The announcement in The Hollywood Reporter!

I know I’ve stated this already, but thank you to everyone who participated in the contest, thank you to everyone who followed the contest, and thank you to everyone for their patience, especially my contest sponsor, Grey Matter (whose film “Lights Out” comes out in late July – go see it!), COO Ben Everard, and president Lawrence Grey. I’m sure these guys had a more accelerated schedule in mind when I first pitched them the idea behind the Scriptshadow 250. Mainly because I told them the schedule would be more accelerated.

Regardless, we finally made it here, and it feels like the hard work paid off. We found some great scripts, one of which has already been packaged and sold at Cannes, and that one didn’t even win! The battle between the top two scripts, in particular, was heated. I had some great debates with Grey Matter about who the winner should be, and it went down to the wire. So who won? Well, for all of you who say it’s impossible to make it unless you live in Los Angeles, you may be surprised…

GRAND PRIZE WINNER

Disorder
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Logline: A recluse who suffers from random episodes – in which he commits violent acts without remembering them – is forced to babysit a neighbor’s 8 year-old daughter for an afternoon. After suffering an episode, he wakes to find the girl has disappeared – a violent wreck in her wake. With himself as the only possible suspect, he must retrace his footsteps to find the girl.
Writer: Zed Warren
Location: UK

Thoughts: More than any other script in the competition, this one nailed three things the industry looks for: A fresh concept, a marketable genre, it can be made cheaply. Of course, a lot of writers achieve these things, then don’t execute the actual script. Zed executes the hell out of his concept and from the discussions we had, the thing we kept saying to each other was, “This feels the most like a movie of all the scripts.” It just felt special. And good things are already happening for Zed. He’s currently about to sign with UTA. So congrats, my friend!

THE FINALISTS

Bait
Genre: Dark Comedy
Logline: When Leonardo DiCaprio believes he’s finally found the script that will win him an Oscar, he travels in secret to visit the unknown writer. What he finds instead is a serial killer, who keeps him captive with a group of other A-list victims, all tempted by the same script. Will Leo escape and, more importantly, will he get to make the movie?
Writer: Sam Boyer
Location: Los Angeles

Thoughts: All of us really really loved Bait. And then Leo had to go off, win the Oscar, and screw everything up… Or maybe not! Grey Matter is still really high on this script and are working with Sam to target a new famous actor for the lead role. Sam has a bright future ahead of him. He’s a 23 year-old USC grad and has been placing high in numerous competitions and writer’s programs (Universal is one) all while this contest was going on. If we didn’t discover him, someone else was about to. He’s the youngest writer on the list by far and you get the feeling he’s one of those guys who’s just extremely talented, to the point where normal rules don’t apply to him. I’ve also met Sam and he’s a really nice down-to-earth collaborative “let’s buckle down and crack this story” kind of guy. The sky is the limit for Sam.

Wheelman
Genre: Thriller
Logline: An ex-con reconnecting with his fourteen-year-old daughter is forced to take a job as a getaway-driver to pay off prison debts when he gets hijacked mid bank-robbery by a mysterious caller who threatens his family.
Writer: Jeremy Rush
Location: Los Angeles

Thoughts: The little twist with this one is that it’s like Drive, but if Ryan Gosling never left the car. When I first read this script, my immediate reaction was, “Holy shit, this is a movie.” I knew it was Top 5 then and there. So I wasn’t surprised when, a few months later, I heard that Rush had sold Wheelman at Cannes, attaching Frank Grillo, Brandon Routh, and Nicholas Hoult to play the main characters. Rush (what a perfect name for this script, huh?) will be directing as well.

Miss Universe
Genre: Comedy
Logline: A vapid beauty queen is abducted by aliens who think her title means she’s Earth’s ambassador to the universe.
Writer: Colin O’Brien
Location: New Jersey

Thoughts: Those who have been reading the site for awhile are familiar with this one. It’s one of the most popular Amateur Friday scripts we’ve hosted on the site. What’s cool about Miss Universe is that Grey Matter wasn’t sure they’d respond to any of the comedies, as the genre isn’t typically in their wheelhouse. But they flipped for this and we had some really excited conversations about it. We all think Colin is a comedy voice that’s going to break out soon.

