Genre: Period Piece/Adventure
Premise: (from writers) 48 BC. When fanatics burn the Library of Alexandria to cover the theft of advanced technology, a naive engineering apprentice and a handful of displaced scholars must defeat the growing cult using scientific trickery of their own.
About: Every Friday, I review a script from the readers of the site. If you’re interested in submitting your script for an Amateur Review, send it in PDF form, along with your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted in the review (feel free to keep your identity and script title private by providing an alias and fake title). Also, it’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so that your submission stays near the top of the pile.
Writers: Aaron Greyson and Kate Foster
Details: 112 pages

So a lot of you are probably wondering why I picked this script today. I am not a swords and sandals guy by any means. But I’d read eight straight subpar scripts in a row (I hadn’t yet read The Imitation Game) and I was aching for something good. I knew if I picked the guy with 7 spelling mistakes in his query letter, even though he had a cool premise, it was going to be numero nineo. These two graduated from the UCLA writing program and even worked as readers in the industry. So I figured at the very least, they’d write something competent, and maybe even something great. So it was time to put on my toga and my “I Heart Socrates” shirt and get down to business. Caligula style. Well, maybe not Caligula style.

Alexandria was… different. It’s not bad, but the story takes a hell of a long time to get going, and is so heavily populated with characters that I found that fleshy computer between my ears overheating before I’d even hit the page 30 mark. I know I talk way too much about this, but people keep ignoring me so I’m going to talk about it again. If you include too many characters, the reader will start forgetting them. This goes double if it’s a period piece with a bunch of unfamiliar-sounding names. Ctesibius. Philokatres. Gnaeus. Makeda. Ptolemy. Athanas. You get the picture. I had to take metisibius notes in order to keep track of who was who. There’s always going to be a little work that goes into reading something like this. But the first order of business is still to entertain, so if I feel like the read is more work than play, I’m checking out.

Heron of Alexandria is a 20-year-old apprentice engineer who specializes in creating complex statues and puppeteering stages with lots of moving parts. His master is Philokatres, an imposing man who’s always quick to exert his dominance. They have the typical master and apprentice relationship where Heron believes he deserves more responsibility whereas Philokatres doesn’t think he’s ready.

The city is booming at the moment. Ptolemy XIII, the young pudgy future King, is having a great big birthday party and everybody has turned out to shake their btooty. I’m not sure if the Macarena had been invented yet, but if it had, they were doing it. We bounce around, meeting all the major players, including getting a glimpse of Cleopatra herself, when all of a sudden there’s a big argument.

I wish I could tell you what happened next but I’m not sure. All I know is that two sides were mad at each other – one of those sides taking up with Ptolemy and the other taking up with Cleopatra. This confused me because I thought Cleopatra was the queen and I thought you could never put a ‘t’ after a ‘p.’ So if Ptolemy was the future King, wouldn’t they be on the same side? Unless of course, I’m getting Ptolemy mixed up with somebody else whose name started with a P, which is very possible, and goes back to my problem of having so many characters with impossible to remember names.

Anyway, Heron and the rest of the scholars lock themselves inside the library and watch what started as a tiny skirmish turn into a giant battle. They eventually sneak out and migrate into the countryside to regroup. They do so at Philokatres’ countryside Villa, which is apparently huge, because a whole lot of people are staying there.

On the way there, they’re shocked to see a small army using a giant religious statue to scare towns into joining their cause. But the real surprise is that it’s HERON’S STATUE! He built it. And these guys have modified it to make noises and move a little more convincingly. When the ignorant come upon it, they assume it’s a God, and step in to line quickly. For those who don’t step in line, they’re slaughtered. Man do those Scientologists wish they had that kind of recruiting flexibility.

Back at the Villa, Heron befriends a slave girl and tries to recruit her, along with a bunch of others, to find out who this poser is who stole his statue, and stop him before he’s able to convert the entire continent. Little does he know that the person responsible for this façade is closer to him than he thinks.

First of all, this script was beautifully written. I have a ton of respect for people who are able to write in this genre. I can’t imagine how much you’d have to know about this time and this place and the people and the way they spoke in order to pull off anything even remotely convincing. Just the dialogue alone – I don’t know how you’d research that. I mean I’m pretty sure Cleopatra never texted Ctesibius with a “Yo Ctes. C u in 5?”

But the thing was, this script took soooooooooooooo long to get going. I’m always looking for when the main character’s goal emerges. That, to me, is the official start of the story. It’s when Shrek realizes he has to save the Princess in order to get his swamp back. It’s when Luke realizes he has to deliver the message to Princess Leia’s father. It’s when Alan Turing decides he wants to crack the Enigma Code. Here, I would designate that point as when Heron decides to find out who’s behind the statue and stop them. I don’t remember the exact page when that happened, but I’m pretty sure it was after page 50.

That’s a long time to wait for a story to begin. And I can be patient in the meantime if you build in little mini storylines that are interesting. But I just didn’t see that here. Where it really went South for me was the Villa. Just sending your characters to a Villa in the beautiful countryside alone makes it feel more like we’re on a vacation than in a movie. But then to hang out at that Villa for pages upon pages where nothing is happening just killed the script’s momentum.

