For those not up to date, I’ve moved The Last Great Screenplay Contest deadline to July 4th. That gives us FOUR Thursday articles to get your script into shape so you can win the contest and we can get your movie made and take over Hollywood. Each of these four articles will deal with a major screenwriting component and why not start with everybody’s favorite screenwriting topic: DIALOGUE.
Now we’ve gone over dialogue every which way on this site. I’m not sure I can add anything new. But what I *can* do is talk about some of these things in a more abstract sense. Because let’s be honest. The pursuit of great dialogue has an undefinable abstract quality to it. Nobody’s able to nail down definitive rules that lead to great dialogue. I’m hoping that by exploring some of the topics that influence dialogue, we can get a stronger sense of how to master this elusive part of screenwriting. Let’s get to it.
1) Keep it clean – Yesterday’s script, The Swells, didn’t have the greatest dialogue. But the dialogue was very easy to read. And the thing I noticed was that the writer put as little description between dialogue lines as possible. This ensured that the dialogue flowed effortlessly. When a writer starts interjecting what the characters are doing or how they’re reacting inside a dialogue scene, it slows things down A LOT. This is one of the easiest ways to make your dialogue stronger. Keep your excessive description to yourself.
2) Excavation of Exposition – Exposition is a dialogue killer. And, depending on how excessive your plot is, you could get stuck writing tons of it. So how do you make the dialogue fun to read when you have all this technical plot stuff you have to convey? The answer to this could be its own article. But here’s what I endorse. Do a first draft of the scene with all your exposition in there. Then, every time you rewrite the scene, take away AS MUCH EXPOSITION AS YOU CAN and replace it with natural conversation. Make it sound more and more like people talking to each other as opposed to characters giving readers information. You’d be surprised at how far you can take it. A page-long monologue about what it’s going to take to steal the money might end up being as simple is, “We get in there by sunset, we’ve got eight minutes, then we’re out.” If it feels like there’s even a little bit of talky exposition in a scene, do everything in your power to squash it.
3) Turn off your inner grammar Nazi – A telltale sign of weak dialogue is grammatically correct dialogue. Dialogue that doesn’t have any of the messy linguistic flow of a real-life conversation. The most basic example of this is if a character says, “What is up?” Instead of “What’s up?” This mistake permeates logic-based writers who don’t have an appreciation for how loose and fun language can be. Instead of saying, “Did you and Mary finally make it to your date night reservation on time?” you might want to go with something like, “Lemme guess. Another Taco Tuesday disaster?” Yes, there will be robotic characters who speak in grammatically correct sentences. But if you don’t have one of those, loosen up, dude.
4) Don’t overwrite dialogue – Dialogue is the opposite of description. Description is something you can keep perfecting with each draft and it’ll continue to get better. But when you do this with dialogue, it reaches a point where it starts to feel too perfect. The answers are too clever. The responses are more intelligent than the character who’s saying them. It’s this “crossing the rubicon” moment where the dialogue is so honed that it no longer sounds like the messy splattered world of real-life conversation. You can approach this problem in two ways. The first is to be aware of when you’re doing it. It usually picks up around the 5th or 6th draft. Check yourself. Ask, “Does this sound too perfect?” A second more radical approach is, once you’ve perfected the dialogue of a scene over 5 to 6 drafts, erase the scene altogether and write the dialogue from scratch. The reason this works is because you know the scene so well that you’re much better able to navigate the conversation. And yet, the dialogue still has that messy real-life feel to it since you’ve rewritten it from scratch.
5) Boring dialogue comes from boring characters – Think about it. When has a really interesting character ever spouted out a bunch of boring dialogue? It doesn’t happen. So if you’re struggling with bad dialogue in your script, look at your characters and ask if they’re interesting – if they’re unique and have strong personalities. One of the hardest things to do is to make a bland character an interesting conversationalist. Do a character check. Add personality to the ones who aren’t interesting and you’re going to find that your dialogue becomes a lot better.
6) Pump up the pressure – The things we say usually become more interesting when more pressure is added to the situation. So if you put two characters in a room who have nothing to do but talk, you have zero pressure in the scene. Which is a recipe for bland dialogue. Find a pressure point, push, and your dialogue is going to come alive. Pressure can come from anywhere. It could be the pressure of the walls closing in in the trash compactor scene in Star Wars. It could come from characters being chained to the wall like in the original Saw. It could come from one character needing something important from the other character, which is why interrogation scenes work so well. It could come from the deadly sun constantly being on their tail in Into The Night. Find a pressure point, or two, or three, press in on the scene, and your dialogue is going to start popping.
