Congratulations to everyone who’s kept up!
Even if you haven’t gotten to page 40 yet, good job for staying with the challenge. I’m proud of you.
It’s time we got real, though.
You’re in the thick of it. Act 2. This is where the big gaps in your story start rearing their ugly head. There are some sections you knew you didn’t know and now you’re learning about whole other parts of your story that aren’t as clear as you thought they were.
This means that you might have 20, even 30 pages, before you reach the next part of your story you’re actually familiar with.
A few of you asked that very question yesterday. The next checkpoint isn’t for a while. What the heck do I write in the meantime?
One thing that can help you fill up lots of screenplay real estate is subplots. Subplots are basically storylines that involve your hero and secondary characters.
If you look at Rocky, one of the brilliant things about that movie is that there were four characters OUTSIDE OF ROCKY who all had fleshed out roles. You had his girlfriend, Adrian, of course. You had Mick, his trainer. You had Pauly, his alcoholic best friend. And then you had Apollo Creed.
Whenever you needed a scene, you could explore a component of any one of those relationships, like after Rocky gets chosen by Creed to fight for the heavyweight championship, a desperate Mick comes to Rocky’s place and begs to train him. Or when Pauly gets wasted beyond comprehension at a local bar, Rocky has to rescue him.
Depending on what kind of movie you’re writing, you might even have second-tier subplots (or “sub-subplots”). These would include characters outside of your hero. For example, in Rocky, Adrian is Pauly’s sister. The two of them have their own family issues, which results in a few dustups over the course of the movie.
If you don’t have subplots to go to, it probably means you’re not giving your secondary characters enough to do. Rethink that aspect of your story and you’ll have more scenes to write.
Also, don’t be afraid of holes in your narrative.
Sometimes they can actually work to your advantage.
Think of it like this. If you promise that a big moment is coming up, the lead up to that moment is often just as engaging as the moment itself. It’s like a roller coaster ride. They make you wait in that line for an hour before you get on the ride. The anticipation built up during that wait is sometimes better than the ride itself.
So if you promise that a heist is coming up, we’re going to stick with you. Your job, in those pages leading to the heist, is to come up with scenes that cast doubt on the job being successful. I call these “Uh-oh” moments. Everything’s looking good but then, “Uh-oh. They’re forced to move the heist up a week after the bank changes its brinx truck pick up times.”
They go to pick up the getaway car. But, uh-oh, the getaway car they thought they were getting didn’t come through. They’ll have to use one of their own cars now, increasing the chances that someone will ID them. Oh, and their safe-cracker? Uh-oh. He comes by and says he wants a bigger cut of the prize. They don’t want to give him that much. What do they do now?
Once you know where you’re going with the story, bring the reader in on it so they can anticipate it. Then, in the meantime, fill in gaps with subplot scenes and scenes that introduce obstacles which make achieving the goal harder. Don’t worry, we’ll stay with you if the moment you promised us sounds exciting. It’s when you don’t tell us anything that’s coming up that we lose interest.
It’s the weekend. Be daring and write 10 pages these next couple of days instead of 8. I dare you!
INT. DARK MYSTERIOUS ROOM – NIGHT
Close up on a pudgy man, DAVE, 35, tied to a chair, groggily waking up.
In front of Dave are two doors.
Someone appears behind Dave, untying him. This is ALISTAIR, 60, a “former game show host” vibe to him. After Alistair finishes untying Dave, he takes a position in front of him.
DAVE
Where am I? How did I get here?
ALISTAIR
Not important, Dave. If that is your real name. What is important is that behind me, there are two doors. These doors are the only two ways for you to leave this building. You will have to choose between them. Behind the first door is a room that contains a version of coronavirus that is 100x more contagious than the normal strain. The chances of you getting out of that room without contracting the virus are less than zero. Behind the second door—
DAVE
I pick the second door.
ALISTAIR
But I haven’t told you what’s behind the second door yet.
DAVE
I don’t care. There’s nothing you can tell me about that second room that’s worse than the first one. I’m ready. Room 2. I’ve made my decision.
ALISTAIR
Are you absolutely sure?
DAVE
I’m positive.
ALISTAIR
Because in Room number 2 you will be forced to sit down in front of a computer and not leave until you’ve written the entire second act to a feature screenplay.
Hold on Dave’s face.
