An excerpt from my upcoming book, “Scriptshadow’s 250 Dialogue Tips”

It has been promised. But as of yet, it hasn’t been delivered.

Over the next month, I’ll be including excerpts from my upcoming dialogue book, which I’m planning on releasing a month from now. Here is the introduction to the book. The world of screenwriting is about to change forever.

What you’re about to read is the introduction to the book…

Not long after I started my website, Scriptshadow, a site dedicated to analyzing amateur and professional screenplays, I was hired by an amateur writer to consult on a script he had written. The writer had completed a couple of screenplays already and was excited about his most recent effort, a crime-drama (“with a hint of comedy”) he felt was the perfect showcase for his evolving skills. Although I won’t reveal the actual script for privacy reasons, we’ll refer to this screenplay as, “Highs and Lows,” and we’ll call the writer, “Gabe.”

Highs and Lows was about a guy obsessed with a rare street drug and, to this day, it is one of the worst screenplays I have ever read in my life. We’re talking 147 pages of unintelligible nonsense, a script so aggressively lousy, I considered submitting it to the CIA as a low-budget alternative to waterboarding.

After I put together the notes on Highs and Lows, I spent a good portion of the day debating whether I should call Gabe and aggressively suggest he pursue a different career path. I’d never done such a thing before. But, in my heart, I knew that if this man pursued this craft, he may very well end up wasting a decade of his life. If it wasn’t for my girlfriend ripping the phone out of my hand and telling me there was no way I was going to destroy this writer’s dreams, I would’ve made the call. Instead, I sent him his notes, detailing, as best I could, what needed to be improved and how to do so, and moved on.

Cut to five years later and I was contacted by a different gentleman (we’ll call him “Randy”) for another consultation. In stark contrast to Gabe’s script, I experienced what every reader prays for when they open a screenplay, which is a great easy-to-read story with awesome characters. But it was the dialogue that stood out. Randy wasn’t ready to challenge Tarantino just yet but the conversations between his characters were always clever, always engaging, and always fun.

I sent his script out to a few producers and one of them ended up hiring him for a job. He wrote back, thanked me, and mused that he’d come a long way since our first consultation. “First consultation?” I said to myself. “What is this guy talking about?” I looked back through my e-mails to see if we had corresponded before and nothing came up. But then I dug deeper and discovered that I *had* worked with Randy before. Under a different e-mail address.

The owner of that e-mail?

Gabe. Which was a pen name he had used at the time.

This was not possible. Randy wrote with confidence. Gabe wrote like he’d accidentally fallen asleep on his keyboard. I went back and re-checked, checked again, checked some more, only to return to the same baffling conclusion. This page-turning Tour de Force was written by the same writer who had written one of the worst screenplays I’d ever read!

After my denial wore off, I got in touch with Gabe and asked him the question that had been eating at me ever since I confirmed his identity: “What in the world did you do differently this time around?” I especially wanted to know how his dialogue had skyrocketed from a 1 out of 10 to an 8 out of 10. His answer is something I’ll share with you later in the book, as it’s one of the most important tips you’ll ever learn about dialogue.

But for now, I want to emphasize the lesson Gabe’s dramatic improvement taught me, something I remind myself whenever I read a not-so-good screenplay: You are always capable of improving as a screenwriter. If Gabe could go from worst to first, so can you.

Which is why I want to share with you one of the biggest lies you’ll encounter when you begin your screenwriting journey. I heard it a bunch when I first started screenwriting and I still hear it today: “You either have an ear for dialogue or you don’t.” This faulty statement, which you’ll hear mostly from snobby agents, jaded executives, and impatient producers, is dead wrong.

Writing good dialogue can be learned.

Let me repeat that:

Writing good dialogue can be learned.

To be fair, doing so is challenging. More so than any other aspect of the craft. Aaron Sorkin, who many believe to be the best dialogue writer working today, admits as much. In an interview with Jeff Goldsmith promoting his film, The Social Network, Sorkin confessed that while storytelling and plotting are built on a technical foundation, making them easy to teach, writing dialogue is more of an instinctual thing, and therefore hard to break down into teachable steps.

Indeed, dialogue contains elements of spontaneity, cleverness, charm, gravitas, intelligence, purpose, playfulness, personality, and, of course, a sense of humor. This varied concoction of ingredients does not come in the form of an official recipe, leaving writers unable to identify how much of each is required to write “the perfect dialogue.” Which has led many screenwriting teachers to throw up their hands in surrender and label dialogue, “unteachable,” which is why there hasn’t been a single good dialogue book ever written.

When screenwriting teachers do broach the topic of dialogue, they teach the version of it that’s easiest on them, which amounts to telling you all the things you’re NOT supposed to do. My favorite of these is: “Show don’t tell.” Show us that Joey is a ladies’ man. Don’t have him tell us that he’s a ladies’ man.

