Come one, come all. You can get 4 pages of notes on your feature or pilot script for just $199!
I’m only giving out 5 of these, people. Maybe one or two extra. It depends on how into the holiday spirit I am. You do not need to have a finished script yet. You just have to pay before the end of the weekend. You can take as much time as you want to get me your script.
If interested, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com with subject line: BLACK FRIDAY
Also, I wanted to remind you that this month’s Logline Showdown is NEXT WEEK. So I need your entries in by Thursday night!
What: November Logline Showdown
Send me: the logline for any script you have (features will take precedence over pilots but if you’ve got the best tv show idea ever, send it in)
I need: The title, genre, and logline
Also: Your script must be written because I’ll be reviewing the winning entry the following week
When: Deadline is Thursday, November 30th, 10:00pm Pacific Time
Send entries to: carsonreeves3@gmail.com
Remember that the comments section is a great place to battle-test your logline. So feel free to spend the weekend trying out loglines and getting feedback. You’ve got almost an entire week so do everything you can to get those loglines in tip-top shape!
Finally, I’m making a really fun announcement in this month’s newsletter so if you’re not signed up, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com with subject line: NEWSLETTER. What’s the announcement? Let’s just say I’m taking over your entire 2024 and turning you into a repped and working screenwriter. :)
Genre: Crime/True Story
Premise: Based on a true story, a young Los Angeles Sheriff’s dream job sours when he realizes that the department he serves in is mired in corruption and a systemic culture of moral depravity. Based on a true story.
About: Today’s script comes from a Scriptshadow veteran, Kevin Sheridan. I’ve done some consultations with Kevin in the past when he was just a young eager screenwriter, so it’s great to see his career continue to progress. The script finished with 14 votes on last year’s Black List.
Writer: Kevin Sheridan
Details: 123 pages
Gordon-Levitt for Sexton?
I think I need to hire FanofYou, the commenter who turned me onto yesterday’s awesome screenplay, Himbo, and now this script, Colors of Authority. This would make my job so much easier because I’d always get to read good scripts! The man (or woman) seems to know what makes for a sharp screenplay.
Better yet, let’s take a look at the process that led to these two discoveries, as it’s a great lesson to screenwriters everywhere. The way that FanofYou found these screenplays was (and FanofYou can correct me if I’m wrong here) to read the first page of every screenplay that made the Black List to learn what the writing bar was for a Black List script.
Himbo and Colors of Authority were the only scripts that, after reading the first page, he felt compelled to keep reading. And then keep reading. And then keep reading. All the way to the end.
This is what I’ve always preached on the site. People have ZERO ATTENTION SPAN. So you have to write a great first page to pull them in, and then a great second page, and a third, and a fourth. You have to make it impossible to stop reading. Let me say that again. The strategy of writing a screenplay should be:
I have to make it impossible for the reader to stop reading.
But the strategy I see most screenwriters employ is:
I’m going to tell a story and I expect the reader to care.
In other words, they think they have leeway to start slow or casually set up a bunch of characters or throw in the occasional average scene. No. No no no no no. The reader owes you nothing. Actually, it’s worse than that. The reader reads so much bad stuff that they actively don’t trust you. They think you’re bad before they’ve even opened your script. You need to prove them wrong. And that’s why you need to start on page one.
So what does page one look like here? It uses a nifty little trick that gets you to page two.
We, of course, could’ve started inside the car. But how interesting would that have been? Jumping from this random shot of the animals (which is actually a set up for a later moment) into the car is a creative choice that says: “I’m not going to write your typical boring obvious script. I’m actually thinking about how to entertain you.”
Deputy James Sexton is part of a Los Angeles special unit called OSJ, which stands for Operation Safe Jails. The LAPD realized that all the information they need about gangs and criminals is right there in their jails and prisons. So James and his team interrogate and observe prisoners, getting any little bit of info they can so they can make these colossal busts.
But one day, while James and his partner, Tony, are watching a video feed of a prisoner-of-interest, they see him discreetly pass a manila envelope to one of the guards. James and Tony decide to follow the guard, who drives to a remote neighborhood where he meets up with three LA cops, and makes a drug exchange with an Aryan gang.
James and Tony are gobsmacked. They now have to make a crucial decision. Do they write up a report on these men? Cause if they do, and things go sideways, they’ll be seen as snitches. James believes it’s the right thing to do so he writes up the report for their superior, Lt. Gutterson (described as a man “with the gravitas of a four-ton boulder.”)