7) Embrace indirectness – Dialogue is worst when what the characters are saying is exactly what they’re thinking. The trick with dialogue is to look for ways AROUND saying the thing they’re saying. For example, if a wife wants to know where her husband was last night, she could say, “Where were you last night?” Or she could say, “You came home late.” The second one is going to lead to a much more interesting conversation because it’s indirect. Likewise, the husband could respond, “I know I stayed out too late. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” Or he could respond, “So this is how you want to start the day?” While there are scenes in movies where characters will have straight-forward conversations, most conversations contain an element of shifting around the information that’s being exchanged. This is what makes conversation interesting, is the human element. It’s the dance. It’s the playful way in which we slither around the topic.
8) Have fun when it’s appropriate – You hear it over and over again. Erase all dialogue that doesn’t move the scene forward. I don’t believe in that. As long as your characters are moving towards something (as opposed to sitting around doing nothing) you can create little pockets of “pointless” dialogue because they’re not pointless if they’re informing us about the characters. I’m reminded of the famous Jules and Vincent scene from Pulp Fiction where they go up to kill a guy. Tarantino could’ve cut to them walking into the room. Instead, he showed us these two shooting the shit before they get to the room. And the reason it worked was because there was no plot to expose. It was just a funny scene of two dudes talking. And we didn’t mind because the characters were MOVING TOWARDS SOMETHING. The mistake all these Tarantino wannabe writers made after Pulp Fiction was they would write scenes like this with characters sitting around doing nothing. The audience is more likely to accept these “pointless” dialogue exchanges when the characters are moving towards some goal.
9) The people in your script are real – This is more of a mindset shift than anything. But if you think of your characters as characters in a story, they will speak like characters in a story. If you think of them as real people, they’re more likely to speak like real people. Let’s say your hero, Nathan, needs to ask his friend, Hank, for money. If you’re thinking of this as a story, you’re going to overthink how Nathan would say the correct lines that both inform the reader what’s going on while keeping the dialogue short and to the point in order to move the scene along as quickly as possible. But if you’re thinking of this as two real life friends, everything that they’d say changes. Hank might sit down and start babbling about the guy at his office who lost his entire paycheck on a pyramid scheme. Their conversation is going to be more free-flowing and realistic, and therefore more reflective of real life. Eventually, you’ll have to cut some of the extraneous “real-life” stuff out to keep the scene focused. But, chances are, you’ll retain enough of these real-life thoughts that the conversation is going to feel more realistic.
10) The way you say it is rarely the most interesting way to say it – That big splashy “we need to hire this writer for a dialogue polish” type of dialogue breaks down to finding creative ways to say common things. Normal is boring. Different is refreshing. In the Black List script, “Get Home Safe,” writer Christy Hall has a Skype scene between her main character, Skylar, and Skylar’s mom. In the scene, the mom asks Skylar if it’s okay to post a link to her band. Skylar says of course, you should’ve done that already. Her mom replies, “But you get mad at me when I post stuff without telling you.” Skylar then clarifies what things her mom posts that make her mad. For this, I want all of you to go in the comments section and write out Skylar’s frustrated dialogue response to her mom that explains the things she gets upset about that her mom posts to social media. Then, I want you to come back here and read what Christy Hall wrote. Because it’s going to show you the difference between weak and strong dialogue. Here’s Skylar’s reply in the script: “I only get mad when you post a photo of me deep-throating a burger on the Fourth of July, when I’m on my period, in a bikini, and looking like a friggin’ house, Mom, there’s a huuuuuuge difference.” There’s a ton to get into as to why this is such a strong line of dialogue. First, “deep-throating” is a way more interesting way to say “eating.” So already, she’s separated herself from the screenwriter pack. Next, we get the very specific DETAILED response of Skylar not liking period bikini pictures. That’s a place a lot of writers would be scared to go or not even think of. It feels specific. It feels unique. Skylar does not say “fucking.” She says “friggin.” It’s a small difference, but it’s one more slightly unique element that helps the line stand out. Finally, she doesn’t use proper sentence structure at the end. “There’s a huge difference” should be its own sentence. But by using a comma instead of period, it conveys the “all said in one breath” nature of the response, which mimics how it would sound in real life. Even the detail of using “huuuuuuuge” as opposed to “huge,” adds flavor to the line that further differentiates it from your average line of dialogue. This is an A+ level dialogue line. You achieve this by looking for different ways to say common things. You’ve got to tap into that creative spot of your brain to find this stuff and level up your dialogue.
Genre: Thriller
Premise: A young woman invites people up to her remote lake house to murder them. But when a back-stabbing ex-friend apologizes for her past transgressions, our murderess changes her mind, to unexpected results.
About: This script finished on last year’s Black List with 8 votes. Rachel James recently graduated from Columbia University School of the Arts. Her previous script, Big Bad Wolves, was a semifinalist in the Nicholl contest.
Writer: Rachel James
Details: 99 pages
Today’s script attempts to pull off that rare feat of dividing its narrative into two completely different parts. In terms of screenwriting, it’s as big of a gamble as you can take.
