Hey guys, sorry for no Amateur Offerings Saturday and the re-post of a Newsletter review today (sign up for the newsletter here). Busy at work putting the Scriptshadow 250 Contest together. So hang tight and discuss all the goodness that directors like Matthew Vaughn bring to the world…

Genre: Action/Spy
Premise: A young British hooligan is recruited into a top secret agency founded on the principles of the Knights of the Round Table.
About: This is Matthew Vaughn’s (Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class) upcoming film, which he wrote with longtime collaborator Jane Goldman. It’s based on the comic book, “The Secret Service.” Vaughn was offered pretty much every major movie property in town, but the director likes to challenge himself and so avoids working on the same kind of movie twice. That may change with The Secret Service, which is clearly set up to be a major franchise in the vein of James Bond. Rising star Taron Egerton will play the lead role of Eggsy.
Writer: Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn (based on the comic book by Dave Gibbons and Mark Millar)
Details: 125 pages – April 2013 draft

If you’re looking to write the next breakout franchise, this is one of the most franchise-friendly formulas you can use. You take a nobody. Have him recruited into a secret organization of some sort. Show him training and getting better. Then have him take on the bad guys. He’ll fail at first, then get stronger, and in the end, he’ll finally defeat the villain. It worked for The Matrix. It worked for Wanted. It worked for Harry Potter. It worked for Remo Williams.

Well, wait. Okay, it didn’t work for Remo Williams. But that wasn’t Remo’s fault.  It was Chiun’s fault.

There are so many qualities about this setup that make it work. You have the underdog conceit (everyone loves an underdog), the training (we love watching someone train and get better at something), and the revelatory mythology that goes with all these stories (all the little nooks and crannies of how the organization came to be).

The setup is so ideal for storytelling, in fact, that you wonder why there aren’t more of these films being made! Well, the one trick in getting them right is coming up with a fresh enough take on them. All the examples I used above felt fresh at the time. Except for Remo Williams. So how does The Secret Service fare?

Jack Lincoln – call him our Galahad – starts off the film leading a group of secret agents (with names like Merlin and Lancelot) to take down a nasty terrorist. But once they capture the terrorist, one of Jack’s men, Lee, notices that the terrorist has a bomb. Lee jumps on him as the bomb goes off, and is killed instantly so that the rest of the group can live.

In a token gesture, Jack goes to Lee’s family (his wife and young son) and tells them that if they ever need a get-out-of-jail-free card, to call. 17 years later, Lee’s son, Eggsy, a hooligan who spends most of his days burglarizing cars and drinking pints of Guinness, needs just that. After getting arrested, he calls to get out of a looming prison sentence, and Jack keeps his promise.

But Jack doesn’t stop there. Jack sees a lot of Lee in Eggsy, and invites him into his top secret organization, Huntsman and Sons. The thing is, Huntsman typically only recruits the best of the best, people from the best backgrounds and the best educations. So Eggsy is a bit of an outsider.

But while everyone else is smarter than Eggsy, Eggsy has that street experience that makes him tougher than his fellow private school recruits. And he’s going to need it. There are some nasty little men the Hustman have to take on, such as “Gazelle,” a guy with  Olympic running blades for legs (I see they’ve changed this character to a female in the final film), except his blades are razor sharp, allowing him to chop up his prey with a Michael Jackson swish of his knee. Woo-hoo! Jam-mone!

Eventually, a true villain arises in the form of a Mark Zuckerberg’esque tech giant who’s unhealthily obsessed with earth’s well-being. Huntsman and Sons begin to suspect that his next product may give him a little too much control over the people who use it. Therefore, Eggsy and his band of merry men will have to put on their big boy secret agent pants to take down Zuckerberg and save the world.

I really like what Goldman and Vaughn are doing here. It’s smart. They’re bringing back the fun to Bond movies without the baggage of Bond. It allows them to create a less kitchsy version of 007, and play with a lot of the humor that the ultra-serious new films are so devoid of. As a kid, my favorite part of the Bond movies was always the gimmicky weapons introductions, and we get plenty of that here (Jack fights with an umbrella with about 50 different gadgets attached to it).

Connecting the Secret Service to the Knights of the Round Table fable was also a clever idea, although I thought this would’ve been so much cooler had the agency literally still have been the Round Table. That the Knights never went away and this was their modern incarnation. But hey, beggers can’t be choosers.

But The Secret Service does have one major problem. It whiffs with its main character. I’m talking about Eggsy. In every one of the movies I mentioned above, the formula is the same. We get to know our underdog hero’s shitty and/or normal life, before they’re recruited into the super-secret organization.