Big problem. Gutterson doesn’t call back, doesn’t write back, doesn’t e-mail, doesn’t text. He ghosts them. That’s when James realizes… they’re f*&%d. James and Tony are blasted all over an internal company memo, which means every cop now knows they snitched on fellow cops. Nobody seems to be seeing this the right way. Which is that cops are in cahoots with the Aryan Brotherhood.
James’s wife gets felt up on a traffic stop. Tony’s mother’s home gets targeted. And it’s clear that’s only the beginning. The goal here will be to snuff these two out. The LAPD just has to find the right time to do it. As if all of that isn’t bad enough, James’s father, a famous Sheriff from the South, joins the very team James is trying to take down. James realizes that his only way of getting out of this is with the help of the FBI. The problem is, the FBI wants something in return. They want James to take down his entire division.
The reason it took me so long to read this script is that when you see loglines for scripts like this, you know it’s going to be WORK. You see intense concentration, keeping notes for long character lists, intricate plot beats that could blow right by you unless you catch every little nuance in the screenplay.
When you’re reading a script like that and it’s bad? It’s one of the worst experiences you can have. Cause not only do these scripts take three times as long to read. But none of that extra work is rewarded. So if you’re going to write one of these, it HAS to be good. Luckily, Kevin’s script is.
That moment where James and Tony see the cops making the deal with the skinheads, that’s what hooked me. I love it when writers put their characters in situations that don’t have a right choice. Both options are bad. If James writes up the officers, he risks being outed, and in the process his career (maybe even his life) destroyed. But if he doesn’t write them up and someone else takes the unit down, he’ll go down with them. So he can’t stay silent either.
Most writers write these false “don’t have a choice” scenarios. This is how it looks when it’s done right. We feel that if this were real life, that the protagonist truly wouldn’t have a good choice.
I also love stand-out bad guys. Gutterson was perfect. He not only ignores James’ write-up on the matter, he tries to take James down for it! Is there anyone more hatable than someone who represents good who’s secretly bad and will take out all good people who threaten him?
The script was well on its way to an “impressive” rating through the first half and while it’s still a good script, the second half wasn’t as strong. There’s an intense subplot involving James’ Sheriff father, who’s good friends with the top brass at the LAPD. This provided a safety net that told me James was always going to be okay. None of these dudes are going to kill James if his dad asks them not to. I know Kevin was trying to create this intense plot between father and son. But I’m not convinced it was worth it for that reason.
Also, James becomes less active as the script goes on. As soon as the FBI grabs him, James is basically waiting for them to tell him how high to jump. He has little moments of activity, of breaking out. But in the first half of the script, he was making all of these strong active choices. He felt more like a hero. For the second half, his character basically resorted to worrying a lot.
But that can be fixed. The script still works. I would be shocked if this didn’t become a movie with a big director and some heavy-hitting actors. It’s got that “Departed” aroma wafting off of it. And Kevin is really good at placing his hero in these impossible-to-navigate situations. It’s so fun to watch the main character in a burning building and every exit is blocked. What do you do?
What. Do. You. Do?
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: You must use names that have RECALL in a script like this. Intricately plotted scripts with lots of characters work great on screen because faces are easy to remember, especially since movies are cast to make each character look distinctive. But you don’t have that advantage on the page. So pick names with RECALL, names that contain visual personality. Gutterson and Baca over Smith and Davis. I know the irony here is that these are all real people. So Kevin lucked out a little bit. But if you want to make sure your reader can keep up with what’s going on, RECALL NAMES should be a huge part of your naming strategy.
It may have taken an entire calendar year, but we may have just found the best script on the 2022 Black List.
Genre: Thriller/Dark Comedy
Premise: A male stripper in Arizona who’s sleeping with his boss’s wife is propositioned by her to kill her hubby and run away together but things get complicated when they learn about the boss’s improbable money-making venture.
About: Jason Hellerman is an example of why it’s hard out there for screenwriters. He wrote a movie, Shovel Buddies, in 2015, but has struggled to find work since. At this point, he doesn’t even have an agent or manager. But he was still able to get this script onto last year’s Black List.
Writer: Jason Hellerman
Details: 90 pages
Jacob Elordi for Kevin Kreamer?
