Whenever I mention titles, I see a little dance going on in the comments section. It’s an exciting topic these titles, probably because they’re the most elusive element in screenwriting.

Ruminating about what makes a good title gets my anxiety pumping. Do I even know the answer to what makes a good title?

Or are good titles the thing you only know when you see them?

“Jaws.”

That’s a good title. I don’t know why. But I saw it and I felt something and I liked the way it looked on the page so, yeah, boom, I like that title.

Is this method scientific? Most certainly not. But therein lies the complexity of titling.

I also wondered if titles only work when they’re placed next to the logline or poster. Can they work by themselves?

Are loglines worthless unless we know the genre? So many questions.

But I got news. I have all sorts of titles from all the showdowns I’ve run. So let’s lay out 30 random titles from those submissions and use them as the starting point for a conversation about what makes a good title.

Here we go…

Noah’s Choice
The Best and Brightest
Quiet Storm
Triggered
Bloodlet
Sweepers
Demon Motel
Go Find Her
Hit Squad
Proselytes
A Theory of Wolves
Pariah
An Old Friend
Witness Protection
Oh, Hi Mark
Live Fire
20,000 Leagues Into the Sky
Violence Is the Way
Here Comes Santa Claus
Trephination Falls
Sugar Green
The Glen Meadows Reclamation Project
Our Dead Lives
Youngbloods
Things That Glitter
All American Boy
The Stationary Department
The Pot Washer
Avulsion
Devil In A World of Hurt
Variant
Slide to Survival
The Fourth Husband
The Last Fairy Tale
10 Things I Hate About Demons

I’ll be honest. Quite a few of these, if I’m just looking at the title, make me curious. Some more than others but it’s interesting when you strip everything else away what you find. There’s so little information that your mind is forced to fill in a lot of blanks. For that reason, titles without context will work as Rorschach tests to most. You see what you want to see.

“Avulsion” has a strong intensity to it. “Variant” has a mysterious quality that makes me want to know more. “Pariah” is not only mysterious but also hints at a compelling main character. I think you’re seeing a trend here. One-word titles create mystery. And for certain types of genres, mystery is good. You just have to make sure that word is powerful and memorable. It can’t be something like, “iPhone” or “Sheets.”

Some titles that clearly *didn’t* work for me begin with, “The Pot Washer.” Think of the image that puts in the reader’s head. Someone washing pots. Is there any way someone could interpret that as a compelling story? I don’t think so. So find another title.

“Slide to Survival.” The words don’t gel. A slide is something fun. Survival means “save yourself or you die.” Combining them feels like combining peanut butter and mustard.

“Live Fire” is straight-up generic. It doesn’t put any image in my head that even remotely resembles a movie. Which is what you need these titles to do. They can’t just be a combo of words that you like. They must have purpose. That purpose is to convey an image of a movie people would want to see. This does not do that.

“Here Comes Santa Claus” doesn’t have any creativity to it. You’re just taking part of the chorus of a well-known song and repeating it. Good writers find a spin on the title to make it its own.

At first glance, “10 Things I Hate About Demons” is kind of fun. But something’s missing. It took me a second to realize what it was. The ending of a “10 Things I Hate” title works best when the things hated are the opposite of what you’d expect. So if my title was, “10 Things I Hate About Killers,” you’d scratch your head and say, “I already know killers are bad. Why am I coming to you to remind me of that?” But if I titled my script, “10 Things I Hate About Puppy Dogs,” now you’re a little bit curious, as puppy dogs aren’t hated.

Are there any titles here that, if I saw them and nothing else, I would open the script and check out the first page? Maybe, “Violence Is the Way.” The title is a contradiction. So I have to read the script to figure out why we’re doing the opposite of what is right. Irony in a title is one of the few ways you can make a title work all on its own. Comps include True Lies, The Neverending Story, Dead Man Walking, and Wargames.

There’s something about Sugar Green that I like but I can’t put my finger on it. That’s the thing with titles. They can be personal in the way they affect each individual. Sugar isn’t green. So, that right there has me curious. But also it feels like the title of some indie movie I’d want to know more about.

