Poor Richard’s Almanac, with its “Lost meets True Detective” vibe, has the potential to be one of the hippest shows ever put on television. But does it put the cart before the horse?
Genre: TV Pilot
Premise: We observe the rise of a series of terrorists attacks inside the U.S. both in the present and 15 years in the future.
About: Today’s pilot will be joining Mr. Robot on USA as part of the cable network’s new edgier approach to content. The series comes from Jim Danger Gray, who served as a producer on Orange is the New Black, and Miguel Sapochnik, who directed a couple of Game of Thrones episodes.
Writer: Jim Danger Gray
Details: 56 pages (March 2015 draft)
It took USA 30 years, but Mr. Robot has finally made them cool, and they’re so confused about the endeavor, they’re not quite sure how to keep the looks from the ladies coming. All they know is that “cable cool” requires they continue taking chances, and so we get something called “Poor Richard’s Almanac.”
You know, it’s funny. Yesterday, I railed against a script for being too safe – for following all the beats yet disregarding the melody. Today’s script is all about melody – a very weird melody. But the beats? They’re not here. And part of that is due to the looser TV format and part of it is due to Jim Danger Gray being a fucking maniac. Maniac in a good way? Bad way? Only one way to find out.
It’s the present day and three buildings in downtown Philadelphia have just been blown up. It’s clearly a terrorist attack, but from who? We follow an eager reporter, Brooke, who’s made her mark mostly by being gorgeous, as she tries to get some gritty footage from the scene in a desperate attempt to get taken more seriously.
Meanwhile, across town, a CIA agent named Darwin is picking his sister up from the local nuthouse. Madison has always been a little off. But these days she’s spouting out every cliché homeless man conspiracy she can wrap her tongue around. You know – the New World Order, how Obama and Bush are in cahoots, that she’s been implanted with a chip from the government.
Elsewhere in the city, we meet Matt, an FBI agent desperately trying to figure out who just attacked the United States. Lucky for him, amidst all the bomb rubble, our bomber – or one of our bombers – is holding onto his last shred of life. Keeping this gentleman alive is crucial, since Matt’s just been informed that more terrorist attacks are coming. Terrorist Shithead here could be the only way to stop those attacks.
Poor Richard’s Almanac is already a whirlwind. So when we start getting randomly thrust 15 years into the future, we realize that the show has been specifically constructed to deconstruct our equilibrium. In the future, all of these characters are still alive, but working on different things.
Matt, for instance, is stealing some odd circular machine from a local government caravan, utilizing a group of rebels to do so. Brooke is now apparently his girlfriend and partner in crime. Darwin is now in a prison being water-boarded for information he contains. All of this is glimpsed through 2-3 minute flash-forwards, and as we bounce back and forth between the past and the present, it’s up to us to find some semblance of connectivity between it all.
In the end, it’s determined that whoever’s orchestrating these attacks is doing so from inside the United States government. Which forces the country to turn on themselves in order to find the moles. But what they find instead will reshape America in ways that would’ve been impossible to foresee. What this means is that our group of men and women, the ones we meet on this journey, are to become the new founding fathers of an America very different from our own.
Okay, so if I haven’t made myself clear already: Jim Danger Gray lives up to his name. This man is dangerous with a capital D. Poor Richard’s Almanac feels like it was written during an all-night coke party while binge watching True Detective, Lost, and 12 Monkeys. I’ll give the script this – it’s relentless. It grabs you by the throat and never lets go. But I’m not sure I’m being spoken to in a known storytelling language here. It’s more like someone’s grabbed me by the face and screamed at my eyes for 50 minutes. Not going to lie. I cried in fear a few times.
That relentlessness brings up an interesting question. Should we be careful what we wish for? Everyone’s saying we need NEW FRESH voices and stories. But what happens when stuff’s so fresh it isn’t even ripe yet? Yesterday, I got my standard little mountain climbing thriller where I was so far ahead of the writers, it was like watching a rerun. Here, it’s the opposite. This is a writer taking every risk in the book. We don’t know what’s going to happen from line to line, much less page to page. Is that a good thing?
What I’m always looking for in every story is FORM. Or “a plan.” If I feel like the writer has a plan in place, whether that story is conservative or crazy, I’m likely to keep reading. It’s when the writing feels made up as it goes along that frustration kicks in. The thing about Poor Richard’s Almanac is that it’s one of the few times I’ve ever read something where I DON’T KNOW IF THERE’S A PLAN IN PLACE OR NOT.