A Quickening
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Logline: A woman working as a surrogate for a powerful New York couple gets treated like dirty laundry, until the couple’s marriage falls apart and they ask her to abort the pregnancy, leading her to turn the tables on them and blackmail her way to the American dream.
Writer: Jacob Albert
Location: Austin, Texas

Thoughts: A Quickening ropes you in immediately. The writing is sharp and dark! But what really grabbed me about the script was how charged the subject matter was. It’s rare that you read something where the characters’ actions physically affect you, where you feel anger building up inside. And that’s the dynamic that pulls you in here. A Quickening is delightfully edgy and has the feeling of something David Fincher could do wonders with. Some of the best pure writing in the contest.

SPECIAL MENTION

The Pyre
Genre: Horror
Logline: A fragile young mother has three days to get the body of the immigrant she killed from the bottom of a deep dangerous lake and cremate it on a pyre, before its spirit destroys her.
Writer: Caroline Carver

Thoughts: This one came close but just missed the cut. I wish we’d had more female entries but either my style of blogging doesn’t appeal to the female screenwriting demographic or most women are focusing their efforts on TV. Still, it was nice to see one of the ladies crack the top 6. Hopefully, we’ll have more female writers in future contests.

FINAL THOUGHTS

A couple of other scripts that I liked were “Lies, Blackmail, and other Egregious Behavior,” by Aaron Brooks, for its standout voice. And “The Watcher” by Michael J. Klassen, for bringing a Hitchcockian story into the present day. You can reacquaint yourself with all the scripts that made the Top 25 here. I will, of course, keep you updated on any developments with these scripts, whether they come through Grey Matter or someone else. Congratulations to Jacob, Jeremy, Colin, Sam, Zed, and Caroline. I see bright futures for all of you.

Also, for those of you frustrated that you didn’t make the top 5, the top 25, or the top 250, I can say with total conviction: KEEP AT IT. It takes awhile to master this quirky craft. You really have to study your butt off, write a bunch of scripts, and stick with it. I promise you, you will get better. And sooner or later, the quality of your screenplays will catch up with your ambition. I’m sure we’ll find this to be true for a few more of you at the end of our 3-Month Write-a-Screenplay Challenge. Now get to writing!

Scriptshadow 250 Announcement News: I’m still waiting for the okay to post the winners. I’ve been told it will be later today but at this point I’ve stopped assuming. As soon as I get the go-ahead, though, I’m posting. So stay tuned!

Take a deep breath.

You did it.

You completed the first half of your screenplay. No small feat. So the first thing I want you to do is take a moment and tell yourself you’re awesome. I’m serious. One of the hardest things about writing is the lack of positive feedback you get during the process. You are your lone champion. So if you don’t tell yourself “Good job” every once in awhile, you might lose your motivation.

Now, if you’re just coming into this challenge, you can find the previous entries here:

WEEK 0
WEEK 1
WEEK 2
WEEK 3
WEEK 4

Today we’re going to talk about the 15-20 pages after the midpoint. As I write this, I’m realizing that I don’t remember ANYBODY – as in the entire history of screenwriting books and analysis – talking about this specific section of the script.

The main reason for this is that we’re so deep inside our own unique jungle, it’s impossible for there to be any similarities between us and the next guy. Or so the reasoning goes.

I call bullshit.

Teachers, authors and analysts use this as an excuse not to break this section down. If you go back to classic story structure, there are definitely commonalities in the post-midpoint narrative. And as long as you treat them as a guide – and not gospel – they can be very helpful.

The main thing you want to know about this section is that it’s a…

RESETTING

Assuming you did your job last week and added your big midpoint twist, your characters and story are now in a state of flux. They’ve been knocked over the heads with a bag of bricks and they’re not sure which way is up. Your job, then, is to reorient them.

Take The Force Awakens. In that film, the midpoint twist is two-fold. First, the First Order has just blown up an entire solar system, and second, Kylo Ren has kidnapped Rey.

Your job is to now rally the troops (your characters) and put everyone on the same page. “Okay, where are we at right now?” “What is it we’re supposed to do next?” And, finally, “What’s our overall goal again?”

The reason this resetting and reorienting is important is because it’s easier than you think for the reader to forget what the goal is. Have you ever been in the middle of a film and thought to yourself, “How did we get here?? What’s going on??” This is usually the reason. Writers assume too much from the reader and don’t remind them what the character wants. Post-midpoint is the perfect reminder time.

