You know the deal. In between writing scenes for your Scriptshadow 250 entry, sample today’s amateur offerings and help the writers with some constructive feedback. Also, vote for the winner at the top of your comment.  If you only have time to read and help one writer this week, check out I Shall Be Released.  I don’t think I’ve ever known someone to be so passionate about a screenplay.  Greg really cares about making this script the best it can be and he’s a dedicated Scriptshadow reader and fellow commenter.  Good luck to him and everyone else!

Title: I Shall Be Released
Genre: Drama / Biopic
Logline: Losing his voice to cancer, Levon Helm reflects on his life with The Band, and how their meteoric rise to fame comes with a heavy cost.
Why you should read: I grew up listening to The Band. Not from the dull playback of a stereo, but from backstage at the concerts my parents would bring me to, and from the comfort of Levon’s living room when we went to visit. My family shared a close relationship with Levon, Rick, and Richard for over thirty years. When I left college, Levon told my father that he would do anything for me, and suggested I consider pursuing a book or film with him. Now that our friend has passed, I want nothing more than to secure his legacy, and bring the personal insights I have into the man to the silver screen, so that he, his music, and the impact he had on a generation of rock and rollers can live on.

Title: The Beard
Genre: Sex Comedy
Logline: After landing a reality TV show on Bravo — the gayest network on television — a straight YouTube star, whose popularity hinges on the world’s belief that he’s gay, hires a “beard” to keep up the front. Suffice it to say, things don’t go as planned.
Why you should read: In the wake of R-rated comedies like Neighbors, 21/22 Jump Street and This Is The End — films that absolutely cracked me up — I set out to flip the bromantic comedy on its head while sending up reality TV shows for good measure. Thus the concept behind THE BEARD was born, and I gotta admit, it was a shitload of fun bringing it to life. I wrote the first draft pretty quickly and submitted it to Carson for a consultation. He thought there were some issues with the execution, but overall, he thought the script was “very funny” (which he says is rare). The biggest problem he had was that he didn’t care for any of the characters. So I’ve revamped the structure and streamlined the execution, and tried my best to make unlovable characters lovable. Now I need a second opinion! :) Basically, I need to know if the humor and execution of the story makes up for its unsympathetic characters. Please give it a read and let me know what you think. But be forewarned: This script is VULGAR with a capital V.

Title: Thy Enemy
Genre: Action/Thriller
Logline: After learning his estranged brother is a spy, a disgraced FBI cadet goes rogue to stop his sibling from detonating an experimental nuke in New York City.
Why you should read: In 2011, I met Shane Black. We were both waiting at a crosswalk after a lecture he gave. I dared to ask him a question: “What’s your biggest fear when you open up a script?” He thoughtfully replied: “Interchangeable action scenes that don’t affect the story or characters. I see it all the time and it saddens me. Set pieces must have consequences or what’s the fucking point.” The light changed. Shane was gone. I never forgot his words while I wrote this beast of a script. Thanks, Shane. — And thank you to all of Scriptshadow’s contributors. Readers here deserve a lot more back and forth from candidate writers. Don’t see enough of it. So, if picked for AOW, I 100% guarantee that I’ll be available to interact with readers. No excuses. It’s the least I can do for a community I’ve benefited so much from.

Title: Blind Curves (AKA “The Shot”)
Genre: Crime/Thriller
Logline: After accidently killing a female hostage during a botched robbery, LAPD Officer Michael Egan is exiled to a small desert town, where he’s forced to deal with his estranged daughter and face his greatest fear come true.
Why you should read: This script has tortured me for the past four years. Just when I thought it was “finished”, I’d get feedback that would prompt another rewrite. Last year, this script made it to the quarter-finals in the Bluecat competition (Top 5% of over 4,000 submissions). I was elated but knew deep down why the script didn’t place higher. It became my poster child for the adage “learn to cut your darlings” and I shelved the script for nearly a year. The script continued to plague me, I knew what needed to be fixed but resisted making the change. Finally, I broke down and dismantled the whole thing and did what needed to be done. This script is the result of letting go, listening to your gut and not being content with just getting to “Fade Out”.