“Show don’t tell” is actually good screenwriting advice but why do you think screenwriting teachers are so eager to teach it? Because it means they don’t have to teach dialogue! If you’re showing something, you’re not writing any conversations.

Or they’ll say, “Avoid on-the-nose dialogue.” Again, not bad advice. But how does that help you write the dialogue that stumbles out of the mouth of Jack Sparrow? Or sashays out of the mouth of Mia Wallace? In order to write good dialogue, you need to teach people what *to* do, not what *not to* do.

If you ever want to test whether a self-professed screenwriting teacher understands dialogue, ask them what their best dialogue tip is. If they say, “go to a coffee shop and listen to how people talk,” run as far away from that teacher as possible because I can promise you they know nothing about dialogue. If someone is giving you a tip where there’s nothing within the tip itself that teaches you anything, they’re a charlatan.

What the heck is good dialogue anyway?

Good dialogue is conversation that moves the scene, and by association the plot, forward in an entertaining fashion. “Entertaining” can be defined in a number of ways. It could mean the dialogue is humorous, clever, tension-filled, suspenseful, thought-provoking, dramatic, or a number of other things. But it does need those two primary ingredients.

• It needs to push the scene forward in a purposeful way.
• It needs to entertain.

What prevents writers from writing good dialogue? That answer could be a book unto itself but in my experience, having read over 10,000 screenplays, the primary mistake I’ve found that writers make is they think too logically.

When they have characters speak to one another, they construct those characters’ responses in a way that keeps the train moving and nothing more. They get that first part right – the “move the story forward” part – but they forget about the “entertain” part. Don’t worry, I’ve got over a hundred tips in this book that will help you write more entertaining dialogue.

Yet another aspect missing from a lot of the dialogue I read is naturalism – the ability to capture what people really sound like when they speak to each other. You are trying to capture things like awkwardness, tangents, authenticity, words not coming out quite right. You’re trying to mimic all that to such a degree that the characters sound like living breathing people.

And yet, while being true-to-life, you’re also attempting to heighten your dialogue. You’re trying to make every reply clever. You’re trying to nail that zinger. You’re giving your hero the perfect line at the perfect moment. How does one combine realism with “heightened-ism?” That’s one of the many paradoxes of dialogue.

So I understand, intellectually, why so many teachers are terrified of dialogue. The act of writing movie conversation is so intricate and nuanced that the easy thing to do is leave it up to chance and tell writers that they either have an ear for it or they don’t (or to go to a local coffee shop and “listen to people talk”).

But dialogue is like any skill. It can be learned. It can be improved. And I dedicated years of my life looking through millions of lines of dialogue, ranging from the worst to the best, to find that code. And I believe I’ve found it. By the end of this book, you’ll have found it as well.

It won’t be easy. This is stuff you’ll have to practice to get good at. But, once you do, your dialogue will be better than any aspiring writer who hasn’t read this book. That much I can promise you.

So let’s not waste any more time. I’m going to give you 250 dialogue tips and I’m going to start with the two biggest of those tips right off the bat. If all you ever do for your screenwriting is incorporate these two tips, your dialogue will be, at the very least, solid. Are you ready? Here we go.

TIP 1 – Create dialogue-friendly characters – Dialogue-friendly characters are characters who generally talk a lot. They are naturally funny or tend to say interesting things, are quirky or strange or offbeat or manic or see the world differently than the average human being. The Joker in The Dark Knight is a dialogue-friendly character. Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad is a dialogue-friendly character. Deadpool is. Juno is. It’s hard to write good dialogue without characters who like to talk.

TIP 2 – Create dialogue-rich scenarios – Dialogue is like a plant. It needs sunshine to grow. If every one of your scenes is kept in the shade, good luck sprouting great dialogue. A scene where a young woman introduces her boyfriend to her accepting parents is never going to yield good dialogue. There’s zero conflict and, therefore, little chance for an interesting conversation. A scene where a young woman introduces her boyfriend to her highly judgmental parents who think their daughter is too good for him? Now you’ve got a dialogue-rich scenario!

I need you to internalize the above two tips because they will be responsible for the bulk of your dialogue success. Try to have at least one dialogue-friendly character in a key role (two or three is even better). Then, whenever you write a scene, ask yourself if you’re creating a scene where good dialogue can grow.

Don’t worry if these two things are confusing right now. We’re going to get into a lot more detail about how to find these dialogue-friendly characters and how to create these dialogue-rich scenarios.

A pattern you’ll notice throughout this book is that good dialogue comes from good preparation. The decisions you make before you write your dialogue are often going to be just as influential as the ones you make while writing your dialogue.

There’s more to come next week! If you want to hire me to take a look at your script and help you with your dialogue (or anything else), I will give you $100 off a set of feature or pilot notes.  Just mention this post.  You can e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com

Jiminy Crickets! We’ve got our first [x] impressive of the year!