So in The Force Awakens, Finn and Han and others get together to establish that Rey’s been kidnapped, that they need to rescue her, that they still need to find Luke, and that they have to destroy Starkiller Base. We can now go into that second act powerfully since we all (us and the characters) know what must be done.

Another thing about the post-midpoint section is that…

SHIT NEEDS TO LOOK BLEAK

One of the most effective storytelling devices you can use is to make the goal look impossible. The further you can place your characters from the goal and the more unlikely you can make their success look, the better. This little section is all about establishing how bad things are for your heroes.

One of the ways you can do this is create multiple problems that need to be solved. So you’ll notice above with The Force Awakens that it isn’t just one goal that they need to achieve, it’s three (find Luke, destroy base, rescue Rey). Basically, you want the audience thinking to themselves, “Shit, how are they going to achieve all of THAT??”

Imagine how different this script would feel if the big midpoint reveal was our heroes discovering a key clue to where Luke was. We’d be thinking, “That sounds easy. Looks like they’ve got this one in the bag.” And if your audience feels like the characters have it figured out, there’s no reason to keep reading.

This is an important notion to keep in mind not just for this section, but for your storytelling in general. In real life, the thing that keeps human beings going is hope. The hope for a girlfriend, a house, a promotion, for your dreams to come true. So a lot of writers will write screenplays that way, where they keep making things look HOPEFUL.

That’s not fiction though. That’s not drama. Drama is about creating DOUBT. That worried feeling in the pit of your stomach that the characters won’t get the job done, that it’s too difficult for them. You want to create as much of that as possible.

Now as I’ve mentioned already, each story is different. So this blueprint may not apply to your script. In “Room,” for example, the midpoint is Ma and Jack escaping. This places the two, along with the audience, on a high and erases any clear goal for the characters (their previous goal was to escape, which they’ve achieved, so now what??).

But Emma Donoghue was very clever in the way she adjusted to this challenge, almost reverting back to classical story structure to do so. The escape turned out to be a false victory, since we realize how difficult it will be for these two to adjust back to normality.

The goal then becomes to survive – to figure out a way to make this new life work. And she does a wonderful job infusing doubt into the narrative. At one point, Ma is institutionalized, severely putting into question whether our mother and son can survive this new challenge.

Okay, to summarize then: This section will have your characters reeling from the big midpoint twist. Something should’ve just happened that’s made their journey a hell of a lot tougher. Have them pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and remind themselves what the story goal is. Also, the fallout from the midpoint may have added new more immediate goals. Establish those for the reader. This section is all about resetting, reminding, and reorienting.

This will set you up perfectly for the next section, since your characters will now have clear goals thrusting them into the remainder of the story.

Page number to meet: 75!

Hey guys. I know you’re all eager to find out who won the screenwriting contest. And I’m just as eager to tell you! Unfortunately, this is the first time I’m coordinating an announcement with several different parties (writers, production company, trade websites). And we’re still ironing out some last second things. Hopefully, I’ll be able to post the winners at some point today. So stay tuned. Since you probably don’t want to refresh until your fingers fall off, you can follow me on Twitter, where I’ll announce that the post is up. Sorry for the delay!

Genre: Drama/Thriller
Premise: When a young woman is found dead in rural Wyoming, a wildlife serviceman who usually tracks mountain lions must team up with a young FBI agent to track a killer.
About: This is the new script from Sicario screenwriter, Taylor Sheridan, who will be making his directing debut with this, his third script. Avengers alums Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen play the leads. The project just finished shooting and is putting together an assembly cut.
Writer: Taylor Sheridan
Details: 112 pages

Someone made a point about Taylor Sheridan’s scripts when we were choosing loglines for the Scriptshadow 3 Month Script Challenge. The crux of his argument was: You’re forcing us to come up with these perfect loglines yet guys like Taylor Sheridan are breaking through with Sicario, a logline that doesn’t even sniff okaytion.

Point taken. So let’s figure out why Sheridan’s script still broke through. Ideally, as an unknown, you want an idea/logline that stands out. It’s the best way to get noticed. I will continue to shout to the rooftops that the way through Hollywood’s golden gates is a kickass logline.

Your next best shot is to write something with a unique voice, try to make the Black List, and sneak in through the back door. And that’s how Sheridan did it. His scripts are built on a unique voice, which I’ll touch on more after the summary.

