Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: A teenage boy, Caleb, and his friends, all of whom live on a moon mining colony, take a road trip to an old cave to fulfill a wish from Caleb’s father.
About: This script just finished NUMBER 1 on The Hit List, which is the screenwriting community’s appetizer for the later-to-come Black List. The Hit List is run by The Tracking Board and consists of the best SPEC screenplays of the year (the Black List, by contrast, tabulates the best of all scripts, including assignments). Because most professional writers are being hired by studios to write their projects, and because the best way to break into the business is still with a good spec, the majority of the writers on The Hit List are writers getting noticed for the first time. To give you a little perspective on the list, Bubbles, which I thought was great, finished number 2. The Water Man, which I reviewed last week and absolutely loved, finished number 4. And Collateral Beauty, written by Allan Loeb, which created some debate on the site, finished number 19. Actually, a script that was featured here on the site, Carver Gray’s Unlawful, finished in front of Collateral, in the number 12 spot. Congrats, Carver!
Writer: John Griffin
Details: 113 pages
So to start off, a lot of you have been asking about the Scriptshadow 250 and when the damn announcements are going to be made. And I feel your impatience! The two hundred and fifty script reads amongst an already busy schedule was always going to be a challenge, but maybe I wasn’t prepared for just how challenging it was going to be.
So the reality is, if I have any hope of finishing this month, I’ll likely need to take a week off from posting to do so. And that week will likely be next week. I’ll be hunkering down like a Jawa during a sandstorm and calling upon my speed-reading Force powers to get things finished. I’ll keep you posted on how that’s going. But there’s a chance this could eat into Scriptshadow posting throughout the month, with Christmas Week coming right after that, and then the weird “nothing week” between Christmas and New Years.
What sucks is that we’re swinging into the heart of “Awards Season” for screenwriting, with The Hit List coming out last week and the Black List soon to follow. At the very least, we’ll get one of those scripts in to review, as “Crater” nabbed the top spot on this list. Let’s see if its lunar pattern matches up with good screenwriting.
It’s sometime in the future where we now have a mining colony on the moon. Caleb O’Connell, 14, is a son of one of the miners. A big reason Caleb’s father and the rest of these miners agreed to this gig was that their children got to go to “Omega,” a utopia planet that, normally, only the richest people get to go to. That timeline gets accelerated if your parent dies in the line of work, and Caleb’s dad just did. Which means in 72 hours, he’ll be on a ship to Omega.
The thing is, Caleb doesn’t want to leave his friends: the rebellious Dylan, the wimpy Borney, the slow-witted Marcus, and his newest friend, Addison. Addison isn’t like these kids though. She actually grew up on earth. Her father was a scientist, which makes her the one “scholar” of the group.
What we come to learn through Caleb’s flashbacks with his father, is that his father made him promise that if he ever died, Caleb would go on a road trip with his buddies to deliver an old piece of memorabilia (a bobblehead), that Caleb’s father once gave him, to a deserted moon cave. So that’s what Caleb does. He steals a moon rover with his four friends and the group heads out to complete the mission.
All of them then talk about the difficulties of being a moon miner’s kid, get their flirt on with the one female in the group, and ultimately learn to let their de facto captain (Caleb) go. The question is, when they run into trouble, will they be able to make it back to the moon colony alive?
I’m not sure I was prepared for this. I saw a number 1 script on the ultra-hip Hit List, I saw the genre “sci-fi,” I saw a title, “Crater,” that elicited a degree of edge. I went into this thing (keep in mind this was before I read the logline) thinking I was about to read something maybe Darren Aronofsky would want to direct.
So I was not expecting what I eventually got, which was “The Maze Runner meets Earth to Echo.” It was kind of like ordering a ribeye at the best steak house in town, only for a grilled cheese sandwich to show up. I like grilled cheese sandwiches… when I’m in the mood for them. In this case, I wanted the steak.
Griffin’s heart is in the right place. He’s trying to create a nostalgic teenage road trip film with heart – I’m guessing “Goonies on the moon?” And I have to give it him, he definitely created something unique.
