96 pages down!

That means you should be in the heart of your climax.

A lot of people have issues with climaxes (insert joke here) but I find them to be one of the easier sequences in a screenplay.

The trick is to treat the climax like its own movie.

It’s a shorter movie. But it should have a first, a second, and a third act. It should have a midpoint. It should have a lowest point.

Usually, when climaxes fall apart, it’s because they don’t have any structure. So by thinking of them as their own movie, you should be in good shape.

Start with the setup. Let us know the rules of the climax.

For Parasite, the rules were the rich son’s party. “Here’s how it’s going to go. Poor Father, you’re going to dress up like a Native American and then jump out and surprise my son when I give you the cue… blah blah blah.”

The reason you want to set up the rules of your climax for the audience is because, then, you can upend those rules. You can have things go wrong. If you don’t set up what first needs to be done right, then the audience isn’t going to know when you start undermining the plan.

So whether it’s our cowboy hero prepping everyone in town for how they’re going to beat the gang of bad guys when they arrive or it’s Vin Diesel explaining to his crew how they’re going to pull off their heist – you’re explaining to the audience what’s SUPPOSED to happen so you can then play around with what ACTUALLY happens.

And like I pointed out yesterday in the comments, your climax will have a “Lowest Point” as well, just like the end of your Second Act had a “Lowest Point.”

If there isn’t a moment in the climax where we are 100% CONVINCED that our hero is going to fail, you haven’t properly written your climax.

I would go so far as to say have something happen in that climax where NOT EVEN YOU THE WRITER knows how you’re going to get your hero out of it. That’s the only way you’ll convince the audience that your hero’s going to lose.

In Toy Story 3’s climax, which I’d heard in advance was dark and the last Toy Story, I legitimately thought they were going to perish in that incinerator. And that was a Pixar film! If a Pixar film can make me think the characters are going to die, you should be able to do the same in your script.

And from there you have to be creative and come up with a way where they figure it out. Deus ex machinas are not encouraged unless they were extremely well set-up (yes, I know Toy Story 3 uses a deus ex machina). Try to come up with a clever way for your characters to save themselves rather than be saved. But yes, if you’re a master at setups and payoffs, you can construct a deus ex machina for your climax.

After that, don’t stick around too long. I prefer the Rocky approach (just end it) to the Parasite approach (too much epiloguing distances the audience from the feeling they had during the climax). But each story is unique and has its own requirements so do what feels right for you.

Very excited for everyone who stayed with the challenge. Just one more day of writing!

88 pages down. 22 to go!

In this bizarre world where you can walk down a sidewalk and the people walking towards you beeline to the other side of the street the second they see you coming, 22 pages left feels like darn good news.

Oh, who am I kidding? People darted away from me long before this coronavirus.

So what’s today’s topic?

It comes from commenter Scott Serradell.

Scott points out that he rolls his eyes whenever he sees these generic structural monikers people use to write screenplays. “Lowest Point.” “Dark Knight of the Soul.”

These “paint-by-numbers” terms, as Scott refers to them, are preventing you from writing something impactful and memorable.

And look. I get it. I groan whenever writers become overly reliant on Blake Synder’s beat sheet (let’s just say I’m not an ‘Opening Image’ guy).

However, when it comes to endings, you don’t want to leave things up to chance. If you do (and when I say “up to chance,” I’m referring to going with what “just feels right”) you end up with The Platform. A really good film that falls apart at the end.

Due to the very nature that your story is ending, it needs to be structured. Think about it. Real life doesn’t have a story ending. It’s ongoing. So by creating an ending to your movie, you’re defying the logic of the real world. For that reason, you want to embrace the artificiality of the situation and give your audience something that’s both dramatically satisfying and well thought out.

To do so, you need to build up to the moment. And what’s intrinsic to every build? Structure. You literally need to build a structure that will hold up your climax.

Conversely, if you try and go off of “what feels right,” it’s HIGHLY LIKELY that your ending will be unsatisfying.

The only “feel” type endings that work are ones that are heavily tied to the theme.

Stuff like Lost in Translation, Three Billboards, and to a lesser extent, Parasite.

These movies are more about experiencing life than going after some big goal and so the endings are less obvious to the writers while they’re writing the script.

Parasite is about the gap between the rich and the poor so the story ends on an extravagant birthday party for the youngest son of the family, where the poor father is relegated to being a clown who dances for the rich son’s enjoyment. The poor father cracks and all hell breaks loose.

Of course, theme-centric endings require that your theme be strongly conveyed to begin with. I’ll see writers write a theme-centric ending who did a muddy job of conveying theme throughout the previous 100 pages, resulting in an ending that feels as if it came out of nowhere.

