Genre: Thriller
Premise: After an ambitious doctor cheats on her aimless husband with the most esteemed doctor at her hospital, she must decide whether to continue the affair or fess up to her husband.
About: Today’s script comes from a relatively new writer, Julia Cox, who worked as a writer’s assistant on Parenthood before penning this script, which finished strongly on the 2015 Black List. Joel Silver would later snatch up the screenplay, which is currently set up at Paramount.
Writer: Julia Cox
Details: 117 pages

This has Mila Kunis written all over it.

One of the things you want to ask yourself when you come up with an idea is, “What’s the ceiling for this premise?” How many different directions can it go? How capable is it of being unique? What is its potential for being unpredictable?

For example, Office Christmas Party. There’s a clear ceiling to that concept. You’re limited to a very straight-forward narrative. And all the characters are probably going to be characters we’ve seen before.

The Equalizer is another example. I liked that movie. But there’s no denying the fact that it had limited upside. That doesn’t mean you should shy away from lean concepts. Hell or High Water was a lean concept and a lot of people loved it.

But because choosing your concept will influence every aspect of your screenplay moving forward, you want to make sure that you’re okay with the height of your idea’s ceiling.

On the flip side, look at a show like 13 Reasons Why, which I’m discussing in tomorrow’s article. You’ve got mysterious tapes targeted to take people down one-by-one. You’ve got mysteries of who did what. You’ve got wolves in sheep clothing. You’ve got sheep in wolves’ clothing. You’ve got a flashback format mashed up against a present-day format. It was a show that could’ve gone in a lot of different directions.

Fight Club is another idea with a high ceiling. You’ve got a fight club. Some dude who quits his life. Another who’s making soap from discarded human cellulite. Male boxers with giant breasts. A mysterious plan to take over the city.

The point is that rich ideas have more upside. And that’s the issue Do No Harm runs up against. It has to stay in a predetermined lane the whole way through. But! If the characters are compelling and the author makes some unexpected choices, you can still write a cool little flick. Let’s find out if that’s the case.

35 year-old surgeon, Charlotte, is one hell of a doctor, routinely saving lives. And she’s on the brink of taking her career to the next level. Her only real competition is 39 year-old Adrian Coons. Adrian isn’t only a brilliant doctor. He’s a master marketer who routinely gives TV interviews. He even has a Vine feed for six-second medical tips.

Back at home, Charlotte is preparing for a life with her lawyer-in-training husband, Will, until Will hits her with a bombshell. He walked out of the BAR exam and has decided, after a grueling stint in law school on Charlotte’s dime, that he now wants to be… a screenwriter! No, I’m kidding. He wants to be a photographer (I do know a ton of writers who quit law though).

Concurrently, back at work, Adrian wants Charlotte to join him in Laos for six weeks where they can save a bunch of lives. Charlotte’s flattered, and that flattery turns to attraction, and then lust. Within days, the two are doing 50 shades of teal.

Then one evening, when Charlotte thought she was off, she gets called in to do an emergency surgery. What nobody knows is that Charlotte is drunk. Because of this, she kills a man. When Adrian finds out, he uses his pull to get Charlotte out of a really bad situation.

Unfortunately for Adrian, the event has shown Charlotte what’s truly important in life, so she fesses up to Will and tries to save her marriage. Adrian is devastated. And angry. And because he’s got major dirt on her, the implication is: “Keep fucking me or else.” Charlotte attempts to navigate the worst mistake of her life. But she quickly realizes that she’s going up against a monster.

Sticking with our original topic, one of the first things you want to do when you set out to write a low-ceiling premise is figure out where the audience thinks the story is going to go. You literally want to close your eyes, play out the first version of your movie in your head, and track the most obvious path for it to go down.

Then: DON’T WRITE THAT MOVIE!

Remember, with a low-ceiling premise, you don’t have many options for how the story can go. So there’s a good chance the audience will get ahead of you. Therefore, you MUST eliminate the most obvious option.

There’s a catch to that though. You DO want the audience to THINK you’re going down that path. So the first act, and even some of the second act, should feel like it’s going down that obvious path.

