I’ve been thinking a lot about Scene Showdown and why it didn’t yield better results. I’ve gone on record here saying that you can’t write a good script if you can’t write a good scene. A scene is a mini-screenplay. So you need to be able to make at least those 5 pages entertaining if you have any hope of making 100 pages entertaining.

But how do I teach you that without working with you one-on-one (by the way, if you want me to help you in a one-on-one capacity, I consult on loglines, scenes, acts, screenplays, pilots, treatments, outlines, anything. Just e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com and we’ll set something up). The best I can do is explain by example. And two great examples I want to use today are Grendl’s scene from Undertow, which won the Scene Showdown, and last night’s episode of the Apple TV series, “The Studio.”

It all comes back to the concept of dramatizing. Dramatizing is using tools to generate DRAMA within the scene so that it’s entertaining and makes you want to turn the pages. Most aspiring writers do not dramatize. Instead, they approach scenes as information that needs to be conveyed to the reader.

For example, if a high school kid is picking up his date for prom, the aspiring writer will write a scene where the kid shows up, there’s a little nervousness between the couple, the parents take pictures, maybe embarrass the kids. The writer throws in a couple of jokes, thinking that’ll be enough entertainment to do the job.

No.

That’s not dramatizing the scene.

Dramatizing the scene is sending the nervous kid into the bathroom and when he thinks he’s been caught looking at his naked date through the window, absentmindedly rips his zipper up, accidentally getting his penis caught in the zipper. Now he’s got to figure out a way to get his penis out of the zipper without his dream date finding out. And everything gets worse from there.

Now you’re dramatizing the scene!

One of the best tools to dramatize a scene is anticipation. And both Grendl’s scene and the “The Studio” episode from last night use it effectively. With anticipation, you imply a negative possibility is forthcoming then cast doubt on what will unfold.

When you do this, it’s almost impossible for the reader not to want to keep reading. In Grendl’s scene, the negative possibility is not getting to the doctor’s apartment. This is a scary deserted apartment building at night. A young woman is walking around alone. That’s dangerous. Then you add this creepy guy in the elevator, which creates even more uncertainty about what’s going to happen next.

All of this creates ANTICIPATION. We’re eager to find out if she’ll make it to her destination alive or not.

Now, some of you may say, “But Carson. It’s just a basic scene where a woman is walking up somewhere at night. Anybody could write that.” That’s where you’re wrong. I know this because I read screenplays all week long where writers don’t dramatize scenes at all. And I know exactly how they’d write this scene.

They would have the woman show up during the day. The neighborhood surrounding this building is bustling. Families are enjoying a day out. Everything feels fun and safe. The woman calls up to the doctor. He’s a little annoyed that she came to his building (the extent of the drama in the scene) but he lets her up. The inside of the building is bright and inviting. There is no man in the elevator. And she gets to our doctor’s apartment without a hitch.

Do you see the difference? In the daytime version, there is no anticipation at all. These are the choices that every writer has at their disposal. They can choose to dramatize the scene, making each moment within the scene entertaining, or they can lay out a safe and inviting scenario with little conflict that merely gets our character from point A to point B.

Now let’s look at last night’s episode of The Studio for an even stronger example. It’s a stupendous episode of television and it does something that supercharges the anticipation. IT MAKES THE MOMENT MATTER. Which is another way of saying, it UPS THE STAKES. When you up the stakes, you up the anticipation as well.

If you haven’t seen the episode, titled, “The Note,” it follows our new studio head, Matt, and his trusted group of helpers (his top producer, Sal, his marketing genius, Maya, and his assistant, Quinn) after they’ve just screened a movie that Ron Howard made for the studio.

The group is ECSTATIC while watching the movie, believing it’s Oscar-bound. They get to the climax, which delivers in spades. Everyone is celebrating. This is going to be a mega-hit for the studio. And then… the movie keeps going. The story shifts to a motel where the main character (played by Anthonie Mackie) meets up with his dead son, who seems to be living as a ghost at the motel. And the two share numerous deep conversations set to melancholy montages over the next 45 minutes.

