The key to writing a saleable action spec is to write set pieces that haven’t been seen before. So here we have cars jumping out of planes. We have cars jumping from skyscraper to skyscraper. These were things we hadn’t seen before. They were stupid fun – sure – but they were original stupid fun.

If you’re going to accomplish anything in your action script, make sure it’s to give us UNIQUE SET PIECES. If I read a set-piece in a script that I’ve already seen before, I’m done with that script. Just like in a horror script, you have to give us unique scares. Just like in a thriller script, you have to give us unique thrills. In an action script, the one job you gotta get right is to write unique action.

Speaking of action, I want to finish with a warning to all future action writers out there. Beware of writing huge crews into your action scripts. As convoluted as the plotting here was, I have to give it to Chris Morgan for juggling all these characters. In each action scene, he was usually cutting between a dozen different characters. For any of you who’ve had to write scenes like this, you know how difficult it is to keep track of that many people.

Usually, you only have one or two featured segments in an action scene. But if you have 12 characters, you now have to keep the audience abreast of where they all are. You can’t just focus on the Vin Diesel part for the whole 10 minutes and then show Michelle Rodriquez at the very end or everyone will go, “Where the hell was she the whole time?” This forces you to come with things for everyone to do. And the more people you’re cutting between, the harder to follow everything is.

If you have a clear goal (get the hacker from the bus) a set piece can survive this complexity. But if the goal is even mildly unclear (as is the case with Furious 7’s climax – why the hell was a terrorist coming to Los Angeles again????), cutting between that many people can destroy the sequence. It’s yet another reason to celebrate movies like Star Wars. They make it so damn clear what the ending goal is that the set piece can survive any level of complexity.

Now you might think with all this criticism that I hated Furious 7. Actually, that’s not true. As sketchy as the screenwriting is here, the action is borderline amazing. Like I said before – we see things in this movie that we’ve never seen before. And this installment of the franchise seems to be more reliant on real stunts than the others, making for a much more realistic experience. I mean they really did drop cars out of planes for that plane drop sequence. I’m not sending any aspiring screenwriters to the theater to study Furious 7’s script. But if you want to enjoy the hell out of some amazing action, there are worse ways to spend your evening.

[ ] what the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Figure out who you’re targeting and write what matters to that group into your screenplay. The writers and producers of Furious 7 realized they were targeting the Latino audience here, so they focused the story on family. A few years ago, The Blindside knew it was targeting Christians, so it infused a lot of Christian values into the script. Know who you’re writing to and then give that group what they relate to.

Genre: Crime-Thriller
Premise: An alcoholic woman who becomes obsessed with a couple whose home she passes every day on the train, is convinced she knows what happened when the woman in the relationship goes missing.
About: This is Paula Hawkins’ first official novel, but she has written a few chick-lit books under a pseudonym, although you couldn’t’ get her to tell you the titles if you tried. A former financial analyst and journalist, Hawkins explains The Girl On The Train as her last-ditch attempt at becoming a novelist. Hawkins says of how she came up with the idea: “I used to commute when I was a journalist, from the edges of London. I loved looking into people’s houses. The train went really close by apartments, so you could see in. I never saw anything shocking, but I wondered, if you saw anything out of the ordinary, an act of violence, who would you tell and would anyone believe you?” Dreamworks has optioned the book, although the film doesn’t have a star or director attached yet. That could change soon. The book now has 10,000 Amazon reviews (Gone Girl had 20,000 when David Fincher became attached).
Writer: Paula Hawkins
Details: 326 pages

Just Monday we had a guest author chime in on how much freedom one has when writing a novel – being able to play with the narrative, taking different points of view – and boy does today’s novel support that claim.

There will be, of course, people who shrug The Girl On The Train off as a Gone Girl clone, a book that came along at just the moment Gone Girl movie mania was sweeping the nation. The novel, like Gone Girl, is a crime-thriller, takes us through different points of view in regards to a missing woman, and, in case you hadn’t noticed, has the word “Girl” in the title.

But what might surprise you is that “Train” is better than Gone Girl. I don’t say that easily. Gone Girl’s amazing first half and mid-point twist help it win the “first half of the book” award. But whereas Gone Girl starts running out of steam once it leads to its inevitable conclusion, “Train” only gets better as its climax approaches.

