The Scriptshadow Mega-Showdown Screenwriting Contest is Coming August 1! You have until July 31st to enter. Here are the submission details. And it’s free!

Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: A biologist is recruited to go back into “The Zone,” an inhospitable super rain forest, where her mentor disappeared 20 years ago.
About: This book was purchased by Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes, which means it will be a Paramount movie. This is your monthly reminder that Paramount is the little kid on the block, at least for now (I don’t know what they’ll be when they get purchased by Skydance). The little kid on the block has to take risks, which, in Hollywood terms, means they have to purchase original material or “original-adjacent” material, such as today’s book (a tiny sci-fi story no one knew about until it was purchased). Therefore, they’re a great studio to target if you’ve got a spec script with a genre angle. Platinum Dunes (A Quiet Place), in particular, is aces in this category.
Writer: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Details: 95 pages

This is the second novella I’ve reviewed in two weeks. The other was Collision, by Don Winslow. I think this is the much better format for adapting movies. Short stories are glorified trailers. Whereas, with a novella, you can get into the meat of your story. And they’re probably about 20% longer than screenplays, which means you’ve got room to cut, rather than having to come up with a bunch of stuff to put in.

We’re at some point in the near future. Doctor Jasmine Marks, a biologist, has become a recluse over the years, after the trauma she endured in “The Zone” two decades ago. She was part of a team sent to an ultra-tropical region on the planet to figure out if it would be possible to tame it, possibly for farming purposes.

But her boss, Dr. Elaine Fell, walked deep into the jungle one day and never came back . Which was better than what happened to the rest of the team. Some didn’t even make it out alive.

Now, 20 years later, Marks works from home. One day, she’s approached by the assistant of a very rich man named Mr. Glasshower. Glasshower flies Marks out and says that someone went into The Zone and they’re putting together a team to find them. They need Marks’ scientific expertise to help.

A couple of days later, two dozen people are flying into The Zone, which is like a super-intense version of a rain forest. You can’t even walk there without a special suit because the unique conditions will cook your body from the inside out.

We find that out immediately when, the day after they get there, the tent that houses all the military people breaks and everyone in it dies. Glasshower is not giving up, though. He insists that they move on to find this missing person. Marks is incredulous but what is she going to do? She has no ability to call anyone herself. So, deeper into The Zone they go.

A day later, they see a strange looking green man and, in a bout of shock, shoot him. He dies and they inspect his body to find that he looks to have adapted to The Zone somehow. This is when Glasshower comes clean.

They were never going in here to find a wayward individual. Glasshower has information that suggests Dr. Elaine Fell went underground and has been breeding people who can live in The Zone. What that means is that they’re going to continue traveling into this hellhole, a la Apocalypse Now, until they find her… and then kill her.

You know, it’s too bad that Rian Johnson destroyed the word “subversion.” Because it’s actually an effective writing tool. One of my favorite things writers do is set you up for a journey you’re familiar with, only to pull the rug out from under you, leaving you dazed and confused.

Saturation Point is a total “Aliens” clone in its first act. I was struggling to stay invested due to the fact that everything about the setup was exactly like Aliens, down to the female specialist who had been there before and knew how to cope, and experienced a tragedy to boot. And then the military group that comes with them.

So, when we finally get to the Zone and go to sleep, preparing for our first day of work, you could call me shocked when the first words written the next day were, “They were all dead.” All the military dudes died because they didn’t airtight-clog their tent. As soon as that happened, I was in!

But no sooner had I pledged my undying loyalty to this book, than it began a committed campaign to make me change my mind.

One of the big issues in this story – and it’s an issue I see a lot – is that the main character isn’t active enough. Instead, she’s observant. She watches everyone do things from a distance instead of doing things herself.

I understand why this happens. It can be hard to inject your hero into the mix. It forces you to disturb the carefully processed story you’re trying to tell. There’s something nice and pleasant about sitting on the sidelines and allowing your hero to log every little moment that everyone else experiences, only occasionally popping in to give a brief opinion or, in more rare occasions, advice.