The structure is pretty solid too. I liked that we had a time crunch here (they’ve got 72 hours). The stakes are high. These are the last moments these guys will ever spend together. There’s obstacles too. The meteor shower looms over their trip. And then, of course, there’s the goal of getting to the cave.
But the script starts sending out red flags almost immediately. One character is described as, “14 going on 15.” Ummm… what other age would he be going on to? And then the flashbacks to Caleb’s father begin. I don’t like flashbacks. But I can live with them if the rest of the script is good. However, we’d go into a flashback with Caleb and his father, only to then jump into Caleb’s father’s flashback of HIS OWN father. So we’d get a flashback within a flashback.
???
Caleb’s motivation is also murky. His father received an astronaut bobblehead from Caleb’s grandfather. So Caleb’s father gives the bobblehead to Caleb, making him promise that, if he dies, he’ll bring the bobblehead to the caves. Which I guess means that Caleb’s goal is to deliver something for a grandfather he’s never met??
Even more egregious, there’s a lot of sitting around and talking in Crater. The characters talk about everything from what earth’s like to religion to their parents’ divorces.
This kind of thing drives me crazy because it feels to the writer like they’re being “deep,” like they’re letting you into their character’s lives and learning more about them. But these scenes never resonate with readers. We don’t care if someone’s dad used to be mean or if someone is scared because when they were nine, their mom made them turn off the bedside light every night.
We care about NOW, specifically the actions our characters take. For the most part, movies are about putting your characters in peril (whether that peril be losing your food supply, like in The Martian, or losing your mind, like in Still Alice) and then seeing how they react to that peril. Actions will always speak louder than words.
Go watch Cast Away, which barely has a lick of dialogue for 90 minutes. Watch how that entire character is built on his actions. Even the similar Stand By Me, reveals so much more through action (running from the train, escaping the junkyard) than through sharing stories about each other.
And even small moments are botched in Crater. There’s a moment when the group has infiltrated an old deserted base. Late in the sequence, Addison walks into a room and sees a tree standing in the middle of it. She’s taken aback, gob-smacked, can’t believe what she’s looking at. But wait a minute. Isn’t Addison the one character who used to live on earth and therefore has seen a billion trees? Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to have one of the characters who’s never seen a tree be the one to discover and be gob-smacked by it?
I don’t know. Maybe that early bias put me on the offensive here. But even if I’d gone into this knowing what I was getting into, these issues are pretty huge. The concept’s different. So that’s good. But man, this was tough to get behind. There was so much that felt “off” about Crater. I’ll be honest. I’m kinda surprised this finished number 1.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Everybody in your story needs motivation to do what they’re doing. Mad Max doesn’t join Furiosa cause he’s up for a rollicking adventure. He joins her because teaming up with her is his best option at escape. One of the common mistakes I see in these “group goes on a journey” scripts, is that it doesn’t make sense why half the people are there! At some point the writer, usually through feedback, is alerted to this. They then try to solve the problem by doing what I call, “retrofitting motivation.” This is where they have one of the characters ask the motivation-less character why they’re doing this, and that character gives a vague unsatisfying answer of sorts (here, the answer from Caleb’s friends is, “You go where your friends need you to go.”) The writer now believes they’ve solved the problem but all they’ve done is highlight it. It’s so much better if you do the hard work ahead of time and give each character a personal reason for going on the journey – or, at the very least, something they need to achieve before the journey’s over. The character ends up feeling more like an individual as well as more active. I didn’t get that from any of the supporting characters here, which contributed to my issues with the script.
Each week myself or one of the site’s readers will suggest an obscure, unknown, or under-appreciated film that you guys can then watch on a Lazy Sunday and discuss the screenwriting merits of. If you’re interested in submitting a suggestion, e-mail me at Carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the movie and a 300 word “pitch” on why you think people would enjoy the film. Together, I hope we can all find some hidden gems.
