I want to keep giving you inspiration and advice for The Last Great Screenwriting Contest. So here are ten things I commonly see when I’m reading a good script.

1) An unobtrusive writing style – Too many screenwriters want you to know that they’re a WRITER. They want to describe everything beautifully. They want every scene to be dense and self-important, all the things that prove how serious and strong of a writer one is. I can tell you from experience that these tend to be the hardest reads. They take a lot longer. They’re not fun to read. Good writers understand the burden of the reader and try and make the script as easy to read as possible. Sparse prose. Never adding more than is necessary. Keeping the story moving. These are the fun scripts to read. Now there will always be a difference between a script like Buried and a script like Gladiator. Gladiator obviously requires more description. Still, you always want to keep the reader in mind. When was the last time you finished reading an entire script? I’m guessing except for a couple of dozen of you, it’s been a while. Why didn’t you finish it? Because at a certain point it became more ‘work’ to get through the script than ‘fun.’ Don’t make the same mistake on your script.

2) A first scene that creates a sense of mystery – If you took everything I’ve ever written on this site about the importance of your first scene, it would probably be as long as Lord of the Rings. And yet, day in and day out, I continue to read screenplays with bad first scenes. So the message isn’t getting through. What I’ve noticed is that I often get pulled into scripts where the first scene creates a sense of mystery. There’s some question that’s been posed and I need to keep reading to find out the answer. For example, one of my favorite recent scripts is The Traveler. In that script, we start off with a man driving, and then slowly, bit by bit, his car begins to disappear, until it’s gone and he’s floating through the air all by himself, still in the driving position, then he tumbles to the ground and rolls to a stop. When I read a scene like that, I want to know what’s going on. And that gets me to keep reading.

3) Conflict in dialogue – One of the quickest ways for me to dismiss a script is when I read really on-the-nose dry dialogue. Dialogue that doesn’t have any sense of spark. The characters are speaking more to establish themselves or push the plot along than they are actually having a conversation. One of the easiest ways to up your dialogue game is to inject conflict into every dialogue scene. It doesn’t have to be over-the-top conflict. But something that forces the characters to work something out. There’s an imbalance in the moment and the only way that it’s going to re-balance is if the characters hash it out. In The Menu, one of my favorite scripts from last year, we start with two people on a mysterious date (yup, we get another first scene with a sense of mystery!). He’s freaking out because, wherever it is they’re going, it’s important to him. His date, meanwhile, is trying to relax him. And the more she tries to relax him, the more revved up he gets. Note how this isn’t some huge dramatic argument. That’s not what we’re looking for in every dialogue scene. But there’s an imbalance here that the characters are working out. There’s conflict to play with.

4) An organic conflict within your hero – Characters are always more interesting when they’re fighting an inner battle. If everything is neat and clean inside your hero, why would we be interested in them? The great thing about inner conflict is it can literally be about anything. But a trick to find it is to ask yourself, “What is the first thing my character wakes up in the morning anxious about?” That should lead you to your inner conflict. We can go as far back as Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate. The second we meet him, he’s graduated college and HE HAS NO IDEA WHAT HE WANTS TO DO WITH HIS LIFE. That’s the conflict that eats at him every day. More recently, we have Arthur from Joker. He’s trying to figure out how to connect with the world yet he has no idea how. Every day he wakes up trying to figure out that equation. Obviously, the conflicts will be lighter in lighter genres, like comedies. But a quick way to make characters stand out is to give them an interesting inner conflict.

5) A good scene writer – Recently I read a script where the first 30 pages consisted of scenes that were barely a page long. The script moved quickly but the pacing was odd. We were always moving on before anything got going. Conversely, I read another script where all of the scenes were 8-10 pages. Shockingly, they were just as incomplete, as the characters were always prattling on without a point. I know I’m reading a good writer when one of the first few scenes in the script is its own complete compelling thing. It’s got a point (characters with a goal). It has a beginning – a setup to the scene that lets us know what it’s about. It has a middle – conflict between characters and obstacles that come up. And it has an end – the scene’s own little climax. These writers understand that scenes are like mini-movies which need to entertain the readers in and unto themselves. If every scene is an entertaining little movie then it’s impossible for the reader to get bored.

6) A sense of purpose – Good writers know that every scene is a piece of the puzzle and, therefore, must be pushing towards the puzzle’s completion. There is a noticeable focus to each scene that indicates the writer knows exactly where he or she is taking you. On the flip side, you have writers who think scripts are places to figure their story out. They might get an idea on page 20 and let that dictate where the story goes next. When you write this way, 99 times out of 100, your script will lack focus. It will read like you’re not sure what story you’re telling but, hopefully, along the way, you’ll figure it out. When you hear that a script displays confidence, it is always in reference to writers who have a deft command of their story and it’s clear, every step of the way, they know where they’re taking you. By the way, it’s perfectly okay to seek out tangents in early drafts. But not at all okay to do it in your final draft.

7) A steady stream of unexpected choices – This is something I harp on all the time on the site. But it truly is one of the easiest ways for me to tell if a script is going to be good or not. If a plot development or scene or character in the story comes up and the writer chooses to write something that 95 out of 100 writers would’ve written, I know I’m in for a long read. Good writers get into the heads of the reader, ask what they expect to happen at this moment, and then make sure not to write that. Honestly, this starts at the concept stage. If you give me an idea that I’ve seen hundreds of times before, I can promise the script will be bad within 99.9% certainty. One of the biggest level-ups for a screenwriter – and it’s something most of them don’t figure out until between their 7th and 10th script – is when they start actively seeking out unexpected choices in their screenplays. I mean, did anyone see the hidden room in Parasite coming? Did anyone see that crazy climax in the backyard coming? This is the creative bar you need to hold yourself to. Cause like I tell everyone, if you’re just going to give us what everyone else does, why do we need you? We can just go to everyone else.