But if it pays off, terms like “genius” are thrown around. People respect writers who take big chances, who try different things. So did Rachel James pull it off? Let’s find out together.
30-something Lola is up at her remote New Jersey lake house with her father, Don. We’re told that both of them are inherently angry people. Although they seem to be having a nice enough time together.
That all changes when Lola starts hearing a sardonic “sawing” noise which seems to be egging her on to do something. Lola asks her dad about a friend of his who used to babysit her. The implication is that he did something bad to Lola. The next thing we know, Lola has killed her father off-screen.
Lola then invites up an old boyfriend, Art. After they have sex, she kills him too. She seems to have some sort of homicidal bucket list. Which is why, after Art, she invites up her meanie ex-friend from college, Michelle, who stole her high school boyfriend, Chase.
Lola is all set to kill Michelle but then Michelle, ignorant to Lola’s plan, profusely apologizes for stealing her man and marrying him. Lola then decides that she’s not going to kill Michelle, and the two begin a long weekend together where they play question games like, “Who would you murder if you could?”
As Michelle becomes hip to the fact that Lola isn’t being honest with her, she hurries the defense off the field so the offense can play. Not only that, but Michelle inserts herself as QB, and the call is to kill Lola. Or, at least, I think that’s the call. Because the next thing we see is Michelle back at her bougie New York apartment with Chase. This happens at, roughly, the midpoint.
From then on, we follow Michelle, who starts hearing the same “sawing” noise that Lola heard. During a house party that includes a group of people who hold up Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop as the definitive accomplishment of the Western world, Michelle loses it, goes home, and starts draping the walls in her own blood.
When Chase finally comes home, Michelle invites him into the den, turns on some hard metal, and stabs him to death. As this is happening, the name “Michelle” occasionally is replaced with “Lola,” leaving us to wonder if that was a mistake or intentional. Many Black Swan vibes here. Is Michelle Lola? Is Lola Michelle? Was there ever a Lola? I have a feeling that nobody will agree on the answer. Which is either why you’re going to love The Swells or hate it.
What about me? Did I love it or hate it?
I’m not sure what I think.
It’s definitely different.
I admire the bold choice to perform the Split In Half Screenplay. I’m a proponent of making the second half of your script different from the first so that it doesn’t repeat itself. I don’t necessarily endorse this extreme of a narrative shift. But it did ensure that the story stayed fresh.
I liked how quickly the screenplay read, especially after yesterday’s script, which felt like I was back in Chicago walking to school after 18 inches of snowfall. Trudge. Trudge. Trudge. Stop and catch your breath. Trudge. Trudge. Trudge.
This script was more “spec-y” and respectful of the reader. Small character count. Tons of dialogue. Easy to read. The script moved FAST.
Where it ran in trouble was in how little it told us.
I barely learned anything about Lola. She used to paint. I know that. Her dad’s a meanie. I know that. But everything else was vague. Lola’s past with her mother was an important part of the story but I couldn’t tell you anything about her mom or why things went bad with her. Everything is inferred but never explained.
This is a challenge every screenwriter faces. How much do you tell the audience and how much do you keep from the audience? If you err on the wrong side of either (too much or too little) it’s the difference between a confusing mess and an on-the-nose snore-fest.
I feel like The Swells didn’t give us enough information. And information is important in a script like this because people are dying. And for readers to care about those people, they have to know those people. I mean, I still don’t know what Lola’s dad did to make her want to kill him. She mentions an old friend who may have abused her but I’m filling in the abuse part myself. That was never mentioned. I’m just guessing.
If you force your reader to guess too many times, the story becomes an unfocused blob in their heads. A series of feint images connected by cobweb-thin lines. You sort of understand what’s going on, but not enough to truly be invested.
A great example of a similar script that did this well was fellow Black List screenplay, Resurrection, about a single mother in New York City who begins seeing a mysterious older man from her past and becomes convinced he’s come back to kill her daughter. That script, too, plays with mystery and its main character losing her mind. But the difference was the writer set up the main character in a very detailed way so that we felt like we knew her.
I never felt like I understood Lola. And while we get a lot more information on Michelle, since we get to see her life back in New York, even with her I don’t know what she did for work. How she spends 8 hours of her day.
That’s something I ranted about the other week because you can’t separate a person from their job. So I always get suspicious when the writer doesn’t tell me anything about that enormous part of their life. Now that I think about it, I don’t know what Lola did for a living either.
With that said, the scene writing is good enough to keep you reading. There was always an aggressive level of dramatic irony or conflict in each scene, which meant that literally every interaction had a level of subtext to it. Either Lola’s planning to kill Michelle while they’re harmlessly chatting rowing a boat on a lake, or Michelle’s prying for info on why Lola invited her here during drinks and a card game.