The group is gobsmacked. It’s the worst 45 minutes of film any of them have ever seen. Lucky for them, Ron is coming in for a meeting that day, giving Matt an opportunity to give Ron the note – cut the motel sequence. The problem is that the motel sequence is rumored to be Ron’s favorite sequence. And Matt is terrified of telling such an iconic director that the last 45 minutes of his movie sucks.

The episode takes place over the next 30 minutes, as Matt and his group try and figure out a way to give Ron the note.

What I love about this episode is that the plot is soooooo simple. There’s one tiny goal driving the story – Give Ron Howard the note. That’s it! That’s the whole plot right there.

And what is the main tool being used to keep us watching? That’s right: ANTICIPATION. We keep ‘turning the pages’ because we’re anticipating what happens when they give this note to Ron Howard.

But here’s where some advanced screenwriting comes in. Goldberg and Rogen, who wrote the episode, understand that they can ramp up the anticipation by raising the stakes. So they use every little opportunity to make the “note” more difficult to give.

For example, Matt is trying to establish himself as the most ‘creator-friendly’ studio head in town so that they can get the best directors to make movies for them. If he tells Ron to cut this sequence, word will get out that he’s a soulless corporate suit just like every other studio head, which is Matt’s biggest nightmare.

Also, while Ron Howard is publicly known as the nicest guy in Hollywood, Matt’s heard that he’s actually, secretly, a raging psychopath who burns to the ground anyone who crosses him. So there’s that to worry about.

But the biggest reveal is discovered after Matt does some digging about the sequence. It turns out that Ron Howard lost a very close cousin when he was a child. It’s something he’s been holding onto his whole life. He created this whole motel sequence as a way to finally, cathartically, move on from his cousin. This, of course, means that telling Ron to cut this sequence is telling him to cut the very reason he made the movie.

Note how, by upping the stakes, our anticipation of Matt giving Ron the note grows. It grows and grows and grows with each new reveal. That’s how you dramatize. That’s how you make people turn the pages.

Anticipation is such an easy way to dramatize scenes that you should be using it consistently in your writing. And, as you can see, the impetus behind the anticipation can be basic, as long as you up the stakes. You could build a scene around something as simple as going to the dentist. If your hero is terrified of the dentist. If this dentist is a glorified sadist. If your hero has a particularly gnarly procedure that needs to be done. All of that juices up the anticipation.

Anticipation may not be the answer to ALL of your screenwriting woes. But it’s a dependable tool you can call on whenever you need to ensure that your pages remain entertaining.

Enter the Slaughterhouse

Welcome to the new Slaughterhouse Review feature on Scriptshadow. I don’t know if this will become a recurring thing or not. I can’t imagine many screenwriters would want to be a part of it. The idea is that I give a review where I don’t hold back in the hopes that the writer truly understands where their writing needs to improve. We’re going to start this feature off with a review of a scene submission for Scene Showdown. This is one of the scenes that DIDN’T make the cut. Let’s find out why.

Title: Ghosted
Genre: Comedy Series
Writer: Brandon Crist
Setup: This is the opening scene of the pilot.

I read this scene four times. Once as a submission last week, then three more times before this review. On the second read, I re-acquainted myself with the material. On the third read, I tried to understand several aspects of the scene that confused me. And on the fourth read, I tried to identify the overarching reason the scene didn’t work for me.

It took me a while to figure it out. But then I realized that one simple adjustment would’ve vastly improved the scene. I will share that with you at the end of this review. But first, it’s time for some slaughterhousing. If you’re sensitive to violence, look away now.

I knew I wasn’t going to like this scene within the first few paragraphs. You get a feeling for these things  when you’re reading. And I could just tell this wasn’t going to be my jam.

When it comes to comedy, the writing should be VERY DIFFERENT from every other genre. All readers care about is laughing. So you want to keep the writing EXTREMELY sparse. Unless something is critical to the comedy, don’t tell us about it.