What are some other lessons we can glean from this exercise?

In order to answer that, let’s take a look at 30 more titles. The difference is, these are titles from movies that have actually been made. Now, just because a movie got made does not make a title “better.” In fact, studios are notorious for getting cold feet on risky titles and replacing them with something boilerplate. Still, I expect these movie titles to be better than what we saw with the amateurs.

It Ends With Us
If
The Wild Robot
Longlegs
Migration
Civil War
The Beekeeper
Anyone But You
Challengers
Argylle
Madame Webb
Trap
Speak No Evil
Night Swim
The Boys In The Boat
The Forge
Imaginary
Abigail
Monkey Man
Arthur The King
Poor Things
Blink Twice
The Bikeriders
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
Fly Me To The Moon
Unsung Hero
American Fiction
The Iron Claw
The Watchers
Tarot

Of these, several caught my eye right away. “Blink Twice” was at the top of my list. Which is funny because I have no interest in seeing the movie. But the phrase indicates that someone is in trouble (“Blink twice if you’re in danger”) and that can be all you need to get someone to open your script.

“The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” is an eye-catcher. Typically, the longer the title, the more dangerous. That’s because long titles can start to feel like run-on sentences. Also, the word choice has to be just right. For example, if I wrote a script titled, “The Dogwalker Sleeping In Albuquerque Has Designs On Running The World,” is that a good title? No. It’s a mish-mash of words that have no meaning.

Meanwhile, look at how many short titles we have here in the produced list. 21 of the 30 titles are 2 words or less. That’s the one title tip I’m sure you should take away from today. Go short with your title. UNLESS you have the greatest idea for a long title in history.

“The Iron Claw” is a strong title simply because it’s a strong image. “Civil War” is probably the only title where I would definitely request the script, even if I didn’t know anything else about it. Others agree. A lot of people who never go to indie movies went to this one SPECIFICALLY because of its title. It’s a title that promises conflict at the highest level.

That’s a good lesson: If you can imply conflict in your title, you are likely to get some interest. We see this with one of the earlier titles on the list, “Anyone But You.”

As for bad titles? “Argylle” is the worst title on the list. It tells us nothing. Is it a surprise, then, that nobody saw it? “If” is weak. I guess sometimes a title can be too short. The Forge is weak. The Bikeriders may be the most bland title on the planet. What does that title tell you about the movie? That people are going to ride motorcycles? That lack of specificity is exactly why myself and millions of other potential moviegoers never saw this thing.

Outside of that, most of the titles are solid.

What have we learned today? Not much! Well, a few things. 1) Make your title short. 2) Create irony if possible. 3) Imply conflict if possible.

You guys are always so vocal about titles. I can’t wait to hear your opinions on this.

There is still time left to grab an October Script Consultation Deal!  $100 off the full price + another $50 off if you have a horror or thriller script.  Also, while I don’t yet have a title consultation option (maybe I should – 99 cents per title consult?), I still have a great logline consultation.  Just $25 for me to evaluate your logline.  If you’re interested in the feature deal or any of my consults, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com!

We’ve got a spec script with another wild twist ending!

Genre: Legal Thriller
Premise: When a rich New Yorker is the lead suspect in his wife’s murder, he hires his daughter from a previous marriage, whose wounds from him deserting her have never gone away, as his attorney.
About: This spec sold earlier this year to NETFLIX. Weren’t writers around here just complaining that specs don’t sell? Don’t tell that to Melissa London Hilfers. This is her fifth feature spec sale! Hilfers loves legal thrillers. Not surprising since she is a lawyer. Another “I have no time to write” excuse taken off the table. Yesterday, a doctor with two kids found time to write a novel. And now a lawyer, the profession with the least amount of time in the world, had time to write five scripts. So come on, guys! Let’s see some more output!
Writer: Melissa London Hilfers
Details: 110 pages

Today we’re going to talk about how weaving character dynamics into a nuts & bolts legal plot can yield solid returns.

Let’s get to it!