Title: Be a Hero
Genre: Action-Comedy
Logline: After accidentally killing a beloved vigilante superhero, a smartass slacker takes over as defender of the city to cover his tracks, but soon finds himself being hunted by a psychotic crime lord.
Why you should read: Well, I’m a young, fairly inexperienced screenwriter looking to kickstart my career. I believe you should give my script a shot because have you ever met someone from Ireland who wasn’t talented or awesome? No, of course you haven’t. We’re a wonderful people. But while we have a talented, artistic and creative population of ginger alcoholics, we’re also a country that often gets overlooked on a global level. This is especially true in the film industry. We have so much to offer, with so little opportunity. So, this struggling ginger alcoholic would kindly ask that you do his career a major favour by checking out his little screenplay. I would be ever so appreciative, and I think you’ll enjoy the script if you give it a chance.

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: Thriller/Drama
Premise (from writer): A salt-of-the-earth father, trying to leave a checkered past behind him, is put through the ultimate test when his estranged son gets in deep with a human devil in the Appalachian woods.
Why You Should Read (from writer): My 6th spec, feeling like it’s all coming together now. Taking an honest look at my writing prior, it would be easy to say I was trying to write “the next great American story” (large, sweeping political storylines, obtuse, lush descriptions, “profound” dialogue) and this time, I’m just trying to write a movie. I hit a lot of things this site discusses: race against the clock, continually mounting problems, clear stakes and goals, a memorable villain and short action descriptions which I think makes for a fun and quick read. Recent films like BLUE RUIN, THE ROVER, and A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES have rejuvenated my passion for writing gritty thrillers.
Writer: Sean McIntyre
Details: 106 pages

Bryan Cranston for Marty?

So Cinderella comes out this weekend. Which was written by Chris Weitz. Who is also writing one of the new Star Wars movies. To the average avocado, this may seem like insignificant data. But to me, it’s like saying that the guy who invented spring rolls is going to cook me a pizza. Sure, writers are capable of writing many different things. But Chris Weitz’s sensibilities fall way more in line with Cinderella than Star Wars to me. I don’t want Obi-Wan Kenobi turning into a pumpkin after doing the Kessel Run in over five parcecs. I want a lightsaber decapitating a bantha. And I don’t know if I’m going to get that. Which may sound random but I feel compelled to bring it up.

Speaking of films opening this weekend, we’ve got a rare SPEC SCRIPT making a box office appearance in Run All Night. The script was written by spec specialist Brad Inglesby, and will be his second script to make it to the big screen (the first was “Out of the Furnace,” which was originally titled “The Low Dweller.”). Run All Night is way more movie-friendly than Furnace, so it should do better. “Monsters Under The Bed” seems to hail from that same gritty universe. Might it, too, one day make it to the theatrical finish line? Let’s find out.

48 year-old Marty Davies has lived a tough life. He got guilted into taking the rap for a crime he didn’t commit, joined the Aryan Nation in prison in order not to get raped every night, and has only recently gotten back into the real world, where he’s trying to put his taxi business together and reconnect with his son, Terry, a gambling addict.

After Terry makes a bet he can’t pay, he finds himself indebted to the town’s local psychopath, Rey-Rey, who, yes, is every bit as crazy as his name implies. Whenever you feel the need to repeat your name as part of your name, you’re probably a few fish shy of an aquarium. Go ahead and try it out. The next time someone asks you your name, say it’s “Scott-Scott.” Observe the fear.

Rey-Rey calls papa Marty and tells him that if he doesn’t come up with 50 grand in a week, Terry’s nostrils are going to be entry points for his next bullet experiment. Marty leaps into action… kind of. He calls his buddies and his new girlfriend to ask for money. But this Kickstarter Project barely gets off the ground before he realizes it’s not getting funded.