With The Secret Service, the first act is dedicated almost exclusively to everyone BUT Eggsy (our main character). We get to know Jack. We get to know Jack’s boss, the head of the agency. We get to know our Mark Zuckerberg bad guy. When Eggsy does come around, he’s usually gone before you know it.

I think I understand what Goldman and Vaughn were thinking. They wanted to use that time to sell the agency. And there’s no doubt, it’s a cool freaking agency. But the problem with not establishing your hero early, is that the audience feels lost. They don’t have that character whose hand they can hold onto. They don’t have anyone to lead them through the story.  In many ways, the reader in the writer-reader relationship is kind of like a child.  They need the reader to show them the way.  And that’s hard to do if there isn’t a character who steps up to play the “follow me” part.

Granted, this approach has worked before (there’s a ton going on in Star Wars early on outside of Luke), but just because an unorthodox approach worked in another movie doesn’t mean you can just port it over and expect similar results. Every time Eggsy came around, all I could think was, “I don’t know this guy!” When the other recruits made fun of him, I didn’t have a good enough sense of him to know what they were making fun of him about.

Think of another recent film that did this – Godzilla. Now Godzilla was kind of fun. But they spent the first 20 minutes on two characters (the hero’s mom and dad) who both died! They weren’t even in the rest of the movie. That time could’ve been spent getting to get to know our hero!! And what was one of the biggest complaints about Godzilla? That its main character was the most boring part of the movie. Why? Well, there were a few reasons. But not spending the first 20 minutes of the movie getting to know him certainty didn’t help.

Another thing that happens if you don’t feature your hero early is that, when he finally gets his moment, you’re rushing through it.  You’ve lost out on pages and pages of screenplay real estate and now you’re playing catch-up.  It can be done.  In fact, I think Star Wars does this brilliantly.  That one dinner scene with Luke, his aunt and his uncle, conveyed everything we needed to know about Luke (that he had bigger dreams and that he wanted to leave the farm and make a greater impact on the universe).  But what I usually see when writers get themselves in this situation is a lot of on-the-nose statements about the character because the lack of time prevents the use of any subtlety.

This can have a catastrophic effect on the script moving forward.  Since a reader/audience will rarely care about a story in which they don’t connect with the hero, this false rushed set-up of the hero eliminates any chance of connection.  And once an audience makes that choice, they don’t change it.  They will feel that way about the character for the rest of the movie.

With that said, The Secret Service is saved by its pure celebration of fun. This is a world where villains with Olympic blades for legs can slice you in half at a moment’s notice. It’s a world where the training exercises include real bullets. It’s a world where people can kill other people with a text message.

We’ve been missing a film like this. Guardians of the Galaxy proves that people are ready to laugh again. I just wish The Secret Service was more than a fun escape. I wish Goldman and Vaughn gave us a lead with more meat. This could’ve easily been a double worth-the-read or an impressive with a great protagonist.

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

What I learned: Another great reminder that one of the best ways to approach ideas is to look for a previously established idea and update it. Knights of the Round Table? Let’s set in in the present day. Boom, you have yourself a movie.

What I learned 2: There are two people your characters are talking to during dialogue. They’re talking to the other character in the scene (one) and they’re talking to the reader/viewer (two). If you want to excel in dialogue, make sure your characters are first and foremost talking to each other.  The second your characters are talking more to the audience than each other, is the second you’re writing bad dialogue.

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): A struggling journalist has the chance to reignite her career when she receives a mysterious letter from a girl claiming to be possessed and seemingly trapped at “The Willow Groves” plantation; an estate with a sinister history.
Why you should read: This is the first screenplay I’ve written. I spent months, planning, writing, re-writing it. Awake until the early hours while laying in my bed, thinking over certain lines and sequences, making sure that it was really the best that it could be. — I’ve spent time trying to create a world and an atmosphere that, hopefully, the reader will enjoy.
Writer: Nabil Chowdhary
Details: 95 pages

I really wanted to review “Let Us Touch The Sun” but the votes for that script seemed to be coming from a place of “Reward one of the best commenters” and not from a place of “I loved this screenplay.” I do think the people who contribute the best feedback should get rewarded somehow, so maybe we can give them their own week at some point. But for today, I wanted to review the script that got the best reaction, and that was Willow Groves.