It was weird because, on the whole, I never knew where the script was going, leaving me frustrated. But each individual scene had an undeniable energy to it. I never wanted to give up on the script because the scenes themselves were fun.
The Swells feels to me like a promising writer who’s still trying to figure out the weird format that is screenwriting. I don’t think you can yank people around this much without giving them some concrete pedestals to grab onto. If this was a little less smoke and mirrors, I could see it working. Right now it comes off as a foggier version of Black Swan and that movie played it as close to the line of “Is this happening or isn’t it” as you’re allowed to get.
I like the writer, though. Will definitely keep an eye out for any future material she writes.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: The essence of a well-developed movie character is that there’s something deep within them that is unresolved. For those who liked this script, I’m guessing that’s what they were attracted to. Both these characters have deep unresolved issues within them. And when you have that, you have a character who’s constantly fighting themselves, which is more dramatically interesting than watching someone who has it all figured out.
What’s David Fincher’s next movie? THIS is David Fincher’s next movie.
Genre: Biopic/True Story
Premise: The story of Herman Mankiewicz writing Citizen Kane for Orson Welles, and the wild Hollywood ride that led up to it.
About: We’ve got David Fincher’s next project! This one comes from his father, Jack Fincher, who was obsessed with Herman Mankiewicz, the writer of Citizen Kane, which most cinephiles believe is the greatest movie of all time. Rosebud! I’ve heard that the script is now in Eric Roth’s hands (Jack Fincher died in 2003). This is the Jack Fincher draft. Here is an article on Mankiewicz that I confess I haven’t read yet.
Writer: Jack Fincher
Details: 120 pages
One of the most frustrating things a screenwriter can do is when he has a large cast of characters but he doesn’t give you any indication, as these characters are introduced, who’s going to be important and who isn’t.
For example, let’s say you’re introducing the second biggest character in your script and you do so by saying, “BOB, 31, takes a drink of soda.” Meanwhile, three pages later, you introduce some character who’s only going to be in the script for two scenes. And with him, the description is, “DAVE, 40, thick with rage and beaten down by alcoholism, is an asshole of the highest order, the kind of person you turn away from when you see him on the street.”
To a reader, this is frustrating. Because one of the toughest things for a reader to do is keep track of who’s who in a script, how everybody knows each other, what the specifics of their relationships are, etc. And one of our only clues is how a character is introduced. If they’re getting big thoughtful introductions and we stay with them for 3-4 scenes in a row, that’s typically an indication that THIS IS A PERSON YOU NEED TO REMEMBER.
So when a character is introduced like Barely Introduced Bob is, then 30 pages later he comes back and becomes this super important character, the reader doesn’t remember who they are or how they’re connected to the story. They vaguely remember someone named Bob being introduced, but the introduction was so quick, they assumed the character wasn’t important.
This is only exacerbated when you have a script like Mank where you’re jumping around in time. It’s 1940. Then it’s 1932. Then it’s 1941. Then it’s 1934. Your script is almost designed to make people forget your characters because there are entire sections of the script where key characters aren’t around. Then when we jump back to their year, we have to reset our minds and try to remember who’s who, a tall task when half the “whos” were given blink-and-you-miss-it introductions.
This is why I’m not a huge fan of period pieces that do a lot of time jumping. All these characters are second nature to the writer, as he’s spent months/years with them. But we’re meeting them for the first time. And if you create a story where characters disappear for 30 pages at a time then, when we come back to them, they’re major lynchpins in the film, the average reader is going to be thrown.
I’m not saying it’s impossible. But you need to be an expert in the art of character introduction (great descriptions, memorable introductory scenes) and great with character development in general. Interesting people. Flaws that resonate with audiences. Personalities that distinguish one character from the next. Those are the things that make characters memorable enough that, regardless of how complex the narrative is, we always remember who’s who.
I opened up Mank expecting it to be about Herman Mankiewicz’s (Mank) relationship with Orson Welles during the writing of Citizen Kane. But that’s not really what the story explores.
We meet Mank in 1939 when he’s commissioned to write Citizen Kane for Orson Welles. Mank is in his 40s and a big fat drunk. He’s given a secretary, Rita (who types 100 words a minute – ON A TYPEWRITER, THANK YOU) and he starts to write. However, we barely spend any time with Mank in this setting. The majority of the script is flashbacks.
We flashback to the early 30s where the country is in a depression. As far as I can tell, Mank is still an alcoholic back then, too. He’s just not as bad of an alcoholic. One of the most interesting storylines is that Mank used to be friends with newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who is the figure Citizen Kane is famously based on.
He’s also friends with Hearst’s mistress, Marion, and routinely goes up to Hearst’s mansion. There is an opportunity to show the disintegration of Mank’s friendship with Hearst which, we presume, is the reason he’s now recklessly skewering him in this screenplay, but this potentially intriguing plotline is barely covered.