After some other plans fail, Marty decides to rob a bank – a plan that results in some major collateral damage. But nothing will compare to what happens when he crosses Rey-Rey. From that point on, his son isn’t even the issue anymore. This is between Marty and Rey-Rey. And only one of them is coming out alive.

I have to commend all the writers who have made it to Amateur Friday recently. They beat out these other scripts for a reason. I mean, Sean’s got a lot to be proud of here. He does a great job setting up Marty. He does an awesome job creating a larger-than-life villain in Rey-Rey. There are a lot of fun – albeit disturbing – scenes between Rey-Rey and Terry which showed a lot of imagination. I’m not surprised at all that “Monsters” emerged as last week’s winner.

Unfortunately, I’m going to have to be a bit of a monster myself. A monster under the script pile that is. My big issue with “Monsters” was the A.D.D. nature of the second act. I was particularly frustrated with the fact that instead of having one plan, Marty had a thousand of them. First he went off to ask for money from a friend, then went to ask another friend, then he tried to get the money through a loan. At one point he even went off to play high-stakes poker.

Rey-Rey’s deal kept changing as well. First he wanted 50,000. Then he was okay with 25,000. Then something would happen and he wanted 100,000. Then 250. Then 500. In the meantime, Terry’s doing pornos to earn his money back, then working the drug line, and then he’s got to be a drug mule and drive a car somewhere.

It seemed like there was a new plan from both sides every five pages.

I think what Sean was trying to do here was keep the story fresh. Which is noble. But it ended up feeling like stalling. It was like he didn’t know what do until the bank robbery, so he just kept trying to distract us with new plans every couple of scenes. In reality, however, all the plans were basically the same. And after 30 pages of false starts, I wanted the car to actually go somewhere.

Another issue the script ran into is that grown men aren’t the most sympathetic kidnap victims. Women are good kidnap victims. Children are good kidnap victims. But it’s really hard to make an audience care about a big strong man getting rescued.

Can you make it work? Sure. But you can also get through a marathon carrying a 25 pound barbell. That doesn’t mean you want to.

I actually tried to think of any movie that has done this successfully (made the kidnapping victim a man) and I couldn’t think of one. Maybe you guys will have more success (challenge to Poe!). And I hope you find one. I’m curious to know how they did it.

The final mistake “Monsters” made was in its third act. Marty actually gets Terry back from Rey-Rey, and then the script goes into this strange “everything is happy father and son montage” where father and son hide out and play catch every day. It isn’t until after that’s over that we get the Marty-Rey-Rey showdown.

There’s always going to be a calm before the third act storm. But if that calm lasts too long, you can kill the momentum of your entire movie. Everything about your script has been building up to this third act. If you then say, “Let’s go take a vacation before the big battle,” your audience is going to scream “What????” Once Marty got his son back, a lot of air got released from the balloon. I’m not sure you want to structure the screenplay this way. The climax should probably be Marty either saving or failing to save his son.

This was another solid entry into the Amateur Friday lion’s den. But these issues definitely need to be shored up before this script reaches its potential.

Screenplay link: Monsters Under the Bed

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

What I learned: There’s something about this revenge/kidnapping set-up, where characters are confined to one area the entire movie, that’s really hard to make work. You have a hero that has to do something, yet you can’t allow him to do it yet! Because if he does, the movie will be over by page 50. Hence why Sean’s forced to create all these false-starts with Marty. This is why scripts like “Run All Night” are easier to write. If the characters are always on the move (either the chasers or the chasees) you don’t have to come up with any stall tactics. You keep going until the capture or the escape is made. The one exception to this seems to be what they did in John Wick and The Equalizer. Which is to create a hierarchy of characters that the hero must defeat before they confront the big dog. Even though the story is confined to one area, like “Monsters,” there are a clear series of goals that must be achieved before the hero can take on the villain, giving the script a natural progression until the climax.

Driver waiting for his opening scene!