He then BURSTS UP, SPRINTS PAST ALISTAIR, YANKS DOOR 1 OPEN AND DISAPPEARS INSIDE, the door slowly inching back closed…… CLICK.
Fin.
Yes. All of us can sympathize with Dave. Act 2 is scary.
Which is why I’m going to help you get through it.
Here’s your screenwriting lesson of the day.
The stronger your hero is in his want for something, the better your second act is going to be.
That’s because when your hero wants something badly, all you have to do as the writer is follow him as he attempts to get that thing.
So in The Equalizer, one of my favorite screenplays, once we set up that Denzel is going to go after all the corrupt forces taking advantage of the people in the city, the second act writes itself.
You just write a scene where dirty cops shake down a local Chinese restaurant for money as a “protection” fee. Then have Denzel corner the cops in the alley and make them give the money back. The cops say no and now you have a scene on your hands (Pro Tip: The “no” is what makes a good scene. “Yes,” there’s no scene. If they say, “No,” the two sides are forced to battle.).
But let’s say you don’t have a traditional hero-going-after-a-goal narrative. What do you do then? Uncut Gems kind of falls into this category. The goal is coming more from the bad guys, the bookies. They want their money from Adam Sandler. So they’re driving the majority of the narrative.
What you want to do in these cases is take the overarching goal-driven approach that’s usually dictating the narrative, and apply it to individual scenes. You then keep doing that over and over again for each scene. As long as you have a character with a strong goal in a scene, you’re going to write good scenes.
For example, in Uncut Gems, Sandler has a big blow-up with his mistress after he thinks she cheated on him. He then goes back to his wife, who he’s divorcing, and he tries to get her back. THAT’S THE GOAL OF THE SCENE. He realizes his mistake with this other woman. He wants to call off the divorce. His goal is to convince his wife that he’s changed and that it’s a good idea to stay married.
It’s a simple scene but a good one. And all that’s happening is the writers are making sure that there’s an actual directive in the scene.
Another thing you can play with in the second act is CAUSE AND EFFECT. You want to throw something hard at your hero, knocking them off their path, which then forces them to reestablish order – get back on track.
Parasite. They find a family hiding in the basement, jeopardizing their ability to continue working in the home. This is the cause. You then use the next 1-5 scenes for the effect. They tie the secret basement family up. Should they kill them? Let them go? Might they come back and reveal their scam? The nice thing about cause and effect is that you can stretch it out for a long sequence, get a good 20 pages out of it if you want to.
Finally, the second act is where you’re digging into the relationships, specifically the unresolved issues between the characters. A lot of writers are scared to put two characters in a room for a no-frills dialogue scene. And they should be IF THERE’S NOTHING UNRESOLVED ABOUT THAT RELATIONSHIP.
But if you’ve constructed two characters with something unresolved – whether it be differing political views, differences in how they approach life, abusive relationship, they have a complicated past, they avoid problems in their relationship, they plain don’t like each other, or anything that creates tension between the characters – these character-based scenes can be highly entertaining.
TV is really good at this but feature writers are scared of it for some reason.
I was just watching “Devs,” Alex Garland’s show on Hulu. In the show, Lily’s boyfriend is murdered by the company they work for. The only person she trusts who can help her prove this is her ex-boyfriend, Jamie, who she left on bad terms. Their unresolved past means that every time they’re in a scene together, there’s tension in the air. That’s the kind of stuff you want in your second act.
The most important thing of all though is to KEEP WRITING. I’m seeing people say they’ve only gotten to page 12 or 14 or whatever in the comments. Unacceptable. Again, I’m not asking you to write Chinatown. I’m asking you to write a first draft quickly. That means some sacrifices will need to be made. One of those sacrifices is to stop doing things the way you’ve always done them. Do them the way I’m telling you. You can decide after this is over whether my way or your way works better. But you’re not going to improve as a writer if you don’t try new things.
The only reason you wouldn’t be writing is if you’re being too critical on yourself. Don’t listen to the critical side of your brain right now. He’s worthless. Listen to Carson. He’s saying, “Keep writing. No matter what. Keep writing.”
Flavor Bin!
Yes!
It’s Day 4 of writing a screenplay, baby!
Is there any better feeling than writing a screenplay? Don’t answer that. But seriously. When you’re cooking along…. when those ideas are hitting the page like raw chicken hitting the barbecue, that seasoned smoke wafting up into your nostrils and you can’t wait to slather some sauce onto that delicious cascade of meat and nom nom nom your way to culinary heaven. That’s why we do this.