8) Understanding the power of time – One of the biggest decisions you will make in a script is deciding how long the story’s timeline will be. The reason this decision is so important is because time has the biggest effect on your structure. Once you know how long your story is, you can begin to figure out how everything is going to play out. Generally speaking, the shorter the time frame, the easier it is to structure. Not long ago, I reviewed a script called 9 Days. The concept was as close as you’re going to get to experimental without being experimental. It was about a guy in some nether-not-quite-heaven reality who decides which people get to live a life down on earth. That concept could’ve been dealt with in a very messy way. Believe me, I’ve seen it before. However, the simple decision of giving our hero a 9 day deadline gave the story a firm structure. Another example is Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused. That movie followed a dozen different characters and was about the chaos of junior high and high school in a small Midwestern town. It would’ve been so easy to get lost in that world. Yet Linklater had everything take place in one day. A messy story all of a sudden became very focused.

9) A love of the second act – The second act is where most beginner and intermediate scripts go to die. It’s the biggest most expansive space in the script (50-60 pages!) and if you don’t understand how it works or have a plan to tackle it, your script will fall into this abyss as well. One of the things you learn the longer you travel this screenwriting journey, is that the second act IS YOUR MOVIE. It’s not some thing to muddle your way through until you get to the climax. It’s the place where your characters will be challenged by the things they fear the most, which will include the external journey, the other characters they interact with, and, like we discussed before, themselves. In other words, this is where your characters are going to figure themselves out. Once you embrace your second act as an opportunity to explore that, you will begin to love it.

10) A killer ending – I read a lot of scripts where you can see the writer getting tired the deeper into the script we go and so the ending feels more like something they were just happy to get to than the single biggest most memorable sequence in the film, which is what an ending should be. Remember, the ending IS WHAT WE THE READER LEAVE WITH. If you write a great ending, a reader will have this compulsion to go out and tell someone about it. They can’t keep it in because it’s the last strong memory they’ve been given. As crazy as it sounds, lots of writers take their ending for granted. They think as long as the good guy saves his girlfriend from the bad guy that we’re going to give them a big fat gold sticker. It doesn’t work like that. Outside of your opening scene, your climax should be the scene you put the most time into. And that’s not just writing. You should be thinking through 10, 20, 30 different potential climaxes to make sure you’re giving us the best one.

P.S. If you’re still deciding what script to write for The Last Screenwriting Contest, consider a logline consultation ($25). Not only will I analyze your concept’s strengths and weaknesses and write a new version of the logline for you, but I also give a 1-10 rating on the concept. As I’ve noted here before, I don’t encourage anyone to write a script for a logline that gets under a 7 out of 10. So it’s an indirect way to find out if your concept would fare well in the contest. E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com if interested.

As those of you who saw my beginning of the week post know, Scriptshadow is holding one last giant screenplay contest, and it’s going to be competitive. I expect tons of entries. Especially since it’s FREE. So how do you write something that’ll stand out from all the other entries? Well, unlike a lot of contests out there, you know the person reading your script. Me. And therefore, all you need to do is go back through my review history to see what kinds of scripts I like and what kinds of scripts I detest. For example, if you’re writing a biopic, this contest isn’t for you. And if you’re writing a music biopic, you’re actively trying to make me hate your screenplay.

My first piece of advice is NAIL THE FIRST 10 PAGES. In case you didn’t read, I’m only promising to read the first 10 pages of every entry. If your scripts doesn’t interest me by then, I will not continue reading. What I personally look for in the first ten pages is: Can the writer tell a story? Are they giving me a scene or a sequence that has its own beginning, middle, and end? Like a little mini movie. You hook me on that first page so I have to keep reading to find out what happens next. The opening scene in Scream is a good example. Opening scene in Inglorious Basterds. Raiders of the Lost Ark. If your script isn’t the kind of script that works with a full-on mini-story at the beginning, make sure you have another plan to hook me in those first 10 pages.

As for the actual scripts, I’m going to be the most excited about high concept reasonably budgeted ideas that can be made for under 5 million dollars. Horror, sci-fi, contained thriller – the kind of stuff that can be easily marketed. As cliche as it sounds, if you can’t envision the poster, it’s probably not marketable. If you can’t envision a trailer that would make everyone want to see the movie right away, it’s probably not that great of an idea. Try to imagine you’re in my position. You’ve got a small production company. You want to make a big splash with your first film. But nobody’s going to give you a lot of money when you’re just starting out. What kind of project would you commission under those circumstances? And, by the way, that’s how 80% of the production houses in Los Angeles work. So this is a good approach to have regardless of if you’re entering my contest or not.

Also, I would avoid genres and story-types that are highly unmarketable, even if you’re a good writer. In my last contest, the winner was “The Savage.” Here’s the logline – “The incredible true story behind one of America’s founding myths. After being kidnapped from his lands as a child, the Patuxet Indian Squanto spends his life fighting impossible odds to return home, setting in motion a series of events that changes the course of history.” The writing was great. The research was strong. The script had a lot of good moments. It was better than any other script in the contest, hands down. However, when I went to pitch it to people, everyone’s eyes glazed over. You have to see it from the producer’s or financier’s point of view. The only way a movie like this can exist is if it gets one of the top 10 directors in the world and a studio puts 75 million dollars behind it and another 50 million down for an Oscar campaign. Everyone in town knows that’s a pipe dream scenario. It can be done. But the odds are so astronomically small that nobody wants to take the chance. Not when the next John Wick is out there. Or, if they’re looking for an Oscar, they’re going to grab a drama that costs 25 million or 40 million. Not 75-85 million. So keep that in mind if you’re thinking of writing about the birth of the Ottoman Empire.