40 year old Cecilia Caufield has just won the biggest case of her life, a 150 million dollar settlement. She goes home and celebrates by having sex with her husband, Ryan. But then we see her leave her husband and go to… another home? To… Peter. Oh wait, Peter is her husband. Ryan is just some lawyer she’s banging. Bad, Cecilia. Bad!

Cecilia’s mother calls and tells her that her father (the two are no longer married) is a murder suspect! His second wife was stabbed and killed on the city streets last night. Cecilia’s father rarely engages with her ever since he moved onto his second family but Cecilia races over to see him anyway and makes sure he’s okay. Not only is he okay, he wants Cecilia to represent him!

An old work buddy of Cecilia’s, Aaron, is the lead prosecutor on the case, and he is POSITIVE William killed his wife. The murder weapon was a jewel-encrusted serrated knife that he gave to his wife for protection a decade ago. Aaron theorizes that William knew she had it on her so he got her onto a dark street, ripped it out, and stabbed her.

Cecilia is diligent in getting all the details of that day from her father, even down to the specifics of he and his wife’s sex that morning. If she’s going to prove her father’s innocence, she needs all the details, no matter how nasty. Cecilia suspects that William’s long-time driver knows more than he’s letting on. As such, she starts to doubt whether her father is really innocent. Regardless, she’s going to fight tooth and nail for him to go free. The question is, what will it cost her?

I had a long think about this one.

Did I like it? Did I not like it?

I’ll start by saying this: The writing was MUCH BETTER than yesterday’s offering. At no point did Melissa London Hilfers describe any character as “handsome” 917,212 times.

But I still had to ask, “Why is this idea movie-worthy?” “How is this storyline any loftier than, say, a The Lincoln Lawyer or Suits episode?”

The answer to this is the reason the script sold. And it’s an important distinction that I want you to pay attention to.

The weakness of a show like The Lincoln Lawyer or Law & Order is that the court cases are more about the nuts and bolts of the case rather than real human emotion. Therefore, you can only ever watch those shows with casual interest.

We know this because whenever a big episode comes around, like a premiere or a finale, it isn’t just some random person who’s on trial for murder. It’s one of the main characters from the show. That’s because they know that, in order to really pull you in, they have to engage you on a deeper emotional level.

That’s what Hilfers does here. This movie is just as much about what’s going on outside the trial as it is inside. It really is the only way you can elevate one of these trial case storylines from what you see on TV. Well, that or some crazy high concept, like the “first ever defense of a ghost” or something.

This script works because Cecilia isn’t just defending her father. She’s getting to spend time with her father again for the first time since she was a child. And there’s this sad irony that the only way she got to do that was for his wife to be killed and for him to be the number 1 suspect.

Which the script needed.

Because the plot itself *is* the exact same stuff you see in a Law & Order episode. There’s the spoiled half-sister who got pissed at her mom when she said she was going to cut her out of the estate. There’s the dead wife’s trainer who claims that she was planning on leaving her husband to be with him. There are not one, but TWO, one-of-a-kind jewel-encrusted knives, either of which could be the murder weapon. And, as is always the case in these stories, nobody seems to be telling the whole truth.

I rarely cared about any of that. I was only mildly curious about who killed the mom. I was more invested in Cecilia’s complex relationship with her father. Particularly, I was wondering if her father was playing her – being charming to get her to do what he needed her to do. But, as soon as this was over, he was going to leave her again.

And then came the twist.

(MAJOR SPOILERS)

This is a good example of the influence a twist can have on a script. Cause I had this as a “wasn’t for me” all the way through. But the twist brought it up to a “worth the read.” The thing you have to remember about a twist ending is not just that it provides the story with a twist. But that it provides the story with a twist RIGHT AS IT ENDS.

That creates a swell of energy within the reader that they then feel the need to expunge. It’s hard to come off a big intense final twist AND NOT WANT TO TALK TO SOMEONE ABOUT IT. So this generates one of the most important things a script requires for success – the reader telling other people about it.

I will often read scripts that I think are good. But they don’t compel me to talk to others about them. They don’t infuse me with a burst of energy that I then must pass on.