Now since we’re writing 8 pages a day, you should be passing through one of the most important sections of the screenplay today – the first act turn. The first act turn occurs between pages 24 (for a 100 page screenplay) and 30 (for a 120 page screenplay) and denotes the moment where your hero begins his journey.
Indiana Jones going after that Ark. Ben Affleck starts coaching the team in The Way Back. The three friends go out to retrieve their father’s super expensive drone in Good Boys.
If you’re not writing a hero’s journey type script, the first act turn instead denotes a directive being put in place. In one of the biggest spec sales from last year, “Shut In,” about a woman who gets shut into her closet by her druggie husband, the first act turn is the moment where the husband’s violent friend enters the house and she enacts a plan to get out and save her children.
And then there are more complex scenarios, where you hand the “plan” over to the antagonist. Since they’re the active one in the story, it’s them who enact the first act turn in the journey. That’s what happens in The Invisible Man. Cecilia is not active for the first half of the screenplay. The plan – stalking and driving his ex-girlfriend insane – comes from the boyfriend. So the first act turn is when the ex-boyfriend begins the process of stalking her.
The point is, some sort of clear direction needs to be established in today’s eight pages. Otherwise you’re going to have a script that loses its engines and dives towards the ocean and no matter how many times the automatic alert system tells you to, “Pull Up! Beep-beep. Pull-up! Beep-beep.” it’ll be too late.
Moving forward…
One of the topics that keeps popping up in the comments is whether to go back and rewrite some of the stuff you’ve already written.
Should you be doing this?
Under normal circumstances, I’d say yes. It’s actually a nice way to ease your way into the day’s writing session. Cause you look at a previous scene, it gives you a better idea for a setup or a line of dialogue. Now you’re typing. So it isn’t difficult to ride that momentum into writing some new pages.
But we only have two weeks to write this. And I’m guessing a lot of you are behind schedule. I hope not. But I’m hearing little birdies chirp in the comment section that tell me otherwise. And the main reason you don’t have pages is because you’re doing things OTHER THAN writing pages, with rewriting being one of those things.
Here’s the sneaky problem with rewriting pages: It’s fool’s gold. It FEELS like writing. But, at the end of the day, you haven’t written anything new. Or, at least, you’ve written less. So let’s not do any rewriting. Make the focus of each day tackling the blank page and that’s it. That strategy is what’s going to allow you to write a script in two weeks.
For our final topic of the day, we have to thank Jonah Hill.
Hill, who’s sold a few screenplays in his day, has been adamant about the fact that he’s writing while quarantined. And recently he revealed a great writing tip. He calls it “the flavor bin.”
The “flavor bin” is a separate document which contains all of the “too outrageous” ideas he’s come up with for that script. When he gets stuck, he heads on over to the flavor bin to see if any of the ideas can be added to the script.
A flavor bin idea for James’ Cameron’s “Titanic” might be: Someone falls overboard and gets attacked by a shark.
That idea doesn’t quite fit the tone of the movie. You could argue it distracts from the plot and the main themes of the movie. But it’s a great flavor bin idea. It gets you thinking. Regardless of whether you use a flavor bin idea or not, they tend to get the creative synapses in your brain firing, which could lead to some idea-piggybacking that eventually leads to an idea you do use.
It’s also a great idea for conservative writers. If you’ve ever been accused of writing “safe,” “bland,” or “predictable” scripts, you should definitely try adding a flavor bin to your screenwriting toolbox. Flavor bin ideas can take your script to places you never would’ve thought otherwise.
Okay, time to begin the day’s writing. You don’t feel like it? Don’t care. You’ve got so much to do today. Don’t care. You’re not inspired.
This process is not about how you feel. It’s about getting pages down. Whenever you run out of ideas, erase the inner critic and write whatever comes to mind. Even if it’s babble. Babble eventually turns sensical if you do it long enough.
Good luck. After today, you’re 25% done!
Okay, it’s time for me to be… how to I put this nicely?
Parental.
I still love you but I have to teach you a couple of lessons.
I’ve noticed a good chunk of excuse-making in the comments section about why writers aren’t keeping up.
One of the biggest reasons is: Not enough time.
My response to that?
B.S.
And I can hear your resistance already. The anger is bubbling. You can’t wait to get down in that comments section and explain to me why YOUR situation is DIFFERENT from everyone else’s and how you actually truly seriously don’t have enough time to get your pages written.