If you’re not a high concept person, you need to have a unique voice. The way you view the world needs to be unique. Your writing style needs to be unique. Your sense of humor needs to be unique. Essentially YOUR VOICE BECOMES THE HOOK. Nightcrawler, Birdman, American Beauty, Three Billboards, The Big Lebowski, Daddio. A couple of these scripts are scripts I didn’t connect with when I first read them but it was clear the writers had a unique voice. And when all concepts fail, agents, managers, producers, studios, will gravitate towards the writer who doesn’t sound like everyone else. And, by the way, that doesn’t mean copying your favorite writer with a unique voice. Doing your version of Quentin Tarantino is just going to make you a not-as-good Quentin Tarantino. The trick with voice is that it truly is YOUR voice. I would stay away from trying to write one of these scripts unless you’ve been told by people that you have a unique way of seeing the world and writing about it.

Another good strategy to employ is to find old successful movies that people have forgotten about and give them a fresh new horror or sci-fi twist. That’s what Get Out was. It was, “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner” with a horror twist. Star Wars was a western set in space. San Andreas is an update of “Earthquake.” People in Hollywood have a 5 year memory. So you can find all sorts of gold in old movie concepts.

Selfishly, I want to make the 2020 version of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as well as Back to the Future. I want to bring back the 90s spec craze. I want the next Seven, Basic Instinct, The Sixth Sense, Scream. I also want to bring back high-concept big-budget original concepts, like The Matrix. Like everyone in the business, I’d like to find the next Ghostbusters or Goonies. Just remember, the higher the budget, the better the script has to be. With lower budget scripts, I may overlook problems on a good concept because I know I can help the writer fix them. But with these big-budget scripts, it’s not worth it for me to spend three years with a writer trying to get it in just the right shape so that MAYBE a studio makes it their ONE original big-budget movie that year. An example of a good big-budget script I’d take a chance on is The Traveler.

And finally, some miscellaneous thoughts. Social thrillers (Get Out, Get Home Safe, The Hunt) are hot. But everyone is writing them. So you better have a good idea. Horror always sells. I would love to start a horror franchise. I’m open to all horror sub-genres. I’m keen on finding a new twist for the zombie genre. I have a few ideas myself but maybe you have one that’s better. I’m obsessed with sci-fi so I would love to find the next Inception, Source Code, or The Martian. I absolutely LOVE plane disaster or plane in danger concepts. One of my goals is to make the best plane movie ever. New technology is one of the last frontiers for new ideas. You want to be the guy who writes “Stuber” two months after Uber becomes a phenomenon. If you’re a TV writer, I’m open to anything, comedy or drama, but my favorite show ever is Lost. I want to bring that mythology and that high-concept feel to a show in 2020. My other favorite TV shows are The Office, Fargo, Modern Family, Fleabag (a show PURELY BASED ON VOICE!), Succession, Breaking Bad, The Good Wife, Barry, and Community.

And if all else fails, just go with simple story and a complex main character. Rocky, Joker, Nightcrawler, Psycho, Terminator, Source Code.

You now know the blueprint for winning your reader over. What are you waiting for?? You only have until June 15 to write your script. GET STARTED!

Reminder that CONTAINED THRILLER SHOWDOWN – a script competition for contained thrillers (action, sci-fi, horror, dramatic, all okay) – is set for January 17th. Submissions are due Thursday, January 16th, by 8pm Pacific Time. Send a PDF of the script to carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Include your title, genre, logline, and why you think the script should get a shot. The best five entries will be posted for the showdown!

It’s a crazy day. The Black List is out. Or, at least, it’s being dripped out on Twitter. Maybe someone can post the list when they’re finished because I have to run around town today. Any concepts that catch your interest? Share them below. We’ve also got the big Rise of Skywalker premiere. That means we’re going to know REALLY SOON whether this movie is good or not. If we get a lot of those tweets that *sound* excited but the content of the tweet doesn’t say the actual movie is good (“This is the most real Star Wars movie of the last few years!” “JJ brought some amazing direction to this last film!” And my personal fave: “You’re going to love Rey. She kicks all types of a$$ in this movie!!!”) then our hopes for a good Star Wars film are over. Oh yeah, this post isn’t about Star Wars. Thoughts on the Black List. Leave them below!

EDIT! (LIST PRINTED BELOW)

People have been curious about the low vote count for the top 10 scripts. I think that’s because there’s no runaway great script this year. My first impression is that this feels like a return to form for the Black List. Lots more original ideas than in years past. Less of the most unoriginal genre out there – the biopic – helps a lot. The Traveler did, indeed, make the top 5, like I predicted. The Menu up there as well! Two great scripts.

“Move On” winning the top slot is bittersweet. I gave notes to a writer 8 years ago who had this exact same concept. I kept telling him, “This is a slam dunk! Keep working on it!” I think he just wasn’t into it enough to give it those extra 3-4 drafts that it needed. This is something all screenwriters deal with. How much of yourself do you have to give to a script? Because great scripts tend to require everything we’ve got. You have to be ready to do that hard work on those final three drafts where you hate your script more than anything because you’ve been living in it for so long. But that extra work ends up paying off in the end.

Just to remind everyone, these are AGENT AND MANAGER LOGLINES. Agents and managers aren’t writers. Some of them understand logline writing better than others. But don’t judge these loglines on their construction because, besides a few exceptions, these aren’t writers writing them.

29 votes
Title: Move On
Writer: Ken Kobayashi
Logline: Teddy thinks he’s the only living person left in a world where humanity is frozen in time… until his ex-girlfriend, Leyna, shows up at his doorstep. Together, they must go on a journey to find the cause behind the freeze and in the process, confront the issues that plagued their relationship before it’s too late.

20 votes
Title: Field of View
Writers; Reiss Clauson-Wolf, Julian Silver
Logline: A soldier, forced to relive her worst day in combat, begins to question her sanity when the VR simulation she’s experiencing doesn’t match her memory of the mission gone wrong.

19 votes
Title: Don’t Worry Darling (read my review!)
Writers: Cary Van Dyke, Shane Van Dyke
Logline: A psychological thriller about a 1950s housewife whose reality begins to crack, revealing a disturbing truth underneath.