The twist, for those of you who are curious, is that Cecilia did it. The reason it works is because there isn’t a single moment in the script that points in that direction so you never consider it. And yet, it’s still paid off.

That’s REALLY HARD TO DO. To not show a single clear setup and yet the payoff is obvious. So let me tell you how the writer did it. She used this infidelity storyline as a fake-out. The whole time, we were thinking that was a subplot meant to explore Cecilia’s marriage. It was so separate from everything else, that we wouldn’t, in a million years, have thought to connect it to the case.

But later, when we see what really happened that night, we see Cecilia and Ryan kissing outside, then him get into an Uber, and who should walk up, but Kimberly. Kimberly is ecstatic that she’s caught her husband’s daughter in this weak moment and delights in telling her that as soon as she gets home, she’s going to call up Cecilia’s husband and tell her that his wife is cheating on him. That’s why Cecilia kills her.

Another thing about the twist is that it makes Cecilia quite the complex character because she does *not* ultimately offer her husband the truth. So, is that good? Are we really happy this girl won? I think we are because Kimberly was an awful person who delighted in taking William away from his wife and daughter. But Cecilia, by no means, gets away scot-free here.

It’s enough to get an endorsement from me. I don’t know what that means going forward in the spec market. Are we about to hit a streak of twist endings? I guess we’ll find out!

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

What I learned: When it comes to legal scripts, I like the structure used here, where the trial starts at the halfway point. Starting a trial right after the first act means that an entire 75% of your script is going to be a trial. I’m not saying that can’t work but it’s a looooonnnng time to be in trial. Commencing the trial halfway through the script feels like a perfect bifurcation of the structure.

The viral book is now being turned into a movie starring Sydney Sweeney

Genre: Thriller
Logline: Hard up for a job after spending 10 years in prison, a young woman is hired by a seemingly perfect family to be their housemaid, only to learn that her boss, the mother, is a raging gaslighting lunatic.
About: This project just came together last week. It will star current Sydney Sweeney, Sydney Sweeney, former Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, and be directed by Paul Feig. It’s an adaptation of the enormous literary sensation that has garnered over 300,000 reviews on Amazon. It’s being adapted by The Boys staff writer, Rebecca Sonnenshine. Novelist Frieda McFadden generated her success all on her own, self-publishing her first book, The Devil Wears Scrubs, on Amazon a decade ago.
Writer: Rebecca Sonnenshine (based on the book by Freida McFadden).
Details: Roughly 330 pages

As the self-appointed leader of the Sydney Sweeney Global Fan Club, I consider it my God-given duty to track every project she signs up for. Well, except for that boxing movie where she looks like a man. As soon as I saw this project announced on Deadline, I clicked straight over to Amazon and downloaded that sizzling piece of digital magic onto my Kindle.

I was going to find me out what The Housemaid was about!

Word on the street was that it had the twist of all twists. And I loooooovvvvve a good twist. Little did I know, I was about to go on a journey that I would never be able to come back from, a journey so fraught with gaslighting that I just filled up my car on the book rather than from the 76 station down to the street.

But this gaslighting came with a special side of OMG. OMG good? OMG bad? You’ll have to read the book to find out. And if you’re worried about spoilers, I’ll alert you when they’re coming. Okay, time to synopsize the plot.

Millie, who’s in her late 20s, just got out of prison (for reasons we’ll never learn) and is therefore having a tough time finding even a minimum wage job. So she’s shocked when Nina, a well-off wife, hires her to be a live-in maid at her gorgeous upper middle class home with her perfect husband and psycho 9 year old daughter.

Everything seems fine when she shows up on her first day until Nina introduces Millie to her attic bedroom. Millie notices that the door locks FROM THE OUTSIDE as opposed to the inside. And don’t worry if you didn’t catch that detail. Because the author, Freida McFadden, is going to tell you 691 more times over the course of the story.

Almost immediately, Nina starts acting weird. She’ll tell Millie to go pick up her daughter, Cecelia, at school, then once Millie gets there and learns Cecilia is going to practice with her friends instead, she’ll call Nina and ask what happened and Nina says she never told Millie to go pick up her daughter. Huh?