I forgot which commenter recommended this to me.
But THANK YOU!
Wow, this gem was hidden beneath all these vanilla obvious straightforward Black List screenplays and we didn’t know it! But if we were smart, we could’ve figured it out. Himbo was the only script on the Black List that didn’t have an agent, manager, or producer.
For those who don’t know, agents and managers pump their clients’ scripts into as many hands as possible in the hopes that when voting time comes, the sheer number of people who read it will result in enough votes to make the Black List.
But if you didn’t have someone pimping your script and you STILL got enough votes to make the list??? That’s nearly impossible to do and a sign that you have a REALLY good script. Cause it’s the rare instance of your script getting passed around organically. Which is actually how the original Black List was conceived, before people learned to manipulate it.
This one’s so wild, I’m going to need you to put on your hazmat suits.
We’re in some mid-sized town in Arizona and 20-something dimwitted Kevin Kreamer (stage name) is a male stripper working at Hot Dawgs Strip Club. Hot Dawgs is owned by 50-something Argento Papadakis, who’s one of the few people around town who actually has real money.
One night after Kevin performs, he asks Argento for a ride home, but first Argento has to help his wife, former stripper Lisa, who got a flat tire on the highway. As Kevin helps change the flat, Lisa stares at him like a dog in heat. It’s clear that Argento and Lisa’s marriage is not going well.
Later, when Kevin gets home, none other than Lisa is waiting for him. We learn that the flat tire was a setup so that they could both throw Argento in front of a passing semi and get away with murder. That’s right. Kevin and Lisa are banging. And as soon as they kill Argento, they can run off together with his money and live happily ever after. But Kevin chickened out during the plan. So now they’ll have to do it some other way.
A couple of nights later, after work, Argento and Kevin get wasted, and Argento shows him his big secret. You see, Argento was actually dead broke. Until he stumbled upon a small hidden cave in the Arizona desert. And in that cave? Gold shavings everywhere. You set up a dozen sieves in key places where the water weaves through the cracks, bringing unlimited gold shavings with it, and those sieves are full of gold every time you came back. Argento, who’s been secretly in love with Kevin, offers him all of this if they can be together. And Kevin says yes.
Kevin then heads home to Lisa and tells her it’s over. He doesn’t want to kill Argento anymore. Lisa is furious and starts yelling at him. What neither of them know, however, is that Argento’s been dying to get out of this marriage and only needed proof of Lisa cheating to meet the prenup’s standard of her getting zero in the divorce. So he hired a PI to catch her in the act.
He finally confronts her. But he had no idea Lisa was cheating on him with Kevin. Devastated, he goes home, butthurt, and he tells his PI, “You want to make some real money? Kill them both.” The PI (a crazed woman named Melanie) doesn’t blink. She’s in. Until she overhears something about this cave of gold. Now she, and Lisa, and Kevin, all want what they believe they deserve – a literal money-making cave. Will they get it? Or will they all perish in their greedy pursuit?
This is a small thing but as soon as I saw that this story was set in a small Arizona town, I had a good feeling. Let me explain. When I pick up a script, it is almost always set in New York, Los Angeles, Texas, Paris, London, sometimes Chicago — all the big obvious places.
My belief is that most screenwriters are on cruise-control without realizing it. They’re not trying to be cliche. But they go with the first thing that pops into their head – whether that be a character, a scene, a location. So they’re setting their stories in these locations without even realizing it.
You have to understand that, as a reader, we’re always wanting to be taken to some place new. Cause the new places have things that we haven’t experienced before. For a writer to set their story in Arizona tells me that they’re not like every other writer. So, immediately, I felt good about this script. It turned out, my instincts were right.
The descriptions here were a cut above the average script. Like when we first get inside Kevin’s tiny house, here’s the first description line:
“A front door that has a view of the backdoor.”
Simple. Clever. Descriptive. I rarely see that combo.
This was followed by several fun exchanges. Such as this one…
KEVIN: My mom said money makes you more of who you really are on the inside.
ARGENTO: That’s how I know you’re poor.
And then you had these characters. Every one had something that differentiated them from the characters that I usually come across. Here’s the introduction of Melanie, the PI who Argento hires…
You also have a writer who understands shorthand. He understands that a script needs to move. So, at a certain point, Argento decides he wants to catch his wife in the act of cheating. Now, normally, when you’re writing a plot line such as this, your mind thinks linearly. You think, “Okay, Argento has to hire a PI. He doesn’t know any PIs. So he has to go to some office, interview the guy, tell him what he wants, and then the guy accepts the job and we’re off to the races.”