16 votes
Title: Cicada by Lillian Yu
Writer: Lillian Yu
Logline: When a talented hacker is recruited by the mysterious Cicada 3301, she gets wrapped up in a plot that threatens to destroy the entire world. Based on the real organization.

Title: The Traveler (read my review!)
Writer: Austin Everett
Logline: A man jumps forward in time at the same time every morning. As the length of time increases for every jump, he struggles to keep his family together and find a cure, all as his secret spreads throughout the world. Based on the novel by Joseph Eckert.

Title: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
Writers: Kevin Etten, Tom Gormican
Logline: Actor Nicolas Cage, spiraling and trapped in debt, makes an appearance at the birthday party of a Mexican billionaire. While there, he learns that the billionaire runs a drug cartel, and the CIA recruits Cage for intelligence.

15 Votes
Title: Rumours
Writers: Tyler Austin, Patrick Eme
Logline: In 1970s LA, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, two struggling musicians and lovers, join a band called Fleetwood Mac and are thrown into a whirlwind of worldwide fame, infamous drug addiction, and one of the best-selling albums of all time — which also happens to be about the disintegration of their relationship.

14 Votes
Title: A Magical Place Called Glendale
Writer: Sara Monge
Logline: To revamp her self image, an arrogant but well-meaning high school socialite decides to help a former friend land the guy of her dreams… but in the process, realizes she wants her for herself.

Title: Shut In
Writer: Melanie Toast
Logline: A single mother is held captive by her violent ex, and her two young children are left at risk. She must do everything to protect them and survive.

13 Votes
Title: The Broker
Writer: Justin Piasecki
Logline: A fixer who brokers off-the-books exchanges for powerful corporate clients finds himself being hunted after he’s hired to protect a whistleblower and the evidence she’s uncovered.

Title: Pod
Writer: Nabil Chowdary
Logline: After a mission to destroy a black hole that endangers mankind goes wrong, an astronaut awakens in her escape pod to find that decades have passed seemingly in a moment. Now, with an old body and fragile mind, she battles against the elements of space & time to complete her mission.

Title: Wayward
Writer: Andrew Zilch
Logline: The wife of a megachurch pastor seeks atonement after she and her lover kill an attacker in self-defense, but don’t report it out of fear of exposing their affair.

12 Votes
Title: Grandma Wants to Die by Patrick Cadigan
Logline: When Ben is left footing the bill for his own wedding just weeks before the big day, he’s forced to make a deal with his estranged grandmother Minnie. She’ll give him the money if he signs the papers for her assisted suicide. Ben gladly agrees, only to unearth Minnie’s final agenda before she departs… destroy the wedding from the inside and seemingly ruin Ben’s life.

Title: I Heart Murder
Writer: Tom O’Donnell
Logline: A true-crime podcaster tries to solve a gruesome cold case, putting her in the killer’s crosshairs.

11 Votes
Title: 8 Bit Christmas by Kevin Jakubowski
Logline: Ten-year-old Jake Doyles goes on a herculean quest to get the Christmas gift of his generation – a Nintendo Entertainment System – in suburban Chicago in the late 1980s.

10 Votes
Title: Black Mitzvah
Writer: Lauren Tyler
Logline: After embarrassing herself at the most popular girl’s party, a black and Jewish middle school misfit embarks on a journey to glow up and throw the best Bat Mitzvah of all time.

Title: The House Is Not For Sale
Writer: Roy Parker
Logline: With one last chance at a promotion, a down-on-her-luck real estate agent returns to her rural hometown to sell the impossible – a haunted house where countless couples have been murdered. As the bodies of new residents continue to pile up, our real estate agent will stop at nothing to rid the house of evil – no matter what the cost.

Title: Klein
Writer: Derek Elliott
Logline: Life as a single dad hasn’t been a challenge for Las Vegas blackjack dealer Mike Klein, until his ex resurfaces after walking out on the family six years ago.

Title: The Menu (read my review!)
Writer: Seth Reiss, Will Tracy
Logline: A young couple visits an exclusive destination restaurant on a remote island where the acclaimed chef has prepared a lavish tasting menu, along with some shocking surprises.

Title: The Process
Writer: Levin Menekse
Logline: Trapped at a three day personal development retreat, a woman fights to save her husband and herself from being brainwashed by a charismatic self-help guru.

Title: Refuge
Writer: Debra Moore Munoz
Logline: A brother and sister navigate the perils of both man and nature through Central America in their quest to find safety in the United States.

Title: Ripple
Writer: Ezra Herz
Logline: After strange deaths and suicides skyrocket in a dying Appalachian coal town, Maggie – a first responder – wages a personal war against the local coal mine, unearthing a disturbing past that the company has kept secret within the waters of the local lake.

Title: They Cloned Tyrone
Writer: Tony Rettenmaier, Juel Taylor
Logline: An unlikely group is thrown together by mysterious events that leads them to uncover a government conspiracy.

9 Votes
Title: Breathe
Writer: Doug Simon
Logline: In the near future when air-supply is scarce, a mother and daughter fight for survival when two strangers arrive desperate for an oxygenized safe haven.

Title: Dollhouse
Writer: Michael Paisley
Logline: When a struggling fashion model in New York City gets chosen by a mysterious Parisian designer to be the face of his first campaign since his disappearance five years prior, she begins to realize she was chosen for a reason and must decide how much she’s willing to sacrifice for beauty and recognition.

Title: Helldiver
Writer: Ben Imperato
Logline: After finding themselves stranded on the wreckage of a Helldiver bomber in the middle of the ocean, an American aviator and a Japanese Kamikaze pilot must work together to survive their greatest threat yet — a 22-foot great white shark.

Title: High on Christmas
Writers: Hannah Mescon, Dreux Moreland
Logline: A stoner comedy about one family trying to save Christmas from itself after Santa eats the wrong batch of cookies.