Also, it’s easy to convince yourself, as the writer, that later on in the story, your hero will be plenty active. Because they have to be! The shit’s going to hit the fan and they’ll have no choice but to get involved.

But that’s the trick. When a character has no choice but to get involved, they’re still not being active. They’re being reactive, which is a step down from activity. And it paints your hero as someone who’s not really a hero. They’re just trying to survive.

So the fact that Marks is so casual throughout the majority of this story is frustrating at best and infuriating at worst.

I suppose this is more common in books, where, sometimes, you use your main character as a narrator. That maybe works if you’re writing Love in the Time of Cholera. But when you’re writing a team of people going into the shit where some enemy is going to attack you, you probably want your hero to be active.

I’ve learned this the hard way. I was one of these people who, when I wrote a story, I would play up all the other characters while my hero was over here being the least interesting person of the bunch.

I don’t know why I rationalized this as okay because I’d read all of the advice on the internet about strong active protagonists. I think I felt that just being the center of the story was enough. Which is not true. We, the audience, don’t like someone just because they’re the most featured person in the story. You have to give us reasons to like them. And probably the best way to do that is to make them active – to have them carve their own path as opposed to being hitched on the trailer of your plot and dragged along for the ride.

Back to the story itself.

With these types of stories, the thing that has to work best is: WHAT’S IN THE JUNGLE? What, ultimately, are you going to find? Because if it’s too lightweight or esoteric, the audiences who like these movies are going to be disappointed. Saturation Point reminds me a lot of Anihilation in that sense. We go into this weird place where strange things happen. But there is no clear face to the threat. It’s not like Predator, where we understand what we’re up against. The audience needs that.

You could make the argument that the real antagonist here is nature and, like, global warming or something.  But while that may fly in your college English 101 class, it’s likely to piss off the people who plunked down 20 bucks to see something cool.

I would go so far as to say the enemies they came up with for this story were the stupidest enemies they could’ve possibly come up with. They were basically little green people who shot arrows. LITTLE GREEN PEOPLE WHO SHOT ARROWS! Not exactly face-hugging aliens. Before they showed up, I would’ve given this book a “worth the read.” But the second they showed up, it was dunzoes.

We talk about creative choices on this site. And how important it is to come up with strong ones for the pillars of your story. I would go so far as to say this was the worst creative choice they could’ve possibly come up with for the enemy. It destroyed the book and it’s shocking to me that any author would believe it was a good choice.

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

What I learned: As writers, we are inherently voyeurs of life. We observe things around us so that we can write about them. Our biggest weakness is that we transfer that “observer” nature onto our main characters. We, essentially, turn them into de facto writers. Even if they don’t write for a living, they do something where they’re at a desk alone by themselves. Which is exactly the case with Marks. She’s reclusive. She works at home, at her desk. Much like… A WRITER. But, by doing this, you make your hero inactive. Which is boring. So, as much as it pains you due to the fact that making someone active makes them different from you, it’s better to have an active protagonist. Period.

The greatest newsletter in the history of Scriptshadow is now available for anyone to look at, even if you’re not signed up!

I’ve been getting so many e-mails from people saying they didn’t receive the newsletter that I’m providing you with a link right here. So, go check it out yourself!

This is easily the best newsletter I’ve ever put together. I create a brand new Top 25 Amateur Scripts list – all the best scripts from over the years that have debuted here on Scriptshadow. I take a deep-dive look into the best AI movie on the internet and what it means for the future of screenwriting. I review the hottest, and also weirdest, script of the year, which just sold to A24. I drop all sorts of screenplay nuggets throughout the newsletter. The average screenwriter is going to learn more from this than 4 years of USC screenwriting classes. It’s just a great newsletter.

If you didn’t get it or if you want to be on the newsletter list, simply e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com

And here’s how to enter the MEGA-SHOWDOWN SCREENWRITING CONTEST!