Genre: Drama/Thriller
Premise: In a small town, a high school math teacher on the verge of having his first child with his wife, must manage a rapidly unraveling sexual relationship with a student.
About: Today’s script finished with only 7 votes on last year’s Black List. Proof yet again, Mr. Leonard needs to reevaluate his scoring system. Or else he’s going to have to start paying me to do these end-of-the-year re-rankings where I tell everyone how the scripts ACTUALLY should’ve been ranked. Screenwriter Drake Wootton has no previous writing credits although he did make it on as one of the hundreds of crew members on John Wick 3.
Writer: Drake Wootton
Details: 116 pages (long scripts are getting good scores lately!)

Today, I wanted to read something that pushed boundaries.

I know you’re tired of me saying it but, as someone who reads everything, I’m always searching for that writer willing to go beyond what is expected. He’s not the daily 9:45am LAX to ORD United flight. He’s Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Mr. Carter is just a normal high school math teacher living in a medium-sized town. He’s married to his high school sweetheart, Alyssa, who’s seven months pregnant. The first thing we think about when we see Mr. Carter is that he’s living the typical American life. He seems happy.

But then we note, when he goes to work, that there’s a girl in the back of the class, named Teva, who’s silently crying. And unlike how teachers are supposed to react to such situations, Mr. Carter is highly agitated by this. Once class is over and all the other kids have left, Mr. Carter slams the door and lays into Teva, telling her to “get over it.”

“It” is the brief sexual relationship they had. Logic finally arrived for Mr. Carter when it hit him that, in two months, he’s going to have a kid. The problem is, he’s made a 17 year old girl fall in love with him. She’s confused. She’s sad. All she wants is to be with him.

Meanwhile, back at home, Alyssa hires someone through an app to take care of house chores since she’s becoming less and less mobile. The person who takes the job is Ponce, a normal dude who, coincidentally, also happens to be in Mr. Carter’s class.

What starts off as innocent chores becomes more and more charged as Alyssa begins to have sexual fantasies about Ponce. Although, on paper, Alyssa has had the perfect life, she’s always been a bit of a rebel and is frustrated that that side of her has been curbed. However, unlike her husband, Alyssa seems to have some level of control. She walks up to the line with Ponce but never crosses it. At least not yet.

Teva continues to be a problem for Mr. Carter at school but it gets a lot worse when she finds out she’s pregnant. When she tells Mr. Carter, all he can think about is getting rid of the kid as soon as possible. But Teva isn’t game. She likes the idea of having a child – his child in particular.

Mr. Carter goes nuts trying to talk Teva off that ledge. “You realize,” he says, “That if you have that child, my life is over.” But the more he protests, the more determined she is to have it. Mr. Carter convinces himself that he needs to take this into his own hands. So he ambushes Teva when she’s home alone one night. Except nothing – and I mean nothing – about what happens next goes according to plan.

I’m so happy that when I first saw this logline, I thought, “That sounds like it could be something. The ingredients are there!” And I turned out to be right. This is something. This is really something.

I want to use this opportunity to talk about the many creative choices you are forced to make when writing a screenplay and how important it is to think through those creative choices so that each one gives you the most bang for your back.

The first creative choice Wootton makes is introducing us to a loving Mr. Carter and his pregnant wife, Alyssa. We see the love between these two as they hang out in bed and talk about their child. It’s cute. It’s sweet. We like them.

Then, in the very next scene, we find out Mr. Carter is sleeping with one of his students. The reason this is a smart creative choice is because Wootton could’ve easily started us with the classroom scene. But by first meeting Mr. Carter in this loving moment with his pregnant wife, it makes that second scene hit a lot harder. It changes our perception of Mr. Carter as opposed to immediately shaping it.

The next smart creative choice was to introduce Teva and that relationship AFTER IT HAD ENDED. Wootton could’ve brought us into this relationship at the peak – as it’s going hot and heavy. But by starting it at the end, with one side wanting that end and the other resisting it, it creates a much better launching pad for conflict throughout the story.

If he’s trying to get away and she’s trying to get him back, you’ve got this constant “threat” or “problem” that needs to be resolved, as opposed to the less interesting option of them sneaking around and not thinking all the much about the potential consequences of their actions.

These choices extend to the characters as well. Wootton didn’t need to make Alyssa pregnant. But by doing so, he raises the stakes of the story considerably. A teacher-student relationship that has the potential to destroy a marriage is one thing. A teacher-student relationship that has the potential to destroy a family is much worse.

And when you’re writing these scripts that are entirely character-driven, you need to make creative choices that raise the stakes as much as possible.

The final thing I loved about this script was the nuance. Most of the time when I read these scripts, they’re written with a hammer. Go watch the latest Tyler Perry movie, Mea Culpa, on Netflix, to see what I mean. Every moment is on-the-nose. Every plot development is accompanied by the town herald blowing their trumpet. Here, our writer is working with a 4mm 32 gauge sewing needle.