And it highlighted a bigger problem. If they would have stayed at the Villa for the rest of the film, nothing bad would’ve happened to them. They would have been fine. Maybe eventually sometime in the future, 20 or 30 years from now, because they didn’t act, this religious cult would’ve swept over the Villa and destroyed it. But I’d hardly call that high stakes. I hardly sense the need to act now in order to save themselves.

If we bring back Shrek as an example. He had to leave because his sanctity was threatened. This is an ogre who lived a life of privacy. Being alone was what was most important to him. So he had to go on this journey or else he’d never have that again. It’s not clear to me why Heron needs to go on this journey other than that he’s curious.

So if I were Aaron and Kate, the first thing I would do is get to the point of this story faster. A lot faster. Identify the problem. Identify the main character’s goal. And then send him off to achieve that goal. In addition to this, create a scenario by which if he doesn’t act, his world will be threatened. Now your main character has to act, and if he doesn’t, he’s fucked.

Ideally, I would place Heron in one of these small towns to start off the story. Then I would have this religious cult with this huge statue come in, kill everybody who didn’t convert, take all the others, and have it so Heron was able to escape. All the people he loved were killed. So he gets together with a group of stragglers, the few others who were able to hide, and they go after these people. It just seems like this story would be so much more focused. As it is now, all of that stuff that goes on in Alexandria is backstory. I don’t think we need it.

Anyway, the writing itself was clean and easy to follow. I just would’ve loved something more streamlined. You’re already bumping up against conventional spec screenplay wisdom when you take on a time period like this. So if you’re going to do it, you want to make the story as audience-friendly and easy to follow as possible.

Having said all that, I did think the ending came together. It was fun that they had to use their minds in order to defeat this huge enemy as opposed to an army. I also liked the twist in the middle of the script when we find out who’s leading the army. It was unexpected and gave the story a jolt right when it needed it. Now if only we can move it along faster. Good luck on the next draft guys.

Script link: Alexandria

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

What I learned: In yesterday’s comments section, a few of you talked about getting into your scene as late as possible and getting out of your scene as early as possible. That exact same principle needs to be applied to your story itself. We need to get into the story as late as we possibly can. In my opinion, all the stuff that happens at Alexandria with the burning of the library and Cleopatra – it’s all backstory. It doesn’t have anything to do with the main story. The only time we ever see Cleopatra again is when we go there to ask her for help, to which she says, “Sorry. You’re on your own.” So why did we need that scene? We can have them be on their own without Cleopatra having to confirm it. The only other plot point I could think of that was set up in those opening pages was Heron’s statue. But do we really need 30 pages of backstory just to set up that one piece of information? I would ask if we even need to know that it’s Heron’s statue in the first place. I don’t think the story changes if it isn’t. It’s not like any knowledge he has of the machine plays into later parts of the screenplay. I suppose the fact that he knows it’s fake plays into it a little bit. But I’m not sure he needs to have created the machine to figure that out. So let’s start this story later – when our characters first encounter this cult. Now we’ve established the problem, and we can begin our character’s journey to stop it.

So last week we talked about adding conflict to scenes. Today, we’re gonna take that one step further and talk about specific ways to improve your scenes. Now the majority of what makes a scene great comes from what you’ve done beforehand. The structure of your story. The development of your characters. How you craft your relationships. You have to set all that stuff up in order to pay it off later. For example, the Jack Rabbit Slims scene in Pulp Fiction doesn’t work if it’s the first scene in the movie. It works because of what’s been set up beforehand. That said, every writer should carry around a bag of tricks for when their scenes aren’t working. Don’t have a bag of tricks? Not to worry. I’m about to give you one. Here are 10 tricks you can use to make your scenes kick ass.

ADD A GOAL TO THE SCENE
Well surprise surprise. Here we have another article and Carson’s harping on about that “goal” thing again. Well hold onto your seat sister, because this might be the most important advice I give you all day. In short, a goal gives a scene focus. Just like a goal gives a movie focus. Say you have two characters at a bar. You need to get in some exposition about how one of them is having troubles at work. Problem is, random conversation gets boring fast. However, if you switch the scene around so that your hero needs a solution (goal) for this work problem before tomorrow morning, now all of a sudden your scene has purpose. Both characters are working towards a common goal. You can still throw in a bunch of funny banter, along with necessary exposition, but since you’ve established that there’s a purpose (a goal) to the scene, we’ll be more interested in what they’re talking about. Adding goals to scenes is one of the easiest ways to make them more interesting.

TURN THE SCENE INTO A SITUATION
I got this one from the billionaire screenwriters over at Wordplayer. Remember, every single scene should be entertaining on some level – even exposition scenes. That means instead of just pushing your plot along, push it along in as entertaining a way as possible. Let’s look at Back To The Future. There’s a scene early on where Marty stumbles into town and must find out where 1950s Doc lives. So he goes into the diner, looks him up in the phone book, and finds the address. Technically, that’s all you need to get Marty to the next scene. So the scene’s over. Right? Well, no. Because it’s boring. There’s no situation there. It’s just a character moving from point A to point B. So Zemeckis and Gale throw on their creative caps and get to work. Marty runs into his father, who’s being bullied by Biff. We get a fun scene where they meet each other for the first time and then Marty has his first confrontation with the movie’s villain. You’ve taken a simple plot-point scene and you’ve turned it into a situation. Now this might seem obvious in retrospect. Of course Marty runs into his dad and Biff. The story can’t work without it. But when you’re staring at a blank page, you don’t see all that stuff yet. You have to find it. So if your scene feels thin or boring, turning it into a situation is definitely going to spice it up. And who knows, you might just find an exciting new plot direction along with it.