But that’s boring and logical and there’s too much boring setup involved. So, instead, we show Argento at a diner, ready to meet the PI, and this woman sits down across from him and she’s like, “Okay, let’s rock.” He has no idea who she is. He’d sent a message to an old PI friend he knew from before to come help him out. But it turns out that guy is dead and his daughter, this woman, has taken over the company. As soon as he realizes that, we’re off to the races.
This is what I mean by “shorthand.” Instead of taking time out of your script to do logical boring stuff (go find a PI and tell the PI your whole reason for being there) so that you can get to the fun stuff, you come up with a way to fast-forward through that. He always knows this girl’s family. Her dad worked for him. A thousand times more interesting and we move quicker into the PI plot.
And then, the dialogue was just so good here throughout – a cut above 99% of the dialogue I read. Even some of the dialogue hawks who snipe down any dialogue I post here are going to have to admit this dialogue is better than all the other scripts on the Black List.
Finally, the script has this “lived in” quality. What I mean by that is, the writer has lived with this script for so long that he’s added a million little things so that it all feels connected. It doesn’t feel like one of those scripts where the writer was figuring it out as he went along.
For example, there’s this whole running gag with dumb Kevin trying to keep up with Lisa, who’s really smart. So his bible is Google. He loves googling and learning things. And he’s always telling these things to Lisa and it pisses her off. She always tells him to stop with the Google. Late in the script, when she’s trying to make this grand point, she brings up the infamous story of the guy who sold Victoria’s Secret for 500 grand only to then “put a gun in his mouth after he sold out because he couldn’t deal with missing a chance at a fortune that lasts past this life.”
While she’s been telling the story, Kevin has been pecking at his phone, clearly googling the story, and he turns to her and replies. “It says he jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.” And she’s, of course, livid.
That’s a very lived-in response. You don’t figure that moment out the first time through the script. You’re still feeling everything out. That’s the kind of thing where you’re going back through the screenplay numerous times, have read through the same sequence over and over, and then it finally hits you – hey, this is a good place to use that running google joke.
Outside of getting a little sloppy at the end, this was a really good script. It’s definitely going to finish in the top 5 of my 2022 Black List re-ranking. If you can find it (and someone may have it in the comments section) definitely read it!
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: The power of the “WTF” script element. I already liked this script. But the second this random gold cave entered the equation, I loved it. I have never encountered something like that in a script like this before. Getting a WTF moment into your script that feels believable yet not too random is incredibly challenging. But when you nail it, like Himbo does, it takes your script up to a whole new level.
******REMINDER – NOVEMBER LOGLINE SHOWDOWN COMING UP!******
We’re moving our normal Thursday deadline back a week due to Thanksgiving. So if you have a great logline and you want to compete in the Logline Showdown, send that entry in! You’re got until a week from Thursday.
What: November Logline Showdown
Send me: the logline for any script you have (features will take precedence over pilots but if you’ve got the best tv show idea ever, send it in)
I need: The title, genre, and logline
Also: Your script must be written because I’ll be reviewing the winning entry the following week
When: Deadline is Thursday, November 30th, 10:00pm Pacific Time
Send entries to: carsonreeves3@gmail.com
Okay, let’s get down to business.
I like superhero films.
The Marvels looking at their second weekend drop.
I do.
With one caveat.
They actually have to be good.
And I don’t think anyone in the industry has cared about making good superhero movies for a while. I think that they believe they’re trying their hardest. Nobody starts out trying to make a bad movie.
But over-saturation combined with the prioritization of message-over-concept has shot a poison arrow into Marvel’s magical money-generating organism and the damage is so severe that they can no longer continue with this strategy. Unless their goal is to hemorrhage every single money-generating artery in their body.
It’s long been known that opening weekends are not representative of how good a movie is. Second weekends are. Opening weekends are about concept and marketing. If you have a well-known superhero in a fun-sounding movie and a 100 million dollar marketing campaign, you are guaranteed a huge weekend, regardless of how good your movie is.
