Genre: Thriller/Sci-Fi
Premise: A 1950s housewife who’s getting sick of playing the perfect partner finds out her husband is keeping a secret from her. But it’s not the kind of secret normal 1950s housewives have to deal with.
About: This is the current #1 hot-as-a-forest-fire project in Hollywood. Olivia Wilde, coming off the Rotten Tomatoes hit, Booksmart, was on every studio’s radar. So when she leapt onto this hot spec from the Van Dyke siblings, it became the prettiest girl at the prom.
Writer: The Van Dyke Brothers
Details: 95 pages

Before I get to this review, a review in which I have strong feelings, I must acknowledge that this is exactly the type of script I told everyone they should be writing. A socially conscious thriller with a genre twist that makes it marketable. You do that well and Hollywood will come a-knockin. Which is exactly what happened here. So even though I think this story has issues, I’m happy to say that this is the kind of script you should be writing right now if you want to sell something.

Oh, and HEAVY SPOILERS follow…

The year is 1954. Evelyn Peterson has the perfect life. She’s got a great husband with a great job and she’s got a wonderful house in the perfect neighborhood. The only glitch in her life is that her husband, Clifford, really wants to have kids, whereas she, secretly, does not. Every time they have sex, Evelyn sneaks into the bathroom and uses Lysol on her lady parts, as it was a known way back then to prevent pregnancy.

Not long after we get to know these two, Clifford starts acting like a jerk. For example, when Evelyn accidentally undercooks his eggs, he tells her he doesn’t like runny eggs. Maybe Clifford isn’t the perfect husband after all. This is confirmed later when he finds out she’s been trying to prevent a pregnancy. He yells at her. Grabs her arm strongly. Then, just as quickly as he gets angry, he apologizes. The way she responds, we get the sense that this is a common occurrence.

One day, after Evelyn gets some groceries, she spots Clifford’s car driving away from work. A man standing nearby asks if she’s okay. She looks at him with pure evil in her eyes. What business of it is yours, she thinks. She then follows her husband to a hotel where he slips into a room. Oh no, could her husband be having an affair? Determined to confront him, she charges down to the room, opens the door, and is met with a FLASH OF WHITE.

Evelyn is now in a machine that looks like an MRI. Her legs are emaciated. She tries to get up. But then she sees Clifford coming at her. He mumbles something about her “finding his porthole,” and then sticks a needle in her and she wakes up… back in her home. Wait, was that a dream? Or was it real? Evelyn isn’t sure. But her curiosity is piqued enough that she starts looking deeper into this supposed town she lives in, determined to find the truth behind it.

Okay.

For a long time, there were a lot of scripts written that gave their male characters all the depth, while their female counterparts were portrayed as one-dimensional automatons. Not every script. There were good writers who saw every character as deserving of a complex nuanced life. But most just thought about the guy and gave the girl characters the scraps.

The fact that we’ve started to correct that is a good thing. Scripts are always more interesting when every character has some dimensionality to them. So it’s a little disheartening that there’s this trend building where only the female characters in a script contain depth, while the men must all be one-dimensional. And then there are scripts like this that take it a step further. The men aren’t just one-dimensional, they’re selfish violent predatory creatures who only care about female suffering.

I get that female empowerment is a major talking point in media and social media and that movies are often a reflection of the current newsfeed. But scripts like this and Get Home Safe and the dozen or so screenplays that came out of The Black List last year that painted men as evil… I’m not sure it’s advancing the storytelling medium in a positive way. We just took this major step where meaty female characters are becoming the norm in a screenplay rather than the exception. And yet, meanwhile, we’ve taken this giant step backwards where tons of male characters are written as big fat negative stereotypes. They’ve all become that one-dimensional bully in every 1980s movie.

So it’s a little hard to judge the plot of “Don’t Worry” because everything is colored by that lens. I mean Evelyn is standing next to a random man early in the script and just assumes he’s dangerous for no other reason than he’s a dude.

With that said, it’s quite the cool twist. I was sitting there getting worried I was about to spend the next 90 minutes reading one of those Oscar wannabe flicks set in the 50s that are never good but somehow always get nominated, and then – BAM! – we’re in the Matrix. Now it’s more than just “Husband is Bad Man.” Evelyn’s got to figure out what’s going on, if she’s dreaming. If what she experienced was real, she’s got to find a way out. What happens even if she does find a way out? She has to live in a world 100 years in the future.