I should also point out that the worst endings I encounter tend to have the same problem. Which is that THEY WEREN’T SET UP WELL. If you create enough setups throughout your script, you can make almost any ending work. Cause endings are about bringing everything together. So if you’re paying off setup after setup in your ending, it’s going to feel organic.

This is why Back to the Future remains, to me, the best movie ending ever. It’s payoff after payoff after payoff. And we see that with Parasite as well. This Native-American themed birthday party didn’t appear out of thin air. We’ve been told and shown throughout the movie that the young son is fascinated with the Native American culture.

Is there an element of “feeling what’s right” in picking your ending? Of course. But structure should take precedence over that feeling. You can have the best “feeling” ending in the world but if it isn’t organically tied into the rest of the movie, it won’t work.

Almost there, everyone. As Richard Marx once famously sang, whatever you do, wherever you go, KEEP. ON. WRITING!!!

It is Day 11 of the 2 Week Script Challenge.

I’ve asked you to write 8 pages a day. Which would mean, if you’ve been good, you will be writing pages 80 to 88 today.

Now here’s the good news if you’ve gotten this far. The last 30 pages of your script are the most structured of the entire screenplay. Your script is ending which means all you have to do is write a series of scenes that build to a climax.

If your script is between 100-110 pages, this will likely be where you introduce your LOWEST POINT. Your lowest point is where your heroes experience their biggest fall in the movie up to this moment. It looks as if there is no chance they will survive or succeed.

Notable LOWEST POINTS from films include Darth Vader striking Obi-Wan down in Star Wars.

There’s the house flooding scene in Parasite. A huge storm sweeps into their lower-than-ground-level home, making it unlivable.

The attempted suicide scene in The Invisible Man. Our heroine is in a mental hospital. It doesn’t look like there’s any way out except for death. And so that’s what she tries to do.

In A Quiet Place it’s when the dad is killed and the family is left to fend off the monsters on their own.

The lowest point scene is usually one of the more fun scenes to write because it’s such a big moment in the script. So this is always an exciting moment in the writing process for me. Well, anything where I’m able to leave the second act behind is an exciting moment.

From there, you’ll have your “dwell on what’s happened” sequence. This can last anywhere between 1-4 scenes depending on genre, pacing, and just the overall story you’re telling. We have to feel the effects of what just happened to your hero.

After that they have a rebirth, put together a plan to achieve their goal, and off they go to the climax. Easy, right?

Most stories have a goal to begin with, which makes the ending easy to figure out (the goal in Raiders is to get the Ark of the Covenant!). But sometimes scripts don’t have obvious goals. Romantic comedies are famous for that. It’s more about the relationship than the plot. This is why so many rom-coms end up at the airport with someone leaving. Whenever your ending isn’t built into your plot, you lean into the only other structure you know – which is scenarios that have worked in other movies.

But there’s still hope for you non-goal oriented screenplay writers. I learned this one from Steve Faber and Bob Fisher, the writers of Wedding Crashers. They said that they toiled over how to end their script for months until the obvious answer came to them. It’s a movie about weddings. The climax needs to be a wedding!

So look at your subject matter and that’s typically where you’re going to find your ending. If you’re writing about two chess players who fall in love, your ending shouldn’t contain any trips to the airport. It should probably take place at the national finals of the chess championships.

Very proud of everyone who’s made it this far.

KEEP. ON. WRITING!!!!

Okay, I’ve been reading through the comments and Day 10 progress can be divided into two lanes. One lane is brazenly charging forward, determined to get to their destination. And then there’s the defeatist lane, writers complaining that [insert first excuse here] and [insert second excuse here]. “It’s all so hard, you see!” “I’ve run out of ideas.” “I thought I was going to do this in my story then I realized I wasn’t and then I had to start over…”

Stop.

Just stop.

Stop treating writing like it’s a bully that picks on you at lunch every day.

Treat it like an opportunity.

I know I’ve been telling you to “just get the pages down.” But that doesn’t mean “Don’t try.” You should still be going into every section determined to do as well as you can in that moment.

One of the things that hurts us screenwriters is we exist in a medium that’s hyper-analyzed.

While critical analysis of other films is fun and can even be productive when you’re trying to get better, it’s the worst thing you can do when you’re writing something.

Because then you’re trying to achieve a standard that’s impossible. There isn’t a script out there that doesn’t have at least one element that can be aggressively criticized. So when you try and write a script that doesn’t have ANY weaknesses, you’re asking yourself to achieve something that’s never been done before.