Everything is so relentless, so mystery-boxy, so “in the moment,” that it really does feel like it was written in one night. But I suppose if we’re periodically cutting to the future, then Gray has to know what’s going to happen. There has to be a plan in place.
Another issue with Poor Richard’s Almanac is that we never know normal. We’re thrust into the problem immediately with no chance to find our bearings. For all you Breaking Bad fans, I want you to imagine the series starting during the 5th season episode where Walter White is in the desert in a gun battle with those criminals. Would you care about Walter? Or isn’t it the gradual build-up, learning about this man’s situation and slowly watching him get to this point, that makes us give a shit?
And look, there are no rules to storytelling. You can start slow and introduce us to your hero or start fast with them hopping into a Cambodian village killing everyone Rambo style. But there’s a reason 99% of the first acts you see in film establish your hero’s everyday normal life. There’s a reason we meet Luke on Tatooine grumbling about picking up tashi converters, as opposed to in an X-Wing fighter in a space dogfight with Darth Vader. So we can get to know the dude and care for him before we’re asked to give a shit during a major battle.
If you want to compare apples to apples and look at TV, well, in that case there’s even more evidence that you need to start slow and get to know everyone. Isn’t that the whole advantage of TV? Is that you have time? That you can explore character before having to engage in anything action-related? Another pilot that starts with a terrorist attack and does a little bit of jumping back and forth in time is Quantico. But even that show knew it needed to introduce us to all its characters and their current lives before it was all thrown into a blender on the highest setting.
To be fair, I suppose Lost threw us into the shit right away, but then it took a step back, slowed down, and let us meet everyone. Poor Richard’s Almanac is all high octane fuel all the time.
I guess in the end I just wanted a little prep-time. Get in the cab before I was thrown on the airplane. Maybe I’m being too “rules-y” or maybe this is a preference thing, but whereas yesterday I felt way ahead of the writer, today I felt way behind. And at a certain point I stopped trying to catch up.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: The opening is when you establish your character’s everyday world. This is important as it’ll help us get to know the character – their flaws, fears, strengths, weaknesses – before the shit hits the fan. This is not to say that what Poor Richard’s Almanac did today was wrong. But anything where you go against traditional structure is risky. So just know what those risks entail, how they affect your story, and try to make up for them in some way. So if this pilot would’ve found another way to introduce us to these characters (the way that Lost, for example, would flash back to their lives before the plane crash), then it wouldn’t have mattered as much that we were thrown into the mix without getting to know anyone.
Genre: Thriller
Premise: A young woman and her estranged father go rock-climbing to try and repair their relationship, but when they get stuck, it doesn’t look like they’ll survive the night.
About: This script sold to Blumhouse earlier this year. The writers, Gregg Maxwell Parker and Sean Patrick Finegan, two young men who are big fans of the middle name, have one produced credit, the recent Ethan Hawke – Selena Gomez starrer, Getaway.
Writers: Gregg Maxell Parker & Sean Patrick Finegan
Details: 94 pages
I’m a little nervous about the fact that today’s writers scripted the Selena Gomez-Ethan Hawke movie, Getaway, which, on last count, had a 2% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Now to be fair, I haven’t seen the movie so I don’t know if it’s any good, AND the writing process on every movie can be chaotic, so who knows if some producers didn’t demand ridiculous changes, screwing up the next Citizen Kane.
That may sound ridiculous but I happen to know of a movie that came out recently (I have to be vague cause I don’t want to get the writer in trouble) where the writer told me that they carefully orchestrated a screenplay over an entire seven months before the producers decided with two weeks left before production that they wanted to scrap the whole thing and start over. So they did a page 1 rewrite in two weeks. The results, as the writer informed me, were about what you’d expect. And he didn’t love that his name was attached to it (outside of the paycheck, of course).
I know why this sort of thing happens. When people get to a decision point where they actually have to do the thing that starts costing money – shooting – they start doubting everything out of fear. And all those risks they took that made the script so unique? Those go out the window in favor of a safer more traditional story.
