If you’re new to the Scriptshadow Script Challenge, here are all the previous posts…
WEEK 0
WEEK 1
WEEK 2
WEEK 3
WEEK 4
WEEK 5
WEEK 6
WEEK 7
Holy Joe Estherez.
We’re here! Can you believe it?
The final 10-15 pages of our screenplay! By this time next Thursday, we will have an official COMPLETED FIRST DRAFT!
But we’re not there yet. We have to complete the last section, a section we shall refer to as… THE CLIMAX.
The climax is your hero’s final confrontation. Whatever they’ve been chasing, they’re finally confronting it. It’s John McClane staring down Hans Gruber in Die Hard. It’s Mark Watney trying to rendezvous with his crew’s ship in The Martian. It’s Michelle in Cloverfield Lane finally escaping the house and having to get past the aliens. It’s Jay trying to lure the spirit into the local pool to kill it in It Follows.
Now, here’s the thing. It’s called a climax for a reason. You literally want the audience to climax. Well, maybe not literally. But you want them to have this feeling inside of them that’s euphoric, that they will never forget. And the reason most endings are bad is because writers forget that.
In fact, I’ve found that there are three types of endings.
The Everything and the Kitchen Sink Ending – The EATKSE seems like you’re doing the right thing. EATSKE writers tend to adopt the philosophy “more is more.” You see these most often in comic book movies, Transformers movies, or any huge action-driven franchise. The writers come up with some gargantuan set-piece, and we watch it play out. Unfortunately, we feel NOTHING after these sequences because they were driven purely by visuals. The epitome of this is the island-lifting climax in Avengers 2.
The Give’em What They Want Ending – The “Give’em What They Want” ending is a step up from the EATKSE. The writers know that pure action isn’t enough to satisfy the audience, and work hard to come up with an ending that’s thoughtful, creative, and well-executed. You don’t necessarily orgasm after a “Give’em What They Want” ending, but you feel satisfied. The Martian is a good example of a “Give’em What They Want” ending. We couldn’t have asked for a more exciting and creative finish to that story, and we felt good afterwards.
The Character-Driven Ending – The Character-Driven Ending approaches the ending from inside the character as opposed to outside. What have they been struggling with this entire story? What have they been struggling with their entire lives? Good writers build their endings around THAT. Because the only way to give the audience that climax is to touch them from the inside. Look at The Martian’s inspiration, Cast Away. The climax for Cast Away had Tom Hanks escaping the island just like Mark Watney escaped the planet. But which escape moved us? Cast Away’s. Because Tom Hanks lost his best friend, the only thing that kept him company during this ordeal, Wilson.
Needless to say, the Character-Driven Ending is the climax I want you to use. Look at your characters, figure out what’s going on inside of them, and build the climax around that. This is why Star Wars is the biggest movie ever despite being a franchise film. Its climax is about Luke overcoming his flaw (he finally believes in himself) and Han overcoming his flaw (he finally becomes selfless). The actual destroying of the Death Star is the least impactful moment in that trio of events. It’s the characters CHANGING that moves us.
But it doesn’t just have to be about overcoming flaws. As long as you build the climax around something character-related, you’ll have a better chance of creating a great ending than if you go surface level.
Take my most recent fascination, Zootopia. I’ll tell you exactly how a bad screenwriter (or even an average one) would’ve handled that ending. They would’ve thought, “It’s Zootopia. There are tons of animals everywhere. Our hero will recruit all the animals and they’ll attack the corrupt mayor in a giant stampede set piece!” Would it have been visually impressive? Sure. Would it have moved us? No.
Instead, the climax takes place in a closed-down museum with our corrupt mayor throwing our hero bunny, Officer Hopps, into a pit with her fox partner, Nick, who’s just been shot with the predator virus, making him “wild” again. The whole movie has been about Officer Hopps trying to trust Nick, a natural predator who’s a threat to bunnies. Just when they’ve finally become friends, they’re put to the ultimate test. Will Nick be able to put his friendship above his primal instincts and not eat Hopps?
It’s all about the characters, baby.
The last thing I want you to remember about the ending is that THIS IS THE MOMENT WHERE YOU UNLOAD YOUR BIGGEST PAYOFFS. Screenwriting is about setting up and paying off, setting up and paying off. But your climax is reserved for your biggest payoffs of all.