That was always my big problem with Gone Girl – the book, and then the movie. As much as Gillian Flynn tried to convince us that her dark weird ending was the way she preferred it, it was clear that she simply wrote herself into a corner – confirmed later in an interview where she confesses to not outlining – one of the most important aspects in writing a great ending. The Girl On The Train has no such issues.

Middle-aged Rachel Watson has pretty much given up on life. She ruined her marriage to the perfect man by drinking too much, then watched as he moved into the arms of a younger prettier woman. Rachel moved out of town, got fat, and now rides the train every day to a job she doesn’t have anymore, but which she must pretend to have in order to keep her flatmate from kicking her out of her apartment.  And oh yeah, she’s rarely sober.

The lone light in Rachel’s life is Jason and Jess, a perfect couple who live in a house she passes on the train every day. The two are always outside, kissing, hugging, living that perfect life Rachel once had. Of course, their real names aren’t Jason and Jess. Those are the pretend names Rachel has given them, which seems appropriate, given her happiness exists only in a fantasy world she creates.

Rachel first noticed Jason and Jess because their home is a few houses down from where she used to live. Her ex-husband still lives there, now with his perfect replacement wife, Anne. Rachel would like to say that she’s a big girl who’s moved on from that world. But the truth is, she gets drunk every night and stalks her husband, both on the phone and at the house. We learn very quickly that Rachel isn’t exactly… stable.

Then one day, everything changes. As she’s passing by in the train, she sees “Jess” outside her house with ANOTHER MAN. Her fantasy world destroyed, she’s unable to process this information for days. However, it’s what happens after that really shakes her foundation. “Jess” goes missing, and no one has any information on what happened to her. No one, that is, but Rachel.

Rachel, excited to actually have a purpose in life again, goes to the police to inform them about the man she saw outside with “Jess” (real name: Megan). But they dismiss her as a sad middle-aged drunk woman. It’s for this reason that Rachel must take on the case by herself.  Well, at least in her opinion that is.

The book jumps back and forth between the points of view of Anne (Rachel’s replacement), Megan (the missing woman before she goes missing), and of course, Rachel. What makes the investigation so fascinating is that Rachel is wasted half the time, so she’s just about the most unreliable narrator ever.

She wakes up each morning only vaguely remembering the night before, making her investigation a puzzle where all the pieces are upside-down. The whole time we’re excited as we get closer to the answer. But we’re always wondering: Can we really trust anything we know here? Or is Rachel just a sad lonely woman who’s making this all up?  Or is the answer much worse?  Could Rachel somehow be… involved?

Michelle Williams, Hawkins’ dream acting choice for Rachel.

Whether you’re writing a novel or a screenplay, there’s one thing you’ll almost certainly need to succeed – and that’s a compelling main character. I don’t know if characters get more compelling than Rachel Watson. Imagine being inside the mind of a train wreck who does the most horrible things, but can justify each and every one of them, and maybe even convince you they’re not so terrible too.

At one point in the story, Rachel steals a baby. Let me repeat that. THE MAIN CHARACTER STEALS A BABY. And we still root for her!

Sound impossible? Well, there’s a bit of a trick going on here. In a movie, it’s hard to have a character do something like steal a baby and the audience root for them. That’s because we only see their actions. We’re not in their head with them. Girl On The Train has the advantage of placing us inside Rachel’s head. So when she explains WHY she steals the baby, it doesn’t sound all that crazy. I mean, she still shouldn’t have done it. But we can at least understand what she was thinking at the time.

This is why you’ll often hear voice over in movies when bad characters are the protagonists. The writers know you’ll never justify their actions from afar. But if you’re in their head with them, it’s possible to understand where they’re coming from. (House of Cards Season 2 spoilers). For example, in House of Cards, Frank Underwood is always talking directly to us, explaining why he’s doing the horrible things he’s doing. So even though we might not agree with him, we see where he’s coming from. When he throws Zoe Barnes into a train, killing her, a few words explaining how dangerous she was makes the pill a lot easier to swallow. And “Train’s” Rachel Watson benefits from this same “first person perspective” halo.