The reason this is important is because when you hit them with your first deviation from the obvious, it slams into them. With Do No Harm, we’re primed to believe this is going to be a straight-forward Charlotte mistake which she then tries to recover from. But when the balance shifts to make Adrian an obsessed stalker (a reverse Fatal Attraction scenario), I was caught off guard.

Coupled with the malpractice situation, and a final act in which I had no idea where things were going, I was surprised by how unexpected the script got. None of this was some huge deviation (again, this concept never had a high enough ceiling to provide that) but it deviated enough to keep me invested.

But plot is only so much. You have to get the characters right for us to care (can’t spell ‘character’ without ‘care!’). And Cox does a nice job with that. She sold me with the complex relationship between Charlotte and her husband, Will. I loved how you’d leave all their arguments not knowing who the clear winner was.

For example, in an early argument, this is what’s covered:

Will bailed on the BAR because he’s decided he hates the idea of being a lawyer.
Charlotte helped pay for his law school so she’s pissed.
Will would rather be happy and a good partner than bitter and a shitty husband.
Charlotte says sometimes life requires you to do things – like your job – that aren’t enjoyable.

This is so important in screenwriting – not being one-sided with your conversations. Once your hero makes a point, you need to jump into the head of the other character and make sure you understand THEIR point-of-view as well so that they can make a good point. There’s nothing worse than writers artificially slanting arguments to fit their hero’s narrative.

Do No Harm is a great example of a simple premise, solidly executed. Personally, I would’ve started with a concept that had more umph and room to play. But there’s something about simple movies that know exactly what they want to be that make them fun to watch.

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

What I learned: It’s always good to add a lingering problem hanging over the hero’s head like an albatross. Here, we get that in the form of the malpractice suit that’s been brought against Charlotte. It could end her career. If the only thing your character has to worry about is the main problem at hand (in this case, an obsessed co-worker), you’re not doing enough with the character. Always add a dark cloud over their head that could start raining at any moment. And hold off on the rain for as long as possible!

I’m not going to lie. I wasn’t thrilled with the results from last week’s dialogue challenge. Nobody blew me away with any world-changing dialogue. It seemed like some people weren’t even paying attention to the dialogue. They had an idea for a short and dialogue happened to be a part of it. I take responsibility for this. Obviously, something I’m saying isn’t getting through.

So I want a do-over. I think you guys are capable of much better. And we’re going to be learning from the master today so I’m hoping that’ll inspire you. But before we start, there was one issue from last week I want to eliminate immediately…

TOO MUCH DESCRIPTION

When dialogue is being featured, you don’t want anything mucking it up. And nothing mucks up dialogue faster than a bunch of description. You want the reader’s eyes on the center of the page. You don’t want them to keep looking left to read some superfluous action. It KILLS the rhythm of the scene. And rhythm is one of the keys to great dialogue. So please: KEEP DESCRIPTION TO A MINIMUM WHEN FEATURING DIALOGUE.

Avoid stuff like this.

Now, on to today’s three dialogue tips, inspired by Quentin Tarantino.

IRONY
Like most things in screenwriting, dialogue improves with irony. You achieve this by having your characters speak in a manner that’s the opposite of who they are. A famous example of this is Jules and Vincent in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. They’re the chatty hitmen. They’re talking about burgers, footrubs, TV pilots. Hitmen aren’t supposed to be fun and chatty. So it’s ironic. And audiences eat irony up. Nuns talking about fucking. Clowns talking about suicide. Kids talking about 401ks. Use irony to write better dialogue.

LOOMING SENSE OF DREAD (SUSPENSE)
Set up a scenario by which something bad (or potentially bad) is coming, draw the resolution out as long as possible, and have fun with the dialogue in the meantime. The space between the beginning and end of a line of suspense is one of the easiest places to write dialogue because your audience is so dialed in. This allows you to have fun with your dialogue as well as the particular conflict within that scene. The best example of this in Tarantino’s world is the beginning of Inglorious Basterds. Hans the Nazi comes into a farm house looking for Jews (who happen to be hiding underneath the floor). Tarantino has so much fun as we wonder if Hans is going to find what he’s looking for. Also note that Hans is a chatty polite Nazi (irony!).

