Genre: Science-Fiction
Premise: In the near future, a series of mysterious electrical surges threaten earth, forcing the planet’s best astronaut to travel to the farthest regions of the solar system to stop them.
About: The zig-zagging flight that was Ad Astra’s path to the box office finally landed this weekend, netting the film a respectable 20 million bucks. It wasn’t enough to beat Downton Abbey, though, which somehow inhaled 30+ million dollars to top the weekend. I knew something special was going on when I saw a line of people at the Arclight dressed in 1920s clothes to see a showing. Your fanbase has to be pretty hardcore to pull that off.
Writers: James Gray and Ethan Gross
Details: 2 hours and 2 minutes

I was going to review Between Two Ferns today because it’s a really funny movie. The problem was there was zero to learn from it. I mean, seriously, what is there to learn from that project? Um, if someone comes to you with an idea that was never meant to be a movie but Netflix is paying the creator 20 million dollars to turn it into one, and they’re like, ‘sure, why not,’ make sure you’re ready to adapt it? I guess that’s the lesson? Whereas with Ad Astra, there are several million screenwriting topics to discuss.

Like there’s a scene late in the film where Pitt’s character, Roy McBride, is on Mars, and he has to sneak onto a rocket that’s going to Neptune. You could see the screenwriting challenges Gray was dealing with. The first is that a rocket traveling from Mars to Neptune is such a rarity, that the launch process would be airtight. If any little thing was off, they would postpone the flight. So Gray has to get McBride on the outside of the rocket just as it’s counting down. If he gets him there before that, they would’ve stopped the launch.

This leads to an unbelievable situation whereby McBride opens one of the rocket doors as the ship is launching. But again, it was the only screenwriting way to do it. Then, after he got in, I realized, Gray has to get rid of all these astronauts somehow. Cause McBride has to get to his father alone. That’s the only way the movie works. So I’m thinking, “How is he going to do that?” No sooner than 30 seconds later, the captain orders the crew to attack McBride. This allows for McBride to kill the entire crew under the guise of “protecting himself,” and now we get what the writer needs, which is for McBride to be alone on his trip to Neptune.

This might be boring to you but this kind of stuff is fascinating to me. Each script you write is an endless well of problems that you have to solve. And the writers who are able to solve the problems in the most creative and invisible way are the ones who get all the accolades.

If you know nothing about this movie, it’s got a pretty cool plot. There’s something called “The Surge” emanating from deep space and it keeps knocking earth’s electric grid offline. They think that if these surges continue, it could spell the end of us. So they enlist astronaut, Roy McBride, to go on a top secret mission. They explain to him that his famous father, who disappeared 15 years ago searching for E.T. on something called “The Lima Project,” is actually still alive. And they think he’s connected to the Surge somehow. Roy’s job is to travel to Mars so they can send a “secure transmission” to his dad, which they hope will give them some answers.

Back to screenwriting problems. Another issue Gray was dealing with was that this was a script about Roy getting to his father. However, for some reason, Gray didn’t want that to be the initial goal. So he has to come with this intermediary goal, which is the whole “secure message” plotline. Roy must get to Mars because that’s the only way to send a “secure message.” Except that makes zero sense. Why couldn’t they have Roy record a message then have someone else take the message to Mars? Having Roy himself go was a very inefficient way to achieve the goal. Of course, it was all smoke and mirrors – a way to get Roy to Mars so that we could continue with him to Neptune. Or, in simpler terms, if Roy doesn’t go on a mission, there’s no movie.

What’s different between the original draft and this one? Not much. One medium change and one big one. In the script there was a planet between Mars and Neptune they went to. I liked that because that was the whole idea behind the movie. That he gets further and further away from earth. Each planet he went to had a smaller and smaller outpost, which was a great visual representation for how far away he was.

They replaced that other planet with a “mayday” scene where they boarded a remote space station only to find that the astronauts had been eaten by their crazed lab monkeys. I’m going to go ahead and chalk this up to a studio note. I can see a studio saying, “There’s not enough going on here. He just goes from planet to planet and looks depressed. Can we have one fun sequence at least?” And so they put that in. And I have to admit it was a pretty good scene. Like a contained horror movie.

The other big change they made was to the ending. In the script, the ending was that Roy’s father was trying to replicate the Big Bang. That’s what the surge was – reactions from those attempts. The reason he was doing this was because all his messages sent out to E.T. came back with nothing. There is no other life out there. And so in his dad’s logic, he wanted to “try again,” basically. Create another universe so that we could get it right this time – have life in multiple solar systems.