ADD A THIRD CHARACTER
This is an old but effective trick. A quick way to make a scene between two people more interesting is to add a third person. A great example of this is in Notting Hill. It’s the scene where William goes to talk to Anna (Julia Roberts) but her press junket is running late. Will is ushered into her room under the assumption that he’s a journalist. Now if you would’ve played this scene with just two characters, the dialogue would’ve been on the nose and boring. “Thanks for coming.” “You’re welcome. What are you up to?” “Nothing. How about you?” Borrrrrrrring. So instead, they keep sending Anna’s handler into the room to check up on them, forcing William to keep up the façade that he’s a journalist. He has to come up with questions. He has to pretend like he’s seen the movie. It adds a ton of flavor to what otherwise would’ve been an average scene. The trick is, you want the third person to agitate matters. They have to complicate things somehow. That’s where you get your entertainment.

UP THE STAKES IN THE SCENE
Hey, this may sound familiar. What are the stakes of your scene? Because if nobody in the scene has anything on the line, there’s a good chance you’ve just sent your characters to Boringsville. How do you know if the stakes are high? Ask yourself: Does my character lose anything significant if he doesn’t get what he wants? Also: Does my character gain anything significant if he gets what he wants? Look at the famous scene in The Princess Bride where the Man In Black swordfights Enigo Montaya. Both characters have an incredible amount at stake. If the Man In Black loses, he won’t be able to save the life of his true love. If Enigo Montaya loses, he’ll never be able to avenge his father’s death. That’s why that swordfight is so exciting. Contrast that with any of the hundreds of swordfights in the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise where we feel nothing, because either we don’t know what’s at stake or what’s at stake is so murky that we don’t care. Not every scene will have astronomical stakes, but you can always make a scene better by upping the stakes.

DRAMATIC IRONY
This is hands down one of the best ways to juice up a scene. Give the audience knowledge that someone in your scene – or group of people in your scene – don’t know. This is the often referred to “bomb under the table” scenario. If two people are talking at a table, it’s boring. But if two people are talking at a table and we know there’s a bomb underneath about to go off, it’s interesting. Just remember, the bomb can be anything. Let’s say you’re writing a horror movie and your beautiful 20-year-old heroine is coming home after a night out. She comes into her apartment, puts her things away, washes her face, gets ready for bed, and as she opens her closet to throw her clothes in, a man leaps out and tackles her. Hmmm, that’s pretty boring. Let’s go back and do that same scene over again, except this time, before she walks in, show us that the man is inside the house, waiting for her ahead of time. Ohhhhhhh. Okay. Now we have dramatic irony. We know she’s in trouble but she doesn’t. Even the most mundane act – washing her face – becomes interesting. Dramatic irony people. It’s a writer’s best friend.

ADD A TICKING TIME BOMB
Any time you add urgency to a scene, everything about the scene becomes more exciting. That’s because urgency creates pressure. And dialogue and action will always be more interesting under pressure. For example, let’s say you wanted to write a scene where your married couple was discussing their problems. The obvious way to do this would be to throw them at the dinner table and let them go at it. Hmmm. You can obviously make this work. But consider how much more entertaining that conversation might be if you place it during breakfast with one of the characters (or both) late for work. Now they’re rushing around, trying to get ready, while having this intense conversation. Because we know the conversation has to end soon, it’s elevated to a new level. We feel all that emotion and tension at a higher decibel level.

PLACE YOUR CHARACTER SOMEWHERE HE OR SHE DOESN’T WANT TO BE
Remember, if there are too many scenes in your movie where your character is comfortable, there’s a good chance your movie is getting BORRRRRRRRRING. An easy way to add tension to a scene is to put your character in a situation they don’t want to be in. The Deli Scene from The Wrestler that I highlighted the other week is a good example. The last place The RAM wants to be is at that deli. You can see this in a lot of scenes. The Cantina scene in Star Wars. They don’t want to be there. It’s dangerous. Lester Burnham being dragged to his wife’s real estate convention. He doesn’t want to be there. You obviously have to mix in scenes where characters are happy in order to set up those moments, but just remember, you have to keep making your characters uncomfortable or else the situations they’re in become boring.

WANT
Make sure you know what each character wants in your scene. The stronger you can make that want, and the more that “want” conflicts with the other character’s “want,” the more entertaining a scene you’re going to write. So let’s say your main character wants to ask the Starbucks cashier out on a date. That’s his want. So the character gets up to the cashier, and his side of the conversation is very strong, but for some reason, the cashier’s side is boring and lifeless. Why is this? It’s likely because you don’t know what she wants. Maybe she’s at the end of a double shift and all she can think about is getting home. Immediately your scene becomes more interesting. Your hero has been prepping for this moment all week, and she won’t even look at him because she keeps glancing at her watch and that clock up on the wall. Even when she is looking at him, she doesn’t care because her “want” is so strong. Any time you have two strong conflicting wants in a scene, chances are you have an interesting scene.