“The lamp on the messy desk illuminates a pink rhinestoned skull.” Why do I need to know this? How is this going to make things funnier? I would go so far as to tell comedy writers never to write a paragraph over 2 lines long.

Next, we have the “Sexyback” ringtone. Look, it well may be the case that the character of Morgan is of the age that, when she was younger, “Sexyback” was a hit, and she’s always loved it, and that’s why it’s her ringtone.

But in the absence of any other information, it feels like a dated choice. I’m no spring chicken myself but I know that referencing Sabrina Carpenter, Chappel Roan, or Post Malone is going to make the writing feel a lot more current.

Moving on to the emergence of the blue hand.  The second I read this, I deflated.  My thought was: “Here we go again. Another dead person waking up as a ghost.”

Sometimes I don’t think writers TRULY COMPREHEND how many other people are writing scripts. If  you’re not original, you are writing the same sorts of things as everyone else. I read a million scripts where someone wakes up as a ghost realizing they’re dead. And it’s always the same. They’re confused. They’re trying to find their bearings. It’s all very obvious.

That’s not to say you can’t write someone waking up dead. But you have to find a fresh way to do it! If you just give us the bargain bin version of waking up as a ghost, it’s going to put people to sleep.

We then get the Aidy Bryant casting suggestion. I think Aidy’s great but she’s not exactly a household name.  I don’t think that most people will have heard of her.

Don’t use words like “ensemble.” I didn’t understand what that meant the first time I read this. Just say her clothes! Don’t confuse us! This is a comedy! We should never ever ever ever ever ever EVER be confused when reading a comedy script. If the reader is even confused ONCE when reading a comedy script, that comedy script is a failure. Because you should be making things INSANELY EASY to understand. I’m talking write like a 3rd grader.

The cleavage bounce joke doesn’t work because she’s just seen that her body is translucent and blue. I don’t see someone congratulating their cleavage in that moment. I suppose the argument could be “that’s the joke.” She’s a ghost and yet she still loves her tits. But I didn’t find it funny.

We eventually get to the bedroom where we get this paragraph: “The glowing lamp catches Morgan’s attention. With a morbid curiosity, she approaches to read what’s scrawled on a sheet of looseleaf.” And then her reaction: “Pills and poetry. How charming. His loss. His loss.”

This is a small thing but this needed one more beat in order to be 100% clear. Tell us that there’s a poem written on the pages! Don’t say, “she looks at what’s written” and then hear her say “Pills and poetry.” It wasn’t automatically clear that she’d written a poem. In fact, I wasn’t clear on the poem until she talked about writing it later in the scene. Just quickly describe that there’s a poem written on the page!

Same deal with her dead body. You write: “On the floor, her feet. Her real feet. Her body. She sees it lying there still, dead. She turns away. She pulls a strand of hair behind her ear, not really knowing where to look.” I didn’t know, initially, that she saw her dead body. You say, “On the floor, her feet. Her real feet.” I thought you were referring to her checking out her full ghost body for the first time.  Just be clear!

Writers forget how much information the reader has to pull in when they first read a screenplay. Every moment is new information to them. This process of ingesting information taxes the brain. So it’s common, if something’s even mildly vague, for the reader to miss it. Whereas, later in the script, when we know all the characters and have a good sense of the plot, we’re better equipped to handle the nuanced moments. So, early on, be clear about things. Especially in a comedy where it doesn’t matter as much if you’re on the nose.  So don’t back into a sentence about her dead body.  Tell us it is her dead body!  “She looks down and sees her dead body.”

Next we have Cynthia Erivo coming in. I don’t like this actress at all. I’ve hated her ever since she ruined The Outsider. So I was immediately put off by the casting suggestion. It’s the gamble you take when you suggest actors for roles. As you can see here, I like Aidy Bryant but don’t like Cynthia Erivo. Yet I only needed to dislike one to turn on the material.