HOW TO SUBMIT
What: Mega Showdown
When: Friday, August 1
Deadline: Thursday, July 31, 10pm Pacific Time
Send me your: Script title, genre, logline, and a PDF of the script
Where: carsonreeves3@gmail.com

The Scriptshadow Mega-Showdown Deadline is Thursday, July 31. Get those scripts in. Here’s how to submit!

Okay babes, buckle up your Marc Jacobs because we’re about to take a trip through the land of TV tantrums, Emmy snubs, and delusional hot takes — and yes, there will be sass!

Here’s the sitch: I am crawling across the desert of Post-Peak TV begging for a drop of decent storytelling. Where is my oasis??

Let’s review the battlefield:

–White Lotus? Flawless. Give me more depressed rich people, like, yesterday.
–The Bear? Girl. What is happening. It went from Michelin star to microwave burrito faster than my last situationship.
–Severance? Too smart. Like, I get it, you’re genius. I’m exhausted.
–Slow Horses? Every human over 60 has threatened to disown me because I “don’t appreciate British espionage.” Sorry, Grandpa, I’m bored.
-And The Studio? LOVED. But like every late night fling, it ghosted me. Rude.

So no, I’m not here to dissect every Emmy nom like Mario Lopez on Entertainment Tonight. What I am here for is this snubs article from Variety that’s throwing tantrums over all the “undeniably amazing” shows and performances that didn’t get nominated. Like, okay, calm down.

Spoiler alert: I do not agree with half of it and am ready to flip tables, Snookie-style.

So yeah — if you’re looking for calm, nuanced commentary… wrong website! Things are about to get snarky, dramatic, and a little bit ratchet. Let’s yank this list up our legs like it’s a pair of 2012 skinny jeans.

My hot take air fryer has been warmed up.

Commence politically incorrect opinions in 3……..2…….1……..

Surprise: No ‘Last of Us’ Season 2 Fatigue for the Show’s Key Players (despite weak second season reception)

With Pedro Pascal being Hollywood’s front man for Trans rights and Bella Ramsey being the poster person for non-binary humans, this show could’ve replaced itself with a montage of 80s commercials and these two still would’ve gotten nominated. Come on, Variety, you shouldn’t be surprised by this at all.

Snub: Patrick Schwarzenegger, Michelle Monaghan, Sam Nivola and Leslie Bibb Didn’t Check Into the Awards Race With ‘White Lotus’ Co-Stars 

This isn’t as damning a snub as it first seems. Cause all of these actors knocked it out of the park, especially the Terminator’s son. The problem is, they only have so many slots to put actors in. Some of these categories have as many as four White Lotus actors duking it out against each other. So, of course they can’t fit any more. Don’t get me wrong. THEY SHOULD. If it were up to me, White Lotus would have 87 nominations and take over every category. But I guess they think that would be unfair or something.

Snub: Elisabeth Moss not nominated for the last season of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’

Nobody has cared about this show literally since the first season. Ironically enough, the only time anybody knows that the show is still running is when these nominations come out and Elisabeth Moss gets nominated for whatever the hell character she plays in the show AGAIN. I’m guessing that, last season, The Handmaiden’s Tale lost the last 7 people who were watching it and, therefore, nobody knew it was on anymore, which is the only reason Moss didn’t get nominated again.

Surprise: ‘The Residence’ Star Uzo Aduba Scores Even Though Netflix Cancelled the Series

A rare Shondaland miss. The Shonda hasn’t been knocking it out of the park lately. It wasn’t the worst concept in the world (the president is killed in a whodunnit) but there was something about the tone that was a little too kooky for a drama. It also, oddly, felt like it was populated exclusively with Broadway actors, which didn’t help.

Surprise: Meghann Fahy gets a nod for “Sirens”

I am an unabashed Meghann Fahy fan. Or, as we call ourselves, “Fahy Fannies.” She comes from the White Lotus tree so of course I love her. Even though “Drop” did everything in its power to permanently destroy the concept of suspension of disbelief, I still liked her performance. And Sirens, while not great, was better than you thought it was going to be. That and it has the greatest young actress on the planet, Millie Alcock. Better watch out Sydney Sweeney. Millies coming for you!