Alyssa’s relationship with Ponce is a great example of this. That could’ve become its own affair. Instead, it only dances around the potential affair.

But the biggest example of this is the ending. I’m not going to spoil it but Mr. Carter goes to Teva’s house at night with a kitchen knife. He’s planning to kill her. But a few things go wrong and she catches him before he can act. So, before she can figure things out, he quickly hides the knife inside his pants and pretends to be there cause he wants to talk to her.

They sit down and have this sweet moment and then they decide to go upstairs and, he starts seeing that he’s trailing blood everywhere. That really sharp kitchen knife that he stuffed in his pants has cut him. And cut him badly. This begins a final sequence that nobody reading this script could’ve predicted.

That’s what I love!

I love these scripts that seemingly shouldn’t work because they’re just four people in a small town with absolutely nothing new on the concept front. And yet the writer still finds a way to create new unexpected moments at the most important of times.

Most writers would’ve sent Mr. Carter to Tea’s house with a gun. There probably would’ve been a scramble for the gun at some point and it’s just the exact same ending we’ve seen a billion times already. I haven’t seen Mea Culpa. But I’m willing to bet all my tennis rackets that the ending is some variation of that.

The crazy thing about this script is that it’s going to be even better after a couple more drafts. It’s implied that this is a work in progress and I could see that. There’s this Romeo and Juliet play that Wootton clearly didn’t write the full subplot for yet. Both Teva and Ponce are the leads in the play. The way the ending plays out is going to cross-cut with that Romeo and Juliet play beautifully.

This is the closest script I’ve seen to matching the power, the character-exploration, and tone of one of my favorite movies, American Beauty. It has the potential to be that good. Will it be? You need to find the next Sam Mendes and maybe it will. :)

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

What I learned: If you’re going to slowly boil your script, make sure to put your hero in the water right away, even when it’s still cold – “Slow builds” or “slow boils” work a heck of a lot better if we can already see our hero starting to cook from the beginning. This is a slow build type of script. But the reason we stick around during that slow-moving first part is because the writer has placed Mr. Carter in the pot by the second scene. We see that ending things with Teva is not going to go smoothly. It’s going to cause problems down the line. Which gives us a reason to turn the pages. We want to see how she applies pressure and how he will react to it. If you had started with things going well between these two, there’s not as much incentive to turn the pages of this slow-moving character study.

Genre: Thriller
Premise: After a botched bank heist leaves nineteen people locked inside a state-of-the-art vault, the FBI recruits the world’s foremost box-man from federal prison so he can break them out before they suffocate inside.
About: This finished with 7 votes on last year’s Black List and was one of my personal highest-rated concepts on the list. You can check out my thoughts on every Black List entry here. Screenwriter Adam Yorke has one credit, a 2021 Spanish thriller about a blind woman called, “See For Me.”
Writer: Adam Yorke
Details: 118 pages

When I started screenwriting, there was one word that annoyed me more than any other. It was the word “craft.” I’d occasionally spot it inside a screenwriter interview, often from some ancient screenwriter who’d get up on his high horse and pretentiously claim that screenwriting was a “craft” and that in order to get good at it, you needed to master the “craft.”

I rolled my eyes so many times at the mention of that word, they have the rarest form of PTSD – retinal PTSD – from excessive whiplash.

But now myself and my eyes love the word.

We love it because we *understand* it.

And you’re about to understand it too. But first we have to summarize the plot of Boxman.

After learning about the history of safe-cracking, we meet Frank Pierson, in prison, a man who is clearly going to be played by George Clooney if the writer has anything to say about it. Vault-cracker Frank is in prison for 30 years because of a diamond heist he orchestrated.

But Frank’s about to get a lucky break. At one of the biggest banks in town, some Russians have broken into the bank’s top-tier vault. They stole the money then locked all 19 employees inside. As it so happens, the only two people who can open the vault, who must do it from the outside, are part of that 19. Oh, and, the airtight vault has only 5 hours of air for 19 people.

FBI Field Office head, Kay Hollis, is brought down to the site and realizes quickly that they have to think outside the box. He makes the call to bring in Pierson, who will only do it if he’s immediately freed once he gets the vault open. There’s a lot of red tape up at the governor’s office but time is of the essence so they get the deal done.

Frank assesses the situation and develops a complicated multi-step several-hour plan to break through this annoying vault. As he goes about his job, we learn that Vitaly, the man who ordered this robbery, is upset that his son was killed during the escape, and wants revenge.

Who he wants revenge against adds another compilation to the proceedings. You see, there’s an inside man in the vault. One of these 19 was working with the robbers and Vitaly. They ultimately alerted the cops, which is how Vitaly’s son was killed. So Vitaly wants to make sure Frank doesn’t open that vault. If he does, the inside man/woman will live!