Another reason we’re lenient towards this character’s terrible tendencies is because she’s ACTIVE. Readers and audiences like characters who DO STUFF. Characters who are passive, who watch the world go by and do nothing, we have no patience for these wallflowers. But no matter how “bad” someone is, if they’re at least trying to do something, we’ll want to see if they succeed. And Rachel, while not exactly Sherlock Holmes, throws herself into this investigation with gusto. She wants to solve the mystery, so of course we want to see if she pulls it off.

In addition to this, Rachel is, at her core, doing a good thing. She’s trying to solve a murder. Sure she’s lying to everybody. Sure she steals babies. Sure she gets blackout drunk every night. Sure she stalks her ex-husband and leaves 20 screaming voicemails on his phone every night. But she’s trying to solve a murder and expose a killer.

As crazy as it sounds, I’ve read versions of this story where there is no killing. There’s just a drunk main character who stumbles around the city feeling sorry for him/herself the whole time. I’m much less inclined to root for that character than I am one who wants to solve a murder, who has an honorable goal to execute.

I don’t want to spoil too much here because the brilliance of this book is in its surprises, but I will leave you with one more thing. MAKE YOUR CHARACTERS LIARS. Everything becomes so much more interesting when people are hiding things. Part of the deliciousness in Girl On The Train is that Rachel lies to everyone. Seeing if she’s going to get caught is part of the fun.

For instance, when she approaches “Jason,” the missing girl’s husband, to let him know that she saw “Jess” with another man, she can’t tell him that she’s watched them every day for the past two years on the train. That would make her sound crazy, right? So she makes up a little lie about knowing “Jess” from her art gallery. Of course, as their relationship grows, Jason requires more information about her friendship with Jess, and Rachel is forced to add more to the lie. At a certain point, she’s locked into a story that’s completely made up. And when that story gets exposed to other people, like the cops, Rachel has to come up with more lies to explain away that lie.

I know a lot of you don’t have time to read books but this one reads like a screenplay. It’s really fast. And I highly recommend it.

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

What I learned: Use LIES WITH LEGS over simple lies. A simple lie can result in a fun scene. Frank secretly takes some money from his wife to go gambling, comes home to see his wife home early, she asks him where her money is, and he makes up a lie. The lie doesn’t quite make sense to her, so she questions him about it. The suspense comes from whether he’ll talk his way out of the suspicion or not. But a much more powerful lie is a lie that has legs. It’s a lie that the character HAS TO KEEP BUILDING ON. That’s what’s so great about Girl on The Train. Rachel tells all these little lies. But they’re lies that matter in a detail-oriented missing-woman’s search. So they’re brought up again and again to her (How does she know “Jess” exactly?) and she has to come up with more lies to cover for her previous lies. That’s one of the areas where this book really shined. A lie was never just a simple lie. It was forced to keep growing.

Genre: TV Pilot – Action/Apocalypse/Martial-Arts
Premise: A century after the fall of society, a large swath of land known as The Badlands is being fought over by bands of gangsters. Gangsters who know kung-fu.
About: AMC has only ordered three shows straight to series. Better Call Saul, The Walking Dead, and this one. The show comes from the unlikely duo of Al Gough and Miles Millar, who created Smallville, a very successful show, but not traditionally one that gets the ultra picky execs at AMC to go green-light crazy. It must have been the pitch of the season. The show is slated to come out this fall.
Writers: Al Gough & Miles Millar
Details: 59 pages

It’s Tuesday which means it’s Carson TV recap day. I finished House of Cards Season 3 this weekend and… wow. Can somebody tell me what in the Declaration of Independence happened to that show? What had previously been a masterfully crafted political expose about Machevellian manipulation covering a half-dozen captivating storylines devolved into a plodding mist of unfocused yuckiness.

You turn your ruthless main character – the whole reason we watched the show! – into a sniveling cajones-less whiner? You focus on macro plot elements devoid of drama (Will Russia be our friends??)? You change your minds throughout the season (Frank’s not running for president. Oh wait, yes he is!)? And you destroy the one relationship we love above all else – Frank and Claire? I think I speak for the people of America when I say: What the hell were you thinking???