I cannot WAIT to read your Scriptshadow 250 submission. But if you’re going to have any shot at winning this thing, you’re going to need to bring it. I don’t think that’s a surprise. To help you, I went back down memory lane to try and identify the simplest way to tab a script good or bad. It didn’t take long to find my answer. In about 95% of the screenplays I read, I can tell if the writer has the goods in the VERY FIRST SCENE. And I’m guessing it’s the same for most readers.

You see, the opening scene is the reader’s introduction to both YOU and YOUR SCREENPLAY. Much like a real-life introduction, the other person is sizing every detail of you up to decide whether they like you or not. Are you dressed well? Do you have good hygiene? Do you have good posture? Do you look them in the eye? Are you arrogant or humble? Do you speak clearly or mumble? Do you smile or have resting bitch face? All these clues help this person determine whether you’re someone they want to get to know better.

The exact same thing is happening during your opening scene. That’s because you’re giving off tons of hints about if you know what you’re doing or not. The first thing I typically look for in a scene is: Is anything HAPPENING? Then, is the writing crisp and to the point? And finally, is it clear what’s going on? If the writer’s passed this test, congratulations. He’s done exactly what’s expected of him. But all this gets him is an extended evaluation period.

Guess what? I don’t want you to write “extended evaluation period” first scenes. I want you to write GREAT first scenes that IMMEDIATELY GRAB THE READER and announce that you’re a writer who knows how to entertain. A lot of writers never get past this point. They don’t realize there’s a difference between showing that you know what you’re doing, and actually PULLING A READER INTO A STORY. You need to master the latter.

So what do you do to pull the reader in with your opening scene? YOU TELL A STORY WITH THE SCENE. Repeat that back to me.

What does that mean? It means using storytelling devices that make the reader want to continue reading. Most writers do the opposite of this. They think they’ve earned some divine right which states that you, the reader, must afford them your full concentration for the entire script no matter how boring it is because of how much work they’ve put into the script. They can take their time, dammit.  Because wait til you get to that whopper of an ending!

No. Nada. A reader OWES YOU NOTHING. It’s you who owes them. You owe them entertainment from the very first page and if you don’t give it to them, they have every right to check out, even if it’s on page 3.

What are these mythical storytelling devices I’m referring to? They include but are not limited to: Conflict, tension, suspense, dramatic irony, a sense of foreboding, mystery, surprise, a difficult choice, a twist, dropping us into the middle of some action, and so on.  Do one or a combination of these things in your opening scene and, as long as the scene is somewhat original (or at least a fresh spin on a common scene) you should pull the reader in.

Let’s look at two examples – the wrong way and the right way. The scene we’ll use is one I’ve read a million times before. It’s the scene where the main character, often a 30-something man-child, wakes up in his bedroom, which we notice is a complete shit-hole, with dirty clothes and empty beer bottles piled everywhere. The extent of the writer adding a “story component” often entails the hero checking his clock, realizing he’s late for work, and running out of the room.

That’s what I call a terrible opening scene. Nothing is happening. There’s no story to the scene. It’s unoriginal. It announces to the reader that you are putting the least amount of effort into your opening as possible. And that conveys to the reader that you will continue to do so throughout the screenplay. I mean if you couldn’t even get excited enough to write a fun original FIRST SCENE??? Of course you’re not going to try for the other 59 scenes.

Let’s look at the second example. This is a scene that was in a screenplay I read a long time ago, but I’m forgetting the title. In it, we have the same 30-something man-child character waking up, hung over. But this character wakes up in a child’s bedroom. He’s actually in a little girl’s bed, naked under the covers. The shelves are packed with dolls. Next to him is a crib. We can tell he has no memory of how he ended up here.  The scene then follows how he figures out where he is and how he gets out of the house.

The big difference in this second example is that the writer has added MYSTERY to the scene. He’s shown the ability to think forward – to dangle a question in front of the reader so that he’ll want to keep reading – namely “How did this character get here?” This is an oversimplification of the difference between a good and bad opening scene, but the point is, the second example tells a story while the first version is just character set up – and boring character set up at that.