ELIMINATE THE DIALOGUE
Forcing yourself to come up with a visual solution instead of a spoken solution can do wonders for a scene. How do you accomplish this? Start off by asking yourself, what’s the point of this scene? Then, instead of trying to convey the answer through dialogue, do it visually, through action. Show us. Don’t tell us. For example, say you want to convey that a girl is frustrated with her father. The obvious way to do this would be to have her dad ask her why she’s been quiet lately. She tells him he wasn’t around last week when she needed him most. Things get heated. She eventually storms off saying something to the effect of, “You’re such an asshole.” Instead, why not write a scene where she’s in her bedroom and hears her dad coming. She quickly grabs her headphones, throws them on, and pretends to do homework. He peeks in, sees she’s busy, and leaves. If you really wanted to drive it home, maybe she gives him the finger after he leaves. Now the truth is, in this day and age, you’re not going to have many scenes without dialogue. But you’d be surprised at how much better your scene becomes when you approach it from a “show don’t tell” perspective. You’ll probably end up adding dialogue back in, but the scene will have a more visual flair and therefore be better.

ADD AN OBSTACLE
Something we’re all guilty of in our scenes is having tunnel vision. We know what we want out of the scene, so we write a straightforward version of it. For example, if we’re writing a breakup scene, we simply write our character break up with the other character. The scene does what it’s supposed to do so we’re happy. But in the end, the scene feels flat. A breakup is supposed to be an entertaining moment. Why is ours so boring? It’s likely because the scene is too predictable – too straightforward. You need to add an obstacle, a twist, something unexpected. For example, in Say Anything, Diane is going to break up with Lloyd. But as she’s preparing to do it, Lloyd goes into this big thing about how much he likes her and how they’re going to do all these things together and he tells her about the letter he wrote her. All of a sudden, breaking up isn’t so easy. And it’s all because we added a little obstacle – an unexpected roadblock. I think whenever a scene is too easy, you should be looking to add some sort of obstacle to throw the scene out of balance.

I guarantee that these tools will improve your scenes. It has to be the right fit for the right scene, but the solution to one of your yucky scenes is probably listed above. The only thing left is to figure out tip number 11. I’m gonna leave that one up to you guys. What tricks or methods do you use to improve your scenes? Maybe we can come up with the ultimate list and sell all of our screenplays to Fox by the weekend. Suggestions in the comments section please. :-)

Edit: I was able to get my hands on the newest version of Fig Hunter and give it a read.  As a result, I’ve decided to add my thoughts on the new draft, which will appear after the original review.  So make sure to read til the end!

Genre: Comedy/Mockumentary
Premise: A couple of “fig hunters” (action figure hunters) go out in search of the rarest action figure in the world: Battle Armor Star Captain.
About: This is another one of the 2011 Nicholl Finalists. Again, the finalists are the top 10 screenplays in the competition. Only five of those will be chosen as winners.
Writer: Aaron Marshall
Details: Old version 122 pages – New version – 120 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Older Version Review:
I have to give it to any writer who takes on a Mockumentary. The thing about these hybrid beasts is that they don’t really work until they’re up on screen. The interview segments are so dependent on us buying the “reality” of the actors’ words, that it doesn’t feel right to see it all written out beforehand.

For that reason, I always advise writers to stay away from the Mocks unless they’re making the movie themselves. That being said, Fig Hunt does about as good of a job as you can of conveying a Mockumentary in script form.

Jason Udegaard is the 30-year-old version of Steve Carrel in The 40 Year Old Virgin. I guess you could call him the 30 year old virgin. His house is decorated with action figures and plenty of other nerdtastic touches. But whereas Carrel seemed at least capable of operating in the real world, Jason seems to be living in an alternate reality.

In this reality, the only thing that matters is finding rare action figures. And the crème de la crème of that world is Battle Armor Star Captain. The short of the story is that many years ago one of the big toy companies was getting ready to unveil a new series of action figures centered around Battle Star Captain. Unfortunately, before Battle Star could be shipped, one of the companion figures ended up in a poor little boy’s mouth and choked him to death. As a result, all Battle Star Captains were incinerated and thus never seen from again.

However, years later, a janitor discovers 19 Battle Star Captains that avoided their fiery death. The company, capitalizing on this screw-up, decides to ship the figures out to random stores across the country, mainly to juice up publicity for their other toys.

If only life were that simple. You see, there’s only one group of people out there who give a shit about a 20-year-old random action figure. Fig Hunters! This small but obsessed community spends every waking moment hunting down these forgotten plastic morsels. So when they hear that Battle Star Captains are going to be showing up across the country, it’s like a church congregation being told that Jesus is going to be hanging out at one of the local 7-11s.

Which brings us back to Jason. Jason is one of the last pure figure hunters. He doesn’t care about the money. He doesn’t care about the glory. He cares about the purity of collecting these rare works of art. And since Battle Star Captain is the Holy Grail of action figure collection, he absolutely must have him.