SEXUAL TENSION WITH AN OBSTACLE IN THE WAY
An easy way to bump up your dialogue is to put two characters with heavy sexual chemistry together, then place an obstacle in the way of them being able to act on that attraction. The bigger the obstacle, the better the dialogue will play out. Tarantino’s most famous scene ever is built around this conceit: Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace going out for dinner. Vincent is doing this as a favor to his boss, who’s married to Mia. So the obstacle between them is as big as it gets. If Vincent does anything with Mia, he will be killed (as Tarantino cleverly set up in the earlier scene between Vincent and Jules). This is why the sexual chemistry (and subsequent dialogue) crackles so much. Because they fucking want each other but cannot talk about or act on it. This creates subtext, which adds a whole other layer underneath the already fun dialogue that’s happening on the surface. An easy way to write great dialogue.

BONUS TIP: DIALOGUE OBSTACLES
I’ve already told you guys to place obstacles in front of your hero’s goal. So if Daniel is trying to defeat Johnny in the karate tournament, you give him a broken leg (obstacle) to make achieving his goal even harder. What I’ve noticed about Tarantino is he places obstacles in his dialogue. So it’s rarely as simple as, “Are you okay today?” “Yeah, how bout you?” “Tough day at work.” “Hey, one day at a time, right?” Instead, when someone says something, he’ll have the other character challenge it, or say he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. This is the “obstacle” that forces the first character to re-route or explain things further. What this does is it gives the dialogue more of an unpredictable pattern, and adds a playfullness to it. Here’s an example:

Notice how he says, “I don’t watch TV.” That dialogue obstacle leads to the best line in the exchange, “Yes, but you’re aware that there’s an invention called televsion, and on that invention they show shows?” That line is nowhere to be found without a dialogue obstacle.

And there you have it. If you look at Tarantino’s less memorable scenes, they’re usually scenes that aren’t utilizing these tips. For example, the Butch and Fabienne motel room scene in Pulp Fiction talking about pancakes has some fun exchanges, but it’s way slower than a typical Tarantino scene because it isn’t using any of these devices.

So tomorrow, that’s what this weekend’s short contest will require. You’ll have to use two of these four devices. And also, remember to have fun with your dialogue. Stay away from the mundane and the obvious. Memorable dialogue requires characters to say things in colorful, unexpected, and unpredictable ways. I didn’t see enough of that last week. Hopefully, that will change tomorrow!

AND DON’T FORGET TO SIGN UP FOR THE OFFICIAL SCRIPTSHADOW SHORT SCRIPT CONTEST! IT’S FREE AND THE WINNER GETS THEIR SHORT PRODUCED!!!

I’m currently working with a writer on an understated psychological thriller. One of the issues in the script is that the dialogue is flat. Characters speak to move the plot along, offer information, reveal backstory, and occasionally tell us how they’re feeling. While this keeps the story moving, there’s a lifeless quality to the interactions that leaves too many scenes feeling empty.

I’ve poured over the script a number of times trying to figure out ways to spice up the dialogue before having an epiphany: Great dialogue cannot happen on its own. It requires great characters. Need proof? I want you to think of all the great dialogue you’ve heard in your life. Has there ever been an instance where a bland or uninspired character spouts great dialogue? Never, right?

This made me realize that the problem ran deeper than the interactions themselves. If the dialogue was going to get better, the characters would need to get better as well. But this brought up a secondary problem. Our psychological thriller was understated. Like the movie, “Room,” it wasn’t built for flash. Can you still write good dialogue within that environment? Or can good dialogue only exist inside flashier films?

DIALOGUE WORTHY CHARACTERS

A quick look through some of my favorite understated films confirmed my belief that good dialogue can exist anywhere. What I found is that, in all good understated films, the writer adds at least one “dialogue-worthy” character. “Dialogue-worthy” characters are characters who were born to spout dialogue. They’re the chatter-boxes, the brash, the “full of themselves,” the kooky, the flashy, the self-destructive, the bipolar, the hustlers, the preachy, the jokesters, the opinionated. Any personality type that lends itself to a lot of talking, or an interesting way of talking, is dialogue-worthy.

So if you look at the understated Hell or High Water, that movie has the crazy brother. He’s responsible for all the fun dialogue. If you look at the understated Room, you have the son. He’s the imaginative one who makes all the interesting observations. If you look at the understated Ex Machina, you have Nathan, the pompous opinionated CEO whose every word seems to be calculated to get a reaction.