I wish someone would come up with an idea like this today. Ironically, The Freshman was way ahead of its time. It was not a big hit by any means, and it’s likely because the concept was too odd for the average moviegoer. In a time where it was harder to reach the niche film customer, the film didn’t get the credit it deserved. But this is the kind of script that, today, would finish #1 on The Black List. I’d suggest going into it not knowing anything, but if you need a little nudge, here’s the logline: A struggling film school student gets involved with a mobster involved in an extremely eccentric underground activity.
What you see above? That is all I want for Christmas. I’m serious. If you want to thank me for any help on the screenwriting front, bless me with that sugar parade. That is all the thanks I need. I just want to mash that thing in my face. Like rub the chocolate all over my forehead and then stuff it in my mouth. Then wrap the second cup up and hide it like a squirrel for later. Wait until the family is asleep and then sneak in another face-mashing session. Okay, now this is just getting weird. But the 2 pound reeses is not weird. It is wonderful. And I wish a merry Christmas to whomever eats one. Or two. Or three.
Title: Weep, Crave, Loathe
Genre: Comedy
Logline: Three socially impaired women, who think they have superpowers during PMS, believe they must find the remedy to menopause or risk losing their powers forever.
Why You Should Read: This is my attempt at a superhero script where there are no actual superpowers. It’s just three women who make some questionable choices because of issues with self-perception. It’s meant to be farcical fun so the humor tends towards sophomoric and crude. Curious what you think.
Thanks ahead of time if you take a look.
Title: Throw Away Love
Genre: Thriller
Logline: A disillusioned trophy wife has an affair with a photographer, unaware that he’s a serial killer.
Why You Should Read: I refined the logline in the comments section during the Thanksgiving Holiday. I got great feedback and now I’m hoping to get some more great feedback on the rest of the script. This script takes inspiration from films like “Body Heat”, “Unfaithful”, “Blood Simple”, and “Fatal Attraction”. I decided to write a Thriller because it’s a sell-able genre. “Throw Away Love” is the first script I’ve written since discovering Scriptshadow. From the initial idea, all the way to this current draft, I’ve made a concentrated effort to incorporate many of the tips from this site. I’m really excited to see how I’ve grown as a writer since discovering this site and its community.
Title: Recon
Genre: Action/Sci-fi
Logline: An Alien invasion seen through the eyes and the perspective of an Alien soldier. [Cloverfield meets Independence Day]
Why You Should Read: Well, if I won the lottery tomorrow, I’d spend the majority of the day splurging on a bunch’a nonsense that I’ve always dreamed of having… and then come home and type “FADE IN”. So yes, my name is Landon Collins and I’m an aspiring scribe [“Hiiii, Landon”]. Twice placed in the Nicholl Fellowships including 2015 as a Quarterfinalist. “RECON” is not my Nicholl script, but instead, it’s my latest script that’s been toiling in the back of my mind for about 5 years, and I just now gathered the testicular fortitude to hash it out this year. Not since my first couple of scripts a decade ago have I had as much fun writing and I hope you have at least half as much fun reading it.
Title: For Your Eyes Only
Genre: Espionage thriller
Logline: James Bond undertakes an unofficial mission of revenge in the first true adaptation of Ian Fleming’s story since it entered the public domain
Why You Should Read: I’m sending this script in response to your recent post (Increase Your Chances of Selling a Screenplay 100-fold). The public domain is fascinating, if tricky, place to play, with opportunities and potholes in equal measure. I’m hoping to get through without breaking an axel. In short: on January 1, 2015, Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels entered the public domain in Canada (and in numerous other territories worldwide, including the mega-market of China). I saw an opportunity, and wrote a feature screenplay based on Fleming’s short story For Your Eyes Only. The script presents a fully realized James Bond (no, it’s not another origin story, because who needs that?) at a crucial turning point in his life and follows him through an adventure that sets up a proposed four-film series — along with a potential spin-off series and cross-media tie-in content, both adapted and original. So yes, I’m thinking big here. — I think this could be an interesting case-in-point for your argument (or a cautionary tale, depending on how things work out). I had to contend with exactly what you describe in your article: how to tell a familiar story in a fresh way; how to breath new life into a character everyone knows; how to simultaneously meet and thwart expectations. Even if it never gets produced, this was one of the most educational screenplays I’ve ever written. (I have six produce features under my belt thus far, all very indie; this, if it got made, would be a whole new phase of my career.) — I’m pretty happy with the script now, but I don’t bruise easily, so I’m open for some honest criticism. (Btw, my choice for Bond: Cillian Murphy.)