You’re probably saying, “Surrrrre Carson. Getaway was probably genius before the ‘system’ – quote unquote – ruined it. Only then did it tumble to Adam Sandler Rotten Tomato territory.” And I’d say you had a point. But the reason I still want to review Free Fall is because it exists in one of the most bankable genres still available to spec screenwriters – the limited-location thriller and/or horror with a hook. If you can write one of these (The Gift, The Purge, Creep, the upcoming Bed Rest), you can sell it and begin your career. So I don’t know about you. But I’m going to go into this one with an open door mind. I just hope Selena Gomez doesn’t shut it in my face.
18 year-old Grace hasn’t been back to school since her mother died a few months ago. She stays at her grandparents’ place, and the only time she gets out is to do her favorite thing in the world: rock climbing. Her grandparents are concerned enough about her mental health that they engineer a meet-up with Grace’s estranged father, Matt.
Matt’s 38 and is about as successful in life as he is as a parent. He’s one of those guys that gets a lot of big ideas, starts on them, before quitting every single time. It may go unspoken, but both Matt and Grace know that Matt’s quit on their relationship too.
Which is why he’s here. He wants to give it one last shot. But Grace isn’t hearing it, and after daring her father to join her for a practice climb at a local-indoor facility, she decides to take it one step further. She’s doing a climb a local rock-face and if he’s serious about mending their relationship, he’ll join her.
The two meet up with a local instructor, Jason, and start the climb. As you might imagine, there’s a storm moving in (there’s always a storm moving in!), and they have to get to the top before it pummels them. But when Matt makes a crucial mistake, it results in Jason falling to his death, leaving Matt and Grace up on a rock-face alone, a thousand feet from the ground, and on the most difficult leg of the climb.
Things get worse when Matt breaks his leg during an accidental plunge, descending his already low climbing level into “I’m fucked” territory. Oh, and did I mention Matt is afraid of heights? While the two map out their impossible escape, they rehash old family problems, Matt’s failure as a father, and mom’s death. If they don’t figure something out, these might be the last conversations they ever have.
When you look at Free Fall as a screenplay, you’re amazed at how much it does right. It’s got the trendy hot female lead. It’s got a marketable concept. It’s got a budget-friendly contained location. Despite that contained location, it manages to feel like a bigger idea. It’s got a ticking time bomb. It’s got a classic unresolved relationship between its two leads. It’s got impossible odds, lots of obstacles, lots at stake. And the writing? You could teach a class on how to write a lean and mean spec with this script.
But here’s the reality of this climb: A script still has to have a heart. A lot of people think I’m all about the rules and the technique, and make no mistake, that stuff is important. But a script still needs a heartbeat. It needs to be alive. And more importantly, it needs to feel like it’s REALLY HAPPENING.
When you write with great technique, you can craft a solid story. And like Free Fall proves, if you combine that with a solid marketable concept, you can sell a script. But if you want to make it past 2% on Rotten Tomatoes, you need to give your script a heart.
So how do you do that? Well, the first thing you do is you don’t treat the character aspect of your script like a box that needs to be checked. Structure? First act turns? Midpoint twist? Upping stakes? Sure, you can treat those things like checkboxes. But the characters and the emotional component they bring to the story? That’s where you have to check in with your own life experiences.
I say things on here like “create a key relationship in your story that’s unresolved.” And “make sure there’s conflict in that key relationship.” Those things are true. And that’s exactly what we get here. Grace HATES her father. Matt screwed up father duties.
BUT THOSE ARE JUST CHECKBOXES. Now it’s time to bring your own life into it. You have to find something in these characters that you yourself are going through or have been through and EXPLORE THOSE ISSUES THROUGH YOUR CHARACTERS. Then, and only then, will they feel authentic, will they feel honest, will they have a heartbeat.
A maybe not-so-perfect example is the new Aziz Ansari Netflix show, Master of None. I say “not-so-perfect” because it’s a comedy and Free Fall is a thriller, but it’s the freshest thing in my mind since I just watched it so go with me.
For those who don’t know Aziz, he’s a stand-up comedian. And his most famous bit is the miscommunication between men and women that occurs on a daily basis through the muddled world of texting. He relays multiple texting adventures where potentially wonderful relationships fell apart due to misunderstandings that you could only have through a text exchange.