So you can’t give yourself the excuse of, “Well, my movie is understated so I can’t have any flashy dialogue.” Not true. You can always fit a dialogue-worthy character into your setting. And that’s good news. Because while multiple dialogue-worthy characters are ideal (Rocky has five of them), all you need is one to make it work. That character’s dialogue will work as a line to fish good dialogue out of everyone else.

However, if you have no dialogue-worthy characters, if you have no one to introduce the spicy charged words that bring a scene to life, it’s like trying to make a fire without flint. You can fuck around with it as long as you want, rewrite the scene a million times over searching for that spark, but it won’t come because none of the characters were built to burn.

DIALOGUE WORTHY SCENES

Moving on, there’s another key component to good dialogue: DIALOGUE-WORTHY SCENES. A dialogue-worthy scene is a scene built to milk great dialogue out of the characters. The essential ingredient to these scenes is… say it with me now… CONFLICT.

There are two main types of dialogue-worthy conflict. There’s on-the-surface conflict and underneath-the-surface conflict. I’ll give you an example of both using a movie I just saw, The Edge of Seventeen, about a teenage girl who’s struggling to find friends and acceptance in high school.

In one scenario, Nadine’s best friend chooses to date her brother over being friends with her. Whenever Nadine confronts this friend, the conflict plays out on the surface, of the “I can’t believe you’d do that” variety.

Nadine also lost her father five years ago and her mom refuses to talk about it. So while she and her mom get into a bunch of disagreements about school and life, the real conflict is playing out under the surface, with Nadine upset that her mom never talks about her dad anymore.

So, to be clear, if you do not have both of these things working for you in a scene, it will be very hard to write good dialogue. You can try. But it will always feel like you’re forcing it. The characters won’t sound like themselves because they’re not acting like themselves. They’re desperately trying to sound like people who say interesting things because the person writing them wants to write “good dialogue.”

FLASHY DIALOGUE

Now that we’ve got that down, let’s talk about the final step. The words themselves. How to be Sorkin. How to be Tarantino, Hughes, Allen, Mamet. This, my friends, is where the rubber meets the road. Crisp flashy dialogue that pops off the page is the single most talent-dependent skill there is in screenwriting. Some writers just have a better feel for how people speak than others. Some writers are funnier than others, more clever than others, have a bigger vocabulary than others. These writers have an advantage over the rest of us. But fear not. I’ve just given you two HUGE tips in writing great dialogue that 99% of writers out there are clueless to. So you have the foundation to your dream home. Now let’s talk about furnishing it.

The first rule of writing flashier in-scene dialogue is to stop accepting average. If you accept average words, average phrases, answers, sentences, etc, you will never write exciting dialogue. It’s your job, as a writer, to dress things up a bit. To think beyond the obvious. Sure, anything a character says must remain in character. A by-the-book nun isn’t going to dish out lines like, “Shit motherfucker. And here I thought you were turnt.” But as we’ve discussed, you should’ve designed as many of your characters as possible ahead of time to deliver interesting dialogue.

Let’s try this out. Say your hero, BOB, a barista, is serving a girl he sees come in every day that he likes, JANE. Here’s their exchange…

BOB: Hey, how are you today?
JANE: I’m feeling okay. How bout you?
BOB: Just trying to make it to my next 10 minute break.
JANE: When is that?
BOB: In 30 minutes.
JANE: Well, good luck.
BOB: Thanks.

How boring is that fucking dialogue? Ugh. I want to throw up just looking at it. Let’s make a few changes here based on what we’ve learned. For starters, we’re going to make Bob dialogue-worthy. He’s a chatterbox. Doesn’t know when to shut up. Also, to add the necessary conflict, Jane doesn’t like Bob. She thinks he’s weird. On top of this, we’re not going to settle for average dialogue. Let’s see what that does to our scene.