This gaslighting happens frequently to the point where Millie starts to wonder if she’s going nuts. But Millie’s got other problems, dude. Like the fact that she’s falling HARD for Nina’s husband, Andrew. Millie finds Andrew very handsome by the way. How do I know that? Because McFadden tells you 14,722 times.

One night, when Nina has to unexpectedly leave town, Millie makes the unthinkable decision to go to the broadway play with Andrew that he and his wife were supposed to attend. After 792 more reminders that Andrew is handsome, stupid Millie sleeps with him!

Just a couple of days later, Nina finds the playbill of the Broadway show, which erupts into a home-destroying drag-out-all-night fight. Andrew does the unthinkable. He declares he wants to live with Millie instead of Nina and kicks Nina out! Nina is beside herself! Millie is over the moon! Until the next evening, when she goes to her attic bedroom to move everything downstairs, and she finds that she’s been LOCKED INSIDE.

(Big Spoilers Follow)

We then switch into Nina’s POV for the first time and we learn THE TRUTH. Which is that Nina is actually a really nice person. She married Andrew and found out he was a psychopath who would lock her in the attic to punish her. Andrew threatened hellfire if she ever left him so Nina concocted the whole “housemaid” plan as a way to get Andrew to fall in love with a younger hotter girl so that she could leave! But once she’s done so, she’s burdened with the guilt of leaving Millie out to dry. Will she come back and help her? Or let her suffer like she did?

I don’t know if I’ve ever read a book as poorly written as this one.

This writing is so garbage, I could actually smell the stink coming off the page.

The level of writing here is SO BAD that you’ll often stop and stare at the page with your mouth open. There are a million examples of this but the biggest is how embarrassingly on-the-nose McFadden is throughout the book.

For example, there’s this handsome (yes, handsome!) Italian gardener (no, I’m not kidding, he’s Italian) who seems to warn Millie in Italian on her first day. Millie goes to look up the Italian words he said online and they translate to, “Danger!” McFadden then has 50 other scenes with Enzo where he KEEPS SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING. Danger. Danger. You’re in danger. Stranger danger. Leave, you’re in danger. Danger danger danger danger danger danger danger. I honestly thought it was a joke book at a certain point with how much she repeats everything.

There is zero subtlety to anything and I was previously under the assumption that being on the nose was a writing no-no. But with this book selling millions of copies, I’m starting to wonder if subtlety is dead. Because whatever she did definitely worked.

Okay, let’s get to the root of the question here, which is, why is this book so big? Why is it being turned into a movie with a major package of actors and director? If it’s as bad as I say it is, how can it be so successful?

I think I know.

Two reasons.

One, McFadden does something kinda genius here. You know romance novels, right? They used to sell like hotcakes and various versions of them still do today. McFadden did what I tell all of you to do. Take an established genre or established story and put a spin on it. McFadden took the romance novel and spun it into a thriller.

Cause this is, essentially, mommy porn. Wish-fulfillment central. Moms imagine themselves as younger Millie, working for a strong handsome (you guys can’t imagine how handsome this man is – I have no idea what his actual physical appearance is. But I know he’s handsome!) older man. The temptation of romance is in the air at every corner. I don’t know women that well but I know most of them love this sh*t.

So that’s number 1 for why the book was a success.

And number 2 is because the book’s twist *is* pretty good. It’s not going to rewrite the twist book or anything. But I could see most casual readers not seeing it coming. *I* knew something was up with Nina, of course. She was acting too weird for there to not be some secondary motivation. But that’s only because I’m trained to figure out character motivations after reading billions of scripts. The average reader will be duped for sure.

So that’s the reason for the book’s success. It’s not complicated. What it is is a writer who gets two very important areas of the story right. The wish-fulfillment aspect and the surprise ending. Those two things can definitely result in a breakout hit.