There’s a magic that happens when you bring something back that the audience has forgotten about. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know why it works every time. But it does. And when you combine that with a character-driven finale, it’s the recipe that results in that perfect unforgettable climax.
I mean one of the reasons The Shawshank Redemption stays with us 17 years later is because of the way it uses payoffs in its climax. The rock-hammer, the Raquel Welch poster, the “hidden within” bible moment. That’s the power of setups and payoffs in film. But this means, of course, you will have had to set all that stuff up in the first place. You can’t just decide to add a payoff at the last second. Or if you do, you need to go back and meticulously weave in a series of setups so the payoff works.
After your hero’s won the final battle, you have a choice. End it immediately (a la Rocky), or give us a post-script. The trend these days is to add a post-script and I have no issues with that. Just keep it short. We see Mark Watney teaching now that he’s back from Mars. But then we’re done. One of the biggest mistakes beginner screenwriters make is sticking around long after the climax. Once the air is out of the balloon, the audience doesn’t want to stay at the party. And the longer they’re forced to stay, the more bored they get. So show us a post-script scene (two TOPS!) to let us know they’re doing okay, then it’s time for credits.
Congratulations guys! It was fun going on this journey with you. Breaking the script down this way helped me see things more clearly as well.
But now the real hard work begins – rewriting. I’ll see you next week for when that madness starts. :)
Pages to write this week: 10-15
Page number to hit on a 110 page screenplay: 110 (THE END!)
Genre: Drama
Premise: In 1934 Texas, a teenage boy sets out to collect the bounty on a murdering fugitive, but when he finally finds her, he starts to fall for her.
About: Dreamland finished fairly high on last year’s Black List. This is the writer’s breakthrough screenplay.
Writer: Nicolaas Zwart
Details: 120 pages
One of the hardest things to do as a script-reader is take chances on material outside of the norm. This is why most ideas outside the norm never get read. If the genre is undefined (or is some version of “straight drama”), it almost always leads to an undefined narrative, and that’s what scares readers and producers off. They’ve wasted too many hours giving those scripts a chance only to come up empty.
But the truth is, the best scripts tend to be dramas. They’re the ones most likely to make you feel something. Unfortunately, the skill set required to write drama is exponentially higher than that required to write anything else. That’s because you can’t use tricks to keep the audience’s interest. You have to be a great dramatist. And most screenwriters don’t even know what that means.
What it means is being a good storyteller. Building up living breathing compelling characters. Using suspense, tension, mystery, and curiosity to keep the story interesting. Infusing your script with consistently unexpected developments, as opposed to going with the same old cliche plot beats. Being brave and unafraid to try new things. And, of course, bringing that all together in a harmonious organic way.
If that’s confusing, just think the opposite of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. If you make the opposite choices of everything in that movie, you will write something great.
Dreamland follows 15 year-old Eugene Evans, a kid stuck in 1934 rural Texas right after the dust storms destroyed all the farmland. This has left Eugene’s family, and others like his, scrambling to find jobs. And since there aren’t many jobs in the middle of nowhere besides farming, everybody’s leaving.
At the very least, the town is experiencing some excitement. A 24 year-old woman named Allison Wells robbed a couple of banks nearby and is said to be hiding out in town. The FBI is awarding 10,000 dollars to whoever can bring her in, and Eugene figures this is his shot to save his family.
Eugene doesn’t have to do much looking, as it turns out the recently shot Allison is hiding out in his barn. Allison puts on the charm, convinces Eugene to help her get better, and it isn’t long before she has him looking to steal a car so she can escape to Mexico.
Eugene falls in love faster than a honey bee and is a helpless pawn in Allison’s plan. But when Allison learns that Eugene plans to come with her, she may have to resort to more violent means to complete her plan. Either way, this isn’t going to end well.
Dreamland is sort of like this weird combination of E.T. and that awful Jason Reitman movie, Labor Day. It has its strengths, but ultimately the engine at the center of the story isn’t powerful enough to keep us caring.
But let’s look at what works. We have a solid motivation. The reward money Eugene is after would save his family. We have suspense. He must hide Allison from his family. We have a goal driving the story – Allison has him looking for a truck so she can escape. We have urgency – we can feel the town closing in. It’s only a matter of time before they figure out where Allison is. And we have some clever choices as well. Eugene’s step-father is the town deputy. So an authority who can put an end to this lives literally a few feet away from our hero.