Naturally, then, there’s a lot of this on his show. He keeps messing up dates or potential romantic connections because he doesn’t know what to write next or doesn’t know what the girl means with a text. And for anyone who’s gone through this ritual themselves, it’s a hilarious portrayal of one of the most frustrating aspects of dating in the digital age.
But here’s my point: Every one of these moments on Master of None feels honest because they’re clearly things that Aziz deals with in his daily life himself. You know he really spends an entire day mentally weighing what the best return text should be to a girl saying, “Hi.” So when we see it in the show, there’s a truth to it that elevates the story beyond a technical checking of the box.
And that was my issue with Free Fall. I never got the sense that Grace or Matt was a real person. And I certainly didn’t feel like the relationship was real. I felt like they were crafted for the sole purpose of fitting into the ideal screenplay algorithm. I never got any specificity out of their relationship, like a nickname or a truly unique situation they’d experienced together. When they yelled at one another, because the writers weren’t digging into their own troubled relationships with their parents, all I’d hear was, “Conflict conflict conflict!” “Conflict!?” “Conflict conflict con….flict.” It wasn’t REAL. It was “What do the screenwriting books say we have to do now?”
And I feel bad because I don’t talk about this stuff enough on the site. That’s because what these guys have accomplished technically is great and something 90% of amateurs haven’t figured out yet. And since you need to learn that stuff before you can even get to the character stuff, I focus on that a lot. But once you’ve made it to the lucky 10%, and you’re trying to get to the final 3-5% (aka, when writers get paid), you have to figure the character stuff out.
With that said, Free Fall is a reminder that you can game the system if you’re really proficient at the craft. Come up with a good hook and write something that’s technically perfect and you can sneak in the back door. But if you want to stay inside once they find you, learn to add a heartbeat to your story.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Trying to explore a broken relationship in a realistic manner without basing it on your real-life experiences is nearly impossible. If you don’t feel, your characters won’t feel. This can actually help you, though. Identify the relationships in your life that contain the most conflict and use those as inspiration for the relationships in your script. Spielberg is famous for creating a disconnect between parents and children in a lot of his movies because of the scars left from his own parents divorcing when he was a child (see E.T. or A.I. to start). That’s where you’re going to find your best stuff emotionally.
As I’m sure all of you are running off to watch the new Bond film this weekend, you’ll have to tell me if my script review was correct or not. If you’re like me and staying farrrrr away from that Octapussy, here are a few amateur scripts to read and vote on. We’ve got selections that contain something for everyone: magic, the devil, poems, a writer even drops the gauntlet! So start the downloading and the evaluating. Oh, and PLEASE open your comment with your vote! And if you can, let us know how far you read and why you stopped.
And if you want to submit your script for future Offerings, e-mail carsonreeves3@gmail.com with your title, genre, logline, why we should read, and a PDF of the script itself! Let’s find the next Unlawful, which finished on this year’s Blood List!
Title: Otherside, INC.
Genre: Action/Adventure Comedy
Logline: While working as henchmen at a magical security firm, a young witch and her rakshas friend must overcome interspecies politics, supernatural bureaucracy and a handsome jewel thief to stop a product-launch from snowballing into the apocalypse.
Why You Should Read: Through most of Thor: The Dark World, Supriya believed she was watching an anti-imperialism tale that would end in Thor returning the Dark Elves’ sacred magical relic, restoring balance to the world, and learning why appropriating another culture’s artifacts is wrong. After Ibba finished laughing at her, they decided Supriya’s misconception would make a great film. Otherside, INC. is the result. Combining their love of genre adventure stories with their day jobs as marketing hench-women they created a supernatural satire for fans of superhero blockbusters and office comedies alike.
Title: Dan Demonic
Genre: Adventure/Comedy? (writer did not say)
Logline: Years after the Devil himself has conquered Earth, an ornery demon and his equally belligerent sidekick are mistaken for the saviours of mankind. Together, they must rediscover their own humanity in order to save the world.
Why You Should Read: Writers like Max Landis have long lamented the death of non-IP in Hollywood- especially in an era when franchises are king. In writing Dan Demonic, I set out to not only captivate an audience with a thoroughly original and engrossing story, but to create a world that could support multiple films within the same universe. Things were tried and rules were broken, but Dan Demonic is a script I’m proud of for its unerring commitment to craziness. If stories about demon strippers, undead Nobel Prize winners and 50-storey flying dogs don’t appeal to you, stay away from this one. However, I hope that those who do give this Guardians of the Galaxy-meets-Beetlejuice hybrid a shot come away from it entertained and enthralled. That would be the biggest compliment of all.