This isn’t my jam. It’s too silly. And the writing – oh my god you guys, the writing is SO BAD. But I understand why it’s become successful. Not to mention, it’s a very simple story, like I always tell you guys to write. :)

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

What I learned: Check how many times your favored words are used. A quick search for the word “Handsome” would’ve alerted McFadden that she had used the word way too many times. It’s often not until you see a number next to your favorite words that you realize just how excessively you’ve used it. I use the word “just” a lot in my writing, for example. Do a quick search for the word, find out you used it 300 times in your script, be shocked, and get to work erasing most of them.

What I learned 2: I mean, you really don’t have an excuse not to find time to write after you learn about Freida McFadden’s story. She was a doctor RAISING 2 KIDS when she wrote her first novel. Imagine how easy it would’ve been to say, “Eh, I’m too tired to write today.” Yet she always found time. Now, according to the New York Times, she’s the “fastest-selling thriller writer in the United States.” Stop making excuses! Pick up that pen! It ain’t going to write itself!

I love it when a movie like Smile, or one of its sequels, does well at the box office. In this case, Smile 2 took in 23 million dollars, which is 2 million more than the first film made.

Why do I like this? Because it’s something any aspiring writer on this site can achieve. I’m not saying it’s easy. But it IS achievable.

That’s because horror remains the NUMBER 1 avenue for an unknown writer to write a movie that not only gets sold, and not only gets made, but has the chance to become a hundreds of millions of dollars franchise. As Smile has already proven.

BUT.

You do need to understand how most horror projects get made in order to take advantage of this opportunity.

It’s tricky. So pay attention.

The majority of brand new horror films you see are created by writer-directors. From Lights Out to Get Out to It Follows to Smile. Usually, a short is created to show proof of concept or a new writer-director is in a position to make his first feature and goes with horror.

And you’ll notice a common thread with all these movies. They’re incredibly simple. Not just sort of simple. But INCREDIBLY simple. Lights Out is about a light switch. Get Out is a dude meeting his girlfriend’s parents. It Follows = a person follows you. Smile? Smile is a freaking smile! That’s it! The entire franchise is built on a single image.

So here’s the thing. I don’t think any of these movies would’ve worked as spec scripts. They’re too simplistic. And the key images (like an evil smile) wouldn’t shine bright enough on the page that someone would say, “I have to buy this.”

If you’re going to sell a horror spec, your concept and execution have to be a little more clever than the average screenplay. A Quiet Place is a good example. A world where you can’t make a sound or monsters kill you *is* still a simple premise. But note what the writers did with that. They created a nine months pregnant character who had no choice but to have a baby completely silently. That’s clever. And that’s why the script DID, unlike these other horror movies, sell as a spec.

So what do we call this practice then?

I think I’d like to call it SIMPLE + 1. Horror works great with a simple premise. That’s been proven over and over again. But “simple” means you have to direct it yourself. If you want to sell your horror script, you need that “+1” element. And, to me, the best +1 element is something more clever than the average bear. Either with the premise or the execution or both.

Sure, they’re older movies but I know for a fact The Sixth Sense would’ve sold today. As would The Others. As would Scream. Because they have that +1 element. The Sixth Sense has a prime hook: “I see dead people.” Not only that but an execution so great, it probably throws a +2 or a +3 into the mix. The Others was one of the better horror mysteries ever written (and also had a great final twist). And Scream was one of the best horror films ever at subverting the genre.

More recently on the spec side of things, you have horror films like 10 Cloverfield Lane, The Purge, Happy Death Day, The Menu, and, to a certain extent, Malignant (although I know there are extenuating circumstances with that spec sale). But I still think Malignant would’ve sold without the writer being in a relationship with James Wan.

So, if you want to sell sell sell a horror screenplay, make sure you are bringing a +1 element to the table. Otherwise, you could write the next “Smile” (“Sneeze” maybe?) and no one would take a chance on it.

As for the rest of the box office, I’m loving this little engine that could movie, The Wild Robot, crossing 100 million. It’s a bittersweet victory because I felt this movie had the best trailer of the year and since all animated movies make a billion dollars, it would as well. But then I learned this was a much smaller movie with smaller goals. Regardless, it’s got killer critic and audience scores, so much so that I almost bought it for 25 bucks on streaming the other day. Then I realized I’m not a crazy person. I could wait.