Then she says this line, “One sec, babes! Gotta piss like Seabiscuit.” And that’s when I was done with the scene. I kept reading but I knew, after that line, that there was literally nothing this scene could do to win me back. I just think back to that time in 2012-2015 where, for whatever reason, probably because “Girls” was a big show, that every other ‘strong woman’ scene had a woman urinating in a bathroom while on the phone talking to another character. I don’t want to see that. I could show a guy taking a shit while on the phone in every other scene if I wanted to but that doesn’t mean that I should.

“She holds up her manicured finger. Her bracelets jingle as she waves her hand, processing what’s happening before her.” I have no idea what this paragraph is highligthing. She’s holding up a finger? Why? She’s waving her hand. Why? I don’t understand the gestures at all.

We then go to the bathroom where, despite the fact that her friend is a ghost, Charli continues to talk to her. I suppose this is the joke? The friend is acting in the opposite manner of how one would act when seeing that their friend is a ghost. But I’m not laughing because it’s hard to gauge the comedy tone here. I don’t know how broad this is supposed to be. If it’s Napolean Dynamite absurdity or David Brent in The Office type humor.

MORGAN: “Really takes the piss doesn’t it?” Charli nods with her mouth clenched. MORGAN: “Did I use that right?” So I guess this means Morgan is American and Charli is British? Not sure how I was supposed to know that before this joke.

We then segue to this completely unbelievable “emergency” whereby Morgan is concerned that Charli will be charged with her murder if she doesn’t act quickly. Not a single reader will believe that Charli is in any danger at all here so that doesn’t make sense. And then that’s the end of the scene.

Okay, so, what’s the big change we could make to this scene that would instantly improve it? You need to treat Morgan separately from the circumstances that surround her. In other words: GIVE HER SOMETHING TO DO! The big weakness in this scene is that Morgan has nothing to do. Once you give her something to do, you create conflict, and now you have a scene.

It could be something simple – she has to get to work. Brandon even hints at this with the Boss Bitch call. But he doesn’t do anything with it. DO SOMETHING WITH IT. Make this the biggest work day of the year for her. She’s got some big presentation or something. And she’s only got several minutes to get ready and sprint across town if she’s going to get there on time.

Imagine how much more energy the scene would have. Morgan gets up and rushes to get ready. She notices these weird anomalies but she’s half asleep and ignores them. The jokes have a little more zing to them because there are now consequences to problems that come up. If she can’t change clothes, she’s fucked. So what happens when she can’t grab new clothes?

After doing the best job she can, she rushes to leave, and that’s when Charli shows up. Instead of needing to piss like a racehorse, the jokes are now built around Charli’s shock at Morgan’s appeareance. Morgan is trying to run around her to get to work and Charli’s trying to stop her because she looks terrifying. During that conflict that the two have, Charli’s eyes finally pop as she stares across the room. Morgan turns around to see what she’s looking at, and that’s when she lays eyes on her dead body for the first time.

Would this fix all the problems in the scene? No. But there’s a “lazing-around” quality to the scene now that this would definitely improve. Then there’s clarity, which is an issue in about 10% of the moments in this scene. Like I said, when it comes to comedy, there can be zero clarity issues.

I’m not finding the jokes funny. I do know that jokes are funnier when there’s more pressure. And Morgan’s entire career depending on this presentation would place a lot more pressure on the importance of her getting ready. But I still think we need a lot more thought and creativity put into the jokes. It doesn’t seem to me like we’re trying our hardest in that area.

I want to thank Brandon for so bravely entering his scene in the Slaughterhouse. There are ZERO hard feelings here. But I wanted to take you into the frustration in my mind because this is what readers often feel when they read a scene that isn’t working. And I’m hoping that honesty helps all of us understand how high the bar is. It’s always higher than you think!

Longtime commenter, Grendl, takes home an easy win on the third screenwriting showdown of the year!

I was initially quite down about Scene Showdown because I was reading 20, sometimes 30, entries in a row and not finding even a single respectable scene. To that end, I’m very thankful that Grendl entered the competition because as soon as I saw his e-mail address, I knew he was going to give me a quality entry. And he did.