Oh, and if that isn’t enough, Vitaly worked with Frank on that diamond heist that put him in prison! Talk about onions here. This script’s got layers!! In the end, it’s still about if Frank can crack the most uncrackable safe in the world in time to save 19 lives. And once Frank realizes that he’s been given the wrong schematics to the safe, that reality is looking hella unlikely!

As I was saying.

When I read a script, one of the big things I’m looking for is a screenwriter who can carve together thoughtful sequences. It’s not just “Cold Open Scene,” “Character Intro Scene,” “Conflict Scene,” “Inciting Incident Scene.”

There’s a *craft* to it. There’s a creativity, thoughtfulness, and a “connectedness,” that’s been placed into the sequence. Boxman’s opening sequence is a great example of that.

We start in 1500 B.C. If anyone here saw the logline and thought we’d be starting in 1500 B.C., raise your hands?

Show of no hands? That’s what I thought.

That alone places this above 90% of applicants. You’re giving us something that we don’t typically get in this genre. Then, we travel through the history of lock-making and lock-picking. This isn’t entirely creative. Any writer can come up with a history lesson.

But Yorke adds a STORY to the history lesson. After we’ve established the key years in lock-making, he provides a story about a man who created an un-pickable lock and challenged the world to pick it. We watch (and listen, via a man’s voice over) people try but fail to pick the lock again and again. Over the course of decades.

Finally, a man is able to pick the lock. We then marry that image with the image of the man providing the voice over. This is Frank. And when we pull back, we see that he’s in prison. At the visitor’s window. Talking to his daughter. He’s the one who’s been giving this history lesson, and he’s been giving it to her.

Think about that for a second. We get the lock-picking history lesson. It climaxes in a fun story. And then we connect it with our hero, who’s not just casually living his life, but is rather in prison. We also get some great exposition (about locks) and backstory (about family) along the way.

That whole sequence required CRAFT. It required thought. It required planning. It required creativity.

An average writer would’ve started this script with Frank talking to his visiting daughter and telling her he loved her or something. That’s what the writer WHO HAS NO CRAFT would’ve done. Good writers craft sequences.

Ironically, Yorke follows this great opening with the worst section of the entire script. A big gigantic bulk character introduction.

Anybody here think, without looking, that they could pass a ‘who’s who’ test on all those characters? Yet the writer seems to think we can.

This is every screenwriter. Every screenwriter has strengths and weaknesses. Some of those weaknesses are the worst kind. They’re BLINDSPOTS. The writer doesn’t even know they have them so they can’t fix them. This is why it’s important to get a screenplay consultation every once in a while. You need someone telling you you have these problems.

Once we get through another 15 pages or so, and we hear the key characters’ names over and over again, we start to know who’s who and enjoy the script again. And it’s a good script! It’s one of those scripts that has enough going for it that it’s above the “lottery.” For those who don’t know, I call the giant pool of 50,000 scripts in Hollywood that are average to pretty good “the lottery.” Because the only way you sell one of those scripts is pure luck.

The attention to detail, the deep research that went into the safe-cracking, the multilayered story, the clever subplots (there’s an “inside man” in the vault), and the fun central plotline (will this safe-cracker both save 19 lives AND free himself from prison) combined for a script that is worthy of producing.

The only thing holding the script back is the ridiculous character count. I always complain about big character counts but it’s not a criticism without merit. Having too many characters isn’t just annoying. It severely cripples the read. Cause you’re never clear on who everyone is. So you’re only half-understanding major plot moments.

If you don’t know that Character X just double-crossed Character Y because both characters were introduced quickly then disappeared for twenty pages before being brought back again… you’re missing major plot moments. Professional writers know this stuff. I’m imploring young writers to learn it as well. It makes your scripts so much more readable when you understand the limitations of how many characters and subplots a reader can track.

Finally, a reminder about the importance of CRAFT. Not just with your opening scene. Do it throughout your script. Show us that you are creatively crafting sequences that clearly have a lot of thought put into them. Cause guess what? We know when you don’t put any effort into a scene. If you think you get away with that stuff? I promise you don’t.

I just consulted on a script three days ago where I had a come-to-Jesus moment with the writer. He phoned in a major set piece. I told him, “You don’t get to do that.” Readers see that and they don’t just lose faith in the script. They lose faith IN YOU. Which is way worse. Cause it means they don’t want to read anything from you anymore.

And yet it’s one of the easiest aspects of screenwriting to get good at. Cause all you have to do is put in EFFORT. We can tell when you do it. We can tell when you don’t.