Snub: ‘Agatha All Along’ Missed in All Acting Categories

Wow, are you telling me that a show that catered to an extremely limited demographic starring a character nobody outside of die-hard Marvel fans have ever heard of from a production studio that has imploded on television had a show that didn’t garner any Emmy nominations???? SHOCKING!!!!!

Snub: Tina Fey’s Buzzy “The Four Seasons” Only Lands One Nomination

This surprised me a little bit.. It surprised me because Tina Fey is thought of as the screenwriting messiah in Hollywood. And the concept is very awards friendly. It has this unique conceit of a group of friends coming together once a season. It also has a high profile death in the mix, which usually gets voters loins lubricating. And it does start to get its tentacles into you in those last four episodes. This might simply be the ultimate example of there being too much product out there and it’s impossible to keep up with it all.

Snub: Paul Giamatti Can’t Jump in With ‘Black Mirror’ 

This is a real shame because this was a great episode of television. It was so heartfelt and I loved that it reminded us how effective you can be telling a simple story cheaply in the sci-fi space if the execution is sharp. All you gotta do is lean into the characters. Again, I think when it comes to single episodes, it’s nearly impossible to stand out. There are 8000 new episodes of fictional television a year. People aren’t going to be able to find them all.

Surprise: No Acting Love for ‘Andor’ 

Unhinged rant incoming! The surprise here isn’t that no actors got nominated for Andor. The surprise is that ANDOR GOT NOMINATED FOR ANYTHING AT ALL! The show was AWWWWWFFFFUUUUULLLLL. It was a terrible terrible show with a terrible boring main character and a pointless storyline. I literally tried to watch the last season 8 times. Each time, I would fall asleep within ten minutes. There was one set piece where characters just walked around a giant house in the mountains and had the most boring conversations ever that went on for 25 minutes. Every night I would pick up where I left off, WE’D STILL BE IN THIS STUPID HOUSE! THIS IS STAR WARS FOR GOD’S SAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!! How did we get here????? I promise you that George Lucas would’ve never approved of a 25 minute sequence where characters walk around a house and chat with each other! They spent 600 million (!!!!!!!!!) dollars on this show!!!!!!! They could’ve made THREE STAR WARS MOVIES FOR THAT. Instead, they made a show about the 90th most interesting character in the Star Wars universe who only got a shot at this show because audiences believed, when they were walking into Rogue One, that they were seeing a sequel for The Force Awakens! And that wasn’t by accident, by the way! Nobody cares about this show. It’s the biggest waste of money in the history of Hollywood and they’re desperately trying to justify it by clinging onto anything they can use to say it was worth it, such as Emmy nominations. The fact that this show isn’t seen as Ishtar x 100 is only because Disney made so much money off of Marvel that they could withstand a 600 million dollar mistake. Which is crazy but it’s true.

Snub: ‘The Bear’ Creator Chris Storer left out of the race.

You should be left out, Chris. This show was great when it was the only thing you were writing. Once you took on 10 other projects and started writing entire episodes in an hour, the show blew. Thank god some people in Hollywood can recognize that. Rotten Tomatoes still seems to think it’s Season 1 with the reviews they’re giving. I will watch episode 5 of the new season though as Carmy goes to Oak Park, where I grew up. :)

Snub: ‘Industry’ Is Closed for Awards Business

I tried to watch this show several times and thought it was pretty good. But it always gave off this aura of trying to be a bigger show than it was. It thought it was top-notch TV when it was simple cheap escapism. I do like that girl who came out of that show, though, Marisa Abela. She’s going to be big.

Snub: The Cast of ‘Righteous Gemstones’

I don’t have strong feelings about this show— love or hate. It’s just there, doing its thing. But it’s clear that the comedy is being shipped into each episode via a time machine circa 2005. The humor leans heavily on tropes and punchlines that might’ve landed back when flip phones were hot, but now they go over like semi-stale bread.