Edward Tyler is a world renown psychic, one of those guys on TV who can work a crowd, stopping at random people, tell them all about their dead terrier, Kiki, or their chirpy dead chain-smoking uncle, Ronald. That is until he meets Kate Allen. During a live TV telecast, a prematurely graying 20-something Allen asks Edward to rid her of the spirit following her around, only to have Edward make some horrifying connection with this spirit and break down in front of the world in the process.

As if that wasn’t bad enough for his career, he was also interviewed on live TV by journalist Megan Walsh, who exposed him as the fraud he was (or so she thought). That double-whammy sent Edward into hiding and no one has seen him since.

These days, Megan is struggling through her own life issues, as her shock-and-awe interviewing style has made too many potential interviews avoid her. With her career crumbling, she needs a second chance. She gets that in the form of a letter from Kate Walsh. Yes, the Kate Walsh who freaked Edward out on TV. Kate needs help, and invites Megan to come to her home.

This is all rather low-rent as far as Megan is concerned, but her producer, Ryan, sees it as an opportunity to get some new eyeballs on her. In fact, he postulates, if they grabbed Edward to come along too, it could be an event.

Edward isn’t thrilled about teaming up with the woman who helped destroy his career, but he genuinely wants to help Kate, so he comes along. They grab a camera crew and head to this spooky plantation home where Kate sent the letter from, only to find out it’s totally deserted when they get there.

Once they start peeking around, they realize that Kate’s entire family grew up here, and that all of them may have been possessed by some spirit. The deeper our team looks, the more they realize that this isn’t some career-changing primetime special they have on their hands. This is a real-life house of horrors, one in which very few who enter leave. To that end, Kate, Edward, and the rest won’t be winning any awards. They’ll be fighting for survival.

Wow, if Nabil is being honest and this is really his first script, color me impressed. The idea of a television crew heading to a haunted house is far from a new one. So he’s playing in occupied territory here. But this well-structured horror romp definitely FEELS like a movie. From the setup of two characters who hate each other having to team up together, to the arrival at this spooky mansion, I was shocked to find myself at the edge of my seat early on.

I was so rooting for Willow Groves to continue to kick my ass, in fact, that I was devastated by the reason it stopped doing so. It wasn’t necessarily that the script fell apart. It was just a key choice that I didn’t agree with. About half-way through the story, this became a zombie flick. Well, a “version of zombies” flick, as I’d say the “zombies” were more “walking demons.”

From a dramatic standpoint, it made sense. The script needs to elevate – the threat needs to get worse. And it certainly added more intensity to the story. But to me, this script was at its best when it was creeping along at more of a “Conjuring” pace. Characters were sneaking into creepy rooms where the biggest scare might be a rouge shadow.

To have demons running around all of a sudden felt like we were cheapening those well-composed scares. And I guess the lesson here is a tricky one. There are going to be 3 or 4 big plot choices we have to make during the writing of our script, and we have to kind of take chances with these choices. If we’re too safe, the script starts to feel monotone and boring. But if we go TOO FAR AWAY from the story we set up, we can also lose the audience through false advertising. Creepy haunted house flick all of a sudden turns into Zombie-demon attack 9000.

I don’t really know how to help writers calibrate these decisions other than to say, try them and see what people say. Maybe I’m wrong here and others will like this choice, but if I was guiding Nabil, I’d say to drop the demon stuff and to continue to build the scares and the mythology of this house quietly. That’s how you brought us in. That’s how you should take us out.

As for the rest of the script, I think more could be done on the character front. Edward is probably the most interesting character here, but at times he’s completely absent from the story. One of your jobs as a writer is to identify where the most exciting/interesting characters are and then feature them. In this case, Edward has been “exposed” as a fraud, been screwed over by this bitch journalist, and now has a chance to redeem himself. That’s more interesting to me than this woman who’s trying to get better ratings for her next special. More Edward.

On the flip side, the rest of the characters are kind of plain. Whenever you place a group of characters into a psychologically intense situation, you want to explore each of their individual psyches on as deep of a level as possible. Each person who comes into this house needs to have their own specific issue that’s fucked them up in life. And this house needs to challenge each of those issues.

In the recent horror flick, The Babadook, this creepy bedtime story repeatedly jabbed at our main character’s deep-seated desire to be free – free of this troubled child she was cursed with raising. This allowed the idea to enter her mind that it was possible to be free of her son by killing him. Finally, she would have her life back. Use your idea to explore the character’s psyche.

All in all, I’d give the first half of this script a “worth the read,” but the second half a “wasn’t for me.” With that said, if this is truly Nabil’s first script, then we’re for sure going to be seeing more of him. This is a strong first effort, but still a messy screenplay that loses itself along the way.