Instead, Mank’s biggest storyline involves the political aspirations of Upton Sinclair, a former writer turned politician who was running on an “End Poverty” campaign who Hollywood hated. Sinclair was famous for getting shafted via false propaganda films that will have some seeing shades of Bernie Sanders.
To be honest, Sinclair’s life sounds interesting. But I’m not reading a script about Sinclair’s life. I’m reading a script about Herman Mankiewicz’s life. Which led to me wondering, “Why is the titular character of the movie playing second fiddle to a politician who was introduced on page 60?”
If you want to be a screenwriter, one of the most important things you must master is focus. Focusing your narrative is everything. If you try to cover eight different storylines, no matter how interesting each of those storylines is individually, you’re going to have a tough time keeping the reader invested.
There’s a quote in the script where Mank’s manager says to him regarding his early Kane pages, “Well I hate to say this, old man, but I am afraid the story as told is a bit of a jumble. A hectic hodgepodge of talky episodes. A collection of fragments that jump around in space and time like – like a bag of Mexican jumping beans.”
I was so struck by how accurately this line explained “Mank” itself that I thought, maybe, Fincher was doing it on purpose. Maybe he was trying to have the script mimic the broken alcohol-ridden mind of Mank himself. But while that sounds great in theory, you’re playing with fire when you’re making your script a metaphor. A script has to work on its own.
If I were producing this screenplay – and I’m guessing that would be David Fincher’s worst nightmare – I would get rid of the Sinclair stuff and focus on a) the current timeline and Mank’s battle with Welles to get the script done, b) his former relationship with Hearst. And c) maybe his relationship with his younger brother, which had potential. That’s all you need. You’ve got yourself a doable interesting biopic that covers a pivotal moment in Hollywood history.
And just to remind everyone – when you’re doing these biopics, YOU CAN’T INCLUDE EVERYTHING. No matter how much you want to. Or how much you can convince yourself that these peripheral stories like Sinclair’s election connect thematically with the rest of the script. This is a movie. It’s not a novel. It’s not a TV show. It’s a movie. And a movie needs to be focused. Which means getting rid of stuff you love. That’s part of the deal you sign when you join the screenwriting club.
HOWEVER!!!
I would like to add a theory I’ve come up with about this project. And if this theory is correct, it throws everything I just said out the window.
This project was given to Eric Roth. What is Eric Roth’s most famous movie? Forrest Gump. What was my least favorite part about Mank? That Mank is the least important character in the story. He weaves in and out of all the Hollywood elite players from that time, each of them getting these big juicy moments. So WHAT IF that’s what they’re going for? Mank isn’t even the key character. He’s more like a Forrest Gump who stumbles into the rooms of these major Hollywood titans. If that’s what this movie ends up being, that could be really cool. I mean, who doesn’t want to see David Fincher’s version of Forrest Gump?
Roth was recently interviewed on Barstool Sports’ “Pardon My Take” podcast and he sounded really excited about this project so, could it be that’s what he’s doing? We’ll see!
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: They say don’t write movies about Hollywood. There’s a caveat to that. You can write movies about Hollywood THAT ARE SET BETWEEN 1930 and 1979. Directors and studios absolutely love this era of moviemaking. So they always love to go back to it when they can. We just saw it with Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. They love creating the Hollywood of old. So if you’re ever going to write about Hollywood, that’s the era to set your screenplay in.
Let’s start out this Mish-Monday with a big fat CONGRATULATIONS to our boy, Nick Morris, whose movie, Becky, debuted this weekend on digital AND in Drive-In theaters.
I gladly contributed to that $$$ total by renting the movie myself and you better believe I had a grand old time with it. There’s something special about watching a movie written by someone you not only know but are rooting for. It was exciting and fun (the cutting Kevin James’ eyeball out with scissors scene was a highlight for me) and I recommend all Scriptshadow viewers check it out.
Speaking of Becky, someone in the comments section brought up that it’s the first Scriptshadow Amateur Showdown winner to become a movie and I thought that was interesting because we’ve had some great Amateur Showdown winners on the site. What was it about Becky that made it the first one?
That answer can be broken into two parts. First off, it’s a movie concept. Like the producers said to Nick when they reached out to him. “It’s Die Hard with a 9 year old girl.” Once you can get producers thinking in terms of visualizing the movie and seeing the marketing angle for it, you are massively increasing your chances of selling the script.
And two, IT’S DOABLE. The more expensive a movie is to make, the less people there are who have the ability to make it. I love Jingle Hell Rock to death. But I’m the first to admit it’s a 75 million dollar movie. And, at that price point for a comedy, you’re talking about a limited number of outfits in town who can pull it off.