Carson, you made a mistake.
You passed over this script for the 250. I understand these things happen, but lemme help correct that and show you my chops.
I’m a Chicago man like yourself and you picked my twin brother’s script for the 250 and amateur offerings and now he has a big head and is giving me shit. Among brothers, this cannot stand.
Here’s my submission:
Title: Team Deathmatch
Genre: Comedy
Logline: When a crusty workaholic gets canned for an office meltdown, he must work together with his burnout son to win a million dollar video game competition and save their house from foreclosure.
Why You Should Read:
Because I wanna make you feel good.
Yeah…
That’s right.
But sadly, I can’t touch you. So let my script touch you… in the best way possible… and make you feel good.
E-sports (video games in non-douchey terms) is an untapped subculture ripe for parody. And these people go to the movies for R-rated comedies. Nice.
On top of that… day jobs can suck. So who can’t get behind a protagonist leaving his/her work-a-day life for a shot rarified glory, financial security, and more time with his/her family? That’s what this story is about.
But don’t all movies remotely tied to video games end up as catastrophic failures? Well… yeah. But this ain’t them. NOBODY has approached the video game subculture from this angle. Games, particularly ‘e-sports’, are GROWING in popularity. They aren’t going away and somebody’s gonna get it right. Eventually. Maybe now?
So spend some time with me, yeah? I’ll make it worth your while.
Get Your Script Reviewed On Scriptshadow!: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, along with the title, genre, logline, and finally, something interesting about yourself and/or your script that you’d like us to post along with the script if reviewed. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Remember that your script will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effects of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Premise (from writer): When a desperate man drags his depressed wife and step-daughter to rural Germany for family support; what he discovers instead are dark cult roots, an isolated hippy haven, and the terrifying realization that they may not be free to leave alive.
Why You Should Read (from writer): My name is Alex Ross, and my screenplay, HEXEN, won the grand prize in the Script Pipeline competition (out of 3,500 scripts) and is also highly rated on the Black List as “top unrepresented horror”. Here’s why I would like the script to be reviewed: I see HEXEN as a fresh take on a very stale and predictable genre. It’s a throwback to the thrillers from the 70’s (Rosemary’s Baby, The Shining, Don’t Look Now), but with a modern, realistic approach. It purposely breaks the tired “rules” of horror storytelling, which audiences have come to expect by now. A main protagonist vanishes half-way through, character’s motives are ambiguous, and the ending is left somewhat open-ended. Say what you will about the script… one thing it’s not, is predictable. However, it has alienated some who are looking for something a little more mainstream, and I’m finding it difficult to find industry pros who can see outside the box, and who are willing to take a chance and get behind it. I need all the help I can get…
Writer: Alex Ross
Details: 97 pages
Swweeeeet. We’ve got a contest winner here! Always fun to see which script beat out thousands of others. No time to waste so let’s get to it!
40-something Julian Nichols never expected his life to turn out this way. He recently got laid off. He and his wife, Anna, have grown so distant, they barely talk anymore. And they’ve got a beautiful young daughter, Jenny, who they’ve got to support with no income.
That’s why we meet them at the airport. The family is headed to Germany, where Anna used to live. She had a tough childhood, growing up in one of those commune-cult situations with a crazy fucking dad who thought mass-suicides were the bee’s knees.
They’ve gotten word that her father is on his deathbed and if they come and show their faces, sign a few documents, that large piece of land he owns could result in a desperately needed slice of the profit pie. Neither of them want to be here, but it’s a necessary evil.
Once they get to the secluded commune-turned-farm, they start meeting the folks that run the place, including Anna’s brothers, alpha-male Christian and mentally disturbed Thomas. Rounding out the Trio of Weird is Michael, a large man who has a strange fetish for calling people “moron.”