And the character development is solid as well. Zwart spends the opening 10 pages of the script setting up the story through Future Eugene’s voice, as he tells this tale of his childhood. This allows him to tell us all these things about these characters that three-dimensionalize them. For example, we learn that Eugene’s father was a drunk and left the family for Mexico when he was a child and Eugene is desperate to see him again.
Narrating can be a blessing and a curse in that sense. You can use it at any time to tell us more about one of the characters if need be. For example, Eugene goes into detail about Allison’s past as well. And the more you know about a character, the more real that character feels to you. But whenever we’re covering backstory, THE PRESENT STORY IS NOT MOVING FORWARD, which is always dangerous. Audiences HATE when the car isn’t on the road. They get antsy quickly. And any time you’re covering backstory, you’ve stopped the car to get some food.
But none of this covers the real problem with Dreamland, which is the one I hinted at at the beginning of this review.
Is this really a compelling story?
A 15 year old protagonist in a period piece. Can you name me one period piece movie in history centered around a teenager that was good? Or even memorable? I’m guessing you can’t. And that’s the core of the problem here. There’s a story, for sure. But it doesn’t feel important enough. And since it doesn’t have any sexy genre tropes to throw at us, it’s the kind of script that leaves you nodding your head and saying, “That wasn’t bad,” which in my opinion, is the worst reaction a reader can have. Love my script, hate my script. But don’t “not bad” my script. That’s the kind of reaction that means you didn’t take a single chance in your screenplay.
So while Dreamland did a lot of good things, it’s unfortunately not the kind of thing that stays with you.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: My guess is that you do not feel compelled to comment on this script. In fact, your reaction at the end of this review was most likely, “Meh. Time to check Slash-Film.” That’s because it does not exist within one of the sexy genres (action, adventure, horror, sci-fi, thriller, comedy). I now want you to look at your own script. Does it exist outside of those genres as well? If so, it will very likely garner the same reaction from others that you are giving this script. My point being, while there’s a chance you’re the special one, it’s more likely that nobody cares with a genre like this. It’s the same reason nobody saw Labor Day. You play outside of the biggest sandbox, very few people will want to build a castle with you.
What I learned 2: It’s very VERY hard to build movies around teenage protagonists unless they’re big genre films (Hunger Games) or high school movies. Adults (30-40), good. Kids (8-11), good. But there’s something about teenagers that never feels quite right for some reason. I’m not saying it can’t be done. ANYTHING can be done. I’m only saying to be cautious because the vast majority of the time, it doesn’t work.
Genre: Horror
Premise: A con woman masquerading as a psychic helps a young mother deal with her possessed step-son, only to realize she’s in over her head.
About: We’re doing something different today. Earlier this year, Gillian Flynn of Gone Girl fame sent out a short story to all the studios and a huge bidding war erupted. Universal ended up winning the rights for seven figures. Short stories are actually perfect for adaptation. While novels are huge and cumbersome and you have to leave a lot of the nuances that made the novel great out, short stories allow you to flesh things out, expand on what’s working and make it even better. In an interesting side-note, Flynn wrote this for George R.R. Martin.
Writer: Gillian Flynn
Details: 61 pages
I’ve been working on this far-from-groundbreaking theory that the bigger the situation in your screenplay, the higher your ceiling at the box office. So if you blow up our planet in your script, you can top out at 500-750 million dollars. If, by contrast, you chronicle a murder mystery in a small town, you may top out at 15m if you’re lucky. If you write about the mob’s stranglehold on one city, expect 75m tops.
It didn’t always used to be this way. Movies like “Love Story” could make a billion dollars. But the reality of the matter is, in order to pay that 15 bucks, audiences want an experience these days. And if the world (or something similar) isn’t at stake, it’s hard to feel like you’ve experienced anything. There are exceptions to this rule. There always are. And certain genres like horror can muck up the equation. But on the whole, it’s becoming more and more true.