Title: The Iliad
Genre: War epic / Sword and sandal
Logline: A gritty adaptation of Homer’s epic, following the exploits of the (anti)heroes and gods who fought in the last days of the legendary Trojan War.
Why You Should Read: Longtime lurker, never-time poster. Hopefully a few people have read / are familiar with the ILIAD and its impossible to adapt content. I appreciate any (except the bad) feedback. Thank you.
Title: American Funeral
Genre: Horror
Logline: “An agoraphobic 12 year old who suspects his mother and siblings of murder also suspects that he’s gonna be their next victim unless he does something about it, fast.”
Why You Should Read: I noticed that on Monday you said that ELI is the “last” horror script that you were going to be reviewing (I presume for the year) but before you do that I was hoping to take it on in “The Gauntlet” with my horror script AMERICAN FUNERAL. From your review of ELI, I noticed that it has some similarities with AMERICAN FUNERAL. Both scripts have preteen boys as the protagonists. Both boys have “disabilities” that prevent them from leaving their “homes.” And both boys discover some shocking truths about themselves and their families.
However, one of the scripts here is a pro script that made it to the top of the Blood List while the other script is by an unknown writer and it’s still trying to worm it’s way on to the Amateur Friday list. But I have faith in my boy Dougie and I believe he can take on little Eli. So, I’m dropping the gauntlet!
Title: S M A R T H O M E
Genre: Drama, Mystery
Logline: While visiting Tokyo on business, JIM STARR gets trapped in a dangerous Smart Home with a mind of its own.
Why You Should Read: Please help me. I’m stuck in this Smart Home and I can’t get out. I don’t know if it’s an iOS system failure or was hacked by a human out for blood? Oh, God. I hope this message goes through, the Wi-Fi fades in and out. On purpose. I’m being cooked alive. HELP ME! Is anyone there? Is anyone reading this? Hello? Did it go through?? Please! The house knows things about me that may or may not be true. I don’t even know anymore…[DISCONNECT].
This is a reposting from a long-ago newsletter. So busy this week! But since I talked about the script in yesterday’s article, I felt like I should at least give you a chance to talk about it as well! Also, a new batch of amateur offerings will be up by 2 a.m. Pacific Time.
Genre: Sci-Fi’ish Comedy
Premise: In a future where the world has been overrun by monsters, a young man risks his life to get to the woman he’s fallen for.
About: Brian Duffield is one of my favorite writers. One of his scripts, Your Bridesmaid is a Bitch, is on my Top 25. And through no fault of his own, another of his projects, Jane Got A Gun, found itself in the middle of a production circus when on the first day of shooting the director of the film just decided not to show up. This resulted in actors dropping out, other actors switching roles, and a full-on game of production musical chairs. Monster Problems was picked up last year. It’s unclear where it is in development. I’ll tell you this right now, though. If I were a studio, this is one of the first scripts I’d green light.
Writer: Brian Duffield
Details: 113 pages (undated)
Okay, so I want you to imagine Sleepless in Seattle. Mixed with a John Hughes film. Mixed with Harry Potter. Mixed with Pacific Rim.
You may be saying, “Carson, that is an unbelievable combination of films. There is nobody in the world who could make that work.”
Ladies and Gentleman, may I introduce you to Brian Duffield. The only person in the world who can make that work. And honestly, I’m in awe of the guy. I really am. I don’t know anyone else on earth who has this kind of imagination, that is also good with character, who can also create a believable and touching romance, who can also add hilarious comedy and lots of heart, whose writing style is sparse yet packed with information, who can ALSO tell a great story, and who always surprises you with his choices.
You just don’t find that kind of writer often. If ever. And it kind of depresses me. Because we’re all supposed to have weaknesses. Those weaknesses are what make other writers feel like they shouldn’t commit suicide. It’s important for them to be able to say, “Okay, sure he can do comedy. But he can’t develop characters like I can.” Duffield can do it all. I guess maybe in Jane Got A Gun, things were a little slow. Maybe when he’s not able to use comedy, his scripts aren’t as entertaining? Maybe that’s a weakness? I guess. Or maybe he purposefully slowed things down in “Jane” because he didn’t want to make all us other writers feel bad.