Becky, meanwhile, is in the 3-5 million dollar range. There are a lot of people in the movie business who can scrounge up 3 million dollars to make a movie if they like the concept enough.
The longer I do this, the more I think PASSION is the most important factor in creating a script that people respond to. But it doesn’t hurt to keep marketing and budget in mind.
Looking at all this in hindsight, it makes perfect sense why Nick is breaking into the business. He writes doable horror films, all of which he’s passionate about. So one more thumbs up to Nick and can’t wait to see the next one, buddy!
Switching gears, I wanted to share with you my latest TV obsession, the FX/Hulu show, “Dave,” which is their highest-rated comedy ever. Yes, as in higher than It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Atlanta.
“Dave” is a semi-autobiographical take on rapper Lil Dicky’s life. For those of you who are skeptical about a show involving a rapper, I encourage you to check out a couple of Lil Dicky’s videos (Earth and Freaky Friday).
There’s a reason this guy has become so big. He’s talented and unique and always looks to elevate the genre of music and television with something new. If that’s not good enough for you, maybe this pitch is: Dave is “Curb Your Enthusiasm meets Entourage.”
I was skeptical myself but within five minutes, I was hooked. Whenever I’m hooked quickly, I always stop and ask why. Cause hooking a viewer is the single most important thing a writer can do. If you can figure out how to hook someone, you can own the storytelling universe.
In the case of Lil Dicky, it didn’t take me long to figure out what he did. When I say to you, “rapper,” close your eyes and tell me what comes to mind. I’m guessing some tough guy talking about how many “bitches” he has, throwing money around, a grill in his mouth, cars, planes, attitude, living the crazy life.
Okay, now open your eyes and look at Dave. He’s a scrawny insecure neurotic Jewish guy. Immediately you have irony. And when you have irony, that’s a storytelling superpower. It makes characters a lot more interesting.
But “Dave” takes it up a notch. Again, your typical rapper talks about how many girls he’s f#$%@ and how many girls he’s got hanging around him at all times. Dave, meanwhile, has a traumatizing rare condition with his penis. I’m not going to get into specifics because it actually makes me squeamish to think about. But the short of it is, his penis is the opposite of whatever you’d imagine an alpha tough guy rapper’s penis to be. And he’s super insecure about it.
What this does is it creates sympathy. It’s no different than Nemo’s tiny fin. Once you feel bad for the circumstances someone’s in, you are much more likely to root for them. So this ailment Dave has been cursed with makes us root for him more so than we’d root for the typical guy.
On a broader scale, a weakness or disability can punch up a character’s depth. Because it’s not just the fact that the character has a weakness, it’s all of the mental baggage that comes with it. It’s the insecurity. It’s the worry. It’s feeling “less than.” A character who’s having to battle that on an every day basis is going to be more interesting than the guy who has everything figured out.
As viewers, we’re not just hoping the character gets the giant pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (For Dave, that big rap contract). We’re hoping he can mentally overcome this ailment that’s defined his whole life and not worry any more. The achievement of the inner character goal is usually more satisfying to an audience than the achievement of the outer goal. And that’s a big part of what Season 1 of Dave is about.
Another thing I love about Dave is that it consistently exploits its premise.
You’ve heard me talk about this before. A premise is a promise. It’s you saying to the reader/viewer, here’s what my movie/show is about. Whether that’s about dinosaurs or time travel or getting shipwrecked on an experimental island or falling in love with a robot. Your premise is a promise to the viewer that you’re going to entertain them with this specific subject matter.
The mistake so many writers make is they set up their premise then give you a bunch of generic scenes that could be in any movie. If you’re going to give me Minority Report, about people who get convicted for murders they haven’t committed yet, you better not give me detectives showing up at houses asking questions to a suspects’s mother, stuff you could see every week in every TV procedural ever.
There are two scenes in Dave that stuck out to me in this respect. The first occurs in episode 9. Dave is doing some last second recording work on his computer. Meanwhile, his girlfriend is packing cause they’re going to a wedding. She’s trying to get him to hurry but he’s dragging his feet.
So what does Dave do? He invites her over to make her case while he’s recording his song. This results in a cute little autotune conversation that becomes its own song. What’s important to note here is that we are LEANING INTO THE FACT THAT DAVE IS A RAPPER. That is his life. By taking a conversation and repurposing it into a “song”, we are delivering on the promise of the premise.
But probably my favorite moment from Dave comes in the final episode which begins with an eight minute musical sequence of Dave doing something illegal during a concert and going to prison for it. The sequence jumps back and forth between rapping and telling the story in his normal voice, taking us through months and months of his life. Here is the **graphic** (trigger warning!) first part of the sequence…
Here’s when you know you’ve written a scene that’s delivering on the promise of your premise. It’s a scene THAT COULD ONLY EXIST IN YOUR SHOW. This scene couldn’t exist in any other show on TV. It could only exist in Dave. That’s why this show is so good.