There’s something inherently magical about mixing the past with the future. Remember that opening scene in Time Cop where two Union officers stop a band of Confederates in the middle of a storm. Then, out of nowhere, the officers whip out these futuristic uzis and decimate the entire Confederate team? I don’t remember a single thing that happened in Time Cop after that. But I remember that scene like it was yesterday. And it’s because of that unique mix.

So connecting the 1950s and future technology had me hook, line, and sinker.

Unfortunately, the mythology here needs some work. When you come up with these ideas as a screenwriter, it’s really easy to provide a bare-bones framework for the mythology. But the sci-fi movies that become classics are the ones where the writer obsesses over every detail of their world. And I didn’t see that here. For example (major spoilers), Evelyn eventually finds out that she lives in the year 2050 and that her ex-husband has placed her in a 1950s virtual simulation where men imprison women. She finds a video FAQ about how it works and the very first step of the process is: “All you have to do is fake their death.” Okay, so let get me get this straight. It’s 2050. People will know exactly where you are and what you’re doing at every second of every day…. Yet all you have to do to play this fun game is fake the death of the woman you want to put in the simulation. Yeah, I’m not sure that’s going to be as easy as you make it sound.

There were small things as well. Her plan is to poison her husband in order to escape. But if it’s virtual reality, how can he be poisoned?

You don’t want your audience wondering, “Wait a minute but…” in one of these movies. You have to do the hard work and plug up all the holes.

Don’t Worry Darling is a mixed bag for me. It negatively stereotypes men. But it’s a super cool premise. So it’s just barely not for me. But I completely understand why this sold and, to that end, it’s a great example of what aspiring screenwriters should be writing.

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

What I learned: One of my favorite screenwriting moves is the end-of-the-first-act twist. We think we’re watching one movie and – BAM! – we realize we’re watching something completely different. A side tip here – when you use this, create a short first act. What makes these work so well is that the “fake” story driving your first act is kind of boring. Not much is happening. That way, when the SURPRISE TWIST arrives, it takes us from 0-100. But you don’t want to draw that “boring” first act out for 30 pages. We might give up on the script! So you hit us with it around page 20 or 23. Here, we get it on page 20.

Genre: Sci-Fi (short story)
Premise: In the near future, “Tardy Men” – a new breed of firefighter with high-tech fire suits fused into their spines – go into dangerous fires to retrieve valuable items for the rich.
About: This package is still coming together and, along with hot spec sale, Don’t Worry Darling, last week, is drawing major bids from multiple studios. It looks like Simon Kinberg, who will direct, discovered the short story, which appeared in The New Yorker, and changed the main character from a male to a female so that Reese Witherspoon could play the lead. A cool footnote is that the author of the short story, Thomas Pierce, will be writing the screenplay. The film will be retitled, “Pyros.”
Writer: Thomas Pierce
Details: short story – 1200 words

I never cared about Simon Kinberg being a big successful Hollywood writer/producer despite a body of work that suggested below-average talent UNTIL he joined the Star Wars team. Cause I love Star Wars. I wanted great Star Wars movies. And then, out of nowhere, I’ve got the guy who’s making some of the worst superhero movies in history involved in Star Wars in a major capacity. That’s when I began the anti-Simon Kinberg movement.

When this project hit the airwaves, my interest was piqued because it’s such an odd move for everyone involved. You’re going to have a studio committing major dough to a 1200 word short story. You’ve got Reese Witherspoon taking on her first ever hard sci-fi role. And you’ve got Kinberg trying his hand at original material, as opposed to the safety net of well-known IP. On top of that, it’s an admittedly intriguing premise in that it’s a sci-fi idea I’ve never seen before. That’s hard to do in any genre, but especially sci-fi.

Also, these are always good reminders for writers about what kind of stuff Hollywood is searching for. We spend so much time in our delusion bubbles convincing ourselves that any idea we come up with is genius, we forget to look at real-world “this is what sells” data.

Let’s take a look.

Tardy Man begins with a man talking to us using abbreviated language. “Can’t talk thru suit. That’s why note cards,” he tells us. He then proceeds to explain that he’s a “Tardy Man,” as in “fire retardant.” His “Tardy Suit,” he explains, is connected to his spine and he can’t remove it without help “or else death.” That’s why he has to “use note cards.”

He explains that his job is to run into big fires, the kind that take up entire neighborhoods, and recover things for rich people. The company he works for, Wick, has one rule. The item they paid you to get is the only thing that matters. Doesn’t matter if you see a dying dog. Doesn’t matter if a person is stuck under a dresser on the second floor. You get the item and that’s it.