Which brings us to Gone Girl. I always wondered why that film was successful. Sure, it was a big novel. Yeah, it had David Fincher. But the average moviegoer hasn’t read the novel (nobody reads, in case you were wondering) and I can guarantee you they have no idea who David Fincher is. This was just a missing wife movie. Then I realized, it’s because the missing wife storyline went national. Had Amy’s disappearance stayed local, the situation wouldn’t have seemed as big, and the box office wouldn’t have been as big.
For all intents and purposes, Flynn’s follow-up film, Dark Places, should’ve been a huge hit. In the old days, it would’ve been heavily promoted and everyone would’ve rushed to the theater to get themselves some more Gillian Flynn. But it was a smaller situation with less at stake, and therefore, it had that low ceiling.
Where does this leave The Grownup? Let’s find out.
Our nameless narrator didn’t plan to become a con woman. It’s just the only thing she grew up knowing. When her father died, her mother resorted to begging, and our heroine quickly learned the art of conning – of doing anything to get that next GW.
After she grew up, she got a job at a local psychic’s office, which she quickly learned doubled as a place for rich assholes to get handjobs. And our heroine would soon be giving those handjobs.
She would eventually graduate to the front room, however, becoming a “psychic,” and that’s where she met Susan Burke, a rich wife who’d obviously had a rough go of it. Susan confided that she had a step-son, 15 year-old Miles, who she feared was possessed or demonic, or possibly just crazy, and feared for her life. She felt that the old house they lived in may have been possessing Miles, and she wanted our heroine to check it out.
Once at the old Victorian mansion, we learn that it is, indeed, fucking creepy. But that creepiness is nothing compared to Miles, an undersized teenager who looks like he could shoot up a school while snacking on a box of cracker jacks.
One day, when Susan isn’t around, Miles threatens Heroine, “Do not come back or you will die,” and Heroine makes the mistake of ignoring that request. What follows is not at all what we expect, as our heroine learns that she may have been afraid of the wrong person all along. And that maybe it isn’t the house that haunts, but one’s past indiscretions.
What’s funny about this short story is that it’s exactly 60 pages. Which means if you double-spaced it, you’d have a screenplay. So why didn’t Flynn just write a ready-to-go screenplay? Maybe because when George R.R. Martin says, “Write me a story,” you do it no questions asked? Even if he’s incapable of finishing his own stories?
I was paying particular attention to the structure of this story, since I don’t know much about short stories, and found it to be somewhat similar to screenplay structure. You start out with a shocker of an opener, something that grabs the audience. Even better if you can do it with the first line, as we see here: “I didn’t stop giving hand jobs because I wasn’t good at it. I stopped giving hand jobs because I was the best at it.”
From there, you pull back, tell us about the characters. With novels you can go more into backstory, which we do here. In screenplays, it’s more about giving us a scene that encapsulates our character’s identity (so if your hero is stubborn, write a scene where he insists to his boss that he’s right).
And from there you start building the elements of your story. Get to know our heroine’s job. Get to know who the key characters are and what’s going on with them. And with that, you want to create some mystery. You can’t just be in set-up mode where you’re conveying nuts and bolts information. Your set-up must be entertaining. And mystery is an easy way to entertain.
For instance, Susan comes into the shop and looks bad. Something terrible has happened to this woman. You can hear the quiver in her voice. So when she leaves after that first session, we want to know more. We’re curious about her circumstances.
But when you’re talking about Gillian Flynn – let’s be honest – you’re talking about one thing: her endings. That’s her achilles’ heel. Gone Girl had one of the most nonsensical unsatisfying endings for a great story ever. You can paint it however you want, but the reality is, Flynn painted herself into a corner and couldn’t find a dry spot to jump back to.
So how do you write a good ending?
There’s two schools of thought here. The first is the Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3) philosophy. Don’t start writing your script until you’ve figured out your ending. In other words, outline! If you don’t know where you’re writing towards, your story will jump all over the place.
The second way is the opposite of the first. Embrace a “searching” philosophy and find the ending by writing the script! The argument here is that you’ll find a much more interesting ending than would’ve been possible had you methodically bullet-pointed your way through an outline. While this approach is riskier (without a destination, you could completely lose direction), the potential reward is bigger.
Here’s the trick with the second option though. If that’s you how find your ending, YOU NEED TO THEN GO BACK AND REWRITE YOUR ENTIRE SCRIPT.