Let’s look at another example. Say you’re writing a cop drama (or even a cop comedy). I want you to imagine who your main character might be, and then try to come up with an opening scene for him. It’s not easy. You literally have an unlimited number of choices. The funny thing is, the beginner writer will always take the path of least resistance. So they’ll often go with whatever comes to mind. Maybe the cop shows up at a murder scene where he’s briefed by the Captain on what they know about the victim.

Hmm. Haven’t seen that scene before, have we?

So ask yourself – how can I turn this same scene into a story? Well, instead of your cop showing up last, after everyone else has already done the work, what if he shows up first? Then, as he’s observing the crime scene, he encounters a clue that implies the killer is still on the premises. Now we have danger, suspense, mystery. You can even add some dramatic irony if we cut to the hiding killer, who isn’t yet aware that our hero is onto him.

Yeah yeah, we’ve seen this scene before, too. But it’s still a much more entertaining scene than the first one, and way more likely to pull a reader in.

Now all of this sounds great in a vacuum. But over time, I’ve come to learn that every script is unique. Each story has its own requirements, and those requirements sometimes work against you doing the things you want to do. One of the hardest things to balance is setting up your main character AND writing an entertaining opening scene at the same time.

Take The Equalizer. In that screenplay, Richard Wenk needs to establish that Robert McCall lives a very simple reserved lifestyle. As you can imagine, there aren’t many exciting ways to convey “simple” and “reserved.” So the opening scene is McCall tidying up his sparse spotless apartment. It sets up the character perfectly, but makes for a weak opening scene.

Contrast this with Drive, in which Driver (Ryan Gosling) is an ice-cold brave-as-shit getaway driver. That more naturally lends itself to a strong opening scene – which is exactly what we get. Driver expertly evades a group of cops while driving his two accomplices to safety.

So yeah, we have to work with what we have. But I want to go back to that Equalizer scene for a second. It is a boring opening scene. But Wenk clearly knows that. So he uses sparse description and only highlights a few brief things in order to get McCall out of the apartment and into the world as quickly as possible. As a reader, I may not be wowed, but the writing is so minimal and the actions so clear that I’m willing to reserve judgment until after a few more scenes. Had the writer kept McCall in his apartment for three more pages and described a bunch of needless things, I would’ve known immediately that the script was doomed.

So does that mean sometimes we HAVE to open with a boring scene and just do the best we can?  This is the way I look at it. You’re a spec writer. You’re not writing on assignment (like Wenk on The Equalizer). You’re not writing for some producer who already knows all the story beats because he pitched the idea to you. The moment your script hits someone’s eyes will be the first time they’ve seen it. For that reason, you should always go for the gold. Find a way to give us a great opening scene that TELLS A STORY – limitations be damned. If you do that, you not only start your script off right, but you instill trust in the reader that you’re here to entertain them.

Genre: Contained Thriller/Sci-fi
Premise: (from The Black List) A corporate risk management consultant is summoned to a remote research lab to determine whether or not to terminate an at-risk artificial being.
About: Today’s script finished on the lower half of the 2014 Black List. Seth W. Owen is a writer and director whose debut film was 2010’s Peepers, about a rag-tag group of guys who try to spy on naked women. Ummm, not the most sympathetic setup for a group of lead characters. Luckily, this script is nothing like that. “Morgan” just landed Kate Mara and will be the directing debut of Ridley Scott’s son, Luke Scott. Presumably, the father pitched Mara to his son, since Ridley’s working with Mara on his new sci-fi project, The Martian.
Writer: Seth W. Owen
Details: 113 pages

There’s something about a script that starts with a character heading to some isolated unknown potentially dangerous location that gets me every time.

The anticipation of what lies ahead just tickles my insides. It never fails.