I’m still trying to work out We Live In Time’s path to production. Cancer films are about as fun to watch as cancer itself. But the truth is, actors do like these roles. And ever since Love Story’s surprise success in 1970, studios every once in a while take a gamble on one of these scripts, hoping they strike gold. I guess what I’m saying is, if you’re a writer who likes writing really depressing movies, there IS a path to success with cancer scripts. Actors will play these roles and studios will release these films.  But come on.  Which of these two movies would you rather see?  This one?

Or this one…?

Saturday Night’s quick demise at the box office was as expected as leaves falling from trees in October. Jason Reitman continues to be one of the most toothless directors in the business. His films are so light and inoffensive, they might as well be a helium balloon at a 10 year old’s birthday party.

It’s not that I’m against feel-good movies. Give me a Wonka screening any day of the week. But even his feel-good movies are devoid of any effective drama or conflict. There are no teeth in a Reitman movie. Now, that being said, I do like the spec-y way he approached this movie, setting it in real-time on the first night of Saturday Night Live. But someone’s got to help Reitman read the room. He’s worse at picking concepts than Trajent Future.

Finally, props go out to Anora, the Sean Baker film that is so indie, it will stop collecting money as soon as it reaches 5 million at the box office. The film made 90 thousand bucks per theater this weekend. I like Sean Baker’s films because they live by the Scriptshadow creed of: KEEP IT SIMPLE. But also because he creates an energy in front of the camera that’s legitimately special. I planned to see this this weekend but a last minute schedule change prevented me from doing so. But I’ll watch it soon and review it! I expect it to be excellent and a major Oscar contender.

What’d you see this weekend? What’s your review?

What if I told you I could shave dozens of hours of work off your next screenplay? It’s simple.  Stop putting so much time into description!

Not long ago, I was consulting on a screenplay. After I sent back the notes, which detailed some plot issues (the script lost a lot of its momentum in the second act) and some character issues (I didn’t feel like the main character was clear enough), I was surprised that the writer seemed unconcerned with either of these problems.

Instead, he was consumed with questions about his description. He asked me about a specific line describing a location on page 13, the introductory description of a secondary character not long after, and a couple of lines during a fight scene which he was concerned did not describe the fight in an exciting enough manner.

I’m not going to lie. I was frustrated. The script had way bigger issues than a random line on page 13 and whether a relatively unimportant character was described well. But then I remembered that when I first started writing, I was obsessive about this stuff as well. I would much rather spend a week on an already finished scene, trying to make sure every single word in the description was perfect, than tackle the glaring unlikability of my female love interest (haha, remember that terminology!)

There’s a reason for this. It’s because, when we start writing screenplays, we think that the most important thing is the WRITING. Which isn’t a surprise. “Screenwriting” has the word “writing” in it. Of course we’re going to think it’s about the writing.

It takes a while before we realize what screenwriting is really about. The storytelling. What is “storytelling” exactly? How does it differ from “writing?” Storytelling is the creative way in which we tell our story. From our plot choices to our character choices to our narrative choices. How we concoct that recipe has a massive effect on how the final dish tastes.

For example, when it comes to Strange Darling (major spoilers follow), another writer may have written that movie straight up. They may have told you, from the start, that the woman was the bad guy and the man was the good guy. To keep that information a secret for half the movie is a STORYTELLING CHOICE. And a strong one at that. It’s what makes the movie so enjoyable.

Think about that for a second. If that writer had spent 300 extra hours making sure every single descriptive line in the script was perfect BUT he told that story in a linear fashion (letting us know from the start that the woman was the bad guy), do you think the script would’ve been better or worse? Sure, it might have read cleaner and more descriptive on the page. But that pales in comparison to the feeling we got when that midpoint revelation arrived.

This is not to say that description isn’t important. Or that you shouldn’t pay attention to it. Description is kind of like sound in movies. We never think about sound unless it’s bad. Likewise, we don’t notice description unless it’s bad (clunky, lazy, or overtly generic).