Title: The Laborer
Writers: Jared Anderson
Logline: A pair of out-of-work immigrant brothers catch a break when they are hired as day laborers to work at a house in the Hollywood Hills, until they witness something they will wish they had never seen.

Title: Say Something Nice
Writer: Erin Rodman
Logline: After she catches her boyfriend cheating, Liv goes on a social media tirade that lands her in court for slander, and the judge forces her to make amends by composing one positive comment for every negative comment she posted, while under the supervision of a reclusive mediator also on the rebound from a failed relationship. Inspired by true events.

8 Votes
Title: Affairs of State
Writer: Pat Cunnane
Logline: A romantic comedy about an outgoing President, an incoming Prime Minister, and their second shot at love.

Title: An Aftermath
Writer: Lauren Caris Cohan
Logline: After a whirlwind lost-distance online romance, a once-cynical writer inherits a remote smart-house from her newly deceased new husband and discovers he might not be entirely gone after all.

Title: Apex
Writers: Aja Gabel, MJ Wesner
Logline: When old college friends on a trip to Mexico get trapped in an underwater cave system with a bull shark, old tensions and power struggles resurface as they fight to survive.

Title: Barron: A Tale of Love, Loss, & Legacy
Writer: Nicolas Curcio
Logline: Fearing the devastating impact that his father’s presidency would have on his personal life, his country, and the world at large, ten-year-old Barron Trump sets out to sabotage his father’s 2016 campaign.

Title: The Cabin at the End of the World
Writers: Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman
Logline: A gay couple and their adopted daughter have their cabin invaded by four strangers who take the family captive and tell them that, to prevent the upcoming apocalypse, one of them must be killed by the others.

Title: The Diamond as Big as the Ritz
Writer: Cody Behan
Logline: When the underprivileged John Unger is invited to spend the summer at the mansion of his peculiar classmate, his thirst for grandeur leads him down a dangerous exploration of greed, morality, and the secret horrors of the ruling class. Based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story.

Title: First Harvest (read my review!)
Writer: Kevin McMullin
Logline: George runs a struggling farm where he cares for his terminally ill wife, Alice. Everything changes when he decides to bring home an orphaned baby he found out in the field. The child’s presence begins to unearth buried secrets while engulfing the family in a series of supernatural events.

Title: My Boyfriend’s Wedding
Writer: Carrie Solomon
Logline: After Georgia accidentally receives an out of the blue invitation to her on-again, off-again boyfriend’s wedding, she and her best friend Keely make the ill-informed decision to attend.

Title: Resurrection
Writer: Andrew Semans
Logline: Margaret is a single mother living in New York with her teenage daughter. When David, a mysterious older man from Margaret’s past, begins appearing randomly in her environment, she becomes convinced that he intends to bring tremendous violence into their lives. So Margaret embarks on a vigilante mission to protect her daughter, and to disembowel David.

Title: The Searchers
Writer: MacMillan Hedges
Logline: An inside look at the unique relationship between John Wayne and John Ford on the set of THE SEARCHERS.

Title: Sister
Writer: Azia Squire
Logline: Following her mother’s sudden passing, a queer black woman returns to her southern town to assist her estranged sister plan the funeral. Her trip takes a turn when sleep deprivation manifests visions of her deceased mother.

Title: Super Dad
Writer: Sean Tidwell
Logline: A subversive superhero story about the world’s only superhero living a bachelor lifestyle, learning he has two very different teenage twins he never knew existed, and now has to figure out how to be a father.

Title: The Swells
Writer: Rachel James
Logline: A young woman, propelled by an unstoppable rage, begins inviting her victims to a summer lake house as revenge for past wrongs. But when one of her guests has been wronged as well, she passes on The Swells- bringing its wrath to the streets of New York.

7 Votes
Title: Betty Ford
Writers: Kas Graham, Rebecca Polack
Logline: An intimate portrait of the sensational First Lady and ERA champion, Betty Ford, as she challenges, scandalizes, dances and drinks her way through the White House to gain a higher popularity rating than any President in American history, all whilst maintaining a 26 pill-a-day drug habit.

Title: Doll Wars
Writer: Matt Ritter
Logline: When the upstart Bratz dolls challenged Barbie’s antiquated gender norms and threatened their monopoly, Barbie struck back with a billion-dollar copyright lawsuit. In jeopardy of shutting down, Bratz turned to a small, scrappy, all-female law firm to take on Mattel in a historic, David vs. Goliath intellectual property battle that changed the toy industry and American popular culture forever. Based on a true story.

Title: Don’t Go in the Water (read my review!)
Writer: Peter Gaffney
Logline: A recovering alcoholic sets off for seclusion but gets more than he bargained for when he encounters a mysterious creature nearby.

Title: First Ascent
Writer: Colin Bannon
Logline: Two years after a free solo accident nearly kills Hillary Hall, she enlists the help of her old climbing partners to document her comeback — the first ascent of 4,000 foot rock wall in rural China. During the harrowing climb, Hillary struggles with her inner demons and supernatural forces, as it slowly becomes clear that this mountain does not want to be conquered.

Title: The Man in the Woods
Writers: Darren Grodsky, Danny Jacobs
Logline: After moving to Maine and befriending an enigmatic hermit, twelve-year-old Henrietta Thorne begins to wonder if he holds the key to solving a mystery that has eluded our planet for more than a decade.

Title: The Perdition in Liege
Writer: Henry Dunham
Logline: A prisoner of war in a Belgian POW camp undergoing abandonment survives an execution firing squad by chance and escapes by hiding among the dead. After removing his fallen compatriot’s dog tags to get home and give their families solace, he attempts the fifty-mile journey south toward the allied stronghold, through the deadly war-torn landscape, and before a hell-bent SS officer on his tail catches up to him.

Title: The Repossession
Writer: Megan Amram
Logline: Twenty years after a failed exorcism, a meek young woman becomes unlikely friends with the foul-mouthed demon that possessed her as a child.