Screenplay link: The Willow Groves

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

What I learned: False advertising – Any time where you promise your script is going to be one thing and then turn it into something else, you’re going to lose some people. It’s a little like an artist starting to sing a country song then, at the 90 second mark, busting into a rap. It MIGHT work, but it’s probably just going to confuse people. So take chances like these with caution.

#3 – A great central character

The Scriptshadow 250 Contest is coming! And that means all of you will have an opportunity to get your script optioned by a real Hollywood producer (more on that in the upcoming official announcement). Some of you are probably working on scripts already but even if you aren’t, we’re all thinking about our next screenplay. In fact, the “next” screenplay is often the screenplay we like most, since it hasn’t laid its myriad of soul-crushing issues upon us yet. That next script is still perfect, still untouched by the cruelties and realities of filling up 110 pages of unboring material.

Well, don’t write that next script just yet. One thing it took me a long time to realize is how important planning your scripts is. There are certain boxes you want checked before you embark on that new ride, lest you find yourself halfway down an abandoned alley inside your  mind wondering how the hell you thought writing this mess was a good idea in the first place.

Fear not. I’m going to give you a 5 box check list to help you make that all important decision. While this list will be prioritized, everything here is important. A screenplay is something that you’re going to spend at least a year on (that’s not to say you won’t be writing other things during that time – but the good scripts take at least a year to write). And because 365 days is such a long time to dedicate to anything, you need to put a lot of thought into WHY you would want to spend it on this particular idea. So with that, let’s get started.

1) The Script Must Be A Story You Desperately Want To Tell – A lot of you probably assumed that the number one thing on this list would be “concept.” Here’s why it isn’t. I’ve seen a lot of great concepts go really bad on the page. When that happens, it’s for one of two reasons. Number 1, the writer isn’t skilled enough yet to pull off the story. Number 2, the writer’s heart was never into the idea in the first place. Sure, it’s nice to have an eye-grabbing concept that every producer in town wants to read. But that doesn’t matter if the writer doesn’t commit their mind, their body, and their soul to getting everything out of that idea. And that only happens if the writer NEEDS to tell this story. Writing a great script is no different from the creation of any piece of art. It cannot be great unless you give it your all. And you can’t give something your all if your heart isn’t in it.

2) The Concept Must Be Great – It may not have made number 1, but concept is still HUGELY important. Let me tell you a story. I know a talented writer who lived in Hollywood a long time ago, and he actually found a producer who liked one of his screenplays – the dream! After the producer helped him re-write a few drafts, the script wasn’t improving, so the producer moved on. The writer was so devastated, he stopped writing and eventually moved out of Hollywood, figuring he missed his shot. The good news is, this writer is writing again, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you see him break in soon. But here’s the reason I’m telling you this story. Hollywood is a numbers game. There’s no such thing as your “one shot.” People break in by having numerous shots and eventually capitalizing on one of them. What a great concept does is it gives you a lot of shots, because more people will want to read your screenplay. So for all of you writing that introspective coming-of-age screenplay, I’m not saying that you haven’t written the greatest story since War and Peace. But I am saying that nobody will ever know, because the demand to read the script will be so low. Give us a concept with irony, or a ton of conflict, or something completely original, or something wholly inventive. Write your idea down in logline form then put your producer hat on and ask yourself, honestly, if that’s something you’d be interested in spending millions of dollars on. If the answer is yes, you’re on the right track.

3) A Great Central Character – Notice how I didn’t say a great MAIN character. Sure, it’s preferable that your main character be the most interesting person in the script, but as long as one of the principle characters is fascinating in some way, you’re in good shape. Take Foxcatcher for instance. Channing Tatum’s character is reserved and hardly an eye-catching role. But that’s okay since the character Steve Carrel played is eerie and uncomfortable and weird. A screenplay without at least one fascinating central charater is like a recipe without one of the main ingredients. Have you ever had a sugarless cookie? Yeah, they suck. And it’s not hard to figure out why. So look for a character that’s either unique (Pee-Wee Herman), high-energy (Tony Stark), weird-energy (Captain Jack Sparrow), quirky (Juno), has a limitation holding them back (Forrest Gump), polarizing (Martin Riggs), dickish (Han Solo), opinionated (Pat from Silver Linings Playbood), conflicted (Chris Kyle), dangerous (Patrick Bateman), damaged (Hancock), an outlier (Alan Turing), battling demons (Whip Whitaker in Flight), funny (Buddy from Elf), sees the world in a way nobody else does (Walter Mitty). Think about the most interesting people you’ve met in your life. Ask yourself why they’re interesting. It’s usually because they contain one (or more) of these qualities. Use that as a base to come up with interesting characters of your own. But let me leave you with one warning. The story will ultimately dictate who your characters are. So don’t try to write a moody, dangerous, opinionated, former child molester protagonist if you’re scripting Herbie: Fully Loaded. Understand the kind of story you’re telling and build your interesting character around that.