I’m guessing that Disney found that ending a tad bleak and made them reshoot it. Which is why the ending now is so nonsensical. He sees his dad. Dad tells Roy that he doesn’t care about him. Then Roy tries to take him home but his dad jumps off the ship to his death. You’re not really sure what you were supposed to take from the ending. And the reason is that the whole plot of the original script was built up for that original ending. So if you add any other ending, it’s not going to work. You’d have to go back and rewrite every setup in the movie, since every setup was set up for a different ending.

Another thing about this ending, which I want to turn into a broader discussion about screenwriting – I read lots of scripts where son/daughter looks for dad/mom. And the whole point of the movie is the ending scene when they finally confront their parent.

Here’s the problem. It never works.

And here’s why. If the parent apologizes and says I love you, a) it’s too easy, b) it’s cliche, and c) it doesn’t make sense. If they loved you that much they wouldn’t have left you. So some writers, like Gray, take it in the opposite direction. The parent says I don’t love you. I’m not interested in a relationship. Which results in the audience saying, “So then what was the point of the movie?” There isn’t a lot of wiggle room between those two options, so the ending is always unsatisfying.

And the more the parent talks, the worse it gets. If the parent goes on a big monologue, it’s NEVER SATISFYING. Because think about it. What could the parent possibly say that would explain leaving their kid for 20 years?

Despite all this, I really liked this movie. That might be confusing to you since I trashed the script. But the rare times when a bad script turns into a good movie occur when the writer is the director. That’s because they’re not writing to win a reader over. They’re writing from a technical place. They want to make sure the blueprint is laid down for them to shoot. They know stuff the pure screenwriter does not, like where they can build up the score to drive a moment home. The screenwriter doesn’t control that. The director does.

Ditto how they direct the actor. A good director knows how to convey an intense emotional beat just by getting the right close-up of the actor and giving him solid direction. I remember a specific moment where that happened in this movie. The government takes Roy aside and tells him that his father is still alive. This is a guy who thought his dad died 15 years ago. Gray stays close on Pitt and we see him internalize this monumental realization. No screenwriter, no matter how good they are, can write that on the page.

And that was the difference for me from script to screen. I cared about Roy McBride a lot more when Pitt inhabited him. You could tell Pitt gave everything to this role. There was something deeper in him than I usually see. And like I always say, if you can get the audience to connect with your protagonist on an emotional level, the rest of your script doesn’t need to be perfect. Because we’ll now go anywhere with that character. We just want to see him okay. I wanted to see Roy find fulfillment.

So this was a really pleasant surprise for me because I expected Ad Astra to be a rough ride.

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

What I learned: If you’re writing a “Find Daddy” script, you have to find a clever way to do the final scene where they meet. Because if you’re only relying on, “Sorry, I screwed up, but I love you. I watched you from afar and kept track of your life and blah blah blah,” that ain’t gonna work. You know a movie that handled this in a really clever way? Field of Dreams. Because when the dad finally arrives, he’s a ghost. So he doesn’t know Ray Kinsella is his son. This allows for their conversation to be all sub-text as opposed to on-the-nose apology-I-love-you nonsense. So get creative on these endings guys!

Genre: Psychological Horror / History
Premise: Ten years after the vicious atrocities of the Partition, a Pakistani woman attempts to make peace with the brutal murder of her family when a vengeful spirit returns to haunt her.
Why You Should Read: This is a setting and historical event that has never been depicted in Indian film, let alone Hollywood and is one of the most overlooked humanitarian crises of the 20th century as it came in the immediate aftermath of World War 2. Up to 2 million people died as a result of this mass migration, and the trauma and violence that occurred has formed the rigid backbone of the Pakistan-India conflicts we see today. By taking a supernatural angle, I’ve attempted to manifest the inner turmoil felt by the survivors as well as present a moral conflict for the reader to constantly have in mind throughout. As a Pakistani, this is an extremely important topic to my cultural history, and after hearing some of the absolute horror stories my direct ancestors faced just 70 years ago shook me to my core. This is an event that had a direct impact on every single Pakistani and Indian, and fearlessly showcasing the terror of it all will be something I’ll forever strive to accomplish.
Writers: Raza Rizvi
Details: 88 pages (updated draft from the one that competed in Amateur Showdown last Friday)

Not gonna lie.