Snub: ‘Squid Games’ Ignored

Awwwwwww. Squid Games no get any love? Poor Squid Games. Poor widdle-iddle Squid Games. Let’s be real here people. This show only worked in the shadow of the pandemic when folks were desperate to escape their realties. Once the pandemic was over, the cream began to curdle and what once felt shocking now felt silly. I feel sorry for the people who went into seasons 2 and 3 thinking they were going to see something good. They must’ve missed the interview that the writer did where he said the only reason he was doing a second season was to get paid. Hey, props for honesty, right?

Snub: Natasha Lyonne Had a Losing Hand With ‘Poker Face’ 

Is there a show whose gimmick runs out faster than Poker Face? You’re tired of this chick by the 15th minute of the pilot episode. And this show was expecting awards attention??? Natasha Lyonne is like the odd-looking Sesame Street puppet that needed to be cut from the show at the last second. You can only take her in doses of 5-10 minutes at a time. Once you go over that limit, its like being forced into the world’s worst acid trip. Good for the voters for recognizing this show is all hype and zero depth. Sometimes they do get it right!

Snub: Allison Janney Can’t Get the Vote 

I’m about to introduce a peripheral spoiler here for The Diplomat. So, if you don’t want to spoil this show, stop reading. This show had the single worst cliffhanger to a season that I’ve ever seen in my life, and Allison Janney was directly connected to that cliffhanger. So, am I mad that she didn’t get a nomination? No. I don’t want any bad writing to get recognized. And the writing of that twist was — I can’t even imagine being in that writer’s room and everybody putting their stamp on it. If you want to know what bad writing looks like, Youtube search for the last scene of season 2 of The Diplomat.

The Scriptshadow Mega-Showdown Deadline is Thursday, July 31. Get those scripts in. Here’s how to submit!

Genre: Thriller
Premise: When a feuding rap group’s tour bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere, three
hip hop superstars find themselves locked in a life-or-death struggle to survive the
night as they are hunted by a group of locals with a hidden agenda.
About: This script made last year’s Black List. The writer, Will Widger, has one credit, a co-writing credit on the 2020 animated movie, “Wish.”
Writer: Will Widger
Details: 104 pages

Is there any better predictor that a bad script is coming than a first page wall of text?

Maybe number 1 on the “bad script coming” list is a large page count (anything above 125). But wall of text on the first page is a close second.

Okay, “bad,” may be a strong adjective to describe “Detour.” Cause it’s not bad. And it has a fairly marketable premise, which is more than I can say for a lot of amateur scripts I read.

But the real problem here is that it’s so unimaginative! This is an outline that a freshman in high school could’ve come up with. Band travels in tour bus. Tour bus breaks down. Band gets stuck in town. People in town attack them. They try to get away.

What good writers do is they take age-old story templates and play around with them. They massage them. They play Twister with them. They move things around. They try new ideas.

A basic example is Twilight. Before Twilight, vampires couldn’t walk around in daylight. That was a new twist on an old trope. And it changed the game. It allowed the vampires to go to high school, where things could happen that hadn’t happened before with vampires.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

“Detour” follows a 2025 version of The Fugees, Re-Up, with selfish Lil Slip at the helm. Then you have the shy and thankful to be in this group Mayday. And, finally, you have the lone girl, Sanskrit, who resents Lil Slip getting all the attention.

After one of their concerts (and a wild after-party), the trio, along with their security guard, Charlie, and manager, Isaac, jump on their tour bus to head to the next city. At the last second, they learn that their long-time bus driver has been replaced, but don’t think anything of it.

Once in the middle of nowhere, a tire blows out. The next town is several miles away. They figure they’ll hang there until the bus situation is fixed. Lucky for them, an Uber driver, Ally, is driving by. She recognizes the band and offers to drive them into town.