That’s all for me, today. Don’t forget you only have twenty-seven more days left to get your Last Great Screenwriting Contest scripts in. Oh, and tomorrow should be interesting. I’ll be reviewing Fincher’s dad’s screenplay that Fincher is directing, Mank, about screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz’s battles with director Orson Welles over screenplay credit for Citizen Kane.
That’s right! You know him from the comments section. You know him for winning Amateur Showdown. You know him as one of the nicest writers on the block. It’s Nick Morris! Three years ago, Nick won Amateur Showdown with his script, “There Was a Little Girl.” Nick soon received a phone call from a producer who wanted to make it. Three years later, the film, now titled, “Becky,” is being released! How cool is that? Today we pick the mind of our resident genius and find out how we, too, can get our scripts made. Nick is a frequent commenter and I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to answer any additional questions you have in the comments.
CR: Let’s start with how this idea came to you. What inspired you to write it?
NM: I’m so obsessed with movies, especially horror from the 70’s and 80’s – the ones I grew up with. I try to write scripts for movies I’d personally want to watch that don’t exist yet. My first script, “Harvester” came from this epic, supernatural-slasher franchise that I had been building in my head for a lot of years before I ever actually sat down and attempted to write it. The script got me enough attention to inspire me to keep on writing. But it quickly became clear that “Harvester” was just too ambitious (read: expensive) for any producer in their right mind to take a chance on with a first-time writer. Okay. Think smaller. More intimate. Low budget. The Harvester’s day will come… :)
The idea for “Becky” came to me while driving, where many ideas seem to find me. I’m a big fan of “Home Alone” and as you know, pretty much all things horror. What if “Home Alone” were a hyper-violent revenge thriller? Hard R rating. Shot on location in the woods. Played seriously but in a fun, over-the-top, satisfying way. This was something I’d pay to watch. I had the basic framework in place by the time I got home and started writing immediately.
Incidentally, the first cut of “Becky” wound up getting an NC-17 from the MPAA.
CR: I sense a Nick Morris Cut on Disney Plus in the near future. Okay, so, I reviewed your script three years ago, then titled, “There Was a Little Girl.” What happened after that review?
NM: So, the day that the Amateur Friday review for “There Was a Little Girl” was posted, I was at work, shipping equipment and driving a forklift. Every time I got to sit down at my desk, I was reading Scriptshadow. Every chance I got to check my phone, Scriptshadow. I was getting so much great feedback, both from you and the community, that I couldn’t tear myself away from Scriptshadow any longer than was absolutely necessary to still function and do my job. Late in the day, I got an email from a producer. He said that he was reading the script and that his colleagues down the hall could hear him going nuts over it! He asked if he could share it with his partners and get back to me about possibly “picking it up”. Hell. Yeah.
I gave him my phone number, wrapped up my work day and headed home to kick off my vacation with cold beer and an AF review to pour over. I had gotten some interest in my script from a producer, accomplished nothing at work, and I was now on vacation. Solid Friday, all around.
A couple days later, my wife and I set out on a little road trip to attend a Metallica concert in Montreal. It’s almost a 12-hour drive from here in Nova Scotia. Somewhere just inside the border of Quebec, my phone rang. Unknown number. I pulled the car over to answer. It was the producer. He talked a mile-a-minute and I did my best to process everything he was saying on the side of the highway with trucks roaring by. He said that he, and everyone in his office, loved the script and they wanted it! We could discuss it further when I got back home in a few days. I can’t even describe everything I was feeling in that moment. I was waaay over the moon.
CR: That’s awesome! What specifically about the script did they respond to?
NM: I remember him calling it “Die Hard with a little girl.” It was probably the gleefully violent tone that drew him in but I think the lawnmower scene was what sealed the deal.
CR: One thing writers learn quickly in this business is that no matter how much someone likes your script, they’re ready with a round of notes. Was that what happened with you? And if so, what were the major notes you were given for the rewrites?
NM: The producers didn’t really have a lot of notes for me out of the gate. Their biggest thing was the characterization of the bad guys. They wanted them to have more “flavor”, which was something that you also pointed out in your review. They suggested making them Nazis. So that’s what I did and it was a great note because this approach definitely gives the personalities of the villains, particularly the leader, Dominick, more color and depth.
CR: What about rewrites? How many were there and how long did the process take?
NM: I was under contract for one rewrite and one “polish”, which is just a lighter, final round of minor revisions. So from the time the contract was signed to the time I turned in my last draft was probably between two and three months. It was sometime during those rewrites that the producers opted to change the name of the project to the shorter and punchier title of “Becky.”
CR: As a writer going through this for the first time, was there anything about the process that surprised you?