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

What I learned: Learning how to introduce lots of characters quickly and MEMORABLY is one of the single clearest signs of a legitimate Hollywood screenwriter. This is one of the things they know how to do that amateurs or young repped writers struggle with. Knowing how to set a lot of people up quickly so that the reader remembers all of them? That’s a $100,000 skill right there. It’s too wide-ranging of a topic to teach in one “What I learned,” but it amounts to a combination of naming your characters smartly (so that their names sound like who they are yet not in an on-the-nose way), giving them a quick strong action that defines them, and giving them dialogue that’s both unique to them and memorable. Do that and you can introduce TONS of characters.

Did Christopher Nolan hoodwink Hollywood?

Can you really call it a successful Oscars if no one got slapped?

I got thoughts.

I got opinions.

But I’m not going to be hating today. I’m going to be celebre-hating.

Oppenheimer won the two biggies – Best Picture and Best Director. But it says a lot that it didn’t win Best Screenplay.

Why is that?

Because the screenplay was baaaaaaaad. It was bad, folks. It was. Nobody really knows who Oppenheimer was after that movie. Nobody understands why there were 45 minutes of movie left after the film was over. The cutting back and forth between all the time-periods was clumsy and disjointed.

But it shows just how amazing of a director Nolan is in that he was able to overcome that to win Best Picture and Best Director. And I support those wins. There was no movie this year that looked better, that felt more authentic, that was better constructed, that had a better cast of actors, that felt like a moviegoing experience, than Oppenheimer.

But, dude, Nolan. Get yourself a screenwriter. If you do that, you could literally become the greatest filmmaker ever. Right now you are limiting yourself with your weak screenwriting.

Okay, onto the screenwriting categories.

Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
American Fiction (Written for the screen by Cord Jefferson)
Barbie (Written by Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach)
Oppenheimer (Written for the screen by Christopher Nolan)
Poor Things (Screenplay by Tony McNamara)
The Zone of Interest (Written by Jonathan Glazer)

Winner: American Fiction

I can’t count how many people have recommended this movie to me so I just started watching it last night and, WHOA! A little heads up there on the bummer of a first act climax would’ve been nice! The trailer promised a fun funny movie! Here they are killing people off. Sheesh. But I will continue watching tonight. I loved the opening scene in the classroom. It brilliantly went after the ridiculousness of woke culture. I’m assuming it’s going to keep doing that and, if so, expect a positive review.

Personally, I would’ve voted for either Barbie or Poor Things. You can’t leave 2023 without giving Barbie a major award. It’s ridiculous. The movie deserved it.  Either for the directing, which was amazing, or the writing, where they took way more creative risks than they’re getting credit for.

The thing I loved about Poor Things is that it not only used the most basic story template of them all – The Hero’s Journey – but it took a lot of risks as well. The father character was such a weirdo and unlike any other character in 2023. I would say it lost because nobody saw it. But nobody saw American Fiction either and it still won.  I suspect Poor Things was too weird to catch on with people.

Best Writing (Original Screenplay)
Anatomy of a Fall (Screenplay by Justine Triet and Arthur Harari)
The Holdovers (Written by David Hemingson)
Maestro (Written by Bradley Cooper & Josh Singer)
May December (Screenplay by Samy Burch; Story by Samy Burch & Alex Mechanik)
Past Lives (Written by Celine Song)

Winner: Anatomy of a Fall

The Original Screenplay category is always a bit of wildcard. That’s because most of the “serious” movies that Hollywood makes are adapted from something. If Hollywood makes an original movie with an original screenplay, it’s usually a genre film, like The Beekeeper. And we know they’re never going to celebrate one of those scripts at the Oscars. So we get this group of oddball contestants that always feels lacking on some level.

With all that said, I’m surprised that Anatomy of a Fall took down The Holdovers. The Holdovers was the favorite. It’s always a bit of a shock when a script that wasn’t even written in the English language wins Best Screenplay at the Oscars.

To be honest, I don’t know why this script won. Even those few people who saw and enjoyed the movie, if you asked them what they liked best about it, I’d be shocked if 1 out of 100 said, “the screenplay.” Most people would pick Sandra Huller’s performance.

I guess the script does keep you guessing. But any script that has a 100-page second act can f right off. I’m sorry, but seriously. Show some focus with what you’re trying to do, for God’s sakes. A 100-page second act screams, “I don’t know where I’m going so I’m just going to include it all.” And that’s how it felt. It wandered.

I still haven’t seen The Holdovers even though I’m one of the few people who has Peacock’s streaming service and therefore the film is free for me. As you know, I didn’t like an early draft of the script and even though you guys have told me that the shooting draft is vastly improved, it’s always hard for me to drum up motivation to see a movie where I disliked the script. Every once in a long while, the movie turns out great (Three Billboards Outside Ebbings Mississippi). But it’s usually impossible for the movie to be salvaged.

I’m sure I’ll check it out at some point.