But second weekends are all about word-of-mouth. If people are coming back from the theater and bashing your movie or, worse, not talking about it at all, no one’s going to show up the second weekend. The Marvels had the biggest second weekend drop in Marvel history, with 80%. This, just several months after the previous Marvel film, Ant-Man 3, had the biggest second weekend drop (70%).
These are not good numbers. And I’m hoping that this is a wake-up call for everyone. I don’t think we should stop making superhero films. If that happens, I’m afraid the theatrical business might crumble entirely. But we should stop making second-tier superhero films. For example, the next Marvel entry – and the only one of 2024 – is Deadpool 3. That movie’s going to be awesome! Because it’s got a premier superhero at the helm.
It’s no secret why Batman and Iron Man started this movie superhero obsession. Their value had been established via millions of sold comics. So why should we be surprised when these smaller unestablished comic book heroes (Blue Beetle) don’t pull in the same amount of dough?
That’s what was so strange about The Marvels. The first film grossed a billion dollars. So you would think people would’ve shown up for the sequel. Why didn’t they? For one, the first film had a way better premise. This was back when Marvel was wisely exploiting sub-genres to provide templates for their screenplays. Captain Marvel was a buddy-cop movie. And using a younger Nick Fury as the other half of the team-up was a fun idea.
The Marvel’s biggest problem was that the concept was ill-conceived. Why are you downgrading your billion dollar superhero star for her sequel? That was a really odd choice. When people saw this trailer, they no longer saw “Captain Marvel.” They saw Captain Marvel playing second fiddle to the lowest rated Marvel TV character as well as the single most forgettable superhero in history. Who came up with that idea? If anything, Captain Marvel should’ve graduated to riding solo in her sequel. A billion dollars certainly earns you that, don’t you think?
Maybe they were concerned about Brie Larson’s likability. The Brie-ster is an odd duck. I think she has a good heart but she comes off socially uncalibrated so she’s got a bigger share of haters than your average celebrity. The girl who plays Ms. Marvel is certainly more likable than Brie. So I can see why they were able to talk themselves into putting her into a Captain Marvel sequel. But nobody knows who that character is!
And let me just say something screenwriting related, as it appears that everyone in the superhero business has forgotten about this. Rules are important. With superheroes, it is imperative that we know the rules of their powers. The more vague someone’s power is, the less we care about them. There are a couple of minor exceptions to this. But it is otherwise a hard and fast rule.
Spiderman, Batman, Superman. The most popular superheroes ever. What’s the concurrent numerical element? We know the rules behind their powers. And they’re simple. There’s nothing vague or unclear. Contrast that with Captain Marvel. Do you know what Captain Marvel’s powers are? I don’t. I certainly don’t know her biggest weakness. Which means she’s unstoppable? Is that interesting? And I know even less about the other Marvel girls’ powers. So you’re asking a bunch of people to show up to a superhero movie where we don’t understand any of the characters’ superpowers??!!
The new Hunger Games movie didn’t open much better than The Marvels (55 mil) but it cost half as much. So you have to consider The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes a mild success. But the film could’ve opened much bigger had it understood one of the core principles of screenwriting: A clear concept.
Are you seeing a theme here? Clear rules on the superpowers. Clear concepts. Clear clear clear clear clear clear clear. Too many screenwriters throw clarity out the window. They think they can jam in as many ideas and plots and characters as they want and it will all work out. That’s not how this works. Especially if you’re writing for the masses – you need to be simple and clear.
I bet I could ask 100 people, after they watched The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes trailer, what the plot was and 95 of them would have no idea. That’s a problem. I know it’s a nuanced conversation in that you’re working with IP and, therefore, are betting that people are going to show up due to their familiarity with that IP. But the super successful movies are not ones that only cater to their fan base. They’re the ones that break out and pull in the average moviegoer. And for those additional seat-butts, you need a clear story.
Look at how simple and clear the number 1 movie of the year was: Doll living in her doll world goes into the real world. That’s it. Fish-out-of-water. We understand it immediately.
As for the rest of the top 10, “Thanksgiving” did okay with 10 million. Mixing up horror and Thanksgiving is one of the stranger genre choices I’ve seen in a while. But hey! Some people went to see it, so cool. Oscar-hopeful The Holdovers is squeaking by. The highly-rated film is struggling to pull people in as it is only making $1800 per theater (for comparison’s sake, The Marvels’ per theater average was $2500). You can read my review of the script here.