Add on top of that a contained thriller element that I HAVEN’T SEEN BEFORE, and you can officially color me hooked. Most contained thrillers involve a haunted house or characters stuck inside a place they’d rather not be. Pretty standard stuff.  Today’s script injects a new twist into the scenario by giving the main character the power of God.  She can, with the flick of her pen, destroy everything this group has worked so hard for.  This setup adds some funky fresh wrinkles to the contained thriller genre, one of which dramatizes the hell out of the story. More on that in a minute.  But first, let’s recap the plot.

When artificially intelligent “Morgan” – a sort of robot-bio hybrid – attacks one of the members of the team who created her, the company funding the project sends the strict and professional Lee Weathers (a woman – noooo! not another female protagonist with a male name!) out to Grant Farms, the home of the experiment, to assess whether Morgan should be put down.

As you might expect, the resident members of the project are not excited by Lee’s arrival. They’ve been working on Morgan for 5 years. This woman has the power to not only destroy everything they’ve built, but end their jobs. To them, she’s far more dangerous than anything Morgan might become.

Leading the team is the short and jittery Ted Brenner, an insect of a man who hovers around Lee, constantly assuring her that everything is “fine.” There’s Dr. Simon Ziegler, the unkempt lead designer who is the de facto “father” of Morgan. There’s the free-spirited Amy, the lead behaviorist. There’s the elusive Dr. Nagata, who never seems to be around when she’s needed. And then a half dozen other folks working on the project, which is all taking place inside a retrofitted mansion in the middle of nowhere.

While Lee’s job is to assess Morgan, it’s when she interviews the team members that she discovers something amiss. Namely that everyone has a verrrrry close connection to Morgan – some creepily so. As the truth begins to surface – that these people will do anything to prevent Lee from terminating Morgan – Lee must decide what’s more important. The company? Or her life?

Newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy will play Morgan

Today’s lesson is all about TENSION. Why is it called “tension?” Because it’s TEN time more effective than “nosion.” “Nosion” is when you don’t have anything working under the scenes. Everything plays at face value – people’s intentions, their interactions, their motives. A “How are you doing?” literally means, 100%, “How are you doing?” Since it’s all at face value, it’s all BORING.

The brilliance of “Morgan’s” setup is that it BUILDS TENSION INTO THE STORY AUTOMATICALLY. Not a single person in this house wants Lee here. Therefore, every single scene has tension working underneath it. In these cases, “How are you doing?” could easily mean, “I don’t fucking want you here but I’ll play the game until we get rid of you.”

This is something all of you should take heed of – using your setup to do the work for you. I brought this up yesterday in the Breaking Bad article. Walt and Jesse have some great conflict-heavy dialogue throughout the series. That dialogue doesn’t happen because at the beginning of each episode, Vince Gilligan says, “Okay, how can we create conflict between these two?” Their conflict is already there. It’s built into the setup. Therefore, going at it is a natural byproduct of their interactions. Good dialogue just happens.

Same thing with “Morgan.” Owen doesn’t have to sit there and wonder how to create tension inside the house. He’s built the tension INTO THE SETUP by sending a woman in to determine the fates of a dozen people. How could that NOT produce tension?

This script is chock full of tips actually. Take the moment when Lee first meets Morgan. We haven’t yet established Mogan’s reason for being here, and Owen decides to do so in this scene. The mistake the amateur writer makes here is having the protagonist narrate her own backstory (“I’m here from blah blah on orders from blah blah corporation…”). Instead, it ALWAYS SOUNDS BETTER when you have the OTHER character say it. So in the script, Morgan says, “Hello Lee.” Lee replies, slightly surprised, “You know who I am.” Morgan says, “Yes. Of course. You’re Lee Weathers. Risk Management Consultant at Omnicron.” “And why I’m here?” “To assess my viability as…” and so on and so forth.