Title: 10-31 (read my review!)
Writers: Peter Gamble, Ian Shorr
Logline: A young woman takes her niece and nephew trick-or-treating and discovers a note inside a candy wrapper that says there’s a killer loose on her block.

6 Votes
Title: Apex (read my review!)
Writer: Stephen Vitale
Logline: A mysterious loner heads to Muscle Beach in 1985 to pursue a career as a competitive bodybuilder. Struggling to transform his physique, he unleashes a darker side of himself as he descends into madness.

Title: Assisted Living
Writer: Kay Oyegun
Logline: A thief finds sanctuary in a retirement home after going on the run.

Title: Atlanta Onfire
Writer: Adam Morrison
Logline: The true story of Leo Frank, a young, Jewish businessman who, due to widespread anti-Semitism/the KKK in the post Civil War South, was wrongfully accused, tried, and convicted of murdering a 13-year-old factory worker, Mary Phagan.

Title: Blue Slide Park
Writers: Kyle Anderson, Michael Vlamis
Logline: After his first album topped the Billboard Charts, life was never the same for Malcolm McCormick aka Mac Miller. This is his story of music, love, success, family, and addiction. Based on the forthcoming manuscript UNT. MAC MILLER BIOGRAPHY written by Paul Cantor for Abrams Press.

Title: Can You Tell Me How?
Writer: Gregory Bonsignore
Logline: Alarmed by the disproportionate dropout rates amongst children of the working class, a young female TV producer finds a way to teach them their ABCs and 123s. With the help of genius puppeteer Jim Henson and a diverse team of dedicated researchers and educators, they brought us the groundbreaking show, Sesame Street.

Title: Girlfriend on Mars
Writer: Kaitlin Fontana
Logline: Amber and Kevin, weed dealer burnouts committed to going nowhere together, have been dating for twelve years. When Amber enters a reality show that will take the winner to Mars with no chance of return, Kevin has to face what it really means when the ones we love leave us and leave the planet. Based on the story by Deborah Willis.

Title: Meet Cute
Writers: Chris Powers, Dan Powers
Logline: ‘Meet Cute’ the hottest dating app on the market, brings couples together by giving them their Rom Com moment. When the app’s biggest skeptic, Haley, matches with one of its developers, Russ, their instant connection starts to change her mind.

Title: The Mother
Writer: Michael Notarile
Logline: The incredible true story of Fredericka Marm Mandelbaum, who was the countrys first female mob boss. During the Gilded Age, Marm opened a school for criminals, and built her empire by treating her gang of runaways and orphans as family — eventually partnering with George Leslie to pull off what is still to date the largest bank heist in American history (adjusting for inflation).

Title: No Good Deed
Writer: Christina Pamies
Logline: A woman with a troubled past invites her teen niece to live with her in the family’s farm house, but the two become tormented by a creature that can take away their pain for a price.

Title: Nomads
Writer: Esteban Orozco
Logline: A reverse SEARCHERS from the perspective of the Natives going East into the unknown, the metropolis, the belly of the beast, late 1800s New York City.

Title: The Showrunner
Writer: Cosmo Carlson
Logline: The unbelievable true story of the creation of the worlds first, longest running, and most notorious reality show “COPS.” Based on “How ‘Cops’ Got Made — And What It Says About America” by Tim Stelloh.

Title: Stampede
Writer: Sontenish Myers
Logline: A young slave girl named Lena has telekinetic powers she cannot yet control on a plantation in the 1800s.

Title: T
Writer: Eric Gross
Logline: The true story of how Lawrence Tureaud, a poor kid in Chicago with 12 brothers and sisters, fought and charmed his way into becoming the single lettered icon of saintly compassion and macho energy.

Title: This Is Going to Hurt
Writer: Cameron Fay
Logline: An absent mother attempts to reconnect with her daughter by relaying to her how she helped her own parent through battles with cancer and addiction.

Title: Til Death
Writer: Jessica Knoll
Logline: Swept up in the excitement of her wedding day, Dr. Julie Wheeler is oblivious to the killer on her guest list, who is methodically stalking her nearest and dearest, until its too late.

Title: Voicemails for Isabelle
Writer: Leah McKendrick
Logline: A low-level TV writer struggles to cope with the death of her little sister by continuing to leave her voicemails chronicling the shitshow that is dating in LA. When the phone number is unknowingly transferred, a cocky New York real estate agent begins receiving the hilarious and confessional voicemails, and feels pulled to California to find this stranger he feels intimately close to.

Don’t look now. But another script may have just landed in my Top 25! And in the final month of the year! Expect this one to be a Black List juggernaut next week.

Genre: Thriller/Satire/Comedy
Premise: A food connoisseur takes a first date to an exclusive and mysterious dining experience on an island.
About: Alexander Payne has come on to direct this and Emma Stone will be playing our food connoisseur’s date. Co-writers Seth Reiss and Will Tracy are late-night show writers. However, Tracy also wrote an episode of the greatest show on television right now, Succession. And in case anyone was wondering, this is a spec script! Yay!
Writers: Seth Reiss and Will Tracy
Details: 104 pages

Even though I love reading screenplays, if I’m given the opportunity to stop reading something in order to have time to myself, I’ll always take the time to myself. I have lots of things I enjoy outside of reading so it isn’t a difficult decision. Even the last script I gave an “impressive” to, The Traveler – if you would’ve told me, midway through it, that the following day was a holiday and I didn’t have to post a review, I would’ve stopped reading right there.

Not the case with The Menu.

If my place was on fire, I would’ve eyeballed the time I had before the fire reached me so that I could squeeze in as many pages as I could.

This script is a page-turner if there ever was one. I can’t remember a script with such an original premise and execution. The way this story unraveled was captivating. It had to be if Alexander Payne wanted to direct it. This is a guy who writes his own movies. Who’s won screenwriting Oscars. So if he falls in love with a script enough to direct it, it must be good. And The Menu is very very good.