So what’s Monster Problems about?
This guy, Joel Dawson. A really good guy, this Joel. But he’s been dealt a shitty hand. He lives in this underground bunker with 37 people and he’s the only single guy there. Everyone else is always making out and having sex while he’s just… dreaming of what it would be like to have a girlfriend. Oh, and then, of course, it’s a hundred or so years in the future where the world’s been overtaken by monsters. Bad hand once again. It’s safe to say poker’s not Joel’s thing.
The one thing Joel’s got to look forward to is a girl. Her name is Aimee. She’s got red hair. He knows that because he asked, though he’s never seen her. See, Aimee is in another bunker 30 miles from his. And they can only contact this bunker for a couple minutes a day due to battery issues. And because the hope of being with Aimee is the only reason for Joel to put on his pants every morning, he decides to do the unthinkable – go to her.
Now that might not sound difficult to you or me. 30 miles puts a lot of stress on your quads but it’s doable. Here’s the problem. Monsters. And this isn’t the monster problem you see in Pacific Rim. Or that indie movie, “Monsters.” You know when Will Smith says in the “After Earth” trailer, “Everything on this planet has evolved to kill humans?” And then you went to see the movie and nothing on this planet had evolved to kill humans?
Well imagine a movie where that was actually the case. The second Joel leaves the bunker, he’s attacked by a strange dog-like critter, a raptor-thing, a giant frog, a giant spider, giant killer moths, a weird seven feet tall ghost-like centipede thing, a three headed T-Rex, a giant sea creature, as well as a few other beasts so strange they’re impossible to describe! And all Joel is armed with is a crossbow and a mangy dog he finds along the way.
Joel fights for his life, almost dies a thousand times, saves his dog, gets saved by his dog, meets a father-like figure, meets an astronaut robot, almost dies a thousand more times, etc. There aren’t many things Joel doesn’t experience on this perilous journey. But will he make it to Aimee? And what will happen if he does? Will she be everything he hoped for?
This script. Was awesome.
Period.
It was awesome. Where do I begin? Oh, I know. I’ll begin at the end. Duffield arcs the dog character. You read that right. Duffield GIVES A CHARACTER ARC TO THE DOG! Remember the scene in Cast Away where Wilson, an inanimate object, floats away forever? And you were crying, desperately hoping your date or parents didn’t look over at that exact moment and see you drowning in tears?
There’s a moment that rivals that here with the dog. The dog, you see, was found clinging to the dress of his long-since disappeared female master. He won’t leave with Joel until Joel brings that dress with him. And he’s so stuck on that dress. He cares more about that dress than he does Joel. And then in the end (spoiler), that dress gets stuck in the ocean, where Joel is battling a monster, and he has a choice to either go after the dress or save Joel. And he picks Joel. He changes. The dog arcs. Not barcs. Arcs. And it was so fucking good you cried just like when Wilson died.
Oh, and did I tell you about the astronaut? Yeah. One of my favorite scenes all year has this robot astronaut, split in two, only wires holding her together, pulling herself across the terrain, bumping into Joel, explaining she only has 16 minutes left before her battery runs out. And the two just share her last moments together before she dies. And it’s heartbreaking. And I don’t fucking understand how anybody comes up with this stuff. We can talk about structure until the screencows come home. But you still have to have imagination. You still have to come up with unique choices. How does Duffield bring a nearly dead cut-in-half female robot astronaut into a story about monsters taking over the earth and make it work? I don’t know but it fucking makes me jealous.
And then there’s the ending. I’m not going to get into spoilers, but let’s just say what you thought was going to happen doesn’t happen. That ALSO is a trait of great writers. They take you to the place you think you’re going, then totally change things up on you. You realize the writer is in control. Not you.
There were a few other reasons I loved this script. The main character is a lovable loser. But when he befriends this dog and loses his loneliness, we officially fall in love with him. It’s really hard to have a character befriend a dog or save a dog and not like him. As ridiculous and simplistic as it sounds: we like people who love animals. Who will protect them. It’s crazy how obvious this is, yet when it’s done well, as it is here, it makes the character irresistible.