He’s joined by his best friend and fellow fig hunter, 31-year-old Marcus. Marcus is chubby, balding, and pathetic. Essential qualities to being a great fig hunter. The problem is, Marcus has actually found himself a female companion, a rarity in the fig hunter community, and she’s making him think twice about fig hunting as a full time job. Things are getting so bad, in fact, that Jason actually has to convince Marcus to help him find Battle Star Captain.

If finding an impossible action figure weren’t enough, they also have to battle…. Lord Werner. Werner is the worst kind of fig hunter. He’s a scalper. He finds rare action figures then sells them on eBay for a profit. He has a whole gang of fellow profit-seeking scalpers that give him a wide knowledge base that no other fig hunter can match. This means he’s always one step ahead of Jason and Marcus.

The hunt is chronicled online by a mysterious figure known only as “Rogue Fig Hunter,” who keeps tabs on when one of the 19 Battle Star Captains is found. We watch as the number continues to fall, until there are just two Battle Star Captains left. It’s looking like Jason will never get a hold of the greatest rare action figure in existence. The question is, if he does fail, will he ever be able to recover?

So what’s the verdict on Fig Hunter?

Well, if I was to equate the value of this screenplay to a rare action figure, I would probably categorize it as Lando Calrissian. Definitely harder to find then Luke, Han, or Darth Vader, but certainly easier to find than Hammerhead. (I actually don’t know what I’m talking about – I have no idea what the order of difficulty is in finding action figures – but just go with me dammit).

The script is okay. The problem is that whenever it ramps up, it slows right back down again. The script is 122 pages and I just don’t see why. Why wouldn’t you compress your comedy so that there’s more laughs per minute instead of less?

As I’ve always tried to convey, the comedy genre NEEDS TO MOVE. The writing needs to be sparse. Needless tangents need to be eliminated. One of the things that bothers me is when we jump into a flashback only to be told something we already know. So here, Jason is a nerd. We then jump back in time to see him as a kid and what are we told? You guessed it. That Jason was a nerd back then too. What’s the point of giving us backstory if it doesn’t tell us anything new about the character? Take The Imitation Game for example. The backstory was about Alan’s relationship with Christopher, who ends up being the inspiration behind the machine that saves all those lives. That’s worth showing because it informs so much of the present day storyline. We could have easily lost 7-8 pages off this thing by getting rid of the flashbacks.

What I did like about the script was that it had strong GSU. We have a character who’s desperately trying to achieve his goal. The stakes are high because we’ve established how much it means to him. And time is running out because Battle Star Captains are being found left and right. In fact, this script is a reminder that if you can convince the audience that a character cares about something, it doesn’t matter if that thing is the machine that breaks the code that saves millions of lives, or if it’s an action figure that brings someone personal joy. As long as we feel his passion for it, we’ll want him to achieve the goal.

However in the end, I’m not sure I can recommend the script. It sort of runs out of ideas . I mean when they create this whole obstacle course between Jason and Werner to determine who gets the last Battle Star Captain, where they’re competing on things like monkey bars – that’s when I officially tuned out. Remember, you’re always one bad/uninspired choice away from losing your audience, and that was the choice that lost me.

So I guess this wasn’t for me. That being said, if somebody told me they were going to read it, I wouldn’t stop them. I’d probably say something like, “It’s a little silly, but kind of fun.” If that sounds like the mood you’re in, give it a read.

Edit: Here are my thoughts on the newest version of the script.  Enjoy!

Okay, so I just read the newest draft of Fig Hunter and this proves what a well thought-out rewrite can do for a script. There are several key improvements, starting with the focus. In the earlier draft, we had this wandering storyline where there were 19 random Battle Star Captains spread throughout the United States and our characters had to chase after them over the course of, I believe, a year. So even though there is urgency (the figures are disappearing one by one), it’s not as urgent as it could be. In this new version, the toy company sponsors a 45-day action figure hunt from the get-go, and the winners will square off in a competition for a single Battle Armor Star Captain.

One of the reasons I always talk about focus and making your character’s motivations clear, is that it’s easier for the audience to follow along. If either of those things are murky, or they go on for too long without being addressed, the script starts to feel like a fever dream. Screenplays need to be focused. The story needs to be clear. The characters need to be clear. We have to know what everybody wants and why they want it. The difference between the last draft and this one in the focus category is like night and day.

For example, as I mentioned, one of my big problems with the previous draft was that all of a sudden, in the end, we’re thrown into this bogus random contest run by a couple of local DJs. Because it came out of nowhere and because the event seemed so scattershot, we didn’t care. In this version, the Fanathlon is set up early on in the script, so we understand it’s coming from the beginning. This gives it a lot more weight than if it’s just thrown at us on a whim. Also, it’s being held by the toy manufacturer itself, as opposed to a couple of random dudes who have nothing better to do. So that also makes it bigger. In retrospect, it wasn’t really the events (the monkey bars) that bothered me, it was the fact that this event came out of nowhere and we were supposed to think it was important. So set up your plot points ahead of time people. Your script will be better for it.

The characters felt more reined in as well. It just seemed like the writer understood them and didn’t simply go off on whatever tangent popped into his head whenever he thought of something funny for one of them to say. They really stay within character. And while at first I didn’t like the decision to curb Jason’s edginess, I realized over the course of the draft that there was a purpose behind it. It allowed the character to grow into that crazy more reckless version of himself, instead of just being that character from the get-go. In other words, there was more of an arc to his character.