As I can see the golden shades of the weekend shining just over the Hollywood hills, and all the happiness that comes with them, I was a mite under-prepared for the brutality of this subject matter. With that said, I’ve always been curious about this region of the world. And I was excited to read something from one of the site’s most active contributors. I admire how dedicated Raza is to the craft and how active he’s been in grabbing fate by the horns. He’s really going for it, which is the best way to make it in this business. Let’s take a look at this very personal project of his…

The Well starts off with a preface explaining that in 1947, the British separated India and Pakistan into two separate countries in order to solve the region’s complex religious disparity. For those people who needed to travel to the opposite country, many of them were slaughtered and raped. This story takes place 10 years later in Pakistan and follows Fatima, a 30-something nurse who canes herself every night for unknown reasons. She lives with her husband, Hussein, who works in the mines.

The only light in Fatima’s life is Aisha, her dog, who she found on the day her train to Pakistan was attacked and derailed. Quickly after we meet Fatima and Hussein, an evil spirit in a 17-year-old girl’s body, Jinn, appears in a lake and stumbles into their house. They clean her and clothe her and decide they’ll figure out what to do with her tomorrow.

The next day, Hussien goes off to work in the mines while Fatima does her nursing rounds in the village. While they’re away, Jinn spirit-attacks the dog, leaving it near death. When Fatima returns, she’s furious, convinced Jinn did something to the dog, and takes Aisha out to her friend, who she hopes can save the canine. Meanwhile, Jinn starts walking around the village, sending bad voodoo in every direction. This causes several explosions in the mine which obliterates many of the children who work in its deepest caverns.

We flashback to Fatima’s past where we learn that she once had a daughter. And one day, while getting water from the well, a group of bad men rode up, wanting to hurt and possibly rape them. Fatima and her daughter run to their house and hide, but when it’s clear it will be only a matter of time before the men find and rape her daughter, Fatima repeatedly stabs her daughter in the heart to kill her. It is here where we realize that Jinn is a recreation of who her daughter would be if she were still alive today. And she’s still angry about being murdered by mommy. To drive her point home, she spends the rest of the day laying carnage to the village and everyone in it.

This movie includes a train ride of beaten down souls who then have their train blown up in an attack and the survivors slaughtered by groups of men with swords. For those who survive the attack, they are riddled with bullets. This movie includes a dog that suffers for an excruciatingly long time before he’s finally put out of his misery. It includes 5 year old children pushed into tiny passages in a mine to do their jobs… who then die in a horrifying mine fire. We literally watch them scream as they burn to death. It includes a woman and her daughter who run from a group of evil men. When the men get close enough, the woman stabs and kills her daughter so that she won’t be raped. And that’s just a fraction of how much violence and suffering goes on in this story.

Before I say what I’m about to say, I have to be clear. I’m not a fan of sadness packed on top of sadness. I need balance in my movies. And I need my movies to provide an overall sense of hope. When it comes to horror, I think the formula that works best is when evil disrupts joy, happiness, contentedness. It is the sour added to the sweet that creates a juxtaposition that makes horror work. When you interrupt a terrible situation with an even worse situation, it creates such a sense of despair that the events become uncomfortable to watch.

I’m not sure I know anyone who wants to see a 5-year-old boy who’s been forced to work 16 hours a day in a tiny mine tunnel die as fire melts his skin off in real time. To me, that’s a huge miscalculation in the understanding of what audiences are comfortable with. And also a weakness in understanding how to balance the positive with the negative to keep the viewer engaged. Balancing those opposite ends of the spectrum is often what defines the best storytellers. They know when you’re too down to see another scene of suffering. They know when you’re too comfortable and happy and therefore the perfect moment to throw a death at you. To hit the audience over the head with misery after misery after misery… I don’t know of any successful movies that do this. Even Schindler’s List had its fair share of happy moments. And that was about the Holocaust.

If I could only convey one lesson to Raza in today’s review, it would be to study tone. Understanding tone is natural to some but unnatural to others. And what’s so frustrating is that when it’s unnatural to you, you can’t see the mistake you’re making. To you, it’s obvious you would take a 5-year-old boy who was living a life of suffering and burn him alive in a long torturous death scene. To everybody else, it’s obvious that you would never do something like that in a movie. So what Raza has to do is watch all his favorite movies and take stock of the lowest moments to understand what audiences can handle. Also, take stock of the ratio of positive to negative scenes and how many positive scenes writers will write before they hit them with a negative scene, and vice versa.

Cause the truth is, this story is flawed at the concept level. Like I said, you don’t want to interrupt misery with even worse misery. I don’t think audiences find that compelling. That would be my advice here. With that said, I’m interested in hearing from you cinephiles with a darker palette. Are there movies out there like this that have done well? I openly confess I’m not as knowledgeable about these types of films cause they’re not my cup of tea.

Script link: The Well (new draft)

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

What I learned: Suffering can be used to create sympathy for a character. But there’s a threshold for what the audience can take. Once suffering goes past a certain level, the audience checks out. It becomes too much. And that’s what happened here. Everything was too much.