During this time, Lil Slip and Sanskrit bicker over the fact that Lil Slip wants to do a solo album next. He’s promising he’ll come back to the group but she has doubts. Trouble is definitely brewing in paradise.

Once they get to town, they eat at a barbecue diner that’s surprisingly packed for a small town. Several people seem to know them and are big fans. But they’re all acting a little too nice. You don’t have to read through Robert McKee’s “Story” to figure out what comes next.

The town offers for them to stay at the lone AirBnB, which is suspiciously decked out in all new furniture and decorations. And the next thing you know they’ve been kidnapped and beaten up by the town members, who all wear white masks. It’s a little unclear if they’re supposed to be the KKK since I don’t think they’re in full white regalia, so I guess you could consider them the KKK Lite?

Anyway, it’s now a fight for their lives as they have to find a way out of this crazy town! Will they make it? Or will they succumb to these townies who, it turns out, may have a legitimate reason for killing our hip-hop group.

The most disappointing reading experiences I have are the ones where I’m way ahead of the writer. The more pages I’m ahead of them, the more bored I am. I had this template tabbed immediately and was a good 60-70 pages ahead of the writer.

That’s unacceptable if you want to be a professional screenwriter. Put something in there – ANYTHING IN THERE – to throw me off the scent.

Even beyond that, I knew this script was in trouble immediately. The first four pages show a concert where nothing out-of-the-ordinary happens. It’s all setup and exposition. Then an after-party where nothing happens. It’s all setup and exposition. These are the first 4 pages of your script and you’re already boring your reader. That’s unacceptable.

Contrast this with the opening of Superman, which I reviewed on Monday. We meet Superman right after he’s been beaten to an inch of his life. That’s how you start a story off with drama. You’ve created a problem that the reader must continue reading to find out if it’s resolved.

Will Superman be okay?

We must keep reading if we want the answer to that question.

What question has been posed after the first four pages of this script? NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. Where is the drama? Where is the suspense? The uncertainty? Why isn’t there a carrot being dangled in front of us? ANYTHING to get us to the next page.

It’s unacceptable.

This is why there are levels to this game. Yeah, I didn’t like aspects of the Superman screenplay. But those were PROFESSIONAL PROBLEMS. The problems in this script are AMATEUR PROBLEMS. Not knowing how to use your opening pages to create a dramatic scenario that will make a reader want to keep reading? That’s Screenwriting 101.

To the writer’s credit, he starts to set things up after that that give the story a little bit of suspense. There’s a rift in the band. There’s a crazy fan sneaking around. There’s a brand new driver for the next leg of their trip. That started to pull me in some.

But then we just know everything that’s coming after that. When we get to the diner, we know everybody there is on it. They’re all acting too suspicious not to be. When Sanskrit finds a hidden camera in the AirBnB bathroom, it’s the most unsurprising reveal in the history of screenplays.
I get that some writers are still early on in their journey and they’re still learning. I know that’s always going to be the case.

But if you’ve watched even a medium amount of movies, you should be able to recognize when you’re writing a common plot beat. Every common plot beat you consider, you need to ask yourself, “Should I be doing something less cliche here?” The answer isn’t always yes. Sometimes you want to use cliche because it can help you lure the reader into a false sense of security. It makes them believe they know where the story is going, which better enables you to shock them later.

But if ALL of your plot beats are cliched, then we’re just bored. You need to be more on top of that as a writer.

By the way, all you truly need is one STRONG unexpected plot beat and that can be enough for the whole movie. A great example of this is Companion, one of my favorite movies of the year. When we find out that (spoiler) the girlfriend is a robot, it throws us off-kilter. Even if no other surprises pop up the rest of that movie (there were), we know that they could pop up because the writer has established that something like that can happen.

Being stuck in the middle of nowhere with killers pursuing you will always give your story enough steam to persist. It’ll do the job. But it’s the difference between the middle manager who “gets the job done” every day at work and the aspiring CEO who goes above and beyond to come up with new exciting ways to expand the company. Both employees are doing their jobs but only one is trying to be great. Don’t be the equivalent of the middle-manager writer.