BOB: Hey, how’s it going, you look nice today, wow, new phone? I love new phones. I got a new phone last year. I should probably get another one. The screen just cracked on mine and I can barely see anything on it. First world problems, amirite?
JANE: (stares at Bob, weirded out) Uh, can I get a coffee?
BOB: I sure hope so, (leans in and whispers, conspiring tone) Seeing as we’re in a coffee shop. By the way, just got a new roast in. Ethiopian. Supposed to be amazing. I haven’t tried it yet but Jerry says it’s killer.
JANE: I don’t know “Jerry.” Can I just get my coffee? Black.
BOB: Ooh, old school. I like that. (holds up hand for a high-five. she ignores it) I’ve been telling Jerry for months that we need to get rid of all these frappes and lappes. Keep it pure. Like the Ethiopians.
JANE: Right. So… can I pay now?

You may not be totally onboard with my weird sense of humor but I think we can all agree that the second iteration of this dialogue is a lot better than the first. And all I did was a) add a dialogue-worthy character, b) add a dialogue-worthy scene, and c) I didn’t settle for average. Following those three rules alone is going to lead to MUCH better dialogue overall.

The final final thing I want to talk about is distinction – creating the specific manner in which a character speaks. This specificity is what’s going to set him or her apart from every other person on the planet. Have you ever met somebody in real life and thought, “That guy’s a character.” That’s what we’re going for. We’re trying to create CHARACTERS. And that means doing a little prep work. Below are the six main variables that will bring out the best dialogue that character is capable of expounding.

Region – What region is your character from? If they’re from the South, they might speak in a slow friendly drawl. If they’re from New York, they might speak fast and loud. If they’re from a farm in flyover country, they might speak softly. Of course, you can flip all these on their head (a Southern man who speaks fast and loud) but use region as a starting point.

Socio-Economic Background – Someone who’s grown up in a rich suburb and had the highest form of education imaginable will speak differently from someone who grew up on the streets.

Slang – Slang is one of the key attributes to creating good dialogue. Whether it’s Rocky with his “Yose,” Vince Vaungh in Swingers with his “beautiful babys” or a teenage girl referring to everything in hashtags and acronyms. Slang can be your best dialogue friend.

Vocabulary – This is a subset of socio-economic background, but it’s important to know if your character has a huge vocabulary or a tiny one. A lot of the best dialogue comes from an extensive vocabulary or a colorful vocabulary. So vocabulary-rich characters are good. Also, know that you can go against type. Will Hunting was a street kid who had a bigger vocabulary than half the Harvard students he interacted with.

Speech pattern – Does a character speak a million miles a minute or does he take his time?

Speech frequency – Does a character carefully pick and choose when he speaks or does he burst into the conversation all the time?

Disposition – Is your character arrogant, like Steve Jobs? Is he bumbling, like Jack Sparrow? Is he cocky, like Han Solo? Charming, like Rocky? Philosophical, like Obi-Wan Kenobi? Is he cruel, like Scrooge? Is he idealistic, like Jerry Maguire? Disposition will have a big influence on what your character says and how he says it.

And there you have it. You want your dialogue-worthy character. You want your dialogue-worthy scene. You want to push yourself to write dialogue that’s more exciting than the basic words people usually say. And, finally, you want to use specific minutia to elevate the individual words, phrases, and sentences into something flashy.

I hope you enjoyed today’s article because this weekend, you’ll be writing short scripts that focus on dialogue. More on that tomorrow. See you then!

Last month I was reading a script that wasn’t very good and I asked myself, what could make this script better? The answer to that question sounded something like this: more original characters, more active characters, characters with more depth, less on-the-nose dialogue, higher stakes, more unique choices, a better handle on structure, a second act that doesn’t repeat itself, more obstacles to overcome, a flashier villain… and the list goes on.

The point being, this writer needed to spend more time learning the craft.

So then I thought, well that’s kinda lame. I mean, yeah, they do need to learn this stuff. But what if there were some things they could do RIGHT NOW that could leave a big impact on their script.

That’s what gave me the idea for today’s article. There’s lots of screenwriting tips out there, lots of lessons, lots of tools. But what tools give you the BIGGEST BANG FOR YOUR BUCK? That means you don’t have to do a lot, and yet you get tons of upside through the application.

So after you read this, bust open that script you’re working on and incorporate a few of these immediately. And because I enjoy a flair for the dramatic, I’ll be listing our Bang For Your Buck tools in reverse order, with the best tip coming last. Here we go!