The thing is, I’m actually a little relieved. The previous two seasons were so well written they made writing look near-impossible. If this was the standard amateur writers were being held to, they had no shot at breaking in. The way the show would deftly pay off in episode nine something it had set up in episode two showed just how much thought and effort went into the construction of this saga. Every single storyline and character had bite, had a point, had a say in the bigger picture. Shakespeare himself would’ve had a tough time making this writing staff. To see all that come crumbling down like – sorry, but I have to say it – a “house of cards,” proves just how difficult this craft is. There is no secret pill. Nothing comes easy. If you want to write something great, you must continue to work your butt off and push yourself.

Looking at the situation a little closer gives us more insight into what may have happened here. House of Cards was originally picked up for two seasons. It’s no surprise, then, that they wrote two seasons worth of great material. The third season was the first season they had to write on the fly. And that may be why they couldn’t even write their own John Hancock. I have more respect than ever for TV writers now, as House of Cards proves how difficult it is to keep the campaign afloat. The writers of Breaking Bad, Lost, The Good Wife – keeping the story compelling for that long and with that kind of consistency is a huge coup. Let’s hope House of Cards learns from its mistakes and rebounds for Round 4.

Speaking of good writing, there’s no other network that cares more about writing than AMC. They’ve been chastised for their gladiator style “bake-off” contest where in-development scripts battle for a shot on the channel’s roster. But what’s wrong with a little healthy competition, no? The channel has been aching for another apocalypse show (they wrote another one which I liked quite a bit – but it ultimately ended up being too weird for them), and this genre-friendly horse looks to be who they’re putting their money on. Let’s see if it’s worth the bet.

Who knows how long ago society crumbled? It doesn’t matter to these men. All that matters is the area known as the Badlands, a large expanse of dirt disputed by a handful of feudal-like lords known as Barons. The one we follow, a man named Quinn, is getting ready to transfer his town over to a new leader, either his temperamental biological son, Ryder, or his adopted son, Sunny.

It is Sunny who is out in the Badlands one day, checking on a slave transport Quinn sent out earlier, when he finds that everyone in the transport has been slaughtered. Sunny tracks down the rival gang who did it, and learns that, for some reason, they saved a single teenage boy (M.K.). In an epic martial arts battle, Sunny takes down the gang all by himself.

He then takes M.K. back to town and places him in the Clipper program, a training ground for the town’s soldiers. Meanwhile, the town prepares for Quinn’s third marriage (polygamy in the future baby!) but Quinn’s given bad news that night. He’s got cancer. This means he’ll have to transfer his kingdom over sooner than he wants.

When Ryder gets this information, he knows he has a job to do. The only way he’s taking over the town is if he takes down Sunny. But he’ll have to do so in the shadows. He can’t risk being seen killing the chosen one. Public Relations 101.

The increasingly mysterious M.K. escapes town and is captured by Quinn’s rival, a ruthless woman named “The Widow,” bequeathed her position by killing her husband and all her children. Sunny and Ryder will need to work together to take The Widow down, but they’re surprised when it’s actually M.K. who saves the day. This is just the beginning of what will surely be an epic battle to control… the Badlands.

Let me start off by mentioning the action-writing style here, which was very unique. Typically, fight scenes are written in short staccato-like clips to keep the eyes moving down the page quickly – mirroring the pace of the fight.  But these guys write in much bigger 5-6 line chunks, breaking them up with a single word, usually the name of a character (that the camera is focused on) before moving on to the next chunk.

 It’s not something I’m used to but it was strangely pleasing. The blocks of writing were all so uniform, they created a balance to the page that grew on me. I’m not sure I would recommend anyone else trying this, but it worked in this case.

On the story side, Badlands uses a formula that’s been growing in popularity. We have the leader of an empire who’s getting ready to pass his empire down to someone new. This is the perfect plot point for a TV show because it packs a one-two-punch into the story’s longevity. The first season is about the young guys jockeying for position to take over the job (in this case, Ryder and Sunny) and the second season is the aftermath of the takeover.