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

What I learned: I will give credit where credit is due. If you write at least one thing that I haven’t seen before, you get Scriptshadow respect points. There’s one moment late in the script where Ally, whose face has been caved in and she’s dead, still holds the key to escape – the band needs to get into her phone for information. They try to use her facial recognition to open the phone but it’s not working, so they have to rearrange her face by pushing it back together and holding it up in a way where it looks like a face again. It’s totally gross cause her face has basically been cut in half. But it’s also really funny.

What I learned 2: You know that moment in your script that feels like magic? Maybe it’s a scene. Maybe it’s a moment between your main characters. Maybe it’s this page of dialogue that sings or a really clever moment that worked perfectly? THAT NEEDS TO BE THE FLOOR FOR YOUR SCRIPT, NOT THE CEILING. When you come up with a great moment, like the above “face cut in half phone recognition” moment, that should be one of many many awesome moments in your script. It shouldn’t be the lone one. When you write a moment like that, let it inspire you. Make it the bar for all your other scenes and characters and moments. Cause one strong moment in a script means nothing. You need a lot of them.

Two weeks left to enter the Scriptshadow Mega-Showdown Screenwriting Contest! Which is FREE! Here’s how to enter!

Genre: Drama/Prison
Premise: When a wealthy white family man accidentally kills a driver who nearly collided with his wife and child, he’s sent to prison for manslaughter. There, he’s taken under the wing of a black gang leader who plans to control him long after his sentence ends.
About: A big sale to Amazon of Don Winslow’s short story, “Collision,” that will be available in his short story collection, “The Final Score.” Jake Gyllenhaal will be starring. Stephen King says that Winslow’s book was “the best crime fiction I’ve read in twenty years.” The Final Score will be available September 17.
Writer: Don Winslow
Details: 92 pages

Collision was a weird story to read because the level of the author’s (Don Winslow) technical know-how is off the charts. You have to understand that I read scripts all day where the writer hasn’t even gotten to the point where they can introduce a character effectively.

With Don Winslow, this is a guy who’s mastered his craft – and I’ll give you an example.

This story starts off with a fair share of setup. Winslow is setting Brad McAlister up for us, Rachel up for us, Brad and Rachel’s marriage for us, their kid. He’s setting up Brad’s job and his overall approach to life.

If that’s all you do, that’s bad writing. It’s boring to read setup. So Winslow keeps hinting at this big meeting that McAlister’s bosses are bringing him in for. Brad can’t stop obsessing over what this meeting is for. The rarity of it implies something big is coming.

What this does is it CREATES SUSPENSE during the setup portion of the story. Which makes it more dramatic. Which makes us want to turn the pages.

You see this sort of technical writing mastery throughout the story.

So then why does the story never elevate above “solid?”

It’s a question I kept asking myself because I wanted to turn the pages in each and every section. I wanted to know what happened next during that opening portion. I wanted to know what happened next in the prison. I wanted to know what happened next when he got out of prison. And I wanted to know what happened when Blanton reentered his life.

But, I kept waiting for some BIG STORY POINT (aka ‘the inciting incident’) to arrive that would kick this novella into high gear. You may say, “But Carson, isn’t him going to prison the inciting incident?” It would be if the prison portion were the main story. But it isn’t. It’s just a passage of time he has to get through.

So when that inciting incident didn’t come, I found myself asking the question, “What is this story about?” It wasn’t until Mcalister’s old prison frenemy showed up and we entered “traditional movie territory” that an “official” inciting incident occurred (frenemy wants Mcalister to kill someone). But, by that point, we’re all the way at the end of the book! So the structure is all out of whack.

Maybe I should tell you what the story is about, huh?

Brad McAlister is a white-collar white dude who runs a hotel. He has the perfect wife in Rachel. And they have a perfect five-year-old boy named Willis.