Werner was much better as well. One of my favorite additions is that instead of making it so there was one kid who choked on the Battle Star action figure as a kid, there were three. And in this version, two of them died but one of them survived. The survivor? Werner. That’s the kind of backstory and/or flashback that I wanted in that earlier version. Instead of just telling us something we already assumed, it’s information that makes that character a lot more interesting, a lot funnier, and plays into the story.

Lots of improvements here.  So much more focused.  This easily jumps into “worth the read” status, and is a textbook example of how to improve your script through a rewrite. 

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

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

What I learned: Set up your key plot points ahead of time.  If you’re going to have a big competition at the end of your script, the earlier you can tell the audience that it’s going to happen, the longer they’ll be anticipating it.  And the longer they’re anticipating it, the more important it becomes to them.  If you tell us in one scene that our character is entering some super big important race, and then in the very next scene show us the race, how is that race going to feel important to us?  We just heard about it a second ago.  So set up those big plot points and big moments early on in your script.

Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: On their way to California, a family stops at a truck stop, only to realize it’s inhabited by a strange alien force.
About: Every Friday, I review a script from the readers of the site. If you’re interested in submitting your script for an Amateur Review, send it in PDF form, along with your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted in the review (feel free to keep your identity and script title private by providing an alias and fake title). Also, it’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so that your submission stays near the top of the pile.
Writer: Peter Tom Maatta
Details: 97 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

I think Peter was a little nervous about throwing his script out there for the world to judge, and since last week got a little nasty in the comments section, I want to remind everyone that the idea behind Amateur Friday is not only to discuss amateur screenplays, but to help the writer make their screenplay better. So the more constructive you can make your comments, the more educational Fridays will be.

That’s not to say I want you guys sugarcoating anything. I think it’s important to let the writer know when something isn’t working, even if it’s the whole damn shebang. If you hated it, say you hated it. But instead of focusing on coming up with the perfect witty Francis-like put down, use that brain power of yours to suggest how to fix the script, even if it’s a minor suggestion. We’re all in this together so let’s be supportive.

Okay, on to Truck Stop. This script fucking sucked.

No, I’m kidding. I’m kidding. That was a joke everyone. Calm down.

In staying with the theme of this week’s selections, this script had a weird vibe to it that isn’t quite like anything you’ve read before. I definitely sensed some David Lynchness to the story, so if you dig the Lynchster, you’ll probably find something here to like.

40-something Kevin Ford and his wife Danielle are taking the kids, 15-year-old Katie and 10-year old Nathan, on a road trip to California. It’s a needed getaway since Kevin recently experienced a home invasion while the family was gone. But this wasn’t any home invasion. He believes he saw creatures break into his house. So his therapist tells him to get out of Dodge, enjoy life a little bit, and that’s what he plans to do.

Oh if it were only that easy. About halfway there, the family stops at a truck stop to get a bite to eat. As we were notified at the beginning of the script, this truck stop had a little reeses pieces phone home experience back in the 50s. So we already know something weird’s going on with this place.

On this night, however, it’s fairly packed, with typical inbred-fare no less. In fact, the clientele is so sketchy that the family starts getting nervous and prepares an exit plan. The problem is that Katie is off talking on her phone and Nathan is off playing hide and seek with himself, so even though Kevin has a really bad feeling about this, he can’t get the family together in time to get out. And boy is he going to regret that.

Up from the basement comes one of the restaurant workers who’s drenched in blood. And outside there’s a large contingent of men in black refusing to let anybody leave the truck stop. Apparently they’re aware that this place has alien activity. And that means the truck stop is quarantined. As things spiral out of control and truck stoppers start dying, Kevin finds himself waking up at the beginning of his vacation, like none of it ever happened.

In fact, he doesn’t remember the truck stop at all. He just has some fleeting moments of déjà vu. So when they get to the truck stop again, he’s trying to figure out why he feels like he’s been here before. Once he does, he tries to get the family out again, but runs into the same problems. Cut to Kevin waking up in his car once again. I think you get the point. This keeps repeating itself as Kevin remembers more and more each time, and has to use that knowledge to try and save his family.

In short, I thought there were some really interesting ideas here. I liked the idea of a strange truck stop in the middle of nowhere with an alien presence. There’s all sorts of things you can do with that and I was curious to see what Peter would come up with. I also liked the family angle. Approaching this from the point of view of a family that has to escape together makes for some good drama. So the core of this story has potential.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the script is ready. It feels like it was rushed out before all of the crazy ideas were molded into something coherent. In fact, coherency is a big problem here, and it starts with the tiniest of details. There were a lot of spelling mistakes and misused words in the script. Just in the first 15 we get “he” instead of “the.” We get “hoping” instead of “hopping.” We get “possible” instead of “possibly.” We get “slowing” instead of “slowly.” On a good day, I can handle a few mistakes, but when they start affecting my enjoyment of the story, it becomes a problem. Plus it just makes it seem like the script was rushed. No reader likes to read a script they feel was slapped onto the page haphazardly.