Why? Because the large majority of what you’ve written, you’ve written with no idea of how things were going to end. So you now have all these scenes which have little-to-no connection to your ending. The best thing to do, then, is go back and rewrite everything so that it connects organically with that ending.
The thing is, VERY FEW WRITERS HAVE THE PATIENCE TO DO THIS. They instead change a scene here and a scene there and convince themselves it’s good enough. And they’re left with this patchwork story that, at times, connects with the ending and at times tells a different story entirely.
Then there’s the third option. I call this the “Fuck it” option. This is when you don’t really know how to end things, so you write a bunch of bullshit and hope for the best. This is how The Grownup ends. It’s so apparent that Flynn didn’t know how to end this that you can actually hear it in the character himself. As he’s talking, you can hear him searching for a logical ending. I can’t get into specifics without spoiling things, but let’s just say that any bottom level prodco executive would tear this to pieces.
Maybe whoever adapts this will address this issue. I hope so. Because there is a lot of good to the story. But man, that ending?
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: There are a TREASURE TROVE of great movie ideas out there. Where? SHORT STORIES. Why? Because a) it’s the last place people think to look for movie ideas, and b) nobody reads short stories. If you’re looking to hack the system, get a bunch of those “Great short stories” books and devour them. I guarantee you’ll find a good idea sooner or later. And since it’s an adaptation, anybody you send it to in Hollywood will take it more seriously. Good luck!
Genre: Fairy Tale
Premise: After being abandoned by a prince who promised to rescue her, an unhappy Rapunzel vows revenge on him and his kingdom.
About: Damsel made last year’s Black List, but only barely. It’s written by former male model slash actor, Bryan McMullin, which means we’re going to be answering the question that’s been debated among screenwriters since the beginning of time: Is it possible to be a screenwriter and also be really really really really good-looking?
Writer: Bryan McMullin
Details: 115 pages
One of the stronger trends as of late has been the live-action fairy tale. Driven mainly by Disney’s obsession with live-actioning their entire animated catalogue, it’s opened the doors for spec writers to deconstruct the more popular fairy tale characters (Snow White) or build new stories around less popular characters (Prince Charming).
As spec writers, we don’t have too many options these days, which is why the fairy tale option is a tempting one. There are a bajillion characters to choose from, and since many are in the public domain, it allows you to do what the studios are doing (write high profile IP scripts) without paying for the rights.
Of course, technically speaking, you can write about anything. If you wanted to write a Batman movie, you could write one. It’s not illegal. But you have one potential buyer and that buyer is probably going with one of the top 3 screenwriters in the world over Joe Nobody.
I suppose if you wrote the best Batman script ever, they’d buy it. But I’m yet to see an amateur writer pull this off with any high profile property. I mean if you want a chuckle, search out all the fan-written Indiana Jones scripts. It gets ugly folks. You’re much better off delving into the fairy tale world.
Rapunzel started off as a good person, particularly since she was raised by a witch in a tower all by herself, her only friends being animals. Then one day, Prince Edward came along and everything went to shit.
After Edward promised to come back and save her, the witch caught wind of the plan and moved Rapunzel somewhere else. When Edward couldn’t find her in this new spot, Rapunzel decided he was an evil heartless liar and vowed revenge on him for as long as she lived. Hey, before you judge, keep in mind her best friend was a raccoon. She wasn’t exactly socially conditioned.
Many years later, Edward has a son, Prince Cavill. Cavill is driven into the woods by a siren song he’s been hearing since he was a child, and along the way, meets Elise, a cute but poor young woman who’s immediately taken by Prince Cavill, and he with her. Unfortunately, he’s still gotta see who’s at the end of the song rainbow, so he leaves E-leaves.
Of course, the song is a trick from Rapunzel to take Cavill hostage so she can get her revenge on Edward. When Edward puts out a reward for whoever brings his son back, Elise realizes she’s the only one who knows where he is, and heads after him.
In the meantime, King Edward’s wife, even more desperate to get her son back, lets loose the nastiest criminal in the kingdom’s prison, Vel, to find him.
With Elise, Vel, the king’s soldiers, and everyone else in the land who wants to collect that reward money looking for Cavill, he’ll most assuredly be rescued. Unless, of course, Rapunzel has some master plan in her back pocket. And as I like to say, never underestimate a woman who spends that much time on her hair.