4) Theme – It took me FOREVER to figure this out, but now I’m a big believer in it. And I’ll try to explain it like this. Writing a great script requires CREATIVE FUEL. Now creative fuel can come from a lot of areas. Your excitement about the story. Your excitement about one of the characters. Anything that puts you in that seat at night is creative fuel. The problem is, when you get to the fourth or fifth draft, that fuel starts evaporating. You’ve been with the script for so long that it’s become more about solving problems than creation. This is where theme comes in. If you REALLY WANT TO SAY SOMETHING with your screenplay, you’ll never run out of creative fuel. Because this isn’t just about a story for you. You’re trying to say something to the world. Whenever someone gives the feedback that a script felt “empty,” it’s almost always because the writer wasn’t trying to say anything. Take the recent film, Chef. John Favreau didn’t write that movie because food trucks were trendy and he wanted to capitalize on them. He wanted to explore what it was like for a divorced middle-aged man working in an industry that demanded all of his time to connect with his son. That’s what Chef was REALLY about. So before you start your next script, go ahead and ask if this concept allows you to say something about the world. More importantly, since everything in the world has already been explored, ask if that something is something that you have a specific point of view on – something where you can add to the conversation instead of repeat it.

5) Know Your Endgame – If you’re someone who’s just starting out in screenwriting, don’t worry so much about everything here. Take it in, understand what you can, but right now you should just be writing what you want and finding your voice. But as those of you who have written a few screenplays know, the worst feeling is getting finished with a screenplay and not really knowing what to do next. Do you enter it in contests? Do you query managers? What do you do? Well, understanding your end-game informs your writing of the script. So for example, if this is a script you want to direct yourself, you can be less conscious of the screenplay “rules” and focus more on creating something visually expressive – since you don’t have to get anyone’s approval on your script. Likewise, if you’re living really far from Hollywood, say another country, then your best avenue is probably entering contests. To that end, you won’t have to worry as much about a flashy concept because contest submissions are guaranteed reads. Therefore wow us with your storytelling instead. If your goal is to query every manager in town once you’re finished, then yeah, your logline better be eye-catching. If you’re trying to make the Black List, write something quirky with a weird main character. The better you know your endgame, the easier it will be to choose what kind of script you’re going to write. And if you’re someone who wants to explore every single avenue out there, then make sure to follow all four of these previous suggestions. Good luck!!!

Genre: Comedy
Premise: In a world where every person gets one “do over” in their life, a “Do Over” consultant must use the power to go back in time and stop his ex-wife from getting married.
About: Today is a little different. I read this script for notes awhile back and really liked it. It’s rare I like a notes script enough to review it on the site, but this just so happens to be one of those occasions.
Writer: Angela Bourassa
Details: 95 pages

Adam Scott for Rick?

The cool thing about giving notes to Scriptshadow readers is that Scriptshadow readers are typically some of the most educated amateur screenwriters out there. These are writers who are serious about their craft. And for that reason, when they send me a script, it’s not some 150 page wandasaurus rex coming-of-age autobiography. These are educated writers with a strong understanding of how to tell a story.

With that said, one of the biggest problems I see with these scripts is inconsistency. The writer will nail a scene, then fail a scene. He’ll get one character perfect, but never develop another one. The script will pop in some sections, and deflate in others.

It’s rare that I get a script where I can honestly say the writer is ready to take the leap into the professional ranks. But today is one of those times. Now, if I’m being honest, I don’t know if it’s this script. I’ve had discssuions with Angela about the script’s issues, and I’ve even sent it to some of my contacts, who have the same issues – that the concept is a bit complicated and takes awhile to set up.

But, I believe this script shows that Angela is ready to play in the big leagues. And I’ll get into why after the summary.

“Do Over” takes place in a world exactly like our own, except for one difference. Everybody in the world gets one “do-over” during their lifetime. I’m sure we’ve all wanted one of these – an opportunity to erase a terrible life-ruining day and do it all over again.