And I love stories where the obstacles are impossible, where the writer is never easy on his hero. His hero has to earn every step he takes. Remember in After Earth, where the main character is basically guided by his father the whole way? So he didn’t really earn anything? He just follows orders. Here, Joel earns every step he takes. He finds the solutions to all the problems. He outruns or outsmarts or outbeats all the monsters. And the sheer number of monsters he has to take on is ridiculous. At one point he’s trying to get over a rickety bridge when giant moths with needle teeth attack him, teeth that inject deadly venom into him, while a 3 headed T-Rex is trying to kill him, while he drops his only weapon, his crossbow, into the monster-infested waters below. There are so many moments like this where you wonder, “How the hell is he going to get out of this alive?” And because the odds are so heavily stacked against him, we hover over the page with baited breath, reading as fast as we can so we can get the answer.
And then at the heart of this script is… heart. See that’s the thing. All these big effects movies have zero heart, have zero characters we really care about. I mean does anybody in the world really care about Shia LaBeouf in Transformers? Here, we care about Joel. We care about his dog. Because Duffield knows that none of those effects will matter. This is about the character. And you will like Joel. You will love Joel. You will love this journey he goes on. You will be shocked by the ending. And when it’s over, it’ll be one of the few times you’ve finished a script and wished there were more pages to read.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive (TOP 25!!!)
[ ] genius
What I learned: The key to writing these scripts is mentally stripping out all the big creatures and monsters and robots and effects, and remembering that it’s a personal journey. Focus on making that personal journey work first. Make your audience fall in love with your main character and want them to succeed. And then build that effects world up afterwards. This is such simple advice and yet this is the first time I’ve seen it done in maybe two or three years? If you’re a big-budget writer, get this right and you’ll be golden.
What I learned 2: Choose action over dialogue to build a relationship. — Let’s say you only have one scene to make us care about a key relationship in your script. In this case, we’ll use Joel and the dog as the characters. Scene Option 1 has Joel talking to the dog over the fire. Scene Option 2 has both of them being attacked by a monster, and Joel has to make a choice between either saving himself or trying to save the dog. ALWAYS choose the second scene option. Action always accelerates a relationship faster than dialogue. Obviously, scripts are long so you’ll have the opportunity to do both, but always favor action over dialogue when you can.
I’m still mega-busy this week, which has eaten into my post time, but I’m determined to get articles up to make sure you guys continue to be equipped to tackle the hardest form of writing in the world! So a few weeks ago, I did a review on an amateur script titled, “Made in China.” At the end of the review, I mentioned that the script fell into that dreaded “pat on the back” category. And I got a lot of e-mails asking me to clarify what that meant.
Before I go into what makes a “pat on the back” script, let me start at the beginning. The worst kind of script you can write is a bad one. That’s the one where there are a lot of errors in the screenplay and little, if any, thought put into the concept, plot, or characters. The writer hasn’t studied screenwriting at all and it shows. From the very first page, everything’s a mess. These scripts constitute about 65% of the scripts I read.
A level up from that is the “finish line” script. This script typically entails a writer at the beginning of his journey who believes screenwriting is a lot easier than it actually is. Therefore, he ends up writing one draft of his script, maybe two, and believes he should win an award just for getting to the finish line. Like, “Hey, I wrote 110 pages. Where’s my million bucks?” This script is a step up from scripts where the writer doesn’t even know how to put a sentence together, but they are what they are: scripts whose only positive trait is that they actually got finished. There’s nothing of substance or interest in these screenplays at all. These scripts constitute 20% of the scripts I read.
That brings us to the “pat on the back” script. The “pat on the back” script typically comes from a writer who’s been putting a lot of effort into the craft. They’ve been at this for a few years at least, and therefore understand the value of a strong structure and a focused story. The strengths and weaknesses of these scripts will vary depending on the strengths and weaknesses of the writer (one might be strong in character while another might be strong in dialogue) but the consensus at the end of the script is always the same. The reader thinks to himself, “That wasn’t bad,” and then he closes the script and moves on to the next thing, forgetting about that script for the rest of his life. These scripts constitute about 10% of the scripts I read.