Let’s talk about plot. What is plot? And how does it differ from story? They’re often confused and that’s because there’s some crossover between the two. The best way I can describe it is that plot is the ingredients and story is the meal. When you have a great meal, you don’t think about how much paprika was added, or how many onions they used, or how many minutes it was baked. You just enjoy the presentation and the taste.
Plot consists of all the mechanical beats (the ingredients) required to move the story along. So in The Force Awakens, all this stuff about Kylo Ren coming to Jakku to look for the map to Luke Skywalker, to figuring out how to make Rey and Finn meet up, to finding a way to have them run into Han Solo, to deciding when the First Order was going to blow up a star system… all that is plot.
Story is more about the choices you make that result in the most pleasing movie possible. The overall concept of finding Luke Skywalker and how captivating the characters are and how we move through the narrative, that’s story.
If that’s confusing, let me put it a different way. Take Gravity. Gravity’s story is Sandra Bullock desperately moving from outpost to outpost in space, air running out, trying to survive long enough to make it to earth. Good story! Let’s say instead, though, it was about a panel on the International Space Station that had broken, and Sandra Bullock had to fix it. That’s not a very good story, is it? It doesn’t lend itself to a lot of interesting choices that an audience would be entertained by.
Why do I bring this up? I bring it up because a lot of writers get bogged down in plot to the detriment of their story. And there are two ways this happens. One, they simply add more plot than the story can handle. Every single scene is desperately trying to keep up with explaining what’s happening. Two, they’re not good at conveying plot CLEARLY. So even if the amount of plotting is average, they don’t hold our hand enough and clearly convey what’s happening enough, to keep things clear.
This happens all the time when you’re watching bad movies. You’ll forget what’s happening, why it’s happening, or what we’re doing at the moment. You’ll often chalk this up to “this movie is stupid.” What probably happened was the writer wasn’t being clear enough in regards to key plot beats.
I point this out because Damsel has a ton of plot, and yet it never gets in the way of the story. I mean we have to establish this whole backstory of how Rapunzel became the way she did. We have to establish King Edward visiting her, this evil witch’s plan, King Edward growing up, his son coming to Rapunzel, this forest girl he runs into, this plan to rescue the prince from several different groups. There’s a shit-ton of information here.
And yet I was never once confused because McMullin was so damn clear about everything. You could almost feel the dedication to clarity. Each section (for example, the King Edward visits Rapunzel section) is its own little story. It’s not some hastily-written piece of setup that’s only there to get us to the real story. Every moment is important.
And the writing is really good and really sparse. Why is sparse important? Because there are less words to overburden the reader with information. You guys give me shit sometimes for saying, “Stay under 4 lines per paragraph!” and yet the large majority of paragraphs in Damsel are 1 or 2 lines.
Simply put, this was a really enjoyable screenplay. If you’re a beginner screenwriter, in particular, try and get your hands on this script. You can learn a lot from it.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Never write a section just to get to (or “set up”) the next section. EACH SECTION SHOULD BE ENTERTAINING IN ITS OWN RIGHT.
What I learned 2: Too much plotting is dangerous. If every scene feels like you’re trying to keep up with all the information you have to convey, you have too much plot. Figure out a way to strip some of that plot out so that you can focus on making scenes entertaining.
New to the Scriptshadow Screenplay Challenge? Here are the rest of the posts…
WEEK 0
WEEK 1
WEEK 2
WEEK 3
WEEK 4
WEEK 5
WEEK 6
So if you remember from last week, we left you at the beginning of the third act. Your hero was at his/her lowest point. They may have been fired from their job, lost the girl, been captured, or their best alien friend in the world who loves Reeses Pieces may have kicked the bucket. On top of that, they’ve destroyed all of their relationships, usually because of insecurities, stubbornness or focusing on their pursuit rather than those closest to them.
Where the hell do we go from here with our story?
It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? When you’re at the bottom, the only way to go is up.
But before we go up, it’s important to note that the third act is the shortest act of the three, and will land somewhere between 20-25 pages. You don’t want to linger forever in the third act. The audience isn’t interested in drawing anything out at this point. Once we get out of the low point, things have to move.