To be honest, it provided a sigh of relief because I was starting to worry that I wouldn’t have enough entries to create a showdown. And, just to be clear, my frustration is not on you guys. It’s on myself. If the scenes you chose to enter are not up to par, then it’s something I’m doing wrong. I’m not conveying to you what constitutes a good scene. I’m not conveying to you how to write a good scene. These days, I consider myself a guide, a teacher of sorts, and that means if the entries fail, I failed.

I would like to get into why the entries didn’t work in a more aggressive manner because I think that soft-peddling criticism has, maybe, made writers believe script issues are less problematic than they are. But I need your permission to do so. So, if you entered a scene that didn’t get chosen and you want it to go through the Carson gauntlet, let me know in the comments. Cause I feel like if I’m more aggressive with my analysis, it has a better chance of sticking.

Okay, let’s get on to today’s winner, which won by a whopping 10 votes, Grendl’s scene from his script, “Undertow.”

The first thing I’m going to praise here isn’t sexy. But as I learned, after going through all these entries, it is by no means a given. Which is that the writing is simple and easy-to-understand.

Veronica approaches the intercom, spotting the faded listing behind a glass pane. She scans the list of names, but doesn’t see his. There is one button with no name next to it. She presses that one.

There’s no pretentious overly-complex description here. The writing tells us exactly what’s going on and nothing more. When there’s an opportunity to add detail (“spotting the faded listing behind a glass pane”) it’s taken. But there isn’t anything in the description that makes me double-take because it was unclear.

Yet this issue was prevalent in nearly all of the submissions. I don’t know what it is about writers but they seem to seek out the most awkward ways to describe things possible.

This was a huge issue while I was picking entries. I couldn’t even get to the point where I was judging the scene because I knew that if I put something up that had a sentence like, “In no uncertain manner as the buttons bloom with faded blue light, the intercom from which Vernoica has approached, in dire need of being replaced, responds to the index finger she presses upon it, the one button without a name…” that the entry would get hammered.

If we’re not even getting basic sentence-structure right, how can we expect to tell a compelling story? Grendl’s writing was simple and to the point. It allowed me to focus on the story and the story alone.

And I liked what Grendl did right away with the scene. We establish this trust and rapport between driver and passenger, with our driver promising he’ll wait around. And then Veronica barely makes it a step out of the car before the driver zips away. I like moments like this because they establish that unexpected things can happen at any moment.

This is so important in a genre like this because you need the reader to feel unsettled. If they feel too comfortable reading a scene like this, you haven’t done your job. So even before my protagonist moves into the dangerous situation, I’m already on edge.

The conversation that follows between Michael and Veronica is solid but unspectacular. It mostly deals with logistics (who are you, oh okay, you can come in) and I probably would’ve added more resistance on Michael’s end to create extra tension. Especially because this is no longer just about meeting with this man. It’s about how, if she doesn’t get into this building, she’s in danger. This is a strange scary neighborhood at night and she’s a lone girl.

So for the conversation to go that smoothly was a missed opportunity. Then again, I don’t know enough about the story to understand the context of this conversation. So maybe it makes more sense than I’m giving it credit for. These are the challenges with scene showdowns. The reader doesn’t have all the information.

Once in the building, Grendl knows to ratchet up the tension and the potential danger. He knows that you don’t want to just throw Veronica into the elevator right away. You want to build suspense. So the stuff about the elevator lurching into motion, “rattling and screeching its way down,” is good.

Remember that the original need for a written screenplay was to convey to the people working on the film what it was we’re going to see onscreen. That mission has evolved over time, as screenplays require the pages to be more entertaining. But everything goes back to that.

And Grendl achieves that here. I’m seeing this movie on the screen as I read it. Cavernous hallways, echoing footsteps, looming shadows. And none of this is overbearing or overwritten. It’s just enough to get an idea of what we’re looking at, and then we’re moving forward.

The scene gets another jolt when the elevator doors open and Veronica realizes there’s someone inside. One of the things I talk about in my latest book is this idea of leaning into common situations. The first instinct writers have is to avoid common situations behind the logic that they’re “cliche.”