But the film that’s really struggling is Taika Waititi’s, “Next Goal Wins” ($1100 per theater average). Here’s the thing with Taika. At heart, he’s a goofy guy. But he’s one of the few goofy writer-directors who’s earned a level of critical acclaim, especially with JoJo Rabbit. So we hold him to a higher standard. Therefore, when he makes his version of The Mighty Ducks, it all seems a bit juvenile. I think people are confused. They were hoping for something more from him.
But I just watched an interview with Taika and he doesn’t want all this serious stuff. He would prefer to goof around. If you’re Taika, I say go back to your roots and make another movie with Jermaine Clement. I can practically guarantee that it will be great. If you haven’t seen Eagle vs. Shark, do yourself a favor, cancel everything you’re doing today, and rent this movie. It’s awesome.
I was going to head out and see Saltburn this weekend, Emerald Fennel’s follow-up to Promising Young Woman, one of the best scripts I’ve read in the last five years. But the reviews scared me off. It seems to be hovering near 70% on Rotten Tomatoes. These indie movies cannot have sub 80% RT scores. They have to be at least close to the 90s. By the way, this is another Jacob Elordi movie. Elordi is the Australian hunk coming out of Euphoria. He was also cast in Priscilla. Common denominator with these two films? Female directors. The ladies love this guy. He’s primed to be the next big movie star. He and Paul Mescal are going to be fighting over those top leading man roles for the next couple of decades.
Have you seen any good movies lately, at the theater or on streaming? If so, share them in the comments! I’m always looking for something good. I rented Equalizer 3 this weekend and the Italian backdrop spices things up a little bit (what a fun opening scene). I would’ve preferred a faster-moving narrative but it was still solid.
The secret to writing a great screenplay with the least amount of effort.
Jayne Mansfield, star of the 1963 film, “Promises Promises”
I’m always thinking of new ways to crack the screenwriting code. Screenwriting is funny in that, at its core, it’s simple. Write a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Make sure it’s interesting. Voila. That’s it!
But like any skill, in order to attain mastery, it can get quite complex. I still remember when my first screenwriting teacher told me that each scene needed to achieve five different things. Pretty sure, in that moment, my brain short-circuited.
What happens to most screenwriters is that they start off believing in the former – that screenwriting is easy. They’ve seen movies. They know what movies they like and don’t like, so they figure they’ll write movies similar to what they like and that’s all you need in order to be a good screenwriter.
What happens to the majority of these writers is that their scripts don’t get any success or recognition and they figure that the system is rigged, probably to reward nepotism, so they peace out, never to write another screenplay again. Many of the remaining screenwriters become obsessed with cracking the code and, over the years, delve into the most minute details of the craft, figuring that if they learn EVERYTHING, they’ll be able to write a great script.
Most of these writers never return from that dark place. They just go deeper and deeper into the minutia, looking for the meaning of it all. I’m here to tell you that if you get trapped in that place, it’s just as hard to write a good script there as if you’re a beginner and think writing is easy. Down there, you’re writing from a place of technicality, which is hard to build a moving impactful story around.
Now let me be clear. I’m not saying all technical thought is wrong. There’s a mathematical element to screenwriting that cannot be ignored. The fact that you have to keep your story between 100-120 pages alone means you have to be strategic about how you plot, how you approach your character arcs, where you place your setups and payoffs. But we never want that aspect of your writing to impede upon the ultimate goal. Which is to write a great story.
Today’s article was born out of my newsletter article (sign up if you haven’t already: carsonreeves1@gmail.com) where I discussed “story engines.” This is the same idea but I wanted to make it even simpler for you. In fact, I would say this is the simplest strategy to create a good story. You don’t have to learn any technical terms. You don’t even have to know how to structure a script. As long as you follow this one rule, you can write a good screenplay.
Want to know what it is?
Promise.
No, that’s it. A promise.
All writing is is a promise. You extend a promise to the reader that if they keep reading, they will be rewarded.
Think about it.
Barbie is dancing at the beginning of Barbie, living her best life, when she freezes and asks everyone, “Does anybody else here ever think about dying?” That’s a promise. It’s a promise because we now want to find out why Barbie is having these thoughts. To prove why this promise works, imagine if Barbie had never vocalized these thoughts. She just goes about her perfect day and then goes to sleep. Why should we keep reading?