At first glance, this may seem unfair. You put all this effort into something and you actually managed to keep a reader’s attention for an entire ninety minutes. That’s extremely hard to do. But here’s the unfair reality of the screenwriting business. Producers and agents aren’t looking for “That wasn’t bad.” They’re either looking for “great” or “good enough to maybe make me money within a few years so I’m willing to take a chance on them.” The “pat on the back” script is just below that level, and therefore, despite the writer making it to an extremely high level in this craft (the “I can keep a reader’s attention” level), their skill is not recognized and they don’t get that coveted call back.
So what today’s article is about is getting to that coveted 5%, the writers who actually get representation, options, sales, and assignments. This is how you break out of “pat on the back” territory. It’s important to remember that the main issue with the “pat on the back” script is that nothing stands out. Everything is technically “fine,” but there isn’t a single element that raises the hair on your arms, that gives you goosebumps, that makes you sit up and pay attention. With that in mind, here are the five things you can do to avoid the dreaded pat on the back.
1) A big concept – This is the easiest way to leap frog the competition. And yet it’s probably one of the most ignored pieces of advice I give. I think I know why. Writers tend to think they’re the exception to the rule. They know that a big concept gives them an edge, but they also think their contemplative road trip coming of age story is going to turn the contemplative road trip coming of age genre on its head. So they write that instead. If you want to make things easier for yourself and not get that “pat on the back,” this is the fastest way to do it. Give us a big flashy concept. I’ll be reviewing a script that went into production next week about mass suicides due to scientists learning of proof of the afterlife. That’s what I mean by a big concept. Big concepts are like reader beer goggles. All of the mistakes in the screenplay wash away in the wake of a concept that can make someone money.
2) Something controversial – One of the best ways to avoid a pat on the back is to write something controversial. Controversy stirs up emotions. It gets people talking. And this gets to the core of what’s wrong with the “pat on the back” script. That script stirs up nothing. It’s the literary equivalent of potato soup. So anything you can do to stir up emotions and opinions is a plus. About ten years ago a script about Martin Luther King sold that painted his assassination as a conspiracy. That was controversial. A script that covered that same approach, but with Princess Diana, sold last year and is being made into a film. Controversy illicits a reaction, which is something you do not feel at the end of a bland controversy-less screenplay.
3) Something weird – This is the kind of script you hear about and people will go, “Wait WHAT?” Someone wrote a screenplay about that?” A great example is a script I reviewed a few months ago called “Bubbles,” a biopic about Michael Jackson told through the eyes of his pet monkey, Bubbles. We also saw it with the number 1 Black List script from five years ago, The Beaver, about a CEO who starts communicating with people exclusively through a beaver puppet he wears on his hand. If you can be weird, you won’t have to worry about getting that soul-crushing “thatta boy” pat on the back.
4) A super-unique voice – Unique voices allow the writer to easily stand out from the pack. The tough thing with a unique voice is you tend to have it or you don’t. It’s hard to craft a voice into something different from what you already have. It’s the equivalent of telling someone to change their personality. With that said, if you can find the more offbeat side of yourself, the side that observes the world a little differently from everyone around you, and write with that side in mind, you can craft something that should sound different from others. The king of the “super-unique voice” at the moment is Brian Duffield. He has an energetic off-beat style that isn’t afraid to go off the beaten path. One of my favorite scripts of his is Monster Problems, about an apocalyptic future where humans hide underground due to monsters taking over the planet. Oh yeah, and it’s told through a John Hughes-like comedic voice. That’s what I mean by “unique voice.”
5) A flashy key character – If you’re not into the whole “big concept” thing and would rather write a character piece, this is a nice consolation to ensure a “no pat on the back” policy. A big flashy character is actor catnip. To a producer, that says, “Ooh, I know [so and so big actor] would die to play this.” So even though your script might not be super marketable, have a huge concept, or even a unique voice, it can fetch a marketable actor, which immediately turns your script into a money-machine. There’s no secret here. Just think of a character that will pop off the page. Someone that’s fun, offbeat, crazy, won’t shut up, bi-polar, intense, unforgettable. Juno is a good example. Nightcrawler is even better. Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything. Clementine from Eternal Sunshine. The male or female lead in Silver Linings Playbook. Readers don’t forget big flashy characters. So even if the rest of your script is lacking, you can still win a reader over with character.
And that’s it, folks. Take one or a few of these tips into your next script and you’ll end up writing something a reader won’t forget. Good luck!