But certain situations are dramatically dependable because they are RELATABLE. Every woman knows what it feels like to get into an elevator with a man who looks sketchy. And men know this too! Even if they haven’t experienced the scenario themselves, they understand how the situation would feel to a woman.

So, you have this baked-in tension powering the sequence. Even if you did nothing with this setup, it would provide the scene with an adequate amount of conflict. Of course, the writer’s job is to play with the scenario and create even more conflict with it. Which is exactly what Grendl does.

By the way, this section could’ve been described better. Veronica initially hesitates when she sees that there’s someone on the elevator. We’re then told the man “presses the button,” and she gets on. But what button did he press and what does it do? A few lines later, we’re told about a “DOOR OPEN” button so I guess that’s what he’s been pressing. But since the average elevator doesn’t require someone to hold a ‘door open’ button, that probably needs to be described up front.

And yet, it doesn’t matter. I’m already hooked on the scene. My suspension of disbelief is strong because of the way the scene’s been set up.

When you do that as a writer, readers DON’T CARE about this button stuff. I’m only pointing it out because this is an analysis of the scene. But if I was just reading this to enjoy it, this moment wouldn’t bother me at all because it doesn’t affect the core elements of the scene, which are working.

If this scene would’ve been bludgeoned in its setup, then the button qualm becomes indicative of a larger issue. So, get the dramatic stuff right and it won’t matter if you make little mistakes here and there.

Next, we get this fun little moment where the strange elevator man presses the basement level button instead of the 3rd floor button. So we’re going in the opposite direction of where we want to go. This is Suspense 101. You want to imply that something dangerous is coming and then sit in the anticipation of it. This is what directors such as Alfred Hitchcock were so good at.

There were very few writers who submitted to the Scene Showdown who understood anything about suspense. So, opportunities like this were overlooked. I just want to make it clear to people WHY this scene was chosen over other scenes. And an understanding of basic dramatic screenwriting, stuff like how to properly implement suspense, was a big reason.

My only real criticism of the ending is cutting directly to the third floor. I probably would’ve sat in the elevator as it ever-so-slowly ascended away from that basement, away from the danger of this man, to allow our heroine to finally let out a relieved sigh. Then follow her, in real time, up to the third floor, the elevator doors opening, and her trying to find Michael’s door.

She starts looking around. None of the doors have numbers on them so she has no idea where to go. And then, of course, as has already been written, she hears the elevator moving back to the basement floor. The scary man is coming back up. She’s got to find Michael’s door ASAP. She does just in the nick of time. End of scene.

Very strong entry. This is the scene I probably would’ve voted for as well.

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

What I learned: The scene is a great reminder that even small goals, such as your hero trying to get to an apartment in a building, can be compelling if you add the right mix of dramatic ingredients.

The April newsletter should be hitting your inbox any second now. I talk about the biggest scene of the year. I talk about the Avengers lineup. I talk about how AI is bunk and that you actually want to head in the OPPOSITE direction to be successful. I talk about the key to writing a great TV main character. And I review a Black List script that came from a writer who honed his skills right here on this site. The guy even got his manager after consulting with me on his logline!

If you are not on the list and want to jam with future newsletters, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line: “NEWSLETTER”

Scene Showdown is finally here!

For those of you who have not yet participated in a showdown on the site, the rules are simple. Your job is to read all the entries (or as much of each entry as you want) then vote for your favorite submission in the comments section. Just type the title of your favorite scene and, if you have time, tell us why you liked it. You have until this Sunday night at 10pm Pacific Time to vote.

I have a feeling this is going to be a tight race!

Good luck to everyone.

Title: Jump
Genre: Sci-Fi/Thriller
Setup: Opening scene

Title: Whitetooth
Genre: Action
Setup: Opening scene

Title: Undertow
Genre: Surreal Drama
Setup: “Doesn’t need setup.”

Title: A Son Adrift
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Setup: Opening scene