But with that big of a decision and with the stakes that high, people can’t afford to screw up their do-over. That’s where Rick comes in. Rick is a do-over consultant. He helps people decide if the mistake they made that day is worth using a do-over for.

On the day we meet Rick, Rick learns from an old friend that his ex-wife, Sarah, got married THAT DAY. Depressed as all get-up, Rick gets black-out wasted, only to wake up in his apartment with a loud large folksy Minnesotan woman telling him to get dressed and get ready.

This is Connie. Connie, a friend of Sarah’s, tells Rick that she used her do-over last night to give him another shot at Sarah before she gets married. But there’s a catch. He has to bankroll her life-long dream to be a plus-sized model, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity she screwed up yesterday because of a number of factors. Her second shot at the audition is in 6 hours. It’s time to get going.

Rick spends the first part of the day trying to eject from this lunatic woman’s orbit, before realizing that the only way he’s finding out the location of his ex-wife’s wedding is through her. He reluctantly teams up with her, and the two experience a city-wide adventure, capped off by Rick’s big opportunity to get Sarah back. The question is: can changing one day really change your life?

Melissa McCarthy for Connie – duh

Do Over does a few things really well. The two main characters are great. And by that, I mean, they both stand out, particularly Connie, who’s probably the best female comedy character I’ve read, amateur or pro, in a year. It’s not just the characters as individuals though. It’s the way they contrast. It’s the way they play off each other. To Rick, Connie is a hideous creature who needs to be placed back in the zoo. To Connie, Rick is a capital “D” douchebag who needs to be yanked off the Douche Highway. This contrast and conflict makes the two irresistible to watch together.

The story itself is also very contained, lending itself perfectly to comedy. They get one day to both get their shit done, and time is always running out. Any time you write a comedy, it works best if the goal needs to be achieved immediately. It just puts the characters under more stress, and stress is a great way to squeeze comedy out of people. So short time frame plus fun characters plus tons of conflict between the leads – plus the fact that Angela’s just naturally funny – these are the things that made this script stand out.

Here’s the big problem with the script though, and something I’ve discussed with Angela. It partly goes back to what I was talking about the other day. This is a BROAD premise (there’s no such thing as getting a “do over”). So it requires the audience to make more of a leap to believe in what’s going on – something studios aren’t favoring at the moment. They want comedy premises that can exist in the real world.

But this isn’t the only problem. The premise here isn’t an easy one to explain. In fact, the first 20 pages of the script are dedicated to setting up the rules and backstory of the script. The first ten explains the do-over rules themselves and what Rick does. And then we need to explain how Connie met Rick last night, Connie’s extensive backstory, and what Connie needs help with today. It’s a long sequence of pure exposition followed by a long sequence of pure exposition, a double-death exposition sand trap.

It’s actually a testament to Angela that she’s still able to make the script work after that. I remember when I read the first act for the first time and I thought, “Jeez, this is a lot of information required to set up the story.” If I were a producer, I probably would’ve mentally given up on the script then. However, once that’s gone and we’re just following these two characters, the script becomes so charming and fun that you can’t believe how big of a 180 it’s pulled.

There’s definitely a lesson to be learned here, and one I think Angela would agree with. Overly complicated premises that require a lot of explanation are the mortal enemy of comedy. It’s pretty obvious why. They require you to reserve a large portion of your script just to explain what’s going on. If you’re funny, you can add little jokes to this explanation, but no matter how funny you are, you can’t mask the fact that you’re having to explain so much. So when you’re picking your next comedy script, take that into consideration. Simplicty goes a long way towards allowing you to focus on the comedy.

And with that, I turn to you, loyal Scriptshadow readers. I feel that once this script gets rolling, you see the talent on display. But I can’t shake the feeling that there’s a simpler way to explore this premise that would help this script go from good to great. Anyone have ideas on how to pull that off?

In the meantime, I’m including the script. And I’m encouraging those in the business to check out Do Over. Angela will be writing in the professional ranks within the next year or two, particularly with Hollywood’s increasing love affair for female-dominated comedies. Get her while you still can!

Script link: Do Over

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

What I learned: The 3-Ply logline. Usually, a logline consists of two parts: the main character and the situation that character finds himself in. We can call this the 2-Ply approach. Here’s a 2-Ply logline for Taken:

(Ply 1) A former CIA agent (Ply 2) must find and save his teenage daughter when she’s kidnapped by a gang of ruthless criminals.