Duh-duh-duhhhhhhhhhhh!

It’s time, once again, for the dreaded “Why Your Script Didn’t Get Picked For Amateur Showdown.” So here’s the dealio. I WANT TO HELP YOU. I want to put you in the head of the person who’s receiving your query. Most writers never learn why their query was rejected. It’s one of the most frustrating parts of being a screenwriter. It’s like getting dumped but never told why.

One thing you have to remember is that it takes effort to read something. That’s why very few people do it. And most of them only do it if they’ve been told by ten different people and all of the internet that it’s great. That’s why your query is being judged so harshly. People are so lazy, they don’t even want to go through the hassle of clicking the PDF document, downloading it, and then opening it to read the first page.

You have to both excite them with your idea and not say anything that raises any red flags. For example, I might receive a solid logline, then, one sentence later, the writer boasts that it’s his first screenplay. My eyes immediately roll because I now know the script will be bad. To be clear, this post is all about love. It’s about helping you see your pitch through a reader’s eyes. I encourage everyone in the comments to keep the critiques helpful, not hurtful. Let’s get the ball rolling!

Hey Carson – What would happen if you combined the psychological depravity of THE GOOD SON with the science-fiction horror of THE QUIET PLACE?

Why You Should Read:  In a lot of horror/thriller movies, it’s the squeaky clean good guy versus the pure evil bad guy.  To me it’s more interesting if the so-called good guy is flawed in some way, even borderline bad, which makes for more interesting characters and a richer story.  That’s what I’ve tried to accomplish with this script – combine the psychological depravity of THE GOOD SON with the science-fiction horror of THE QUIET PLACE.  I’d appreciate any and all feedback on it.  Thank you very much!

Sci-fi Horror is a good genre to write in. One of the most difficult challenges in making movies is the marketing aspect. So when you write in a genre that’s highly marketable, you’ve got an instant leg up on the competition. Why didn’t I choose this, then? For starters, I got worried when I saw 71 pages. I know micro-scripts are becoming kind of a thing. But 71 pages is too short for a feature. The main thing that concerned me, however, was that the logline contained shades of comedy even though the script isn’t comedic. An iPhone’s GPS being hacked by “tech-savvy aliens” makes me think comedy immediately. Also, the use of the word “devoured” has comedic roots when you’re talking about aliens coming after you. It has me thinking of movies like Critters or Tremors. Not The Good Son or A Quiet Place. Word choice in a logline is EXTREMELY important. So you want to make sure that the key words you’re using are conveying the proper tone. Finally, it kind of felt like two different movies with the kid aspect. I would say that getting attacked by aliens is enough (we just saw it in the spec sale “Out There” about a family who gets attacked on the highway). To throw a crazy spooky kid into the mix feels like one idea too many. These are the reasons I passed on Global Positioning.

Hi Carson, 

Greetings from Germany,

I have a lot of love for my readers from different parts of the world. Their journey as a screenwriter is often harder than those of us who live in the US. So I root for you. But you guys have to bring it! As unfair as it sounds, you will be judged more harshly. The people who move to LA tend to be the most serious. So, on average, those scripts are better. But it doesn’t mean you can’t succeed from Germany or Russia or even Iraq. However, YOU HAVE TO BRING YOUR A GAME! The very first sentence in this query is grammatically incorrect. It should be, “This is XXXXX from Germany, again.” What that tells me is that the script is going to have ESL (English Second Language) issues. Also, I’m going to make a blanket statement here because this is routinely a problem regardless of experience. Don’t tell anyone how many scripts you’ve written. It’s not a number that helps you. If it’s too low, people think you’re not ready yet. If it’s too high, people are wondering what’s wrong with your writing that you haven’t succeeded yet. So let’s keep that number to yourself.

The logline itself isn’t bad. But it feels too familiar. We basically have a werewolf killing people in Central Park. What I would tell this writer is to set his werewolf movie somewhere interesting in Germany. Half the screenplays written are set in New York and yet you’re intimately familiar with this entire country that most Americans have never been to. Use that to your advantage, like the way Neill Blomkamp used South America to create a unique alien movie with District 9.

P.S. For you non-English speakers, find someone from the U.S. or U.K. (or the Aussies!) to proofread your e-mail queries. And if you need someone to do a full script ESL proofread (would cost $$), e-mail me (carsonreeves1@gmail.com) and I’ll hook you up with someone. This stuff matters, guys. You don’t want to shoot yourself in the foot before they’ve even gotten to your script.

HORROR, DRAMA.