Both situations can fill a season’s worth of material (of course, if you’re smart, you can extend it to three seasons by having the cancer go into remission for the current leader, allowing him to keep his spot for season 2) which is great. You’ve seen what happens when you don’t have a clear plan for a season (ahem, House of Cards). They’re doing this exact same thing on Empire and, if I remember correctly, they’re doing something similar with the FX show, Tyrant, as well.

Another teachable moment is how the writers handle the martial arts. Many amateur writers coming into this situation would have focused solely on writing great martial arts action scenes. Gough and Millar know that the martial arts scenes, just like the zombies in The Walking Dead, are secondary. They mean nothing unless you set up a compelling world first.

So this pilot sets up the mythology (the rules for the Badlands), it sets up Quinn’s town and how it operates, and it sets up the key relationships, such as the conflict between Sunny and Ryder and the bitter head-butting between Quinn’s multiple wives. These are the things you want to focus on when you’re writing a pilot. Not the action. Sure, you’ll write action scenes, but they’ll emerge naturally from the storyline.

Badlands is a pretty solid script. My only fear is that it may be too simplistic. JJ Abrams would not be a fan, as the number of mystery boxes here is limited. When I finish a pilot, I like to have 4 or 5 unanswered questions to look forward to. This script really only has one – the mystery of M.K. It feels like they could’ve gone a little further than that. Nonetheless, it’s a good pilot.

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

What I learned: I don’t know if this lesson is specific to AMC or not. But it’s worth noting if you’re writing a pilot. I asked myself, why is it that AMC passed its beloved bake-off competition with Badlands and gave it only the second straight-to-series order for an original show in the channel’s history? The answer is the same reason that they greenlit The Walking Dead straight-to-series. Gough and Millar took a genre that’s been popular in the feature world but is yet to be translated into a television series – the martial arts flick. That was really smart. So if there’s a movie genre out there that’s never been turned into a TV show before, you might want to scout it out and see if it’s ready for a transition.

Hey everyone, Carson here.  I’m out of the office today (found an amazing script and helping the writer get representation!) so I’m putting up a guest article from my friend, Phil Taffs.  Phil is someone who has tried and been frustrated with the screenwriting game.  After seeing all these book authors become superstars, both in the literary and film world, he decided to give novel writing a shot, and has finished his first book, The Evil Inside.  I asked him to share his experience so here it is.  Don’t worry.  I’m not telling you to stop writing screenplays (case in point, finding that screenwriter above).  I do think, however, that writers should keep all avenues open.  Especially since I just read a GREAT novel which I’ll be reviewing Wednesday.  In the meantime, here’s Phil!

Why not turn your screenplay into a novel?

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know: There’s a certain inevitable cookie cutter-dom that comes with writing – then trying to sell – your precious screenplay.

Cue Nazi Commandant accent: “IT MUST HAVE: 120 pages; present tense; snappy (and now often ho-hum wise-ass) dialogue; 3 distinct Acts; clear character arcs; broad brushstrokes scene-setting…”

As you know – from all those hundreds of screenwriting books you’ve read and dozens of seminars you’ve attended – it’s a “formula”. And with all those baking instructions, it’s very hard to make your screenplay turn out any different, better or tastier than any other screenplay in your genre.

And unless you have a high-powered agent or a ton of studio contacts, getting past first base is far from a sure thing. 

So here’s a wild thought: could your hot new (but indistinguishable) screenplay become a hot new novel instead?

For a start, with a novel, length can be as long or as short as a piece of string: from 1400 battle-scarred pages of War & Peace to the short and savage In the Cut or Less than Zero. From the doorstop Dystopia of The Passage to the lightweight but still heavy-hitting 1984 or Bright Lights, Big City.

Then within those highly flexible pages, you can write whatever you goddamn want! If you’ve already developed a good story for your screenplay, why not let it out of its 120-page cage and encourage it to roam free and frolic?

Because if you’re writing a novel, you can now extend and embellish those descriptions; deepen and refine your characterizations; play more games with your plot; (like introducing some more nifty sub-plots); key in more surprises and/or suspense; indulge in a little more lyricism; and in general just feel a whole lot more liberated and open-minded about your story.

Tired of living in the eternal present tense of your screenplay? In a novel, you can play around with the present, the past, the future, the pluperfect, future perfect, the imperfect…. The novel is a time machine and it’s heaps of fun to pull the levers up and down.