In today’s case, he needed to obtain a bin that kept important items for a rich family. While he was walking to the house, he saw a little kid in the pool. Only place for him to stay safe. He walked by the kid but later goes back to get him, even though Wick has been known to kill Tardy Men who disobey the rule.

He then places the boy in the bin and goes on a long trek through the fire-fueled forest, to the safety of a random home just outside the fire. That’s when we realize this is the woman he’s been telling the story to the whole time, the woman he’s asking to take the boy. Now he has to get back to Wick and hope they don’t find out what he did. The End.

Well, I may not be the biggest Simon Kinberg fan, but in this case, he nailed it. This was really good.

For starters, it’s cleverly written. I love the mood the abbreviated style creates and I love that the abbreviation is motivated. Not only that, but it’s used as a semi-mystery to drive the story. Why is this person talking like this, we’re wondering.

But here’s the real reason I liked this story.

One of the most pivotal moments in this business is when you pitch someone an idea. In that moment you’re either going to get a yes or a no. And the significance of this is that it will be added to the total tally of yeses and nos, which provide you with a pretty clear picture of whether your idea is good or not.

However, what a lot of writers forget is that there’s a secondary pivotal moment within the pitch itself. It’s the moment when you give the person the definitive image that proves your idea is worthy of being a movie. In Blake Snyder’s book, Save the Cat, he talks about this moment with his big spec sale, Don’t Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot. During the pitch, there was a moment where he described a car chase where his protagonist was forced to be a passenger in his mom’s car during the chase, leading to the slowest car chase ever. It was that moment that the producer said, “This is a movie.”

That’s the goal of the definitive image. It’s your highlight image that sells the movie. Another example would be the birth scene in A Quiet Place. Establish that monsters kill you if you make any noise and then force one of your characters to give birth within that construct. People hear that and they go, yup, that’s a movie. No question about it. A more specific way to look at this is, “What’s going to be the moment in the trailer that makes people want to see this movie?”

That moment occurred while I was reading this short. Early on, the Tardy Man was walking through the backyard of this house he had to go into, and he sees this desperate child in the pool. And he just… keeps walking. That’s it right there. That’s the movie. You show a man in a giant deadly fire who sees a boy who needs saving and he just walks right past him? That shocking image is going to sell the movie. And, actually, it’s going to sell it even better when Reese Witherspoon is doing it. Because women are supposed to be motherly. And for her to coldly walk past a boy who needs help… that’s going to get literally “ohhhhs” from the audience.

There was another line I really liked here as well: “Very, very sad situation. Tardy Man a good person. Too good. Wick doesn’t like good ppl.” This implies that “Tardy Men” need to be cold and unfeeling. They must learn to eliminate their emotions. They’re here to do a job and the job is all that matters. That’s a really interesting character for actors to explore, and I’m going to assume it’s the reason Reese signed on.

It’ll be interesting to see if Kinberg uses the entire story here as the basis for his screenplay or if he only uses the core concept. Because while transporting a boy in this box that supposedly only has an hour of air in it gives the movie a nice ticking time bomb, something tells me there’s so much more you can do with this idea. You could create an entire mythology behind the house and the people who own it and what they want the Tardy Man to retrieve and maybe it’s something illegal. I like the idea of him having to save someone, but I don’t think it should be a real time 90 minute “walk through a fire” story. I’m afraid that might get boring.

This is easily one of the best short stories I’ve read. It’s so hard to come up with a good story in a thousand words, but somehow this Thomas Pierce guy pulled it off. I’m really looking forward to this now.

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

What I learned: This was a wake-up call to me that not every low-to-mid budget sci-fi idea has to be some dumb time-travel thing or “people stuck in a ship” or “wake up in a strange room” idea. Not that you can’t write good versions of those movies. But of the hundreds of low-budget sci-fi scripts that I’ve read, 90% of them are those three setups. Expand your imagination and look for sci-fi ideas in unexpected places.

Genre: Action
Premise: (from IMDB) Lawman Luke Hobbs and outcast Deckard Shaw form an unlikely alliance when a cyber-genetically enhanced villain threatens the future of humanity.
About: Hobbs and Shaw contains a ton of drama, and that’s just in the production of the film! Tempers flared when Fast and Furious OG Vin Diesel learned that they were going to make Fast and Furious movies without him. Tyrese Gibson, who plays Roman on the series, even took to his Instagram to call out the selfish Rock for prioritizing the spinoff over the next Fast and Furious sequel. Needless to say, there were a lot of people wanting a lot of different results from the Hobbs and Shaw box office this weekend. The film is said to be a success with its 60 million dollar domestic opening. However, it should be noted that the last Fast and Furious movie made 100 million dollars its opening weekend. So is this really a success? I don’t know. Long-standing franchise scribe Chris Morgan is back yet again to write the spin-off.
Writer: Chris Morgan
Details: 2 hours and 17 minutes

Before I get to Hobbs and Shaw, can I just say something?