There are more juicy dialogue tips if you pay attention. In a later scene, the house chef and Lee are talking, and Lee is giving noticeably short answers to all his questions. The less experienced screenwriter always writes the on-the-nose reaction to behavior. They’d have the chef say something like: “You don’t talk much do you?” The experienced screenwriter writes the sarcastic less obvious reply, which is what Owen does here: “You’re kind of an over-sharer, huh?” It’s just a way more fun response.  Like I’ve said before – If your characters are constantly giving the obvious response, there’s a good chance your dialogue is boring.

The script stays exciting despite the contained location, mainly due to that tension I referred to earlier and also because Morgan is a ticking time bomb. You know she’s going to explode at some point. And you want to be around when it happens.

The only issue I see in the script is that the story kind of gets taken away from Lee for a portion of the second act. It feels like everyone else is starring in the movie except Lee for awhile. A new character even comes in and has a 12 page one-on-one scene with Morgan. It’s a good scene with a great payoff but it’s always risky to demote your main character to passive observer for a long period of time. More than once I found myself asking, “Where’s Lee right now?”  In the rewrite, you probably want Lee at least trying to interject and stop this interview when it starts going downhill.

It’s no secret I love these types of scripts (The Story of Us, Ex Machina) so I’m probably not surprising anyone here. But this script took a different approach to a genre that could potentially feel played out and that’s a big part of what kept me entertained. Really good stuff here!

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

What I learned: A good setup should do the work for you. If the tension or the suspense or the conflict or whatever device you’re using to entertain a reader, isn’t built into the concept, it’s going to be hard to incorporate it into your scenes. So if in the original conception of Breaking Bad, Walt and Jesse were best friends with similar interests, then trying to write a bunch of arguments between them would feel false. You’re forcing conflict that isn’t there. But if your setup includes two opposites, two people who don’t see eye-to-eye, then arguments are inevitable. This may seem obvious, but a lot of times I see writers working hard to create tension or suspense in a scene and it’s not working because there’s no tension or suspense inherent in the concept.

So I recently finished watching the fifth episode of Better Call Saul (this does not include last night’s episode), and I have to say, the Breaking Bad spin-off series has surprised me. Not just because it’s pulled me in, but because the big picture writing on the show is nowhere to be found. This is a show that’s hooked its viewers on an episode-by-episode basis, an unheard of strategy in a serialized TV program. And if I’m being honest, I have no idea how Gilligan plans to keep it up. I mean, Breaking Bad was masterful in its big picture writing. And that got me thinking about the differences between the shows. Why is it that Breaking Bad is so much better than Saul? I’m glad you asked. Because I’ve broken it down into six big reasons. Let’s take a look…

OVERALL STORYLINE
In order for any story to work, it must have an engine. The engine is the thing that pushes the story along underneath the hood. In a feature, that engine needs to rev high and fast (stop the alien invasion, execute the heist). In TV shows, since the story needs to last a lot longer, that engine will rev slower and longer (find a way off the island, find a surviving community in a zombie apocalypse). Breaking Bad had a great overall storyline. Walter White needed to make a ton of money before he died of cancer so that his family would be supported after he died. Every episode in that first season ran on that engine. What’s the overall story engine in Better Call Saul so far? There isn’t one. I guess it’s sort of “Let’s see if Saul can start a business” but that’s hardly in the same engine category as dying of cancer – save my family.

MAIN CHARACTERS
One of the keys to making a TV show work is creating a sympathetic lead. That’s no different from how they do it in the movies. Walt was one of the most sympathetic characters we’ve ever seen. The poor guy had terminal cancer, a son with special needs, a new baby on the way, was the best at what he did, and was an underdog in every sense of the word. He’s a brilliantly conceived character who’s impossible not to root for. Saul is sort of an annoying fast-talker. Vince tries to create sympathy by pushing Saul out of his big corporate law gig, creating another “underdog” scenario in a sense. But it just isn’t the same. We do root for the guy, but it’s more out of curiosity than need. We NEEDED Walt to figure out how to save his family. Also, doing something for one’s self is never going to be as sympathetic to an audience as doing something for others.