But first, remember that these areas are not mutually exclusive. The ideal situation is that you come up with a great concept AND write with a unique voice. But absent one, make sure you have the other. Okay, now, what’s this “Wind River” about?

Cory Lambert is an agent for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. If you’re anything like me, you didn’t know that existed. But up here in Wyoming, where the wildlife and the human life intermingle more than in your typical state, people like Cory make sure that the animals don’t cause too much trouble for their bipedal neighbors.

When Cory gets a call that an overzealous mountain lion is wreaking havoc in the northern woods, he goes to check it out, only to find a dead 18 year old girl instead. Both the local sheriff, a Native American man, and Jane Banner, a fresh off the assembly line FBI agent, come in to investigate.

What’s strange about this death is that snow tracks indicate the dead girl was running alone for miles. She should’ve died from weather exposure way sooner. And what exactly was she running from?

They first check out her boyfriend, a meth-addict, and it looks like this’ll be solved quickly. But it’s not clear that the boyfriend or his fucked up buddies have anything to do with this. As Cory and Jane begin to connect the dots, and find another dead man soon after, they realize that there may be a lot more going on here.

Complicating matters is that Cory lost his daughter at about the same age under similar circumstances. Could these deaths be related? And the big-city Jane isn’t helping things by purporting to know it all, despite being the least equipped to navigate the strange American/Indian inter-dynamics that go on in Wyoming. When all is said and done, the reluctant partners may be lucky if they don’t kill each other first.

As promised, I want to talk about “voice,” that elusive quality you keep hearing about on screenwriting sites, that is essential to screenwriting breakoutability, and how it applies to Wind River (and Sheridan’s scripts in particular).

The main component associated with voice is a unique sense of humor. Guys like Charlie Kaufman or Wes Anderson come to mind. The next biggest is point-of-view, or “how one sees the world.” Quentin Tarantino, for example, sees everything through the glasses of a 1970s Western with an Ennio Morricone soundtrack playing in the background.

But the way Sheridan displays voice is a little different. His voice is conveyed via a world that he knows about but we don’t. In this case, northern Wyoming, Indian Country, the kind of place where an aggressive mountain lion is more important than whether Kylie Jenner is still dating Tyga.

Because when you break “voice” down, it’s basically about being unique. Any way you can achieve uniqueness, the overall “voice” is going to sound different, and that’s exactly what Sheridan does.

This is why I keep reminding you guys, if you grew up somewhere other than New York, Los Angeles, or Paris, take advantage of that in your writing! The things that may seem common/mundane to you may very well be unknown/fascinating to us. If you can build a story around that, you have the potential to write something memorable.

Now there is some strategy to it. If you live out on a farm in the middle of nowhere and you want to write about the trials and tribulations of farming, readers probably won’t stick around. But if you write about a string of murders on a farm that takes place during a two year drought, you may have something.

So how did this factor into Wind River? Was it any good?

I’ll start by saying this. Sheridan is REALLY GOOD with character. When you read his stuff, the people feel real. That’s such an underrated skill. The large majority of characters in scripts feel written. Sheridan’s mastered the art of simple interactions that say a lot (a look between a man and woman who used to be married, for example). It’s rare that characters feel so consistently genuine.

Here’s where things got tricky though. In each of Sheridan’s scripts, they always start strong, then somewhere around the midpoint, they lose steam or lose focus or lose something. It’s hard to define. But I’ll notice around page 65 that I’m not as invested as I was 20 pages ago. And I don’t know why.

One of the things I’ve noticed with these dramatic (and therefore slower) thrillers is that they can get away from you if you’re not careful. If you don’t stay on the plot and keep things interesting, they can get boring FAST. I almost feel like they need more jolts, more twists or turns to keep us on our toes. Because what you don’t want is it to turn into a straightforward been-there-done-that investigation flick. SO MANY of these slow thrillers end up there. And Wind River did start to feel that way (at least for awhile).

With that said, there’s still a lot to like. One of my favorite moments was the introduction of Jane. We’d been watching Cory navigate the land by deer poop and tree branches, and then Jane pulls up in her SUV, and her GPS is telling her to take a right, but there is no right because the road has been covered up by snow, so she literally has no idea what to do. If the GPS can’t tell her where to go, she doesn’t know where to go.