F&%$ Christopher Nolan.

No, seriously. F&%$ Christopher Nolan.

There isn’t a director on this planet more full of himself than this schmuck. Talk about a clueless dolt who gets high off the smell of his own s$&#.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Nolan put up a teaser trailer for his new movie, Tenet, this weekend in front of Hobbs and Shaw. Nolan, he who still spends his off-time marching for 35mm film rights and denouncing streaming services, couldn’t be bothered to put his trailer up on the internet first. Why? Because he’s Christopher Nolan. A Christopher Nolan film, according to Christopher Nolan, is such a monumental life-changing event, that its trailer cannot, will not, be shown online first. It will only be shown in theaters, the way they used to do it 30 years ago.

None of this would matter if this self-appointed genius’s teaser trailer was actually, you know, good. But let me break this trailer down for you and you can decide. We open on a shot of a bullet hole in glass. Behind the glass is a man who’s out of focus. We then get some weird title card that proclaims, “It’s time for a new kind of protagonist.” We cut back to see the camera moving across the glass and we see… ANOTHER bullet hole. Ooooooooh. Man, the anticipation is killing me. Two bullet holes in glass? A new kind of protagonist with no explanation of what that means!? Wooooowwwwww, bro.

But it gets better. The out of focus man then comes INTO focus and INSPECTS the bullet hole. Yeah. That’s a new kind of protagonist all right. Guy knows how to inspect a bullet hole! I’ve never seen a protagonist like that before. But we’re not done yet. We then cut to a quick stock footage shot of a riot. HOLY BALLS! Riot stock footage! You’re right Christopher Nolan! This teaser trailer could only be appreciated in theaters. Youtube never would’ve done this stock footage justice. Annnnnnnnnd…. that’s the trailer.

THAT’S IT! That’s all we get.

This is the kind of trailer that signifies a director who’s out of touch. He thinks he’s still Six Weeks After Dark Knight Came Out Christopher Nolan. Brother? You put out a sci-fi movie that ended in a bookshelf. You don’t get to cut together 12 seconds of footage that you shot in your basement, throw in a couple of title cards, and people go crazy anymore. You need to give us something of actual substance. I hope this trailer wins top prize for worst trailer of 2019. Because that’s how unnecessary it was. Call us when you’ve actually shot some of your movie, dude.

Hobbs and Shaw.

Hobbs and Shaw is the anti-Christopher Nolan film. There are no spinning dreidels. They are not purporting to do anything other than make people laugh and have a good time. This movie doesn’t carry a single serious bone in its body. But that directive comes with its own set of challenges. Here’s a breakdown of the plot if you didn’t see it.

Hobbs (The Rock) – who I think is a CIA agent? – is called onto a case where a British agent, Hattie, was forced to inject herself with a secret black-plague level virus to escape a bad guy. But now everyone, including the British government, wants to kill her because this virus is so dangerous. It will be up to Hobbs, who is the best tracker in the world (I’m just learning that this movie) to find her and bring her back to safety.

By the way, can someone tell me how it is that when movie people get injected with deadly viruses that could wipe out the entire planet they don’t die themselves? That’s kind of an important detail don’t you think? I mean, you’re trying to convince us that the world is in danger, yet the only person we see that actually has the virus in them is running around and beating the crap out of people without so much as having to re-apply eyeliner.

Anyway.

When Hobbs gets to London to start looking for this girl, he’s told he has to team up with, oh yeah, you guessed it, Shaw (Jason Statham). They actually find the girl pretty quick, but there’s a twist. Hattie is Shaw’s sister! And she’s clearly got the hots for Hobbs. It’s Shaw’s worst nightmare!

The three of them are attacked by self-proclaimed “bad guy,” Brixton (Idris Elba), who could do so many villainous things if he could just get his hands on that virus! But after a couple of car chases around London and, I think, Russia, the three of them escape the pesky Brit, who I forgot to tell you has been fused together with an artificially intelligent machine so that he has super strength. I swear I didn’t make that up.