Promises can be big. They can be small. As long as there is at least one compelling promise in play at every stage of your story, the reader WILL TURN THE PAGE. Let me say that again. As long as at any point in your story there is a compelling promise that has been made, the reader will want to find out what happens next.
What does a bad promise look like? “Here’s a funny character.” That’s not a promise. The character may be funny to you but who knows if it’s funny to others. So we might not want to see any more of them. Remember, the key to the “promise” strategy is that we want to turn the page. If the promise isn’t good enough for that, the strategy won’t work.
So what are some actionable promises to keep the reader reading?
A dead body – This is one of the strongest promises you can make because who doesn’t want to find out who killed this person? Or why?
Will these two people get together? – We were talking about this in the story engine article. One of the early promises in Killers of the Flower Moon was, “If you keep watching, you’ll get to find out if these two get together or not.” This is one of the most often-used promises in the trade.
Will these two people resolve their issues? – This is popular in the team-up genre. Two characters who don’t get along are forced to team up with one another. The promise is that if you keep watching, you get to find out if they eventually find peace with one another.
Promises can be more immediate as well. And should be, depending on the situation. Early on in screenplays, the reader’s attention span is shorter. So you should be looking to introduce promises that have quicker resolutions.
A trained killer gets locked in a room with a group of thugs (The Equalizer). The dramatic irony is through the roof here (we know the thugs are in a lot of trouble) so the promise is strong. We can’t wait for him to kick their a$$. How do I know this promise is effective? Because I know every single one of you reading this right now would turn the page to find out what The Equalizer does to those thugs.
One of the most powerful promises is a strong mystery. I was just watching the pilot episode for the show, A Murder At the End of the World. Early on, we see a couple discover a dead body and then (spoiler) the killer catches them in the act, raises his gun to shoot, but before we show what happens, we cut to the present day. We know one half of the couple, the girl, is still alive, since she’s talking to us. But there’s no mention of what happened to the boyfriend. Was he shot that day? That’s a promise that the writer is making to you. “If you keep reading, I will answer that question.”
Later still in the episode, a man shows up at the woman’s door and says that she’s invited to meet one of the richest men in the world. Another promise. If you keep reading, you get to find out who this man is and why he’s inviting her.
You should have multiple promises going on at all times. They shouldn’t all be giant promises (a girl is possessed, a billionaire is murdered, a man is still in love with his girlfriend after spending 42.6 years in cryogenic stasis) or the promises will compete against each other. But you should be injecting smaller promises on top of your larger promises. I call this “layering.” Because you want the reader to stay engaged in the short term. So you make these immediate promises (The Equalizer just got locked in this room with these thugs. I promise you that if you keep reading, I’ll let you know what happens within the next two pages).
Just like all of writing, there is subjectivity involved in how compelling a promise is. You may think I want to learn more about how all this plastic got into this whale’s stomach, but you’d be wrong. So you’re always gambling in that sense. Which is why you want to lean into the types of promises that have proven to work over time.
Compelling mysteries, whodunits, will-they-or-won’t-they-get-together, unresolved relationships, a loved one has been kidnapped.
Here are some promises from popular movies throughout the years:
An alien is after me: No One Will Save You
Bank robbing brothers are trying to stay one step ahead of sheriffs: Hell or High Water
A giant shark is terrorizing the beach, killing everything in its path: Jaws
A dangerous violent man is coming unhinged: Joker
A man is erased from existence and sees what the world is like without him: It’s A Wonderful Life
People are stuck in a dangerous video game: Jumanji.
In each of these stories, a giant promise is made that makes it nearly impossible for us not to want to keep reading. Now, of course, you do have to write compelling characters for this strategy to work. But if you can do that, you can basically keep a story going forever. And if you think that’s not true, let me point you to Marvel, to Fast and Furious, to Star Wars, to your favorite TV show. Those stories go on and on and on without any real end because the writers keep making compelling promises. Marvel does so at the end of every movie with their post-credit scenes. Now you can do the same. And reap the rewards from doing so. :)
Hey! You want to get a screenplay consultation from me? You should! I’ve read over 10,000 screenplays. I’ve seen every trick in the book. If there’s anyone who can help you turn your screenplay into the masterpiece you and I both know it can be, it’s me. And if you mention this article, I will take 40% off my pilot script or feature screenplay rate. Just e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com!