Tyler is a well-off 30-something man who has an insatiable appetite for the culinary world. He’s spent months trying to get on this exclusive list of Chef Slowik’s mysterious restaurant, which is set on an island that the customers must be ferried over to. Tyler’s date is Margot, a beautiful 20-something woman who isn’t nearly as impressed with tonight’s impending experience as Tyler is. Margot is also a little mysterious herself.

Joining them are an older couple, a prestigious food columnist, a group of tech-bros, and Daniel Radcliffe and his assistant. Yes, Harry Potter is taking part in tonight’s festivities. Tyler geeks out when they all take the boat over to the island and nearly loses his mind at the rustic dining room set right next to an open kitchen, so they can watch the cooks prepare the food.

But as soon as Chef Slowik arrives, we realize this guy is nuts. All chefs are in love with themselves but this guy’s ego stretches all the way back to the mainland. This begins a 7 course meal, with each course becoming decidedly more weird. The second course, for example, is bread without bread. You get butter, oil, spread, all surrounding an area on the plate where the bread should be. But there’s no actual bread.

Course 4 is where things get really f$#%d though. That’s when Chef Slowik introduces his sous chef, who he tells a long sad story about, and at the end of the story, the sous chef pulls a hidden gun out of his pants and blows his own brains out. It is at this moment that everyone realizes tonight is not going to end well. One of the older customers tries to leave but gets his hand chopped off. The message is clear. Everyone stays until the end of the meal.

The only thing Chef Slowik is perplexed by is Margot. As he watches the diners, he’s consumed by her. Something is off. Late in the night, he corners her and demands to know who she is. She’s obviously not Tyler’s girlfriend.

This is where we learn that Margot is a companion. She’s only here because she was paid to be here. That presents a problem for Chef Slowik, who has personalized every single component of this meal. He can’t have someone random. It screws up his perfect menu. But there’s something worse about Margot’s presence. Of everyone here, she seems to be the only one capable of fighting back. Which means she’s the only one with a chance of getting out of the night alive.

I knew this script was going to be great within the first three pages. Take, for example, how well Tyler is set up. We know EXACTLY who this character is immediately. I read scripts ALL THE TIME where, by the end of them, I still don’t know a single character. And these writers have made Tyler crystal clear in three pages.

He’s obsessed with food. He doesn’t have respect for anyone who isn’t obsessed with food, including Margot. And that’s it. If you can create characters that readers instantly understand, that’s a skill that can make you hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s because it’s a skill most people in Hollywood do not have. Most writers have a tendency to write muddy characters or pack them with so much going on that no single identity trait stands out.

When we get to the restaurant, the writers establish just how extensively they understand their subject matter. Every single description, every single line of dialogue, indicated that these two understand restaurants, food, and the life of a famous chef. “You’re really in for something special tonight, Margot. Chef Slowik is the shit right now. Two James Beard Awards. Number 5 on the World’s 50. The most exciting voice in New American cuisine, hands down.” “How quickly you forget Guy Fieri.” “His story’s incredible. He cut his teeth with Keller at the French Laundry and then at 25 he becomes the head development chef at the Fat Duck. He opens his own place in New York, gets two Michelin stars in his first year and then — boom.”

Bad writers don’t write stuff like this. They’re general and cliche because general and cliche don’t require research. Here’s the bad version of the above: “I’ve heard so much about this guy. He was one of the best chefs in France for an entire decade.” “Well I haven’t heard of him.” “He’s supposed to make one of the best steaks in the country.” See the difference? I see a lot more of the latter when I read scripts than the former. That’s why it sticks out when writers do the work. Because the average screenwriter doesn’t put forth the effort.

Also, I didn’t know where this story was going until the midpoint. It was exciting turning each page because I wasn’t just following the story, I was trying to figure out what kind of movie this was. And then when I figured out the rhythm – that each course was going to get more intense – my concern was, “How do they keep coming up with original courses?’ Because that’s the whole movie, is the anticipation of what the next course will be. And if any of them fall short on originality, the script doesn’t work. So it was shocking to me that every single course was original. Even with the thousands of scripts I’ve read, I still had no idea what was coming next. That’s another mark of a great writer. They’re ahead of the reader. The reader isn’t ahead of them.

And the dialogue. Wow. The key was they created a dialogue-friendly character at the center of the story in Chef Slowik. He comes out and gives a story before every course is served and they’re all weird and wonderful and psychotic. “Jeremy is talented. He’s good. But he’s not great. And quite frankly, he will never be great. He so desperately wants my job, my position, my prestige. Isn’t that right, Jeremy?” “Yes, chef.” “But Jeremy has forsaken everything to achieve that. He works here 20 hours a day. He has no time for friends. No time for family. He can’t go to the gym. Or to see a movie. He can’t even go to the bank because it’s only open when he’s working. Jeremy, when’s the last time you talked to your mother?” “I don’t remember, chef.” “His entire life is service and pressure. Pressure to put out the best food you can. Pressure to please your Chef. Pressure to please the customer. Pressure to please the critics. And even when all goes right, and the food is perfect, and the customers are happy, and the critics are too, there is no way to avoid The Mess. That is to say, The Mess you make of your life, of your body, of your health, of your sanity, by giving everything you have to pleasing people you’ll never know.”

The only aspects of the script that are questionable are one, Daniel Radcliffe. On the one hand it makes sense that a celebrity would want to participate in a prestigious secret high-priced rare restaurant experience. But throwing real-life celebrities into the mix always takes you a little bit out of the story. I’m not sure that was the best choice.

And two, there comes a moment in the script where people are either going to eagerly stay on for the rest of the ride or hop off. That moment is when the Chef makes it clear that everyone is going to die tonight. And there are still three courses left when he announces this. I know they’re on an island. But I would at least try to escape. And yet outside of a weak attempt by one of the customers, everyone else accepts their fate.