As long as you have a great story – this is the key – then with some extra effort and ingenuity – it’s possible to skin it either way: as a script or a novel.

(Or maybe even something else again: Baz Luhrman’s Strictly Ballroom was a hit play in 1984, a great film in 1992 and now it’s a super-successful 2015 musical.)

As the brilliant novelist and Oscar-winning screenwriter John Irving said: writing is rewriting. The more you’re thinking about and refining your story, the better it will get.

No matter what form it ends up in.

What’s to lose?

You already have your screenplay – it’s not going anywhere.

So you can still try to sell that while turning it into a novel. And while you’re working on the novel, you’ll probably think of ways of improving your story that you can then also retrofit back into your screenplay as you go along… It’s a win-win.

Two years ago, Australian writer, Graeme Simsion, wrote a comic screenplay called ‘The Rosie Project’ – about an eccentric university professor who takes a left-field approach to finding love.

He decided to refashion it into a novel. The publisher sold world rights for $1.8 million dollars, Bill Gates gave it a blurb and Sony Pictures have just optioned it.

Like his character, Simsion’s left-field approach has paid off big-time.

A novel will become your calling card.

If you do manage to write and get a novel published then that’s going to help you sell your next screenplay.

Because hey, unlike all the other wannabe hacks out there, this guy/girl has actually written a book! So they must know about story. So it’s probably worth reading their new script as well…

With a novel under your belt, you immediately sound more impressive and credible than the thousands of other screenwriters you’re competing against.

So your next script is far more likely to get read and noticed.

Change horses for the hell of it.

You’ve already written one or a number of scripts – you know what that feels like.

Got a great new story idea? This time, why not try writing it as a novel instead?

Just for the experience. Just for the hell of it.

Even if the novel doesn’t pan out, you can always refashion it into a screenplay. Think of it as a longish first draft!

Writing a novel is great practice for scene-setting – always important for your future screenplays.

You might write a scene or sub-plot that becomes a whole other script.

It’s all good practice.

Grist for your artistic and commercial mill.

How I did it 

Now I’m not for one second suggesting that writing a novel is any easier than writing a screenplay. And it’s definitely not any quicker.

The average length of a script is 95-125 pages whereas the average length of a novel is 80,000 – 95,000 words – or 300 to 400 pages.

That’s a whole lot of extra words, scenes, characters, themes, issues, challenges, and complexities to deal with.

Not to worry: the more you write, the better you’ll get – whether you’re working on a novel or your next script… again – what’s to lose?

The road to getting my novel published is a story in itself: I began writing my psych-horror ‘The Evil Inside’ in 2003. After writing more than ten separate drafts, I was rejected by more than 70 publishers across three continents.

In desperation, I decided (kicking and screaming) to self-publish. After selling all of 30 copies to family and friends, I invested USD $425 in getting an independent Kirkus Review. (Even though you pay for the review, they are very well-respected because the reviews are more often critical than praiseworthy.)

The gods must have been smiling: I got a great review and used that as ammunition to approach a new batch of British publishers. One of whom – Quercus, publishers of the famous ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ series – took the bait and signed me up.

Now of course your road to publication will undoubtedly be different to mine. But there are a few handy hints you can draw from my experience:

1 Think laterally: you’re very unlikely to get picked up by the first, tenth or even hundredth publisher you submit to.

2 Follow up any lead you get from anyone: determination is the bedfellow of luck.

3 Never, ever give up.

4 Never, ever give up. (That’s really worth repeating.)

No less a luminary than Cate Blanchett suggested I turn ‘The Evil Inside’ into a screenplay instead as I was still writing it…

But I have to tell you: the Elf Queen was wrong. As an unknown quantity as a writer, that screenplay would never have got up…whereas my novel is now selling solidly across a number of continents.

And now US producers are considering it.

Sorry I gotta go: I hear the phone ringing…

Philip Taffs has worked as an advertising copywriter in his native Australia for over twenty years. — He is a PEN prize-winning short story writer, and lives in Melbourne with his wife and his two sons. — The Evil Inside published by Quercus Books UK is his first novel.