B.S.
B.S. with a capital B and a capital S.
The only way you don’t have enough time to finish your pages is if there is an anti-screenwriting terrorist in your home pointing a gun at your head all 24 hours of the day and telling you that if you write anything, he’ll shoot you.
Unless that is going on, you have time.
If you are operating by the 2-Week screenwriting principle of not judging your writing, you can write 8 pages in 2 to 3 hours.
If you’re still convinced that you don’t have enough time, post every hour of your day and what you were doing during that hour in the comments section. I’m certain that the intelligent Scriptshadow community can help you rearrange some things to find two hours to write.
And if your excuse is that, sure, you do have the time, but you’re stuck and you don’t know what to write next – KEEP WRITING ANYWAY. I don’t care if you write a redundant scene or a scene that feels pointless. As long as you keep writing! Because when you write, you’re more likely to come up with ideas, and when you come up with ideas, you’ll have reason to keep writing.
“But… but… but… but…”
No buts. You know it’s true. You have time to write. Now stop making excuses and just do it.
On to something I’ve noticed a few of you having trouble with – dialogue.
Here’s the dirty little secret about dialogue.
Are you ready?
DON’T WORRY ABOUT DIALOGUE.
That’s it.
That’s the only thing you have to know about dialogue at this moment.
Why? Because there’s never been a script where more than 10% of the dialogue from the first draft made it into the final movie.
Dialogue is the most re-shaped component of a script and that’s because a) it’s easy to rewrite, and b) the more you learn about your characters over the course of a project, the better you understand what they’d say and how they’d say it. Not to mention plots are constantly evolving in rewrites, which means a lot of scenes are getting chopped, which means all those hours you spent obsessively slaving over that dialogue turned out to be for nothing cause the scenes no longer exist.
How insignificant is dialogue in the grand scheme of things? Remember how we talked about the Safdie Brothers writing 160 drafts of Uncut Gems?
Even WITH THOSE 160 drafts, they still did scripted takes AND “say whatever you want” takes with their actors. In other words, they knew that dialogue, while important, isn’t as important as your actors believing in and emotionally connecting with what they say. So after ten years of rewriting a script to death, the finished product still consisted of a ton of dialogue literally made up on the spot.
Yes, everyone, I understand that the Safdie Brothers are writer-directors and don’t need their dialogue to shine on the page. But still: dialogue should be one of the last things in the script you perfect. Once you’ve got your structure down (which usually takes about 6-7 drafts) and you therefore know you won’t be cutting many more scenes, that’s when your focus is going to shift to dialogue.
In the meantime, there’s two types of dialogue you should be writing in your first draft. Functional or fun. Functional dialogue when you’ve got exposition to convey to the writer. And fun for everything else.
So if you have a scene like in Jurassic Park where the characters are explaining the rules of the dinosaurs or how the theme park works, just get that dialogue down. It doesn’t have to be entertaining. You’ll make it entertaining in future drafts. Right now, it doesn’t matter if it’s dryer than sand. You just need to get it down.
And if you have a scene where two characters with some sexual chemistry are on their way to the next big set piece, have fun with their dialogue. Be outrageous, witty, silly, clumsy. You’re not trying to hit a home run your first at-bat. You’re trying to get a general feel for who these people are and the things they might say. These scenes can be twice as long as they’ll end up being in the final draft because you’re in exploratory mode.
With that said, I know that writing a good dialogue scene makes you feel good. And when you feel good, you want to write more.
So here are a couple of tips. One, try to have at least one dialogue-friendly character in your script, someone who likes to talk, has a lot of opinions, is clever, is funny, or all of the above (think Tony Stark, Harley Quinn, Oscar Isaac’s character in Ex Machina). Just having that character around will up the quality of your dialogue 30% without you having to do anything.
From there, look to dramatize scenes. Create some element of conflict within the scene. That conflict will force your characters to interact with dialogue that’s more fun to listen to.
For example, here are two scenes. You tell me which one is more likely to result in good dialogue.
The objective of the scene is to set up a pandemic virus that’s emerging so that the audience understands it for plot reasons we’ll explore as the movie goes on.
In our first version of the scene, Joe tells Sara why the virus is so dangerous. Sara, eager to learn, asks a lot of questions. “Where did the virus start?” “How many people have died so far?” Joe answers all the questions and when he’s finished explaining everything, Sara thanks him.