NUMBER 5: TICKING TIME BOMB (OR “TICKING CLOCK”)
I just completed a consultation script the other day that had way too slow of a second act. Months were going by with no end in sight. I was getting bored. And I thought, if only there was a ticking time bomb here, the story would feel so much faster.

A ticking time bomb is any looming moment that spells doom. And here’s something a lot of Scriptshadow readers don’t know. A ticking time bomb is not limited to the entire narrative. It can be used for single acts, single sequences, even individual scenes. If you’ve got a boring talky scene between two characters, add a ticking time bomb!

Let’s say you’re writing a teen comedy like The Edge of Seventeen and you have a conversation between your leads in one of their bedrooms that’s boring no matter how you arrange the dialogue. Pull the scene out and place it outside of school, five minutes before the first bell rings. Give the talk some importance (it’s a conversation that needs to be had), and make it so if the hero gets in after that bell, he gets detention all weekend. Watch that very same conversation come alive. Ticking time bombs give you so much for so little when you know how to use them.

NUMBER 4: UNDERDOG
Granted this is something you’ll probably have to do at an earlier stage in the writing, but underdog characters are so beloved by audiences that using them is almost like cheating. You barely have to do anything and the audience is rooting for your hero.

If you look at the 10 highest grossing movies of 2016, 7 of them are led by underdog characters (Rogue One, Finding Dory, The Secret Life of Pets, The Jungle Book, Zootopia, Suicide Squad, Sing). Not every story is right for underdogs (Batman vs. Superman), but it sure helps when they are.

NUMBER 3: SHOW DON’T TELL
Welcome to one of the most common mistakes beginner AND intermediate screenwriters make, and one of the easiest ways to identify a newbie. If a writer’s characters are always solving problems with what they say, rather than what they do, I know the script is in trouble.

But here’s the great thing about “show don’t tell.” It isn’t just about looking less newbie-ish. It actually MAKES YOUR SCRIPT BETTER. Even a lazy use of showing tends to outclass an inspired use of telling. It’s why one of the first tasks they have you do in film school is shoot a movie without sound.

I was watching the pilot for the British TV show, Utopia, last weekend. In the first scene, these thugs enter a comic book shop, and one by one, kill everyone in it. Then, just as they’re about to leave, one of the thugs bends down, and we see that a young boy is hiding under one of the stands.

We could’ve easily turned this into a dialogue scene. “What are you doing under there, little guy?” “Nothing.” “What comic is that you’ve got?” “X-Men.” “Yeah? You like X-Men?” And blah blah blah. But no, they don’t do that. The thug, who’s been working his way through a box of candy the whole scene, extends the box of candy out to the boy, a psychotic look on his face. And the last shot is of the boy reaching forward to take a piece. Then we cut out. It’s a much better scene because of the showing.

NUMBER 2: DRAMATIC IRONY
Ooh, this is a good one. Dramatic irony is the act of letting the audience know something the hero (or the key character in the scene) does not know, and typically that something is bad.

So let’s say a surgeon is doing a routine appendix surgery on a patient and the patient unexpectedly dies. We then cut to the patient’s wife, who’s casually reading a magazine in the waiting room. We stay on the surgeon, as he gulps, and slowly moves towards the wife to tell her the bad news.

This is dramatic irony. We know the wife’s husband is dead before the wife does. This lets us play with the reveal, as the surgeon comes up and asks to speak with the wife. And the wife launches into an opinion about an ad in the magazine she’s reading. And the surgeon is looking for the right moment to butt in. And so on and so forth. And we just play that dramatic irony out.

Dramatic irony ALMOST ALWAYS WORKS. It’s really hard to fuck up if you know what you’re doing. (bonus tip: The more that’s at stake in the scene, the better the dramatic irony will play).

NUMBER ONE BANG FOR YOUR BUCK SCREENWRITING TOOL… SETUPS AND PAYOFFS
Not only are setups and payoffs one of the easiest things to learn, but they’re mind-bogglingly effective. You could introduce the dumbest plot beat ever. But if it’s a payoff to an earlier setup, the audience will gleefully cheer, “Of course! Because of the thing earlier!!!” There’s something about connecting two things on their own that sends audiences into a euphoria.

I divide setups and payoffs into two categories. Power setups and payoffs and Fun setups and payoffs.