The reason I still went along with it, though, is because everything leading up to that moment was so well-written and so well-constructed that I believed in this world 100%. If the script was sloppy and weak, I probably wouldn’t have bought in. That goes to show that readers will take the plunge into tough story sells if the writing is strong. I mean this script is so tight and so meticulous. There isn’t a single wasted moment. It all matters. It all works. I’m jealous.

A lot of people ask me what the difference is between a well-written script and a badly written script under the pretense of, “Isn’t it all just subjective?” If you really want to know the difference, put aside four hours and read last Wednesday’s script, First Harvest, and then this script. Every single aspect of this script is better. Clearly defined characters, memorable characters, tight plotting, dialogue that pops, conflict, mysteries, suspense, surprises, research, specificity.

The Menu is what screenwriting is all about.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive (TOP 25!!!)
[ ] genius

What I learned: Above all, there’s an assuredness in The Menu where you know the writers have complete control over their story. Whereas, when you read First Harvest, you can sense the writer trying to figure things out on the page. It’s the opposite of assuredness. That’s a defining factor in strong screenwriters – having total control over your story.

A script without a theme is like a photograph without a subject. The picture can be well-composed, colorful, sharp, and yet the experience of looking at the photo feels empty. You get no sense of what the photographer was trying to say with the image.

“Trying to say,” is a nice way to define theme. When you write a story, you should be trying to say something. You don’t have to. But it helps fill in the emptiness. It helps give your story meaning.

Today, I want to talk about how to find your theme. And not just for your own projects. When you break into the big leagues, being able to discuss theme in a pitch room will be one of the determining factors for you getting the job. When you’re angling for that million dollar Emoji Movie assignment, you better have an idea of what your theme is going to be going into the pitch or I promise you, you won’t get it.

Despite the term being one of the most abstract in the craft, theme isn’t as difficult to identify as you might think. In fact, most of the time, it’s right under your nose.

A few weeks ago, Steph Jones sent me her logline for a consultation (the script was also a part of last week’s Amateur Offerings). Her script was about two fame-seeking millennials who start a fake travel adventure blog. Going off that one-sentence breakdown, let’s see how we figure out the theme.

The driving force behind Steph’s story is clearly fame. That’s what these characters are looking for. Therefore, our theme should revolve around celebrity. So maybe the theme is about our culture’s obsession with celebrity without actually having to earn it, and the ramifications of that.

Keep in mind that simple/universal themes resonate best. And that a good theme teaches the characters a lesson after it’s all over.

Continuing on, let’s look at yesterday’s script, Murder on the Orient Express. Here’s the logline: “When a murder occurs in the first class cabin of the Orient Express, a world renown detective must figure out which of the travelers committed the crime.”

This one is tougher as the logline is too broad to imply any obvious themes. However, if you were writing this script yourself (spoilers!), you would know that the murdered man is an escaped killer, and that the travelers have decided to kill him for it. This opens up a more obvious theme, which is that of vigilante justice. If a man has done something inarguably horrible, is it okay to take justice into your own hands, or do you gamble on the risky nature of official justice, where the man might go free? This is one of the most common themes in film. You see it in Westerns, in superhero movies, and in revenge thrillers (John Wick).

Okay, let’s up the difficulty level. Dunkirk: “An army of 300,000 men, trapped on the beach, desperately await rescue while a surrounding German army decides whether to attack or not.”

War allows for the exploration of many themes. So it’s not like you can wrong here. But with the key plotline focusing on one soldier’s willingness to do anything to escape the beach, you could argue that the theme of Dunkirk is, simply, selfishness. At what point does sacrifice give way to looking out for number one? Indeed, this theme is present throughout many war movies.

Since this is Scriptshadow, we can’t go through an entire Thursday post without a Star Wars example. But let’s make it tough on ourselves. We’re going to find a theme for Rogue One: “A group of misfit criminals must join together to steal the plans of the most dangerous weapon in the universe.”

Hopefully you guys are getting a feel for this now, so before I offer my theme, go ahead and try to figure this out on your own. I’ll wait… Okay, so we have a group of people attempting to steal something. Normally, these people operate on their own. So this one is actually pretty easy. The theme is the power of the group over the individual. In life, one person can only achieve so much. But together, the possibilities are infinite.

Remember, themes should have consequences for the characters who deviate from them. Or, at the very least, the threat of consequence. So if one of the characters in Rogue One chooses an action that pits himself above the group, he should pay for it.

Okay, let’s end on the toughest one yet. It’s so tough, I’m not even sure what the theme is yet. Gone Girl. Here’s the IMDB logline: “With his wife’s disappearance having become the focus of an intense media circus, a man tries to prove that his wife is inexplicably responsible for what has happened.”

Usually, when the theme for a movie isn’t obvious after you’ve watched it, that’s a bad thing. It means the message didn’t come through clearly enough. And it may be why, while Gone Girl is considered a good film, it’s not one that’s remained in the public conscious. That’s why theme is so important. A well-executed theme helps a movie stay with someone for many years to come.

But I’ll give it my best shot. I’d say that the theme of Gone Girl is our society’s need to try people in the court of public opinion. You’re guilty until proven innocent. What I find interesting about this and similar themes is that while they shine a light on society, they don’t hit the audience on an emotional level. That’s something to keep in mind when you choose your theme. Do you want to make a statement about society or do you want to make a statement about the individual? The former gets critics frothing but the latter stays with audiences longer.

Now bust out your latest script and figure out the theme, dammit!

Carson does feature screenplay consultations, TV Pilot Consultations, and logline consultations, which go for $25 a piece or 5 for $75. You get a 1-10 rating, a 200-word evaluation, and a rewrite of the logline. And as of today, all logline consultations come with an 8 hour turnaround time. If you’re interested in any sort of consultation package, e-mail Carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line: CONSULTATION. Don’t start writing a script or sending a script out blind. Let Scriptshadow help you get it in shape first!