I LOVE when writers do a good job setting up the contrast between major characters and most of that is done through introductions. I just found this to be the perfect way to show that this woman lived in a completely different world than these men.

Another thing I like about Sheridan is how SPECIFIC he gets. This is a big way to set your script apart. So, for instance, when Cory explains to Jane the difficulties in gauging how long someone can last out in the cold, he delivers this line:

I seen tourists freeze to death in these mountains when it was barely 40 degrees … I seen a fur trader caught in his own trap, drag himself six miles to a forest service cabin and radio for help. In the dead of winter … There ain’t no gauge for the will to live. Some have it. Plenty don’t.

I mean who thinks up a fur trader getting trapped in his own trap and then draggig himself six miles other than someone who lives in this world? This may seem like a small thing but it’s specificity like this that separates your script from all the generic garbage that’s written every day. I’ve read hundreds of similar scripts and the majority of the time, I’ll get a line closer to this:

I’ve seen people make it 10 miles in a t-shirt and 2 miles in full-on ski gear. It’s all about the will to live.

That line indicates a writer who knows ZIP about northern Wyoming in the middle of January.

All in all, Wind River is good. It slogs some in its second act. But the setup is great, the setting is unique, the characters feel honest and are easy to root for, and the overall voice is stellar. If you’re afraid of the high-concept world and want to break in on voice alone, Sheridan’s scripts are good scripts to study.

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

What I learned: A storm coming in is an easy way to bring excitement to a slower story. Remember that you’re competing with 300 million dollar comic book films where every frame is designed to blow your brain up. You want to look for any trick you can to add excitement to your much smaller story. The indication that a storm is coming adds TENSION, SUSPENSE, and A TICKING TIME BOMB, all things that beef a story up. Fight capes with good storytelling, guys. :)

Note: I screwed up with the Scriptshadow 250 Top 5 Announcement. Monday, as we Americans know, is a major holiday (Memorial Day). So we’re going to move that announcement to Wednesday instead. Sorry about that!

Genre: Somnium
Logline (from writer): A loyal astronaut, scheduled to be on the first mission to Mars, begins having terrifying dreams of the mission going wrong. Then, when the mission is sabotaged, he finds himself the prime suspect.
Why You Should Read (from writer): I’ve been writing for three years now, my script Jack Curious is in the Scriptshadow top 25 at the moment. This script is the script I wrote to teach myself the craft, and while it made the quarterfinals of the Big Break Contest and connected me with some cool people, it’s been sitting on the shelf for the last two years. I’d love the opportunity, with the help of the SS community, to pull it apart and work out how to make it better. I also have most of the budget together to make my narrative feature directing debut (I’ve only done docos so far), and I’m wondering if this could be the script to do it with.
Writer: Bryce McLellan
Details: 109 pages

We’re seeing a lot of Mars projects these days. We had The Martian. There’s that new weird Mars teenage love story (that I reviewed a few years back and was convinced would never see the light of day). There’s a Zachary Quinto movie I just learned about called Passage to Mars that for some reason takes place in Antarctica. There’s the Deadpool writers next sorta-Mars movie called “Life.” There’s “Approach The Unknown,” about a single manned Mars Mission. There’s one of my favorite amateur scripts submitted to the site, The Only Lemon Tree on Mars. And if you want to get really technical, they’re thinking about making a sequel to Veronica Mars.

What does this mean?

Hell if I know.

People have a galactic hard-on for red dirt?

I guess if we want to get into it, there’s something to be said for understanding where the hot topics are. Because once you know you’re playing in the same sandbox as everyone else, you have to decide if you can build a better sandcastle than them. If all you’re going to do is fill up your Big Gulp cup with goopy sand and flip it around four times and call it a day, your sandcastle probably won’t be able to compete with the next guy’s.

That’s why I recommend staying away from the hot subject matter. If everyone’s writing about Mars, write about Neptune. Or Uranus. Heh heh. Heh heh. “Uranus.” However, since we can’t go back in time and warn Bryce about this, we’ll have to see if he’s pulled off Plan B: finding a new angle into a Mars story.

The year is 2050 or so. Sam obtained the Mars Mission astronaut job when one of the other astronauts went crazy. I guess being picked for the first mission to Mars can be a bit anxiety-inducing for some. Joining Sam will be the Buzz Aldrin-like Jack and the smart-as-a-whip, Connie.