That sloppiness continued in other places as well. For example, this script started back in the 40s. It then jumped to the 50s. Then it jumped…….. I don’t know when. We just cut to a new scene. I didn’t know if we were still in the 50s, if we had jumped forward another 20 years, or if we were now in the present day. Because it was never stated. Those are important details that need to be conveyed.

This then permeated into the story itself. I couldn’t understand, for example, why this alien in the truck stop had waited to strike for 40 years. Or if it *had* been striking that entire time – killing people left and right – why hadn’t the authorities gone to check it out? And what did Kevin’s previous experience with aliens have to do with his current experience with aliens? I’m thinking the odds of running into an alien are one in a billion. Yet our main character runs into them twice. If there was a connection there somehow, it would be okay, but as far as I could tell, each event was isolated.

And then there were moments like Kevin going over to talk to a weird guy in the diner who’s giving him déjà vu. He has a quick conversation with the man then heads back to his wife, who asks, “Who was that?” And Kevin’s response is, “Just somebody I thought I knew.” And apparently that’s good enough for his wife. Wouldn’t you be curious how your husband would know somebody a thousand miles away from your home at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere? Wouldn’t you ask, “Who would you know out here?” But she doesn’t say a thing. She just rolls with it. It didn’t feel thought through – like Peter was thinking about how the characters would really react to one another. This is something I probably would’ve shrugged off under normal circumstances, but all of the sloppiness I mentioned earlier made it so I didn’t trust the script. Any time something didn’t make sense, my first thought was to blame the author. That’s what a sloppily written script will do to a reader.

The plot itself kind of loops in and out of coolness. I liked the men in black characters hanging out outside and not letting anybody leave. And probably my favorite sequence was when (spoiler) all of time stops and the sky opens up and we see these giant aliens coming down and resetting the truck stop. It was just so trippy and weird I was totally captivated. The problem was that the narrative was so mushy and strange, that these moments were more surprising than they were dramatically compelling. What I mean is, I was never clear on what these moments had to do with the story. I wasn’t even sure what Kevin had to do to get out of the time loop. Even at the end of the script (spoiler) when he makes it out, I wasn’t clear how he had made it out.

My suggestion would be to give this story a different slant. I’d start off by getting rid of the opening flashbacks. It’s not clear why we need a scene of the atom bomb blowing up or even why we need to see the truck stop owner bring the alien into his restaurant. That feels like back story to me and I’d rather just jump into the real story.

I’m also not convinced that the looping time thing is the way to go. We already have a truck stop with a strange alien presence inside. Throwing in a time loop might be one sci-fi additive too many. If we can just get this family to the truck stop and have the alien (or aliens, or MIB) start wreaking havoc on the people, and they have to escape, that could be enough.

For example, maybe the alien arrives and starts killing a few people and somehow the people in the diner are able to kill it. So they think they’re okay. Then these strange men show up to take care of it, and they realize that these men (the men in black) are actually more dangerous than the aliens themselves, and are planning to kill them because they’re a witness to alien activity. Then add some twists and turns (maybe more aliens show up). But at the heart of the story is a family trying to get out of this crazy situation alive.

Originally, I thought that the humans inside this truck stop were actually going to be aliens. That might be cool in itself. The family shows up. Everybody there acts really weird. They can tell something is up. And maybe the family happens to be there right at the moment the men in black have finally figured out that this truck stop is a haven for aliens and have come there to kill them off. So our family is actually collateral damage in the ordeal and must work with the aliens to get out alive. I don’t know, something a little less trippy.

Anyway, I don’t think this was quite ready for consumption, but it had some cool ideas that could be harnessed for future drafts. Thanks, Peter, for letting me read it. :-)

Script link: Truck Stop

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

What I learned: Don’t set up something if you’re not going to pay it off – if you’re not going to explain its connection to the rest of the story. A huge deal is made out of this alien home invasion that happened to Kevin. Yet it’s never explained what that has to do with the alien presence at the truck stop. Were they trying to warn him? Were these the same aliens? What was their intention for breaking in? If you’re gonna set something like that up, you eventually have to connect it to the rest of the story. Otherwise it feels random and sloppy.

Genre: Thriller
Premise: An agent infiltrates a dangerous eco-terrorism unit only to find herself falling for the unit’s leader.
About: This is from Sundance sensation Brit Marling, whose film Another Earth has broken out of indie obscurity into slightly less indie obscurity. Supposedly, Brit would be playing the main character here, but I’ve also heard that Ellen Page would be playing the lead. So I’m not sure what’s going on. Brit is a multi-hyphenate. She writes. She directs. She acts. She bakes cookies. Let’s see Britney Spears do that! Not that innocent my ass! (only on Scriptshadow do you get pop culture references this current).
Writers: Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling
Details: 113 pages – March 15, 2010 draft – draft 2.0 (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

While today’s script doesn’t compare in zaniness to the first two scripts of the week, it isn’t exactly chopped liver in the originality department. In fact, on any other week, it would probably be the most original script of the bunch. The subject matter is kooky. The execution is unpredictable. The characters are strange. I can’t remember ever seeing a movie quite like it. But does that mean it’s good?

Hmmmm…

Maybe?