Julian’s surprised by how forthright Christian is. He tells him the whole story about their fucked up commune life and how Anna’s dad used to video tape her 24-7. Not creepy at all. But the longer the stay goes on, the sketchier Christian gets. He and the rest of the former compounders like to do drugs. Like, a LOT of drugs.
It isn’t long before Julian and Anna realize every drink they’ve had has been spiked, and therefore they start hallucinating, trying to figure out what’s real and what isn’t. Julian also wants to get to the bottom of where the fuck Anna’s dad is. He needs that money and he can’t get it until they deal with these documents.
What Julian will soon find out is that documents are the least of his worries. This friendly drug-loving bunch may not have left compound life behind after all…
I’d say all the way up to page 45, I was tagging Hexen as a double-worth-the-read. I thought the setting was scrumptious, the conflict was original, the suspense (something we’ve been obsessed with all week) was off the charts. And even the one thing that, if the writers master the other stuff, they eventually fail at – the character development – was strong. All the characters here had rich and intriguing backstories that added sweetness to an already sugary story.
And I’ll tell you the exact moment I knew I was dealing with something good here. It was the introduction of Christian. We see him through a child’s eyes. Jenny, the daughter, spots him butchering a still squealing pig for the compound’s food supply. I’m a huge believer that you sell a character not through what they say or what they look like or what they’re wearing (although those help). You do it through action. Meeting Christian butchering this pig immediately set up who he was.
Alex continued this throughout the script. For Thomas, the half-retarded brother, we see him playing with a group of young girls. When Jenny pricks her finger and it starts bleeding, the other compound girls say, “Lick it and make it better.” So Thomas looks both ways, sticks her finger in his mouth to “stop the bleeding,” and pulls it out, blood free. Whenever a writer is looking to convey character through action, he’s ahead of 80% of writers out there.
And then there was the suspense. It’s almost like Alex went forward in time to read my Pay-As-You-Go article, then went back and wrote this script. There were so many mysteries about this compound, about the people in it, about our heroes’ own histories, about what these compound people were going to do to our heroes. With all these unanswered questions, we had no choice but to keep paying.
In fact, Alex was so good with suspense that even when I stopped enjoying the script, I STILL had to see what happened next.
Wait a minute, Carson. You were so excited about this script a second ago. What do you mean when you “stopped enjoying it?”
Here was my problem with Hexen. It started out strong. But then it got sloppy. Once the script brought in the drug angle, and characters started hallucinating, the strong and sure hand of the writer seemed to get replaced by a genetically engineered jello man afflicted with Parkinson’s. It was almost like Alex stopped trusting himself. It was one drug-induced scene after another. Lots of hallucinations. Lots of “did that really happens.”
And don’t get me wrong. A good drug-induced vision can kick ass. The Rosemary’s Baby drug-induced group-rape scene is one of the most memorable in film history. But when you’re doing it over and over again, it starts feeling sloppy. And I know Alex built the drug-culture into the story. So these visions were motivated. But I can’t support a choice that deliberately makes a script feel sloppy. I just can’t.
And with the last 40 pages of this script reading like this, I had to concede that a script that started off destined to win Best Amateur Friday script of the year, left me feeling frustrated and confused.
This is a tough one. Hexen is like one of those relationships where the two parties fight all the time but still love each other. Those relationships are worth fighting for. I’m just not sure Alex is interested in bringing this script to the place it needs to be to get industry people interested.
He says in his “Why I Think You Should Read” that he’s finding it difficult to get industry pros to see outside the box. That’s the wrong way to think. It’s not up to anybody to see outside the box. It’s up to you to make the world outside the box so alluring that the industry has no choice but to see outside of it. If people are having trouble getting something from your script, take it upon yourself. Never put it on them.
Part of the problem is that Alex won this contest. That’s validation that what he’s done is right. So it’s natural to think nothing should be changed. But I know exactly why this script won that contest despite being imperfect. Because Alex is a good fucking writer. He knows concept, he knows character, he knows dialogue, he knows description, he knows suspense. The average contest-entrant is lucky to know one of those things.