The American-led launch is competing against a similarly constructed Chinese launch, and just like when two Hollywood studios get the same idea at the same time, instead of joining forces and creating the best launch possible, they waste a lot of money to win the race by a few weeks!

And then Sam starts experiencing nightmares. They’re flying to Mars, their ship disintegrates, he lands on the surface with a thud. And then there are the winds. Sam can’t stop having nightmares about those horrifying 200 mile an hour Mars windstorms.

Meanwhile, as we move closer to launch, we cut back in time six months, where we learn that Sam’s wife, Kate, was pregnant. Since she’s not pregnant in the present, and we don’t see any kids around, we get the sense that that situation didn’t end well. And subsequent flashbacks will confirm that.

When a fire on the shuttle sets the launch date back a few months, people within this NASA-like operation begin to suspect that someone’s working for the Chinese, possibly sabotaging the mission so that China can launch first.

The big question is: Is it Sam? A lot of people think so. And with Sam’s nightmares getting worse, with his brain starting to break down, not even he’s sure anymore.

Let’s start with the good news. This is NOT like other sandcastles. And I should’ve known that since Jack Curious, Bryce’s Top 25 Scriptshadow 250 script, is anything but normal.

However, I think Somnium suffers from the flip side of things. Have we deconstructed storytelling TOO MUCH here? Is this “too indie?” Is “too indie” even a thing? I think so. But I know a lot of you don’t.

Let’s start with the flashbacks. Whenever I look at flashbacks, I ask the question, “Are they necessary?” 99% of the time, they’re not. But when they are, they’re usually used in a pattern. And that’s because the writer is using them to tell a separate story in the past, that, if told well, can actually be as interesting as the present story.

I’m not sure this flashback story passed that test. It’s about a woman losing her child. And the thing was, we already knew she lost the child. Like I pointed out, we didn’t see any kid in the present. And she wasn’t pregnant in the present. So obviously she had to have lost the baby.

So why is it important that I see that for myself? Why can’t that just be backstory and not a series of flashbacks? I don’t have a good answer for that, and therefore I’d argue the flashbacks weren’t necessary.

Next up is the way the plot was designed. And Bryce takes a HUGE chance here. I give him credit for that. But let’s look at this logically…

Remember the movie, National Lampoon’s Vacation? The original one with Chevy Chase? Remember what they were trying to do? Get to Wally World, right? Well imagine if that movie wasn’t about actually going to Wally World, but rather about getting in the car that would take them to Wally World.

That’s kind of what this felt like to me. And I’m not saying that the destination has to always be the biggest thing possible. But when you dangle something as exciting as Mars in front of the viewer, and then you tell them we’re not even going to see Mars in the movie…it’s kind of like a literary version of blueballs. We feel cheated, right?

Now, to Bryce’s credit, Somnium starts to get a lot better in its second half. The main reason for that is the China mystery. Are they sabotaging the launch? And if they are, is Sam involved? That was the plot point that drew me back into the story after I got pissed when I realized we wouldn’t be going to Mars.

I also liked the mystery of Sam getting fed these suspicious pills. It added another layer to the sabotage mystery. Maybe someone was manipulating Sam to sabotage the launch without his knowledge?

Unfortunately, none of this stuff gets paid off in a satisfying way. It was paid off in that vague “you decide” way. And I’ve never been a fan of that.

If I were Bryce, I would introduce the Chinese sabotage mystery much earlier in the script. Make it a major plot point. Because if there’s one thing this script lacks, it’s structure. It’s plot. It’s built on this wishy-washy foundation of flashbacks and character uncertainty. It needs a plot that’s more definable.

Then use the flashbacks as a decoy. We think they’re about Kate losing the baby. But through them, we reveal that Sam IS actually involved with the Chinese, therefore making the past plot an official part of the story as opposed to just character backstory.

The more you structure Somnium, the better it’s going to be. And I think Bryce is a good writer. So he can pull it off. But it’s going to require work.

Script link: Somnium

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

What I learned: Flashbacks JUST FOR CHARACTER BACKSTORY are usually a bad idea. If you’re going to use flashbacks, use them to ADD TO THE PLOT. We should learn cool things in the flashback that we couldn’t have learned in the present. And these things need to AFFECT THE PLOT. That’s one of the only times flashbacks can be an asset.