Hobbs realizes that the only place they’ve got a shot at defeating Brixton is in his home state of Hawaii. Only problem is he hasn’t been back there in 30 years and everyone in Hawaii hates him. Lucky for him, his family and friends are big fans of Braveheart. Cause they prepare for a showdown with Brixton and his army (I guess Brixton has an army now) that is a beat for beat remake of that film’s famous battle. Who’s going to win? How dare you ask me such a question. Pay 15 bucks and find out yourself!

Before I break down Hobbs and Shaw, let me tell you what I require from a film like this. First, I want the chemistry between the leads to be great. Honestly, if you pull that off, nothing else matters. Two, I want to see some things I’ve never seen before. The reason I’m paying 20 bucks (with parking) to come see your movie in the theater as opposed to waiting for it to come out on digital? Is that this is a mega-budget movie that can show me things non mega-budget movies can’t. And finally, I require a good plot. It doesn’t have to be great. These movies never have great plots. But it needs to feel like they’ve put some effort into it. Again, I’m paying more money and giving more of my time, which means stringing together a bunch disassociated content isn’t going to be enough. It’s got to be coherent and keep me engaged.

So how did Hobbs and Shaw do in those three categories?

CHEMISTRY: C+

The chemistry between The Rock and Jason Statham is adequate but never good. The script isn’t doing them any favors. Nothing is written here that would imply these two hate each other. The only reason they hate each other is because it’s a movie. That’s one of the biggest sins you can commit as a screenwriter. Not doing the work. Hoping the casting will do it for you. On top of that, watching these two together never feels natural. You can feel them forcing their hatred on one another. And just to show I’m not a blanket hater, I think the chemistry between The Rock and Kevin Hart in their movies is A+. They’re amazing together. Meanwhile, the conflict between Hobbs and Shaw feels phoned in.

STUFF I’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE: D

There’s nothing here I haven’t seen. All the chase scenes were basic. The fighting was standard choreographed stuff. The best set piece was the running-down-the-side-of-the-building sequence, but that went by fast. The stuff in Hawaii should’ve given us something new but didn’t. I don’t even know why they start these movies without specifically having a meeting about what they’re going to give audiences that they haven’t seen before. Because if you don’t do that, your movie opens to 60 million instead of 100 million.

PLOT: D

I considered giving the plot an F but then I threw on David Robert Mitchell’s “Under The Silver Lake” Saturday night and realized, oh, it can be so much worse. The plot to Hobbs and Shaw made sense in so much as we always knew what was going on. But it was extremely cliched. And I don’t use that word flippantly. The whole buddy team up angle + world-ending virus + the girl is carrying the virus. We’ve seen so many movies using these tired tropes. Everything felt familiar except for the Hawaii sequence and, unfortunately, that had its own issues, namely that we got there too late to set that environment up.

A fun question to ask after watching Hobbs and Shaw is, is this as good as a Fast and Furious movie? If not, why? Well, there’s a major difference in the Fast and Furious films. They contain a specific identity. Car chases + tough dudes trying to get an impossible job done + family. The nice thing about that formula is that if you don’t like one of those elements, it’s never long before one of the other ones comes along. So if you’re not into Vin and his boys having a barbecue in the backyard and busting each other’s chops, that’s okay, cause an amazing car chase is right around the corner.

Hobbs and Shaw doesn’t have an identity. It’s more an amalgamation of every action movie ever made. You can hear the story meetings for the screenplay, “What’s something cool we can do here, or cool we can say there?” as opposed to what they would say in a Fast and Furious meeting, which would be closer to, “We need to weave the family theme into this part of the story better,” or “This car chase is too much like the highway chase in F&F 4. We can come up with something better.” In other words, there’s more of an understanding of what their movie needs to do to give the audience what they want.

I love The Rock. He’s always entertaining. But not even he can save a film that doesn’t know what it is. I mean, I’m pretty sure Brixton is a robot. And that choice symbolizes how all-over-the-place this idea is. If you’re 13, you will love this. But if you’re 14 or older, save your money for something else.

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

What I learned: We’ve gotten to a point where even the people writing these movies treat their “end of the world” threat as a joke. They know the audience knows it’s b.s. but they put it in there anyway because movies need stakes. Did anybody who watched this movie actually think the world was in danger? Same thing with the last Mission Impossible. Did anyone think the nukes would actually be used? We need to get back to basics as a screenwriting community and not only try and come up with stakes that feel real, but also COMMIT TO THEM. If you, the writer, treat the stakes as a joke? So will the audience. Once you go down that “a threat to the world” road, you must commit to it 100%. Try to make it as real as possible so we believe it. But also, believe it yourself!