DRAMATIC IRONY
Breaking Bad’s single biggest trick was the dramatic irony that was woven into the core storyline. Walt has a secret. He’s a drug dealer. It’s a secret he’s keeping from his family, his work, his friends. And that alone implores us to keep checking in week after week. We want to know, “Is this the week someone’s going to catch on?” “Is this the week he finally gets caught?” Gilligan knows he doesn’t have that with Saul, so he uses other tricks to pique our curiosity, such as Saul’s weirdo brother who believes he’s allergic to electrical impulses and has to live in a house devoid of electricity. It definitely pulls us in at first, but it is, ultimately, a gimmick. And gimmicks can only last so long.

TICKING TIME BOMB
Another factor that worked well for Breaking Bad was that it had a ticking time bomb woven into the setup. Walt was dying. He didn’t have long to live (at least initially). So he had to move fast. There’s no big picture urgency at all in Better Call Saul. This is on full display when you notice there are a lot more “sitting down and talking” scenes. When there’s no urgency, there’s a natural tendency to write more talky scenes because what else are you going to do? Your characters clearly have the time. In an early episode of Saul, the one where the family stole the money, the urgency is there. But in some of these other episodes, it’s not. Incidentally, this is what’s killing The Walking Dead this season. Unlike past seasons (going after the Governor, trying to get to Terminus), there’s little-to-no engine driving the season, and because of that, no urgency. It isn’t a coincidence that all the characters are now sitting down and having long talks with each other that bore us to pieces.

CONFLICT
Another genius move by Gilligan in Breaking Bad was creating this “buddy cop” scenario (with Jesse Pinkman). Two completely opposite personalities who are forced to work together to achieve the same goal. You know instant oatmeal? By creating a “partners who hate each other” scenario, you get instant conflict. You never have to come up with some artificially constructed scene to create contact. It’s built into the key character relationship so it’s always there for you. One of the reasons Better Call Saul feels slower and quieter than Breaking Bad is that it lacks this component. Saul’s only real buddy is Mike, and Mike isn’t exactly a talker.

PROGRESSION
One of our favorite reasons for tuning into Breaking Bad every week was the progression. We loved watching Walt and Jesse move up the ladder, particularly because it was a world they had no business succeeding in. There was something delightful about a chemistry teacher becoming the best drug dealer in the city. This is the one area that Gilligan is trying to match in Better Call Saul. He’s hoping we’ll get involved in Saul moving up the ladder and becoming a successful lawyer. The big difference here is that a) Walter’s rise was ironic – a nerdy chemistry teacher becoming a badass drug kingpin. Saul’s rise is pretty straightforward. A low-rent lawyer trying to make a name for himself. And b) We already know where Saul ends up – in some rinky-dink operation in a strip mall. Whereas with Walter, the possibilities for success were endless, we can never experience that with Saul (which is why I hate prequels – but that’s a story for another article). I suppose Saul could rise before he falls, but we still always know where he ends up.

Now I point all this out not because I want Saul to fail. I actually desperately want the show to succeed. There isn’t a lot of quality television out there and I like this universe Gilligan has created. Still, I’m fascinated, from a writing standpoint, with how Gilligan plans to make this work. The first series of episodes have been solid on an episode-by-episode basis. But like I said, to get an audience invested in the long term, you need to give them a peek under the hood. You need to show them the engine. And I don’t see that yet – or at least, I don’t see an engine strong enough to keep this car running all the way to the finish line. TV shows, way more than movies, need to be built atop solid foundations. If the plan for the show isn’t known, writers eventually must resort to tricks and gimmicks (big twists, main character hookups) to cover up the fact that they have no idea what to do next.  This is why certain shows that were good at first (Prison Break, Heroes) went off the rails quickly.

For those who’ve seen the show, do you enjoy it? Why do you watch it? Do you agree that there seems to be a lack of a master plan? Does that bother you? Chime in below. I’m curious as hell to know what you think!