When you have a complicated world or idea that needs explaining, however, it forces your logline to become 3-Ply, since you now have to add a section where you explain the world. This makes the logline wordier and harder to digest. We can see this with Do Over.

(Ply 1) In a world where every person gets one “do over” in their life, (Ply 2) a “Do Over” consultant (Ply 3) must use the power to go back in time and stop his ex-wife’s wedding.

If you’re forced to write a 3-Ply logline, keep it as simple as possible. Don’t use a bunch of adjectives or tangents. Know that your logline is already a mouthful, and that keeping its pieces simple and to the point is the way to go. So, for example, this is how an inexperienced writer may write the logline for Do Over:

(Ply 1) In a world where every person gets one “do over” in their life, (Ply 2) a cocksure “Do Over” consultant who’s already used his own do-over (Ply 3) must count on the do-over of a random stranger he meets on a night of drinking to stop his ex-wife’s wedding, a stranger who’s going to make him jump through numerous hoops to get what he wants.

Genre: Comedy-Drama
Premise: A teenager is forced by his mother to befriend a female classmate who’s just been diagnosed with leukemia. An unexpected but life-changing friendship follows.
About: This former 2012 Black List script turned film just sold for a record 12 million dollars at Sundance.
Writer: Jesse Andrews (based on his own book)
Details: 114 pages (3/23/12 draft)

When I heard yesterday about the big Sundance sale for this movie, I pulled “Me & Earl & The Dying Girl” off of the digital pile to check it out. Now I’m no cinematic scientist, but I was hoping that the film had been purchased because it was actually good, and not because one of its principle characters was a female teenager dying with cancer, thus the perfect opportunity to capitalize on the success of The Fault In Our Stars.

Then again, for a place where most sales hover around the 2 million dollar range (The Eli Roth Keanu Reeves collaboration, “Knock Knock” just sold for 2.5), 14 mil is a hefty price to pay for something that isn’t any good. Sundance may have lost its luster since most indie films are going straight to digital these days. But their 2 or 3 breakout sales are usually pretty good.  Let’s see if Cancer Flick joins those ranks.

Greg is starting his senior year at high school and informs us right away that by the end of this year, he’ll have killed a girl. Well, maybe not directly, but in some significant way he’ll be responsible. Greg is a weirdo who spends the majority of his time making bizarre movies (stop motion, sock puppets) with his best friend, Earl.

So one night, Greg’s informed by his mother that his classmate, Rachel, has been diagnosed with leukemia. Because his mom happens to be the most mom-like mom in the world, she insists that Greg call Rachel and offer her help, despite the fact that he barely knows her. After a lot of resistance, he does, and it goes about as well as you’d expect. As in it’s a disaster. Neither of the two are interested in talking to each other.

Unfortunately, mom doesn’t let Greg off the hook, and forces him to actually visit Rachel. What starts off as a series of weird awkward conversations, develops into Greg’s first genuine male-female friendship. And oh yeah, Greg informs us, don’t worry. Rachel is not the girl who dies in this movie. That will be someone else. Hang tight to find out who.

In a sort of 80s homage, Greg is in love with the hottest girl in school, Madison, who happens to actually be that rare combination of hot and cool. As Greg drools over Madison’s every micro-movement, Rachel’s at home literally drooling into a barf bucket, as her disease continues to worsen.

Eventually, Greg decides to make one of his weird movies for Rachel to cheer her up. But it proves to be the most difficult thing he’s ever done, and he gets lost in numerous versions of the film. As Rachel continues to get worse and Prom night approaches (hey, it IS a high school movie), Greg has to stop pretending that all of this is going to be okay, and come to terms with the fact that the most important girl in his life may not be around soon.

Me & Earl & The Dying Girl kind of sneaks up on you like a hillbilly in the Appalachian Mountains. You think you’re safe in your little tent as you zip up your sleeping bag and get ready to call it a night, only to realize that you’re in the middle of nowhere and, if something goes wrong, there’s no one around to hear you scream.

Okay, maybe that’s a little over-the-top but the point is, “Dying Girl” comes at you under the radar as this sweet safe little story, only to whack you over the head when you least expect it. And to that end, it’s a good read. I mean there really is a lot to celebrate here. Which is funny to say, because there was one element that almost COMPLETELY RUINED the screenplay for me.

I don’t know how much you guys have heard of the term AFFECTED DIALOGUE, but it’s about time we talk about it.  Have you ever watched American Idol and listened to someone sing in a very RASPY voice?  In these cases, the singer is AFFECTING their voice to create a certain sound. Now there are two kinds of affect – the kind where you can tell that that’s the singer’s NATURAL tone, and the kind where the singer TRIES HARD to add the rasp.  The latter never works because no matter how good of a singer you are, you can hear the trying.