But just like being a great singer doesn’t always equate to releasing a great song, being a good writer doesn’t mean you’ve written a great script. I think Alex needs to take a long hard look at this decision to make the second half of his script one giant drug-trip. He’s right. It’s different. But as I’ve said a million times before, different doesn’t always mean “good.”
I’d advocate for a cleaner and clearer second-half structure. What about you guys? Did the drug-trip second half work for you? If not, why? What can he do to fix it?
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me (but first half xx worth the read!)
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: If you’re resting on the black-out move a lot, you’re probably not trying hard enough. The black-out move is when your character gets hit over the head and wakes up later. This is considered sloppy because it’s an easy way to get your character from one setting to the next without having to do the hard work of figuring out the transition. Alex uses versions of the black-out move nearly a dozen times here. I’d suggest re-watching The Wicker Man. That movie is similar to this one, and they never once use a black-out move. It’s possible. It just takes more effort.
After yesterday’s review of an older (better) draft of I Am Legend, it became clear to me just how few writers understand suspense. And by that I mean REALLY UNDERSTAND IT. Not understand it in an abstract sense, which I think most writers do. But understand it in a way where they can draw upon the technique when needed to keep a reader’s attention. I find this frightening as the more I study screenwriting, the more I believe that suspense is the gas that keeps the car moving.
My big issue yesterday came when the writers replaced the “capture the creature” storyline with Robert (our hero) finding more survivors (a woman and her son). In the first case, we have suspense up the ying-yang. We’re not sure what the creatures look like yet since they’re hidden under wrappings. We’re unsure what’s going to happen when Robert tries to nurse it back to health. When it starts to become human, we’re curious whether Robert will be able to change it all the way back. We’re curious if the two will build a trusting relationship. We don’t know if Richard’s blood will run out before he can save the creature.
On the flip side, with the woman and her son, the level of suspense amounted to: “Yeah, we survived just like you did. Cool.” We know everything about their situation within a scene or two. That’s not to say the writers couldn’t have created suspense with the mom-son characters. Maybe we imply that she’s dodgy, or that there’s something off about the kid. Could she be hiding something about him? Those are elements of suspense that [maybe] would’ve kept us interested in that storyline. But again, the re-writers clearly didn’t understand the technique and therefore were incapable of using it.
So to help you guys avoid the disastrous trap that the I Am Legend re-writers found themselves in, I’ve come up with a different way to look at suspense. It requires that you see a movie not as one giant story, but rather a series of smaller sections.
The goal is to make the audience want to keep getting to the next section. I refer to this approach as “pay-as-you-go.”
I want you to imagine you’re going to see a movie, but instead of plopping down 20 freaking hard-earned dollars to get in the theater, you only have to pay 2 dollars to get in. Then, if you still want to watch after 15 minutes, you have to pay 2 more dollars. Then 15 minutes later 2 more dollars. And so on and so forth until the movie ends. So under this scenario, if at the end of the first 15 minutes you’re bored as shit, you can leave the theater and save 18 dollars! Ditto at any point in the movie. If you’re halfway in and bored, you can leave and still keep 10 bucks.
Now I want you to imagine someone watching YOUR movie under this pay-as-you-go system. Be honest. Would people for sure, without question, pay 2 bucks after your first 15 minutes to keep watching? “Maybe” doesn’t count. “Maybe” is always “no.” I’m asking if they’d pay to keep watching without even hesitating.
While this may sound like a hypothetical scenario, it’s the scenario hundreds of producers/agents/managers/readers go through every day. Because while they may not be investing money for every 15 pages they read, they’re investing TIME, which to them is more valuable. Hence, “pay-as-you-go” still applies. You must be able to hook them from section to section all the way until the end.
But Carson, you say, how can you possibly create a screenplay that does this? Screenplays are complicated. They ebb and they flow and what happens on page 15 is 180 degrees different from what happens on page 75. How in the world can anyone design a script to make sure that a reader always wants to read the next 15 pages?
I’ll tell you exactly how.
Suspense.