It’s going to be Monday Madness when I review Hobbs & Shaw and determine the question that’s been eating at us for over a decade. Is it possible to make a good Fast and Furious movie without Vin Diesel? They’ve tried before and the results were disappointing. Could the rumor be true? That Dominic saying “family” once every five minutes is the only way these movies work? I’m eager to find out. I’m also eager to see what happens when you make a Fast and Furious movie a sci-fi flick, since apparently that’s where the franchise is headed.

Good news this week as participation does not require any dancing.

If you haven’t played Amateur Showdown before, it’s a cut throat single weekend screenplay tournament where the scripts have been vetted from a pile of hundreds to be featured here, for your entertainment. It’s up to you to read as much of each script as you can, then vote for your favorite in the comments section. Whoever receives the most votes by Sunday 11:59pm Pacific Time gets a review next Friday. If you’d like to submit your own script to compete in a future Amateur Showdown, send a PDF of your script to carsonreeves3@gmail.com with the title, genre, logline, and why you think your script should get a shot.

Note: Accessing scripts should be a lot easier this week as I’m using Google Drive. :)

To all who have entered this weekend’s contest, I wish you…. GOOD LUCK!

Title: Cop Cam
Genre: Found footage/Crime-thriller
Logline: Told through the lens of a police-worn body camera, a retiring cop with a baby on the way faces the most harrowing shift of his career after a traffic stop devolves into a violent mess affecting both sides of the law.
Why You Should Read: I’ve always thought a found-footage film involving a cop’s body camera would be an interesting concept to explore. Police-worn body camera footage persists as some of the most controversial, yet fascinating forms of real-time-media in existence today. Think about it, when’s the last time you didn’t click on a “contains graphic content” police video that was shared to social media? The footage always tells a story, but rarely captures the facts in their entirety. As a police lieutenant, I watch countless hours of body cam footage from the officers under my watch and am rarely ever bored. On the contrary, they typically inspire movie ideas for my scripts. For “Cop Cam”, I wanted to infuse elements from some of the most disturbing videos I’ve encountered into a grounded, found-footage crime-thriller told from the first-person perspective of one cop’s final day on duty. While most found footage films deal in supernatural horror, I aimed to bend the genre here into purely thriller territory, although a lot of feedback has mentioned it certainly flirts with horror. The script just received positive coverage from WeScreenplay: “This high-octane, action-packed thrill ride is a rip-roaring page-turner told with unflinching authenticity. The amount of story, twists, and turns in this tight script is a strong showing of narrative economy. A cops and robbers caper that unfolds like a beautiful car wreck with a continually worsening state of affairs that’s likely to appeal to mass audiences. This is one flat out cool movie.”

Title: Coven
Genre: Psychological Horror
Logline: When a homeless teenage girl becomes the newest member of an acid-popping doomsday cult known as The Coven, a long-dispirited member makes it her mission to escape with the young girl before she falls under the spell of The Professor, their abusive yet charismatic leader.
Why You Should Read: Like many screenwriting hopefuls, I submitted some scripts to the Nicholls this year, hoping that one of them may be the script that changes everything. Unfortunately, this year was not my year. Nevertheless, “Coven” finished in the top 10% – a personal best and a sign that my work is improving year after year. While I impatiently wait for the reader comments, I figured it would be awesome to get some feedback from the community that arguably taught me the most about the art of screenwriting.

“Coven” is my stab at one of my favorite horror sub-genres: the cult film. It’s a weird, violent, psychedelic, slow-burn story with a heavy emotional core, featuring a strong female lead who works to escape the trauma of her past and the physical (and psychological) prison she’s found herself in. And to sweeten the pot, about 90% of the film takes place in one location, so it can made on a shoe-string budget (I’m looking at you, Blumhouse!).

Many thanks to anyone who gives this a read; whether it’s the whole thing or just a few pages, any and all feedback is greatly appreciated! And a special thanks to Carson for holding a forum where a nobody like me can get their work in front of so many smart and talented people. Looking forward to hearing what you guys and gals have to say!

Title: MYSTERY MAN
Genre: Action Comedy
Logline: America’s favorite mystery author returns home for his father’s funeral and reluctantly teams up with his crazy sister who believes their father was murdered.
Why You Should Read: The inspiration for “Mystery Man” was derived from a love for whodunnits and my wacky home state of Florida. With twists and turns that will keep you guessing to the very end, “Mystery Man” is raunchy at times, heartfelt at others, and always weird. “Mystery Man” was a semifinalist in both the 2017 Stage 32 Annual Comedy Contest and Screencraft’s Annual Comedy Contest. It also placed second in Final Draft’s Annual Big Break Contest (2017) in the comedy category. Subsequently, “Mystery Man” was optioned for a year. The option recently expired so it’s now back on the market!