We’ve achieved what we’ve set out to do. The audience now understands the virus at the center of the movie.
Now here’s a second version of the scene. In this version, Joe and Sara have two different mindsets about the virus. Joe gets a lot of his news from conspiracy websites. He’s up to date on the latest unfounded theories. Sara, meanwhile, only trusts official fact-based data that’s been reported through official channels. The two debate each other on what’s real and what isn’t.
Note how, dramatically, this is a much more interesting way to talk about the pandemic than a simple Q & A session. The main difference is that there’s conflict between the characters and whenever you have conflict, the scene is more charged, and when a scene is more charged, it’s generally better.
This isn’t the only way to write good dialogue, of course. But it’s an example of where your mindset should be to set a stage for the most interesting conversations. You want to create a situation that has some dramatic value and isn’t just characters saying what you need them to say to set up the plot.
But don’t get too wrapped up in that. You don’t need to focus on dialogue in the first draft. You need to write the darn script. So whatever you do, keep writing. And stop sabotaging yourself. You have the time. And as long as you don’t judge your writing, you will get your 8 pages. Trust me. You just have to sit down and do it.
Congratulations!
You’re 8 pages into your screenplay.
If I were at your place right now, I’d give you a high-five.
Actually, that’s not a good idea in this environment. How bout I send you a virtual elbow-bump instead? Not as visceral but still gets the job done.
And, hey. Even if you’re not 8 pages into your new screenplay, there’s no need to panic. The opening of your script, where you set everything up, can be deceptively tough.
Think of it like a party. In order for everyone to have fun, someone has to order all the liquor, schedule the catering, make sure all the invitations have been sent out, prep the house, etc. That’s essentially what you’re doing with your first 15 pages.
Setting up all the characters, conveying relevant mythology and backstory, constructing the setup for your plot – that stuff doesn’t naturally flow off the fingertips. So give yourself a break if the opening is kicking your butt. You can make up for it in the coming days.
That actually brings me to today’s topic, which I, surprisingly, don’t see discussed often in the screenwriting community.
That would be the psychological effect of writing.
Let’s be honest. Some days, writing beats you up. I’ll give you an example from a script I wrote a long time ago. It was a big sprawling science-fiction script with a lot of characters and a lot of mythology. I’d been thinking about the script for a long time. I’d been living with the characters. I’d inhabited the world. I even spent hour-long meditation sessions attempting to “experience” what a real hour on this imaginary planet I’d created would be like.
Needless to say, I was SO EXCITED to write the screenplay. And when I finally sat down and wrote the first 20 pages, they were nothing like what I had imagined them to be. I learned quickly that I didn’t know some of the characters as well as I thought I did. There were small logistical gaps in the setup, such as where certain secondary characters were located geographically. And how to jump between different sets of characters and keep the narrative flowing. All of this stuff seemed insignificant during prep but now that I was facing it, it was anything but insignificant. This turned what I assumed would be a fun breezy writing week into a taxing depressing slog.
What I noticed after those 20 pages was that my desire to write went way down. So the day after that, I only wrote two pages. The day after that, I wrote one. And then I found myself avoiding writing the script altogether. All of this stemmed from those first 20 pages beating me up. Psychologically, I was defeated. And I let that defeat dictate my motivation.
Writing is still an art. All art contains a strong emotional component, both in connection with your characters and in connection with yourself. It’s like a relationship. You can’t go on auto-pilot. You have to emotionally invest to do the work. As everybody knows, when you emotionally invest in anything and it doesn’t go well, you become emotionally exhausted.
But here’s what I’ve learned over time. No matter how tough a script gets, you always get back to a high point as long as you keep writing. So I get it. You might experience what I experienced on that sci-fi script at some point in this first act (or later). If that happens, go watch a Youtube video that makes you happy (do NOT watch another fear-mongering pandemic video – that will NOT help). Grab a snack that always makes you feel good. It’s a pandemic. People will understand if you gain a little weight. Then get back in there and keep writing because it WILL get better.
4 scenes or 8 pages a day. That’s it. In 2 weeks, you’ll have a feature screenplay that you may be talking about in two years from the red carpet of the film’s premiere. They’ll ask you, “How did you come up with this idea?” And you’ll answer, “Actually, Scriptshadow made me write the script. I didn’t have a choice.”
Now get back to it!