So assuming a 110 page screenplay. Your final act will look closest to this…
First sequence of Third Act: 85-98 (this week’s sequence)
Second sequence of Third Act: 99-110
Don’t freak out if it doesn’t fall perfectly within that range. The point is, you should err on the side of faster. And I personally think that the best breakdown is 12 pages for that first sequence and 10 for the final one. Why two extra pages for the first section?
Well what typically happens after the lowest point in the story is a couple of scenes of your character stewing around in their misery. I just watched the surprisingly awesome Zootopia. And the “lowest point” in that film is when Officer Hopps inadvertently divides the city, causing all of the “prey” species to discriminate against the “predator” species.
As a result, she realizes she’s done the exact opposite of the whole reason she became a cop in the first place (to help people/animals), and decides to go back home to her parents’ carrot farm and give up on her dreams.
As a side note, Disney and Pixar movies (most of them anyway) are AMAZING films to study for screenplay structure. Because they’re made for children, they hit the screenplay structural beats a little harder, so you can really see those beats in action. When watching a drama or a period film, those beats won’t be as apparent (nor should they be).
Anyway, after the two stewing scenes, your hero becomes motivated to give it one more shot. Usually what happens is they have a revelation. So in Zootopia, Officer Hopps realizes what’s causing all the predators to go “wild” and endanger the city and believes she can fix it. What’s great about using a revelation is that it propels your hero back into action, getting us from 0-60 very quickly.
Now if this doesn’t sound anything like your movie’s structure, that’s okay. Star Wars has a bit of a wonky “low point” of its own. It takes place when Luke, Han, and Leia attempt to escape the Death Star, and Obi-Wan is killed by Darth Vader. Does this really hamper their mission? Not particularly. It’s just a great big bummer. But using classic story beats, we do have the stewing scene (Luke being depressed) and then a jump right back into action (when Tie Fighters from the Death Star attack them).
The point here is to include a story beat where it looks like the gig is up for our heroes. And once that beat is over, have a moment or two to solidify that beat so we can really feel the effects of it. If it’s TOO short, it won’t register. However, after it’s over, it’s time to start moving again.
What tends to happen next is also dependent on the story your telling. But one of the most common situations will have your hero needing to repair a relationship before they can achieve their final objective. Because your hero will be at the lowest point IN EVERY ASPECT OF THEIR LIFE, that will mean at least one key relationship is broken.
So the next scene may have them going to repair that relationship so they can get the character on board. In Zootopia, we have Officer Hopps having to apologize to Nick Wilde, her fox partner, for ruining his and the rest of the predators’ lives in Zootopia.
Once you move past this moment, it’s time for your characters to form a plan that will set up the last sequence of the movie. In Star Wars, that’s the scene with all the fighter pilots sitting down and watching a demonstration on what they need to do to destroy the Death Star. Of course, if you’re writing a simpler story, it may just be two friends sharing a quick plan with one another.
One more thing before we go. This section needs to be the biggest challenge for your hero yet. For that reason, you want to strip them of as many resources as you can. This is why, in cop movies, the main character’s always been kicked off the force for the third act. That way they don’t have any help.
This is an often overlooked component of writing a good screenplay. Whereas the second act is mostly about conflict BETWEEN characters, the third act is about characters overcoming conflict within themselves. So whatever issue they’ve been ignoring their whole lives, they’re going to have to deal with it here.
So ask yourself, “What can I take away from my character?” For example, if they’re a cop, maybe take away their gun. That may be scary for you. Because then you’ll wonder, “Well then how will they kill the bad guy?” But guess what? That’s the EXACT same question the audience will be asking as well. Which is what you want. If the audience already knows and you already know how your hero is going to defeat the villain, you’ve failed as a storyteller. Because there’s no suspense.
Taking this approach will also force you to flex muscles you weren’t prepared to flex – figuring out how they win when the odds are so stacked against them. I’m telling you, it’ll suck balls trying to come up with those solutions. But when you finally do? There’s no better feeling as a screenwriter in the world. Because you know that you’re delivering to the audience as opposed to phoning it in.
Speaking of phoning, I’ll be calling you guys next week, where I’ll tell you how to complete the last section of your screenplay!!!
Pages to write this week: 10-15
Page number to hit on a 110 page screenplay: 96-100