Title: INK
Genre: Noir
Logline: When screenwriter Don Miller goes missing from the lot of Dionysus Pictures, toon actor Chester Charles is sent to try and discover where he is, but soon finds himself shoulder deep in the greatest conspiracy that Tinseltown has to offer.
Why You Should Read: My last script WONDERLAND was featured here on Scriptshadow and I received some really great feedback from the community. One of the big notes was that people wanted to see me play in my own sandbox rather than build on someone else’s work… So, I created one… A conspiracy thriller set in an alternative 1950’s Hollywood where the moguls that run the place are willing to turn to nefarious means to keep their stars in order (both human and toon), their wallets fat and the ‘Red Menace’ at bay. INK marries the Disney Conspiracies with Who Framed Roger Rabbit and adds a smattering of observations about the manipulative power of the media.

Title: BROKENHEARTED
Genre: anti-rom-com
Logline: In a misguided attempt to mend her broken heart, a lovelorn twentysomething decides to pursue a casual, no-emotions-attached fling with a womanizing stranger from Tinder.
Why You Should Read: Greetings! An older draft of this script won the Austin Film Festival Drama Screenplay Competition in 2017. Prior to the festival win, I secured a manager who found me on Blcklst after Brokenhearted received that magic number 8 (amongst some 7s and 5s.) The script got me general meetings at a few reputable production companies and one big studio (Naming names feels tacky.) I had the opportunity to pitch on an open assignment. (Crashed and burned obviously.) Brokenhearted has always been a divisive script, and with the encouragement of my manager, I did a massive rewrite of the script alongside a credited director. The rewrite involved structural changes, supporting character gender swaps, and massive “killing of darlings,” particularly chatty banter dialogue sequences. The new (and improved?) draft landed just outside the Top 5% (Quarterfinals) of the Nicholl Fellowship. I received the dreaded “some good news: your script just missed advancing, placing among the next 100 scripts after the 365 quarterfinalists” email. Aside from reads from the director, my manager, and a few writer friends, I haven’t really put this script out there for public scrutiny. Nicholl 2019 was the first real litmus test. I’ve written, re-written, read, and re-read this thing so many times that I’m completely emotionally detached. The re-write was a rewarding experience, one I feel produced a stronger draft. But my eyes stayed dry. I can’t help but wonder: has the script lost its soul? I’ll admit to being a bit of a lurker here on ScriptShadow for about the last year. As someone who has been active in the screenwriting community and contest circuit since 2014, I don’t know why it took me so long to join the party. (That’s a lie. It’s because I’m an INFJ.) And that was a long-ass “why you should read.” I promise the screenplay has a ton of white space. Thank you for your consideration!

The art of dialogue.

Whereas every other component of screenwriting can be taught, dialogue remains a shapeless colorless mist, something we keep trying to grab onto, yet continually come up empty.

How elusive is dialogue? Do a Google search right now. Try to find one article about dialogue that has a tip in it that you haven’t heard 17 million times already.

These people who claim to be dialogue experts can only recite the same tips Syd Field spouted 30 years ago in his best-selling screenwriting book. Come into a scene late. Leave early. Use as little exposition as possible. Blah blah blah. Oh, and here’s my favorite one: Listen to how people talk.

Oh yeah, yeah. I’ll listen to how people talk. Because people talking for 45 minutes is exactly the same as needing to write a two minute conversation in a movie.

Probably the most confusing story about dialogue that I’ve ever come across is the Thor: Ragnarok line. After professional screenwriters making millions of dollars for their months and months of work put Thor: Ragnarok together, they’re shooting the scene where Thor is about to fight someone in a gladiator arena, and out comes the Hulk. Hemsworth says the lines in the script. He then tries a few improv lines. Then there’s a Make-A-Wish kid on set that day. And he says to Chris Hemsworth, “Why don’t you try, ‘I know him. He’s a friend from work.’” Hemsworth does the line, and it not only ends up in the first trailer for the movie, but it becomes the centerpiece of the trailer and its most memorable line.

I want you to think about that for a second. A young kid, somewhere between 8-11 I’m guessing, was able to come up with the most popular line in a movie written and rewritten and developed and re-developed by Hollywood professionals, people supposedly at the very top of their profession.

Messes with your head, right?