Brad is excited because corporate is flying his whole family in for dinner. Which can only mean one thing. He’s being offered a promotion. Imagine McAlister’s surprise when he learns that he isn’t just getting to run a better hotel. He’ll be the operating manager for five hotels in the region! The promotion is way bigger than he assumed.

The family goes out to celebrate afterwards and McAlister has a few drinks. Later, when they’re walking to their car, Rachel and McAlister’s son walk first and a car comes out of nowhere. McAlister pushes them out of the way and the car stops inches from him. McAlister starts yelling at the driver for almost killing his family. The driver gets out and gets in his face. McAlister levels him with a punch and the man goes down awkwardly, hitting his head, killing him.

The activist judge for the case wants to make an example out of rich white guys who think they can do whatever they want and gives Mcalister the max – 11 years for manslaughter.

McAlister goes to prison where he quickly learns that it’s populated by three dangerous gangs – the Whites, the Blacks, and the Mexicans. The Whites come to him first but he doesn’t like them. The leader of the Blacks, Blanton, sees an opportunity. As he puts it, “White people can get into places black people can’t.” So he recruits Mcalister into his gang and protects him for five years, when Mcalister gets out on parole.

Once out, McAlister is the happiest man in the world. He can finally be with his family again. As luck would have it, someone at his old job is still a big fan and gives him his job back. So he’s still going to live just as nicely as he did before all this craziness began.

That is until Blanton is waiting for him outside his work one day. Blanton says there’s a guy who’s going to be staying at his hotel who’s a major drug dealer – one who encroaches on Black drug-trading. So he needs McAlister to kill him. McAlister vehemently rejects the proposal, until Blanton tells him if he doesn’t do it, he’ll kill both his wife and kid. Turns out you never truly leave prison.

Every time this story seemed to be leaning towards a “hook,” it would run away from it. Which was frustrating because I kept trying to figure out what the concept was. The closest we got was a white guy joining a black gang in prison. I thought, “Hmm, that could be interesting. We haven’t seen that before.” But McAlister does one thing for Blanton and then we get a quick montage of the next five years and McAlister is all of a sudden out of prison. And I guess we’re telling another story?

At a certain point, if you’re not going to choose a clear direction, then it becomes a character piece. The one constant is this character’s journey. So, the question becomes, is McAlister fascinating enough as a character for us to shoot by all the potential concepts we could’ve latched onto and, instead, watch him endure this?

The answer is: He’s just interesting enough that we care and nothing more. Again, Winslow is a pro. He knows how to make you like a character. So we like McAlister. But, this isn’t Arthur Dent in “Joker.” This isn’t Louis Bloom in Nightcrawler. This isn’t even Richard Williams in King Richard.

It’s just a family man who had to go to prison and, once he gets out, in the last quarter of the story, he has to kill someone. It’s compelling in a low-key way and that’s it.

For me, I wanted a hook here. I literally wanted to hook my hands into a juicy fat concept. Everything here is too vanilla for my taste. But, it’s really well-packaged vanilla. Like the kind you get at Salt & Straw. So, for that, I’d say it’s worth checking out.

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

What I learned: In the last, I’d say, 20 scripts I’ve read that have involved crime, the antagonist threatens to kill the protagonist’s family to get him to do what he wants him to do in 75% of those scripts. It’s a strange motivator because it works so well – as soon as the reader reads it, they understand why the hero must do this. But it’s used so consistently in storytelling that there’s an unavoidable eye-rolling quality to the choice. I encourage writers to work harder and come up with far more creative motivators for bad guys to make the good guys do something.

What I learned 2: Whenever I read a script that has a late-arriving inciting incident, I assume that it’s an early draft and the writer is still figuring out the story.  This is often how stories are written.  You kind of figure them out along the way, and then in the rewrites, you keep pushing the main plot beats up earlier in the story until they align with traditional structure.  If you’ve been writing for 50 years, like Winslow, you can probably get away with a late-arriving inciting incident.  But, for the rest of us, I’d recommend rewriting and moving plot beats up earlier in the story.