Power setups and payoffs work by introducing something seemingly innocuous, not drawing too much attention to it, but just enough attention so that it’s remembered, and then later, have that seemingly innocuous thing be the solution to a key plot point.

One of the best examples of this is when the Crazy Clock Tower Lady in Back to the Future barges in between Marty and his girlfriend right before they’re going to kiss, and screams, “Save The Clock Tower,” before launching into the Clock Tower’s history, which includes it being destroyed when lightning struck it over 30 years ago.

Then, later, when Marty is thrown into the past and he and Doc are trying to find a substitute for nuclear energy and Doc confesses that the only thing in the 1950s that has that same kind of power is a bolt of lightning, but unfortunately there’s no way to tell when and where they’ll strike, Marty holds up the Save the Clock Tower flyer and says, “We do now.”

Fun setups and payoffs don’t affect the plot but never fail to leave a smile on the audiences’ face. Another example from Back to the Future is when, in the present, Marty’s mom throws a sheet cake down welcoming “Uncle Joey” back from jail. “We have to eat this ourselves. Uncle Joey didn’t make bail again.”

Then later, when Marty is in the past and visits his mom’s house, he sees Uncle Joey as a toddler in his playpen. Marty leans down, “Better get used to these bars, kid.”

Back to the Future is actually the best movie to watch to study setups and payoffs. But the point is, by setting something up early and paying it off later, the audience feels like they’ve been a participant in the movie, creating the illusion that they’ve broken through the fourth wall. It makes them feel good. And you barely had to do anything to get them to feel that way.

Note: The Scriptshadow Tournament winning screenplay, The Savage, will be reviewed next Friday. I’m actually going to review all tournament semifinalists next week from Tuesday – Friday.

It’s time for the Scriptshadow Short Screenplay Contest!!! And with this one, we’re going to do something different. Whoever wins, I’m going to team with a director to produce your short. We’ll also debut it here on the site. Yahoo!!!

I already know your first question. “How many pages does it have to be?” I’m going to strongly recommend 8 pages or less. But if you have an idea that’s absolutely fucking amazing, I’m willing to extend the maximum page length to 15 pages. I’m just going to warn you though, longer scripts will be discriminated against. There are very few short films that play longer than 6 minutes online and do well. So go over 8 pages at your own risk.

If you’re unsure what you should write about, check out this post I made last week about how to write a great short film. Not only does it have some good tips in there, but it has links to some really great short films. The comments sections is also packed with reader recommendations. A great resource for getting inspired.

I admit that, in an ideal world, the winning short will hint at a bigger story that can be turned into a feature film, as if this short does well, it will be easy to get funds to turn it into a feature. However, I don’t want that limitation to stifle your creativity. I just want the best story, regardless of whether it has feature potential or not. WRITE THE BEST IDEA YOU’VE GOT!

Everyone gets TWO script submissions. Submissions begin TODAY and will go for SIX WEEKS. Knowing that, here’s what I would do if I were you. Write AT LEAST five shorts. Then, trade reads with as many writers as you can. Ask them what they like best. Get a consensus on which shorts are your best and submit those. If you don’t have anyone to trade reads with, use the comments section below to look for feedback partners.

CONTEST GUIDELINES

1) Submissions begin today, January 26th.

2) The deadline is 11:59pm Pacific Time, Sunday, March 12th.

3) Send all submissions to carsonreeves3@gmail.com (subject line: “SHORT SCRIPT”)

4) Your submission should include.

The title of your script.
The genre of your script.
The logline of your script.
A PDF attachment of your script.

5) You can submit a total of two short scripts. If you are caught submitting more than two scripts under separate e-mail addresses, you will be immediately disqualified from this AND all future contests.

6) Page length…

Recommended number of pages: 8 or less
Maximum number of pages (anything over won’t be read): 15

7) Eligibility Rule #1: Represented writers (writers who have a manager or agent) are eligible.

8) Eligibility Rule #2: You are not eligible if you have made more than $10,000 as a screenwriter. This does not apply to contest winners, however. You may still submit if you’ve won $10,000 or more in screenwriting contests.

9) The winner will be announced on a date to be determined later!

GOOD LUCK AND START WRITING!