Affected dialogue is similar. It’s when you give a character a unique “affected” way of speaking. You can spot a great dialogue writer when they affect a character’s dialogue so naturally that you don’t notice it. Even though the character is clearly talking in a stylized way, it feels like an extension of who they are.

Then there’s the opposite, and that’s the character of Earl (Greg’s friend), a character whose dialogue was SO affected that it almost single-handedly destroyed the script for me. I liked almost everything else about this script except when Earl spoke. Here are some examples of his lines. “Won em off Ill Phil playing Tonk. Tired a whoopin his dumb ass.” “So now we both lit.” “Did he act all stoned and shit? While he teaching?” “Man, what the hell’s wrong with you. All apologetic and shit. Makin errything about your sorry ass.” Yes, that was “everything” spelled “errything.”

Maybe the actor they got to play Earl in this film is a comedic genius and makes this dialogue work. But reading it was like watching a 60 year old white male who’s never been to an actual ghetto in his life do tons of research online of how black people talk, and then write a character with a “black” voice. It actually made me cringe at times.

The crazy thing is that Greg’s dialogue is great. Greg is funny, thoughtful, strange, and therefore whatever comes out of his mouth is usually memorable (from one of Greg’s voice overs: “One last thing. Hot girls destroy your life. That’s just a fact. It doesn’t matter if the hot girl is also a good person. She’s a moose, you’re a chipmunk, she’s just wandering through the forest, oblivious, and she doesn’t even know that she stomped your head.”). There’s no affecting Greg’s voice. He just “is.”

Andrews also possesses a very rare superpower – the ability to take the script through familiar story beats without you knowing you’re going there. (spoiler) There’s this moment late in the script where Greg is taking Madison to prom, and we’re on our way to pick Madison up, only to show up, instead, at the hospital, where we realize Greg has ditched his dream date in favor of being with Rachel. I kicked myself for not seeing it coming, but oh how intense the moment was because I didn’t.

(Spoiler) Andrews also uses the “unreliable narrator” approach to assure us that Rachel is going to be okay in the end. We’re specifically told she’s not going to die. But then, quite suddenly, she does. And in retrospect, you knew it was going to happen, but dammit if, in the moment, you didn’t believe Greg when he assured you she’d be fine.

Finally, Andrews uses some bells & whistles to spice up a lot of the scenes. For instance, when Greg goes to school, we occasionally go into a little “faux-Terminator” POV where he assesses, like a robot, the variables (jocks, hot girls, appropriate handshakes) a typical high school senior deals with on a daily basis. Or whenever he goes over to Rachel’s, there’s a poster of Hugh Jackman in her room that will just start sharing his opinions with Greg.

I don’t mind Bells & Whistles IF they’re a natural extension of the characters or story. So let’s say you’re writing a script with a baseball player as the protagonist. If, say, the ghost of Babe Ruth occasionally appears to give the protagonist life advice, that makes sense due to the baseball connection. If your main character has deep intellectual conversations with squirrels for no reason, however, it can come off as “quirky try-hard.” Me & Earl & The Dying Girl falls somewhere in between these two extremes. Some of these bells & whistles were funny enough to make you forget they were written, while others (Hugh Jackman) screamed “Look at me! I’m a quirky writer!”

Despite the back and forth nature of this review, I’d definitely recommend Me & Earl & The Dying Girl. And that’s mainly because (spoiler) the ending really hits you on an emotional level. I didn’t expect it at all but darnit if Andrews didn’t suck me into this world and make me care. I don’t know how this new generation of writers is writing about cancer and keeping it accessible, but somehow they’re doing it. Check out “Dying Girl” if you can find it.

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

What I learned: You can’t use action lines to tell the reader that a character is speaking. You have to ACTUALLY HAVE THEM SPEAK. I’ll notice screenwriters make this mistake every once in awhile, and Andrews (who makes a few newbie mistakes throughout “Dying Girl”) makes it here. During a scene where Greg is making a bunch of jokes to Rachel and she’s laughing excessively, we get the action line: “Rachel is now begging Greg to stop.” Even though we understand what you mean, it doesn’t feel like it’s happening because you’re only describing it. You need Rachel to literally beg Greg to stop via her dialogue. So in this case, you would instead write something like – RACHEL (dying laughing): Stop! Oh my go… (gasping for air) please…Greg…