This is the real reason you don’t want to write today.

This is the real reason you’re scared to give the script your all.

You can’t make it perfect. You can’t make it critic-proof. And if you can’t do that, why write at all?

I don’t mean to beat a dead horse but this stage of the writing should be all about creativity, imagination, exploration, trying stuff out. You are God. You’re building a universe. And that universe is going to be imperfect at first. BUT THAT’S OKAY.

The worst thing you can do is write from a place of fear. That’s not going to stoke the creative fire within you.

Here’s a tip that might help you out.

Writing is about momentum. When you’ve got it going, it feels easy. When you don’t, every scene feels like you’re lugging a cinder block to the top of Griffith Park.

Therefore, when you’ve written 4-5 bland scenes in a row, your momentum dwindles and you lose motivation.

Here’s a simple solution – UP THE STAKES OF THE SCENE

Even if a scene has a strong character goal and lots of conflict, it can still be bland. However, if you put something on the line (putting something on the line UPS THE STAKES) that scene can come alive.

Obviously, the more that’s on the line, the better the scene is going to play. But you can’t put the fate of the world on every scene. So you have to scale appropriately. Sometimes the stakes will be a 3. Sometimes they’ll be a 10. Where you run into trouble is when nothing is on the line at all. Zero stakes for 4-5 scenes in a row and of course you’re going to lose faith in your script.

Early in Parasite, the poor son comes over for his first day of tutoring at the upper class family’s home. The writer could’ve easily had the brother tutor the girl for the first session, flirt a little, and go home. But no, he has the mother sit in on the first session to see if he’s a good enough tutor for her daughter. SOMETHING IS ON THE LINE. If the mother isn’t impressed, he loses the job.

Now stop being a baby.

You are not allowed to exit the challenge.

You HAVE TO KEEP WRITING until the 14 days are over.

So, no, you’re not done.

No excuses!

Someone in the comments section asked, “What do we do if we’re way behind?”

I’ll tell you what you do. WRITE MORE.

One of the things it took me forever to figure out is that writing isn’t always supposed to be fun. Sometimes it’s work. And people don’t like to do work. But if you want to excel at screenwriting, you can’t just write when you feel like it. You have to learn how to write when you don’t feel like it.

I’ve been going on these long corona walks every day so that I don’t turn into a 400 pound block of cheese. The last couple of days, I didn’t want to go. Like I REALLY REALLY didn’t want to go. My legs were sore from previous walks. It’s Monday so mentally I don’t want to do anything. I have all the food in the world since I prepared for the end of it which sounded a lot better than a five mile marathon walk.

But I did it anyways because the alternative is worse.

It’s the same deal here. Sure, it’s more relaxing not to write when you don’t feel like it. Especially at this stage when you’re not close enough to the beginning of the script to work off excitement and you’re not close enough to the end to find motivation to pound out the pages.

But this isn’t about feeling good. It’s about getting pages written.

Guys, you’re living in a world where you’re forced to stay in. There’s literally no excuse for you not to write. So suck it up and write more.

Here’s a little screenwriting trick I learned when I was stuck on a script (or lacked motivation).

Do something unexpected with your story. Something you weren’t planning on.

Because if you’re struggling, you’re either in one of two mindsets. The first is that you don’t have any ideas. Or the second is that you’ve already mapped the story out and therefore feel like you’re transcribing notes. Neither of those is exciting.

But if you do something totally unexpected, even if it makes zero sense – actually ESPECIALLY if it makes zero sense – I guarantee you your creative juices are going to start flowing.

In one of the best Hitchcock movies ever made – North by Northwest – there’s a scene where our main character, Roger, is having an exposition-centric conversation with the female lead, Eve, in a packed restaurant.

The writer, Ernest Lehman, famously talked about how much trouble he was having with the scene. It was boring. He couldn’t make it work. Then a bolt of inspiration hit him. What if Eve shoots our hero? Right there in the middle of the restaurant! He credits that decision with invigorating the entire last part of the film.

The great thing about doing this is that if YOU’RE SURPRISED with something you wrote, the audience will DEFINITELY BE SURPRISED.

So go ahead and write a scene where you do something you’d normally NEVER DO. Don’t worry about if it makes perfect sense. That’s a problem for Future Rewrite Self to figure out. Right now we just need to get the script done.

So no matter how you’re feeling or how little motivation you have or how important it is that you watch all three of your favorite latest Youtube podcast episodes, you must KEEP. ON. WRITING.

And stop going to the In and Out drive-thru. I’d like to keep my food drives under two hours.