NM: For me, almost everything is surprising on some level. Everything is a first. And I’m still learning new things every day about the process and about this business. Probably the biggest surprise to me early on was how cool everyone was to work with. I think I was nervous that the whole experience was gonna be really stressful or something. But that wasn’t the case at all. The producers and everyone I’ve dealt with have been absolute pros and a total pleasure to collaborate with and learn from.
CR: Another lesson working writers learn is that what works on the page to hook readers doesn’t always work in movie form. Were there any changes you needed to make to make this more “cinematic” and less of a spec script?
NM: Certain elements needed to be dialed back or cut in the interest of production, logistics and the budget. Some things are far easier to write than they are to shoot. A lot of that stuff was handled by Lane and Ruckus Skye, the other writers for “Becky.” They came onboard the project along with the directors, Cary Murnion and Jon Millott. They were responsible for taking my wild and untamed story and whipping it into a tighter and leaner narrative and they did a fantastic job with it. I couldn’t be happier with how the finished product turned out.
CR: My primary criticism in the script was, as you remember, whether it was believable that this little girl could physically compete against a group of grown men. Was that ever an issue during development? If so, how did you tackle it?
NM: Nobody ever voiced any real concerns to me about Becky’s age. I tried to make everything she did in the script reasonably plausible, using her anger, her resourcefulness (and her dog) to outsmart and outmaneuver the bad guys. Divide and conquer. In fact, one of the very first things the producer told me was that he wanted to get “the little girl from Annabelle 2” for the role of Becky. Lulu Wilson was eleven years old at the time and she was already a familiar face to horror fans so I was thrilled by this revelation. Within a few weeks, Lulu was onboard and she was super excited about the project. That was sometime during the fall of 2017. But principle photography didn’t begin until August of 2019. By then, Lulu was thirteen. She’s so talented and she was always the producer’s first choice for Becky so her character had to be aged-up along with her. It was absolutely the right call because Lulu’s a total beast and what she brings to the role is really phenomenal to watch.
CR: Take me through the mind of a writer who is writing for himself as opposed to writing for an employer. What can screenwriters expect from that transition? Does writing get harder?
NM: In many ways, I find writing for an employer to be easier than the process of grinding through the first draft of a spec script. But I’ve been fortunate in that everyone I’ve worked with so far has been really enthusiastic about my writing but they’ve also been perfectly clear about the changes they want to see. Having that direction helps a lot and knowing that someone is eagerly waiting to check out your next draft is a great motivator to get it done as efficiently as possible. It definitely requires a bit of a mindset shift in terms of your approach to the work but it also clarifies your path going forward.
CR: What was the biggest lesson you learned as a screenwriter from this whole process?
NM: There are so many. The biggest thing I’ve learned on this wild ride is that it’s possible. It can be done. And you don’t need to be in LA, either. Thanks to social media and platforms like ScriptShadow, where “Becky” was discovered, you can put your work out there from anywhere in the world.
CR: One of the things I’ve always liked about you, Nick, is how positive you are. I mean, you’re the only person I’ve ever had an online disagreement with about The Last Jedi and we both left the argument courteous and respectful. :) This is an extremely important quality for writers to have since this business can be so harsh. Where does that positivity come from and can you give us any tips on how to remain positive in the face of a rejection-based business?
NM: Hey, thanks! I still dig “The Last Jedi”. :) Of course, you need to be cognisant of what people say about your work and differentiate between what’s valid and what isn’t. Understand that screenwriting is an artform and all art is subjective. One person will dig what you’ve come up with and the next won’t. Take it all under consideration. But in terms of a generally positive outlook on life? You know that scene in “Airplane” with the pilot walking through the airport fighting off everyone that comes near him? That’s sort of what I try to do with negative influences. Learn to identify potential threats to your happiness, your confidence and self worth and dropkick that shit the hell out of your way without looking back. Keep moving forward. Find whatever it is that makes you happy, inspires you and makes you feel safe and direct all of your energy there. For me, it’s my loving and supportive family, music, movies and writing. The rest is noise.
CR: And finally, do you have any advice for aspiring screenwriters out there on how to get their script turned into a movie!
NM: Put your scripts out into the world however you can. Submit to Scriptshadow, hosting sites, contests, wherever. Use social media to build legit relationships with folks in the industry, but tread carefully without EVER coming off as pushy or annoying. Ideally, you wanna let them come to you about your work. And if your writing connects with the right person at the right time, you’re off! Maintain that positive attitude, be cool to people, be adaptable and open to criticism and you might just get to watch your script become a movie.
CR: Oh, and when and where can we see Becky???
NM: Tomorrow! June 5th. “Becky” will be available Digitally and OnDemand through all of the major platforms. You can pre-order it now on iTunes and, if you’re lucky enough to have one nearby, “Becky” is playing at over 50 Drive-in theaters across the U.S. with more to come as they continue to reopen.