Well, here’s what I’ve determined. While there is a randomness to dialogue that contributes to its elusiveness, there is a way to get better at it. There are five areas that influence your dialogue. And that four of them are under your control. The fifth, unfortunately, is not. But, if you can master the other four, you can write good dialogue. So what are these five things?

Know the Basics – Yes, I just made fun of this above. But you do need to learn dialogue basics in order to not make beginner mistakes. Yes, you need to come into scenes late. Yes, you need to leave scenes early. This will ensure that your characters only say what they need to say to move the story forward. Yes, you need to know what on-the-nose dialogue is. You need to understand what exposition is and how to keep it short and sweet. There’s quite a few basic lessons to learn. But a simple google search should have you covered, since they’re the only dialogue rules anyone on the internet knows.

Scene prep and conflict – I talked about this in my first and second dialogue articles in this series. You need to learn how to prep scenes that allow good dialogue to flourish. Understanding how to create a character goal in a scene, how to have the other character be in the way of that goal. Which leads us to conflict. You have to understand how conflict (and tension) works, the many different variations of it, because it is the driving force of most good dialogue. If there isn’t some imbalance in what the two characters want in a scene, their dialogue will be agreeable and mostly boring.

Tricks – Dialogue tricks come from experience. They’re little things you learn along the way that you can pull out whenever you need them to write good dialogue. An example of a trick is instead of having your hero talk about himself, have the other character in the scene do it. It’s almost always more natural. Watch the scene in The Matrix where Agent Smith interrogates Neo. It’s Agent Smith reading off Neo’s life. Neo doesn’t tell him anything. Creating characters that contrast is another. The more your two main characters contrast, the more biting their interactions will be, which will lead to better dialogue. There are tons of tricks to learn. The more you know, the less dialogue situations you’ll encounter that you don’t have answers for. Feel free to leave your dialogue tricks in the comments section.

Characters – Probably the single most important component outside of talent for writing good dialogue is character creation. You need at least some characters in your script who have personality, who like to talk, who have opinions, who are interesting in some capacity. If you insert boring characters who are passive or don’t like to talk or aren’t interesting or don’t have anything to say, the chances of you writing good dialogue are next to zero. Here’s an exercise. Write one scene with The Driver (Ryan Gosling’s character in Drive) and write another with Jack Sparrow. You tell me which scene was easier to write dialogue for. Or it doesn’t have to be as exaggerated as Jack Sparrow. It could be Louis Bloom from Nightcrawler. Or Alonzo from Training Day. Or Mark Zuckerberg from The Social Network. When you create an interesting character who likes to talk, he/she will do most of the work for you. If you don’t, you’re going to be pulling your hair out trying to come up with interesting things to say for that character.

Pure Talent – Aaron Sorkin, Diablo Cody, Woody Allen, Quentin Tarantino, David Mamet. I’m sorry to tell you this, but you will never be these people. They possess a unique talent that allows them to think of things and say things in a certain way that makes their dialogue leap off the page. It’s incredibly frustrating to read a script from one of these people because you know you’ll never be that good. However, there ARE some things you can to do to momentarily upload yourself into the Dialogue Matrix, the place where these kings and queens exist. And if you can get here for even 15 seconds every once in awhile, that may be enough to come up with an amazing line, or a great exchange. To start, you need to realize that dialogue is the most artistic part of screenwriting. Therefore, you must turn off your conscious mind and access your unconscious mind. That means no thinking. That means no judgement. And it means a lot of free-writing. These geniuses write their dialogue mostly on instinct so if you’re not doing the same, you don’t have a shot. Go nuts. Have your characters say whatever comes to mind. You’re more likely to come up with a killer line this way than trying to logic-it into existence. The other thing I get from these writers is that there’s more of a sense of discovery in them. They enjoy trying to find the moment and the characters through their dialogue. Likewise, there’s a playfulness when they write dialogue. Like a kid playing with toys. They’re having fun and seeing what happens. In addition to this, they have a thirst for knowledge and history. They want to know more about the world and how it works. This allows their characters to be smarter and have more ideas to draw from. And they work from a place of, “I’ll edit it down later.” They don’t try to nail it in one go. Sometimes they will. But mostly they’ll write what comes to mind and cut it down to fit in the story later. And this is what allows them to have so many great dialogue moments. With all that exploration, they have more meat to work with.

Dialogue is difficult. But this idea that you’re either good at it or not is false. If you can master the first four areas – ESPECIALLY THE FOURTH – you can definitely get good at writing dialogue. From there, keep working on five. Do what you can. You’ll never surpass the masters. But if you can get to their level every once in awhile? That’s enough.