Inside of every 15 pages, you introduce a question and then withhold the answer to that question until the next 15 pages (or the 15 pages after that, or the 15 pages after that). As long as the question you introduce is intriguing, and as long as you don’t tell us what it is right away, the reader won’t have any choice but to keep reading into the next section. And yes, if you’re doing this right, they’ll pay you 2 extra dollars for access to those next 15 minutes every time.
Whether it’s the uncertainty brought about by Robert Nelville capturing and nursing back to health a zombie, the curiosity of whether Matt Damon is going to solve his food problem in “The Martian,” or the mystery of why the grandparents are acting so bizarre in M. Night’s, “The Visit.” Set up a question, wait to give the answer.
You’ll usually create one giant question (Will the groomsmen find the missing groom in The Hangover?) that drives the entire script and then a series of smaller to medium questions that drive the scene-to-scene interest of the reader. These are the elements you use to keep the reader reading from one section to the next. Drop the ball on one section by not including any suspense? The reader gets bored and stops paying.
Now when I trumpet this method to writers, there’s invariably a group that cry foul. “But Carson,” they argue, “There are some sections of a script that are designed to be slow. Not every section can be entertaining. Sometimes you have to be boring now in order to be exciting later. You know, cause of set-ups and payoffs and what not.” Um, to put it bluntly. NO. No no no nonnononononono. nO. nooo. Nononononoo NOOOOOOO. No nononononoonononoon. NonnONOnonOno.
And no.
While the intensity of your script’s entertainment level will vary over the course of the screenplay, the reader MUST ALWAYS BE ENTERTAINED, including during the “slow” sections. I’ll give you an example of exactly this since I just finished an amateur script which contained no suspense.
The script followed a group of backpackers into a mountain looking for a sasquatch-like creature. The group was being led by a local Sherpa. The first 50 pages of this script were slow as molasses dipped in peanut butter. We meet all these characters but nothing interesting is happening. We’re just getting to know them and their situations as they climb higher and higher into the mountain. This ended up being my biggest note on the script, and I made it clear that if the writer didn’t address the issue, the script was doomed.
The writer adamantly defended his work, saying he wanted to make the first half of the script a slow-burn and more “realistic.” I mentally winced. Whenever I hear someone say they’re going for a ‘slow-burn’ under the pretense that it’s okay to be boring, I want to jump out of my skin. I explained that that’s not how slow-burns work. Slow-burns ONLY WORK if the writer is actively injecting suspense along the way (read that five times before ever writing a slow-burn script again).
So I said to him, start with this. Early on in the mission, after they’ve set up camp, have your main character go to ask the Sherpa something. When he comes up to the Sherpa’s tent, have him hear the Sherpa talking to someone. He gets closer and listens. He hears bits and pieces of a phone call. “…don’t worry, they have no idea…” And “…yeah, the youngest is going to go first.” The Sherpa then senses someone outside and quickly hangs up.
This is the perfect example of “pay-as-you-go” writing. Our screenwriter is still able to set everyone up nice and slowly like before. But now he’s injected some questions into the story that the audience needs answered (susssspensssse!!!). Who is the Sherpa talking to? What does our group have “no idea” about? And what does he mean the youngest is going to go first? Go first into what? The only way for us to find out is read the next 15 pages. So we pay to move on.
That’s an admittedly simplistic example but I’m trying to make the point as simply as possible. And once you get good at this stuff, you can start adding more complex versions of suspense. That’s what I liked about Logan’s draft of I Am Legend. Robert capturing one of the creatures wasn’t a simple question-and-answer version of suspense. It led to multiple questions (can he save this creature? Who did it used to be? Will he make a connection with it?) all of which could only be answered after spending numerous scenes with the creature.
So to summarize: Every 15 pages of your script should pose at least one question that will not be answered within those 15 pages. This is the pay-as-you-go approach. If you’re not utilizing the pay-as-you-go format and are, instead, answering every question right there in the moment (or worse, not posing any questions at all), readers will have no incentive to keep reading and audience members will have no incentive to keep watching.
You’ve just leveled up as a screenwriter.
I beg of you to only use this new power for good.