Hey Carson, I’m hoping you read my script!  I’m a Father of three, who got this writing bug a year and a half a go.  I work a labor intensive and  monotonous job but that’s alright it gives me a lot of time to think and dream up these characters and worlds.  I get support from my wife and kids, even though they think I’m a little crazy, but I’m just crazy enough to believe my scripts will be made into MOVIES one day.

These queries kill me because I know how many of you out there are working these jobs you don’t like, having to dedicate all your time and money to your family, giving you very little time/resources to pursue your screenwriting dream. But here’s the thing you have to realize – Hollywood doesn’t care how bad your struggle is. They care how good your script is. And there’s a certain level of professionalism that is expected of you in order for someone to open your script. This query sub-communicates that you’re still in the beginning stages of learning the craft. The logline isn’t bad. I like the visual of World War 1 and wolves. But the end of the logline is a classic, “I don’t know how to finish a logline” ending where you sort of taper off into a general implication of what’s going to happen. The end of the logline needs to be STRONG. It needs to have punch and tell us what’s happening. “When a group of scientists come for an early look at the world’s first dinosaur theme park, a giant storm derails their tour and unleashes a T-Rex and a pack of velociraptors on them.” That’s Jurassic Park. Notice how the end gives us these intense images of needing to escape these deadly monsters. Again, I wouldn’t tell anyone how long you’ve been doing this. It’s too often used to make assumptions. But yeah, the main thing here is that the writer didn’t seem ready for prime time.

Hey Carson!

Title: A Left Swipe
Genre: Coming-of-age Drama
Premise: A morally righteous high schooler aims to lose his virginity before heading off to college by using the notorious hookup app, Tinder.
Why You Should Read: Everyone remembers the tumultuous period that follows immediately graduating high school. You’re told that you just lived through the best years of your life, your parents start to stress about whether or not you plan to live with them for the next twenty years, and, for the first time, you have to actually make a decision for yourself as to what you want your future to be. All this stress and more befalls my protagonist who, like many high school graduates, is deeply concerned over how he’s still a virgin. In this sometimes funny, sometimes heart-wrenching story, I look into the awkward expectations placed onto high school graduates, the tragedy of expectations, and the depersonalizing nature of modern relationships, all in a clean 89 pages! Hope you enjoy.

Love that this writer finally had the courage to put his work out there for others to read. That’s not easy to do! So props for that. Here’s the problem with this idea. It’s too simplistic and general. There’s nothing unique about it. And I get what the writer is saying. He wants to tell a universal story. Which is smart. Your characters need to be experiencing universal problems so that the audience can relate to him. But that doesn’t mean you get to package it in such a simplistic manner. I mean, this is a movie about someone trying to get laid. That’s not just a regular plot I’ve seen thousands of times. It’s a SUBPLOT I’ve seen thousands of times. That’s a good indication that your concept is weak – if it’s something that could be a subplot in another film. Also, Tinder. People: technology ideas date quickly. I’d stay away from them unless the technology is BRAND NEW and the concept is worth the risk of its short shelf life. I do give the writer credit for adding “morally righteous” to the character description as it adds some irony to his situation. But it’s still not enough to get past the unoriginal premise. But keep at it! You just have to continue to write and get better. Oh, and here’s a tip. Get your super-honest friends to look at your concepts ahead of time. If they’re not excited about them, maybe you want to keep generating ideas before you commit the next six months of your life to something.

Hi Carson,

WYSR: Ever wondered what you’d get when you mixed The Lost Boys with The Mighty Ducks and added a splash of The Goonies?? Well now you can find out! This script is inspired by the fascinating historical account of the remote Colorado mountain town that was descended upon by “vampire-like personages” during the silver rush of the late 1800’s. “Five For Biting” both incorporates and builds upon that famous folklore in a supposition of how a similar event may occur in the present day, told from the perspective of a group of small town kids each dealing with the growing pains of adolescence in addition to the imminent destruction of their home by bloodsucking vampires. Hopefully those things appeal to enough people to get some reads and feedback. I’d love to know what you guys think.

I’ve come across this submission a few times and each time I read it, I have the same thought, which is, “There’s too much going on here.” For starters, it’s not the easiest logline to understand. “When a visiting hockey team turn the population of their town into bloodthirsty vampires…”. If they’re the “visiting” team, and they’re turning the population of “their” town into vampires, wouldn’t that mean that the vampires were miles away, back in their home town? I think you’re saying they’re turning *this* town into vampires, but that’s far from clear in the logline. Then it seems that the vampires – your big hook – aren’t relevant to the story, as you point out that the local figure skating team is going to take on the hockey team. So where do the vampires come in? One of two things is going on here. Either the idea is too complicated. Or you’re not conveying the idea clearly enough. This is why I encourage writers to get feedback on their logline. You’re so close to it that any version of the story you write down will make sense to you. But to somebody unfamiliar with your script, the logline might seem like a jumble of dissociated ideas. I will say that the idea is original. I like the use of real lore as inspiration. But the logline’s got to be clear!