As for the other major categories, I’m ecstatic that Cillian Murphy won over the thirstiest Oscar thirster in history, Bradley Cooper. If he would’ve won for that boring self-important piece of crap, I would’ve chosen violence.

I’m ecstatic that Emma Stone won for Poor Things. I thought she was amazing in that film. She had the single most interesting main character I’ve seen in a movie in over a decade. She holds nothing back in the movie. She’s funny. She’s weird. And I just respect any artist who takes a huge swing.

The one category where the Academy got it dead wrong was supporting actor. I can’t recite a single line Robert Downey Jr. said in Oppenheimer. I can’t recall a single memorable moment he was involved in. Of every actor who was in that film, I would say he was the 14th or 15th most memorable.

Ryan Gosling deserved to win this award. This speaks to a bigger question, possibly even a conspiracy. From the start of Awards season, the Oscars wanted nothing to do with Barbie. And I don’t know why. Barbie is not Transformers. It’s not mindless entertainment. It actually made you think. It’s a movie made by women celebrating women in an industry desperately trying to promote women.

And yet crickets for Barbie at the Oscars. I’m baffled by it. Does anybody have any theories as to why they’d turn their backs on the movie that’s most representative of what they’re trying to do? Is Margot Robbie secretly Scott Rudin behind the scenes?? What’s going on here! Tell me!

What are your 2024 Oscar hot takes?

Did anyone rob the Academy? Who didn’t win but should’ve? And, of course, I expect lots of comments telling me I’m wrong about Oppenheimer so I’m going to preemptively respond to them here. YOU’RE WRONG. It was a junk screenplay.

Happy Monday!

Today we take on the WINNER of one of the tightest Amateur Showdown races yet!  Did you guys do good picking Animosity as the winner??

Genre: Thriller
Winning Logline: After he discovers the body of a murdered 9-year-old girl near his house, a popular horror author’s neighbors decide he must be guilty of the crime and take justice into their own hands.
About: This script won the February Showdown (First Line Showdown) by a mere ONE VOTE. So it was a close one. The first line that helped get the script over the top? “BAM!–ANDY HOLLAND (30s) slams against the passenger window, his eyes wide with fear.” That first line seems to have changed during the rewrite. So let the controversy begin!
Writers: Mark Steensland & James Newman
Details: 93 pages

Joe Alwyn for Andy?

I saw a lot of chatter about this showdown. A good chunk of you thought basing a showdown on a first line was stupid. And you know what? Maybe you’re right. How can one line tell us how good a script is? It probably can’t.

However, the whole reason I did it was to use an inception-like hijacking of your mind to remind you that the reader’s judgment of a screenplay STARTS IMMEDIATELY. Which means you have to impress them with the very first line. I mean, look at how many opinions we got regarding the first lines presented. Managers and agents and producers – they’re looking at those first lines in the exact same way.

But now that we’re past that, we can focus on the next showdown, which is happening Friday, March 22nd. “Movie-Crossover Showdown” will have you using the old 90s way of pitching scripts by crossing over two popular movies. It’s “Titanic meets John Wick.” It’s “Avatar by way of John Hughes.” It’s “Oppenheimer meets Poor Things.” It’s “Mean Girls but with dads.” I have a feeling we’re going to have some really fun pitches so join the club and get your submission ready by March 21st!

MOVIE CROSSOVER SHOWDOWN!!!

What: Movie-Crossover Showdown

I need your: Title, Genre, Logline, and Movie Crossover Pitch
Competition Date: Friday, March 22nd
Deadline: Thursday, March 21st, 10pm Pacific Time
Where: Send your submissions to carsonreeves3@gmail.com

Okay, on to today’s winner!

30-something Andy Holland is his small town’s version of Stephen King. The man likes to write bloody novels. And he’s become quite successful at it. Although, he’s behind on his latest one and it’s adding stress to an already stressful life. His ex-wife, Karen, and his daughter, Samantha, are metaphorically beating down his door to take some responsibility and start spending time with his offspring.

One day, after walking his dog home from the local bookstore, Andy finds the body of a dead girl behind an unused home. He calls the cops, lets them know what happened, and that’s when we learn a little more about Andy. When he was 18, he had a sexual relationship with a 17 year old and he ended up pleading guilty in court for it. This raises the cops’ eyebrows.

Over the course of the next few weeks, Andy notices that his neighbors no longer treat him the same. They walk by his house more. They’re always pointing and whispering at it. His next-door neighbor buddy Ben is all of a sudden asking him more probing questions about his past. And a local reporter named Staci seems to have an axe to grind with Andy and hints strongly in her reports that Andy, being a horror novel writer, is highly suspicious.

After the locals start digging through Andy’s trash at night and poison his dog, Andy has had enough and calls for the police to do something. But the police aren’t interested in helping him. Once the neighbors sense this, they get more aggressive. They start hanging out near his house more. They yell at Andy. They throw things at him. It’s getting bad.