Can sound actually improve a movie? Of course. In movies like The Zone of Interest, for example, the sounds of torture in the distance enhance the impact of the storytelling. But, in the end, we just want the sound to work, just like we want the description to work.

To that end, here are the three most important tips to remember when it comes to writing description in screenwriting.

Two lines per paragraph (or less) is best. Three lines if you’re writing a script that requires more description than usual.

These days, you really want your reader’s eyes moving down the page. So don’t write big paragraphs. Try to keep them short and to the point. “The woods were dotted with debris from the previous day’s vicious storm. Joe noticed many of the woodland animals up high in the trees, where they were safe, as if awaiting some official call from Mother Nature that going back to their daily routine was okay.” Do we really need the part about the animals? Couldn’t you get away with, “The woods were dotted with debris from the previous day’s vicious storm.” Ultimately, it’s up to you. But I find the second sentence to be unneeded.

Now, this changes if you’re writing the type of script that requires a lot of description. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania involves an entire universe that the reader is unfamiliar with. So you’re going to need to include a lot of description for that world. I might even say you can use some 4-line paragraphs in a script like that. But beware of writing too many of them as your description will start to look like a wall of text, which readers rebel against.

Prioritize description for the things that matter.

This is where a lot of newbie writers go astray. They treat description the same across the board. But that’s not the way to do it. Every element in your script has a “description priority level.” Wherever that element falls along that hierarchy determines how much description you want to use.

In the movie, “Wonka,” Willy Wonka is imprisoned at a “hotel” for most of the movie. This means that the hotel has a high description priority level. We’re going to see it again and again and again. So if your only description for a place like that is, “The hotel has an old-world charm, but the closer you look, the more decrepit it appears,” that’s simply not enough.

You’re going to need to tell us what the lobby looks like, how big the hotel is, if the rooms are big and cavernous or tight and claustrophobic. Is it clean or are there insects and rats scurrying about? Since we’re going to be in a lot of rooms here, it would be beneficial to lay out the geography of the hotel as well.

In comparison, if I remember correctly, there’s a scene in Wonka at a zoo. Because the zoo is one singular scene and because everybody has a good idea of what a zoo looks like, this description would have a very low priority level.

You describing it in some overly-detailed manner isn’t going to have a huge effect on how much the reader enjoys the scene. So it’s probably best to keep the description simple. “The sprawling urban zoo is complete with towering enclosures and winding paths, the air buzzing with distant roars and the chatter of children.” Boom, you’re done.

Now, let’s say you’re writing a movie like The Shining, where the entire movie takes place in that giant looming hotel. That’s a scenario where you want to – need to – go description crazy. Because the movie is built atop the atmosphere of this hotel. Every detail helps add to that atmosphere so it is okay to go hog-wild on your description.

Describe up to your writing ability level, but never above it.

One of the ways description stands out in the negative is when a writer tries to describe things in a manner above their writing level. Have you ever spoken to someone who throws SAT words into their sentences that aren’t used properly in an effort to sound smart?  Same concept here.

“The golden-sand beach stood tall against the prospect of time, fighting a losing battle as every wave swooped at it like a thief in the night, taking one more coin from its pocket.”

Do you see the attempt to sound thoughtful and clever, when all the description does is give the reader a clunky not-so-clear picture of the beach? Luckily, description works best when it’s simple and clear. Which means you don’t have to be a wordsmith to write effective description.

“A quiet beach stretches along the coastline, golden sand meeting the gentle rush of waves.”

That’s 3rd grade English BUT IT WORKS. That’s the most important thing to remember when it comes to writing description. If it works, that’s all that matters.

Wrapping things up, I promise you that your story represents 95% of what the reader cares about. While strong description can help a script, particularly if it’s a highly visual concept, clarity and simplicity will pay higher dividends on the whole. Be visual but be CLEAR. Do that and you’ll be a-okay.

I’m still offering October screenplay and pilot consultation deals.  $100 off my full rate.  Plus an extra $50 off if it’s a horror or thriller related story.  E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com and mention this post if you’re interested!