And that concludes another episode of “Why Your Script Didn’t Get Picked For Amateur Showdown” Use your comments to help these writers out. And if you want to submit to Amateur Offerings, follow the instructions at the top of this post!

Yo, do you have a logline that isn’t working? Are those queries going out unanswered? Try out my logline service. It’s 25 bucks for a 1-10 rating, 150 word analysis, and a logline rewrite. I also have a deluxe service for 40 dollars that allows for unlimited e-mails back and forth where we tweak the logline until you’re satisfied. I consult on everything screenwriting related (first page, first ten pages, first act, outlines, and of course, full scripts). So if you’re interested in getting some quality feedback, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line: “CONSULTATION” and I’ll get back to you right away!

Genre: Sports Drama/Sort of true story?
Premise: A struggling American sports agent mired in debt flies to Cuba to recruit their most famous baseball player.
About: This script finished on both The Black List and Hit List last year. It comes from the writers of BLACKKKLANSMAN, two New Jersey natives who were childhood best friends.
Writers: Charlie Wachtel & David Rabinowitz
Details: 120 pages

Didn’t they already make this movie? Wasn’t Jon Hamm in it?

Look, let’s be real. Sports dramas are tough sells. And they’re even tougher sells when they center around baseball. So props to these writers not only for taking a risk with this genre, but getting their script on both the Black List and Hit List.

But the one thing I tell writers who write sports dramas is, “Unless it’s boxing, make it a true story.” So I was happy that today’s writing team did that. Or… did they? As I read through Bolsa Negra, I spent much of the script confused. There were several real life baseball figures in the script, but I think this entire story is made up. That feels kinda cheap considering this is a really intense story. People die. And if you’re mining fake death emotion under the guise of real life, that’s as dirty as the shady world you’re covering.

But anyway…

It’s 1996 and 38 year old Steve Santos is the Cuban-American Jerry Maguire. Without the slick suit. Or the nice car. Or anything of value, to be honest. Steve is barely able to make ends meet. Which is why he has to get creative.

Steve has his eye on someone named El Coco (“The Boogeyman”), the best player in Cuba, a hotbed for amazing baseball talent. However, most of those players end up staying in Cuba because it’s impossible to get them out (this is when the U.S. and Cuba were mortal enemies). But Steve naively heads there anyway, thinking he can throw a few Benjamins around and he and El Coco will be back on the red-eye.

As you might expect, it doesn’t go that way.

First, Steve has to pay his Cuban guide to help him get around. Then he has to convince El Coco to actually come with him, which is far from easy since he needs to bring his entire family along or they get thrown in jail. Then he needs to meet someone named “The Professor,” who can facilitate the complicated process of getting them off the island. Then he has to find a boat and a driver. Every step is complicated by the fact that THEY ALL WANT MONEY. And Steve ran out of money the day he showed up.

Somehow, Steve gets El Coco and his family on the boat and they head to Cancun, Mexico (they can’t go straight to the U.S. since baseball regulations will put El Coco in the draft, where he’d make MUCH LESS money – if he comes to America through Mexico, El Coco will be a free agent – and that’s where he can negotiate a 20-million dollar contract).

Once in Mexico, they meet up with the professor’s Mexican contacts, a harmless older couple. WHO THEN PROCEED TO KILL STEVE’S BOAT DRIVER! So, yeah, I guess not so harmless. When they find out how much El Coco is worth, they up their fee 2000% (yes, three zeroes). They then quarantine Steve, El Coco, and the family, while Steve gets on the phone with six major league teams and negotiates the deal of his life. Literally.

Outside of the bait-and-switch “true story,” this was fun. From the way it was structured to the way it was executed, the writers have a strong feel for the intricacies of the craft. For example, once we get to Cuba, they give their hero a series of mini-goals. First Steve has to convince El Coco to come. Then he has to secure a facilitator. Then he has to find a boat.

Now remember, when it comes to mini-goals, you don’t want everything to go smoothly. You need PROBLEMS to arise. These story disruptions add a spontaneity to your screenplay that’s exciting to read. For example, while Steve was getting his ducks lined up, a corrupt Cuban officer showed up at his place and demanded a cut or else he would kill Steve. This forced Steve to accelerate the process, upping the script’s intensity considerably.