But when a second murder happens, it gets a hell of a lot worse. A lot of the neighbors and even one of the off-duty cops set up shop in front of Andy’s house. When night comes, they start bashing his windows, trying to get in. Andy fights them off as best he can. But things get really crazy when his ex-wife shows up. It’s a moment that will test just how far off the reservation the mob has gone. And it will turn this night into the worst night of Andy’s life.

Well well well.

We’ve got one heck of a dilemma here.

Because half of this script is really good. And the other half is really boring.

Before I get to which was which, let me ask you guys: What’s more important? Writing a good first half of a script or a good second half?

Thoughts please.

Okay, ready for the answer?

Both. Because if the first half is boring, the reader won’t make it to the second half. But if the second half is boring, all that good will you built up in the first half was for nothing. I’d say the ground floor level for what you need to achieve is an average first half and an awesome second half. But any other weak combo won’t work.

This script is tricky as heck because I understand the thought process behind Mark and James’ strategy. They knew that, in order for the house mob to work, they needed to do a lot of setup first. A mob isn’t just going to appear out of nowhere. They need multiple reasons to get to that point. So Mark and James introduced half a dozen plot points in that first half that got the mob to the angry point they needed to be at.

But the plot points were so bland. Even the two killings felt PG. And now that I’m thinking about it, the local reporter implying that Andy had to be involved also felt… how do I put this? Like the way a murder might be covered in one of those Hallmark movies. Like, “Oh no! There’s a murder in town! The local baker ended up dead!”

I feel like Mark and James need to go watch the first season of True Detective or that David Fincher serial killer series on Netflix to get more into that “brutal murder” mindset so you can sell these murders as the horrible things that cause all this chaos.

But man… once we get to the mob part of the script, which begins about halfway through, this script goes from “barely interested” to full-on “impressive.” These two captured mob mentality perfectly. It reminded me of Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing in a lot of ways. Once the mob feeds off itself, logic no longer applies.

There’s this terrifying moment in the script (spoiler!!) where the ex-wife shows up and the mob rips her to shreds. That’s when I said, “We’ve got a movie now.” Not because every script needs over-the-top violence to be good. More so that you finally knew how bad this had gotten. Cause, up until that point, you were thinking, “Logic has to prevail at some point.” Once that murder happened, it was clear that logic no longer mattered to these people.

I think this script is worth pursuing and fixing. But to do that, we need to get to the mob by page 30. That doesn’t mean they have to start attacking Andy’s house by then. But they should be in their cars parked outside. Maybe a couple of the scarier ones set up chairs on the lawn. Start building that world of this growing mob. Cause you can get through all of those early plot beats a lot faster and it won’t hurt the script a lick.

As for the riot, you need to do some finagling there. I think that once the ex-wife is killed, some semblance of reality would set in for, at least, some of the people. They didn’t come here to hurt anyone other than Andy. And also, there’s a cop involved. Once he saw a murder happen, he’s probably peacing-out so that he doesn’t go to prison. It’s not like the old days where you could hide that stuff. Social media doesn’t allow it. Speaking of social media, the normal people in the neighborhood observing this are probably putting it all over social media within five minutes. There would be real cops there quickly.

The way to handle that is to probably keep everything contained to one night. Don’t wait til morning for the mob to reconvene. It’s gotta all happen during that night so that it’s reasonably believable that other people didn’t come and stop this.

Now, I had an idea for this that James and Mark might want to consider. What if we made Andy black? Then it turns this entire story into a metaphor with a much bigger meaning. I understand that a lot of stuff comes with that change. It becomes a “race” script instead of just a thriller. But I’m pretty sure that it would do better on the reading circuit. Curious what you guys think. Share your thoughts in the comments.

But this is a good script with the potential to be a really good script. And as you know from me talking about it all the time, I rarely encounter any script with the potential to be really good. So that’s a big deal.

Oh, and finally, I think we can come up with a better ending here. The revelation (spoiler) that they already found the killer was cool. But I’m wondering if we need a bigger twist. Anybody have any ideas?

Check out the script here: Animosity

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

What I learned: Earn your introductions! This script introduces a lot of characters. When you introduce characters weakly, you force the reader to remember them. That should never be the case. The reader should never feel “forced” to remember anything about your screenplay. It’s your job to make a character instantly memorable either by the memorable way in which they do something or the memorable way in which they say something. Only when you’ve created a memorable character do you earn the right to introduce your next character. A big issue with the first half of this script is that we RAN THROUGH a bunch of blasé generic character introductions. Put some actual thought into these intros because a screenplay *is its characters.* If we don’t know everyone (as in GENUINELY FEEL LIKE WE KNOW THEM), we’re only half-enjoying your script.

Here’s the introduction of Ben, a fairly major character. This just isn’t cutting the mustard. It’s an okay intro. But it’s far from memorable.