Here’s the thing – and I’ve said it before. Eco-terrorism and movies don’t mix. It’s been attempted over and over again and it just doesn’t work! The main reason for this is that the stakes of an eco-terrorist attack are dramatically lower than real terrorism. I mean how dangerous can a bunch of disgruntled uber-hippies be? Unfortunately not that dangerous. That means lives aren’t at stake. And that means the stakes of stopping them are never high. Teaching a pharmaceutical company a lesson by o.d.’ing them on their own drugs might be an interesting story in real life, but in a movie, it doesn’t have enough drama sauce.

The East follows Sarah Moss, a private agent at a security company that specializes in investigating enemies of major corporations. Kind of like a privatized version of the FBI. One of these corporations – it’s not clear which – hires the company to look into an eco-terrorist unit called “The East.” These aren’t the guys who stand in front of local supermarkets and threaten to drink chemical laced water from polluted lakes. These guys kidnap CEOs and force them to swim in their own chemical created sludge.

The agency decides that Sarah is the best agent for the job, so she transforms herself into a grungy “save the earth” hippie and burrows herself inside the group. Everything about The East is predictably weird and the members are all under mind control by a charming [decidedly less dangerous] Charles Manson-like leader named Benji.

Sarah is scared of Benji at first, but then finds herself attracted to him, something that isn’t going over well with his current girlfriend, Izzy, even though this place is supposed to be about the free love man. On top of that, Sarah has only lived a life for herself. She is selfish to a T, and isn’t used to having feelings for others.

So she must navigate the peculiar dynamics of the group to monitor their upcoming marks, and then report back to the agency, who for some reason she’s still able to visit whenever she wants (I guess she can just come and go as she pleases?). I wouldn’t say that Sarah ever becomes understanding of The East’s ideals, but she does start to like Benji and is torn by whether to take him down or not. However, in the end, that’s exactly the choice she’ll have to make.

Whenever you write an infiltration movie, they are certain mainstays you want to explore. The biggest one is you want your character to be torn. The more that the main character sees the other side’s point of view, the harder her choice becomes. That inner struggle leads to tension and that tension leads to drama, the lifeblood of any screenplay. This is what you see in Avatar for example. Jake Sulley is torn between what the humans stand for and what the Na’vi stand for. I didn’t think The East explored this enough. Sarah never sides with what these guys are doing so there was never a dilemma. Yes, she did start to like Benji, but that development came in way too late, almost like it was discovered on the last pass of the script and then thrown in as an afterthought. Therefore the script didn’t have nearly as much conflict as it could’ve had.

That’s not to say there was no conflict. Just the fact that our character could get caught at any moment created a good deal of drama. But because the cult weren’t killers – just advanced hoaxers – you always felt that if she did get caught, she’d simply be abandoned at the nearest town. Lack of true danger = lack of true drama.

The screenplay also suffered from MSS (Murky Story Syndrome). This is when the story isn’t laid out clearly for the reader – a huge problem in most amateur screenplays I read. I had a hard time figuring out, for example, who the agency was doing this job for and why doing it for them was so important.

I knew Sarah was infiltrating the group to get information on future attacks. But for who? Why does it matter if we don’t know who hired them? Because if I don’t understand the point of the infiltration, I don’t understand the stakes, and if I don’t understand the stakes, nothing else matters, because I won’t care. If I told you a story about how I got a flat tire right before work, and I had to race to put a spare on to get there in time, you probably wouldn’t care. But if I told you that the previous day, my boss said that if I was ever late to work again, he’d fire me, now that story becomes a lot more interesting, because there are actual stakes involved in me succeeding.

There were some things to like. As I said in the beginning, it didn’t feel like anything I’d read before. I was never quite sure where the script was going. I thought some of the stuff inside the cult was creepy. There’s a scene early on where they put Sarah in a straitjacket and tell her to eat some food without her hands. It’s a strange scene that works in a weird way. There’s a scene later on where Sarah sees members of the cult doing a strange Wicker Man-like ritual that’s also pretty spooky. And finally there’s a scene where they cleanse a naked Sarah in the river that gave me the heebie-jeebies. I actually wish they would’ve taken this a step further. The weirder and crazier you make the cult, the more interesting this movie gets. Because right now you don’t have any stakes. It never feels like anybody is truly in danger. But if you created this really whacked out unprecedented cult-like atmosphere, it might be enough to keep us entertained. That’s why The Wicker Man is such a classic – because you never knew what was coming next – you never knew just how wacky the people on this island could get.

So I would try to make this story clearer. I would try to add higher stakes within the cult. I would put more lives at risk. For example, I’d probably add a scene early on where they killed one of their own members for screwing up. That way for the entire rest of the movie we’d be terrified for Sarah – because we know if she got caught she was dead. I guess I just wanted more danger here. I wanted to feel more of an edge. Despite some original twists and turns, the story was too soft for me.

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

What I learned: The East taught me something pretty cool – that you can use specific word phrases as callbacks for later on in the script. They’re kind of like visual setups and payoffs in word form. So early on, the agency headquarters is described like this: “A building you might not notice from the road, but once you do, its design and simplicity haunt you.” Later on, the reemergence of this building becomes a key surprise plot turn. So when we round a corner, the writers describe the building in the exact same way: “A building you might not notice from the road, but once you do, its design and simplicity haunt you.” The payoff is more dramatic because the exact same description is used.