As you know, good plotting is great. But good plotting with strong characters is better. And I liked that Steve was fallible. This was not the most likable guy. He was cheap. He was sketchy. He’s making deals left and right he knows he can’t pay up on. You get a little extra screenplay street cred when your protagonist is an anti-hero. Most screenwriters are out there desperately combing websites (like this one, admittedly) for ways to make their hero the most likable person on the planet. And that’s because when you’re writing for mainstream Hollywood, it’s virtually required that your hero be likable. There’s a certain “Eff U” quality to a writer who bucks that trend. And Steve is definitely an anti-hero.

But the thing that really sets this script apart is its climactic scene. You have a sports agent in a seedy Mexican hotel room with a gun to his head negotiating on the phone with six major league baseball teams. The “harmless older couple” are putting a bullet in his noggin if the signing bonus isn’t the number they agreed on. It’s one heck of a ride and a great finale.

My big beef with the script is that it didn’t incorporate Steve’s background into the story location at all. Steve’s parents were Cuban but he’d never been to Cuba. Steve goes to Cuba for the story. Yet there’s no conflict whatsoever with his heritage. And I know this because the story doesn’t change one bit if the character is American and Caucasian.

There’s no screenwriting law that says when a character is from a country he’s never been to and the story takes place in that country, that he has to have some conflicted relationship with the place. But doesn’t it seem odd to totally ignore that reality? It screams that you could’ve gone deeper but you didn’t want to do the work.

And I get it. Writing a screenplay is hard. You might spend one draft putting everything into the plot. Another draft getting the dialogue to sing. Another draft giving all the supporting characters more oomph. Another draft fixing all of the slow spots in the script. And on and on. And then, after all that, someone says, “You know what would make this even better? Is if he had conflict with the country he never embraced.” And you’re like, yeah, that would be better. But you know what? I’m effing done. I don’t want to write any more drafts.

Well I’m here to tell you to write that extra draft. Because the competition out there is insane. Writing something that sticks out is one of the hardest things you’re ever going to do. So if you only give 90%, that’s probably not going to be good enough. Anybody can give almost all of themselves and create something good. But only the writers who give 100% of themselves are going to create something great.

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

What I learned: “Houston, we have a problem.” One of my favorite screenwriting tips is “We have a problem.” If things are getting boring in your story, have one of your characters say, “We have a problem.” You don’t need to know what the problem is when you write that line. Whatever comes to mind afterwards, use it. Problems are exciting. They take your story in a new direction. They force your hero to act. And they usually up the stakes. So it’s instant script heroin.

Genre: True Story/Satire
Premise: A satirical take on the unbelievable but true story of how the NRA changed overnight from an apolitical gun safety and marksmanship club into the most powerful and unhinged lobbying group in Washington, DC.
About: This script finished low on last year’s Black List. It comes from Jake Disch, who is about to have his first produced movie, Saturday at the Starlight, come out, which is about a night at a skating rink in the 1990s. Disch graduated from Northwestern with an MFA in Writing for Screen and Stage. He is originally from Wisconsin.
Writers: Jake Disch
Details: 116 pages

Typically, I stay away from politically charged scripts because the “bash the political side that isn’t yours” avenue never deals with the subject matter in a balanced way. But since part of my job is to inform you what Hollywood is looking for, I’d be remiss not to remind you that the Black List loves liberal-leaning subject matter.

There were over 20 scripts on last year’s list that fit that description and I expect that number to double in 2019. For those of you who want to make the Black List, mid-September to mid-December is the best time to release your script. Voters are much more likely to remember your script now than they are those March and April scripts. So bust open Final Draft!

Even if I dislike a logline, I’ll give a script a couple of pages because you never know. And Gunfight opened in this fun breezy manner that told me this was going to be an enjoyable read regardless of which side of the issue you were on.

In particular, our narrator, 80 year old Tanya K. Metaksa, is telling us a story about guns, whereby in 1963 we see a guy named Alek J. Hidell order a gun through the mail. The story twists and turns until we finally see the man shoot and kill President Kennedy. Alex J. Hidell’s real name, it turns out, was Lee Harvey Oswald. Right then I was hooked. There are a lot of ways you could’ve told this story, the most obvious of which would be to show Lee Harvey Oswald go through the whole process of ordering the gun and shooting the president. But waiting until the end to throw the twist at us was not only clever, but it ended the story with a bang.

It also led us into the setup. You see, that event resulted in the government eliminating the ability to purchase guns through the mail, along with eliminating several other gun rights. This was called the Gun Control Act of 1968 and it’s what made our characters so mad.

It’s now 1976 and Harlon Carter, gun-freak extraordinaire and head of the ILA, the NRA’s eensy-teensy lobbying arm, has just learned that NRA head Maxwell Rich is gutting the ILA. You see, back then, the NRA wasn’t interested in lobbying. They just wanted a good clean image in the public’s eye. This meant that Carter’s dream of making the Second Amendment the Constitutions’s most prominent amendment just died.

Until he gets an idea to team with another gun nut, Neal Knox, and steal the NRA presidency from Rich. They would then use 100% of the union’s bank account to lobby the government for more gun access. Specifically, they wanted to reverse that Gun Control Act of 1968. Despite not trusting each other, the two set up an emergency NRA election ballot in Cincinnati to get rid of Rich. Their message? “The government is coming for your guns and Rich is going to give them to them!”

Through the help of Tanya Metaksa’s constant narration, we learn that the two frightened the entire NRA membership into showing up, voting them into the presidency, and then immediately using their money to get Ronald Reagan elected president, who then endorsed the NRA, instantly anointing them into the position of the most powerful lobbying arm in the United States. So now guns could be everywhere! Yay!

Okay. We’ve got lots to talk about here. Some classic screenwriting problems that all writers deal with, especially if they’re writing non-fiction material.

Your main goal when writing a script is to ENTERTAIN. You can entertain in a lot of ways. You can be funny. You can be suspenseful. You can create mystery. You can create conflict. You can create anticipation. All of these things allow you to DRAMATIZE events. And if you dramatize well, the reader will want to turn the page.

The problem with Gunfight is that there’s too much information to get across, and it suffocates any story bits that are trying to swim to the surface. It’s a tricky thing when you have a narrator. Because a narrator’s job is to convey information to keep the viewer abreast of what’s going on. Often, you’ll get heavy narration in the beginning and then, as the plot and characters become clear, the narration will phase out.

If you still have your narrator pumping out info the reader needs to understand on page 78, something’s wrong. Either you’ve chosen a story that needs too much explanation to enjoy. Or you haven’t found the best way to tell your story. Here’s Metaksa helping us out on this Cincinnati election on page 82: “Alright. Listen, I know parliamentary procedure isn’t thrilling stuff. It’s boring as hell and — y’know what, screw it. I’m just gonna let Aquilino handle it. Take it away, John.” The writer is trying to make a joke out of just how much we need to be told here, but joke or not, at a certain point, it’s too much. And that describes this script.

Even the setup is frustrating. We have the NRA and then we have a branch of the NRA, called the IRL. And the IRL is going to go to war against the NRA, but under a different name, and then they’re going to take the NRA back and run it the way they want to, and the two leaders at the IRL don’t like each other but they’re going to work together anyway, and they’re going to propose a vote at some election thing that will allow them to take over the NRA.

I mean… seriously?

One of the most important jobs of a screenwriter is that once he picks his subject matter, to find the best story to tell within that subject matter. This is the NRA we’re talking about, one of the most notorious lobbying groups in America. There’s gotta be a better story about them than trying to win an inner-union election. Look at an idea like “an alien predator comes down to earth to stalk human prey.” In one writer’s iteration, that movie centered around a predator stalking a bunch of super-tough soldiers in the jungle. In another, it centered around an alien predator stalking a group of escaped prisoners and a little boy in a suburb. That’s how crucial it is to get this part right.

And I think the most crucial mistake the writer made was thinking he could out-joke the exposition. That if we keep the characters funny enough, the audience won’t get bored by the endless exposition. And I’ll give it to Disch – he’s funny. Here’s an exchange when a concerned IRL member points out that eliminating The Gun Control Act would mean putting the infamous “Saturday Night Special” guns back on the street, which made it so every criminal in the city could own a gun.

AQUILINO: I dunno, we put those guns back on the street and they’re just gonna be used to kill decent folk again.

CARTER: That’s the price of freedom, John.

But the script was packed with exposition choke-points that killed any momentum a scene might have. We could barely make it two pages before Metaksa or another character had to explain something to us. Are you writing a history book or are you writing a movie? Cause they’re two different things. And I’m not sure the writer knew that.

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

What I learned: I love when a character name sounds like the person described. They’re the easiest characters to remember: “BOB KUKLA (42), all thin, greasy hair and oversized bifocals.” How could someone named Bob Kukla NOT have greasy hair and oversized bifocals?” Or how bout Harlon? “The office door BURSTS open and in strides HARLON BRONSON CARTER (64), a big, broad bulldog of a man.” Harlon Bronson. Of COURSE he’s a big, broad bulldog of a man.