And a deeper dive into how a script sold for 2 million dollars

Note: If you want to read the script I refer to today (Love of Your Life) for more context, ask for it in the comments section. Someone will send it to you. Otherwise, you can check out my review of it (which has a plot synopsis) here.

I was thinking about yesterday’s big script sale and trying to derive meaning from it. It may be a fruitless venture since it’s difficult to deduce anything from a single data point. But 2 million dollars for a script in a landscape that barely likes to write six-figure checks is worth looking into.

The first thing I noticed is that this script was not a previously set up deal. Sometimes what happens is a studio will have a meeting with a writer and/or a producer they’re working with and say, “We want this kind of movie. We can’t put the money up front. But we basically promise that if you deliver what we want, we’ll buy it on the back end.”

These types of script sales are deceiving because they don’t reflect what the industry is looking for. They reflect what one specific person at a studio is looking for. Love of Your Life was more of a traditional spec sale in that it was sent out on the town and everybody liked it so they started bidding on it.

The reason that matters is that it means the script sold on merit alone. Which means we know the writing is good. Back in the old days, a script went out on the town and, because lines of communication were still in the stone ages, studios would read the first act and, if they liked it, start bidding in order to beat out the other studios, who they assumed were bidding as well. Hence, a lot of scripts that became garbage in act 2 and 3 were purchased. And I mean A LOT.

These days, studios don’t make that mistake. They will read the entire script. They will pass the script on to other people in the studio and have them read it. They will get their opinions. They will ask for honesty. If they’re going to pay for anything, they want to make sure it’s a quality screenplay. That was the case with Love of Your Life. It won over everyone who read it.

That’s the first big lesson to come out of this sale and it’s a lesson I’ve been preaching since I started this website: If you write something good, good things will happen.

But, of course, that advice reads hollow since every screenwriter who finishes a screenplay believes they’ve written something good. But how do we know if something we’ve written is actually good? The only true way to know is if you get at least ten people to read it and give you their opinion. One person’s opinion can be a fluke. So can two, three, even four people, if they’re not the right audience for your script. Case in point, a few of you have read this script and thought it was weak. Had you been the primary studio reader in charge of evaluating scripts, the studio would’ve passed.

But once you get up to 10 people, it’s hard not to see a trend in the responses. You’ll know if you’ve written something bad, good, or something that’s not quite there yet but has the potential to be good with more rewrites.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t help you when you BEGIN writing your screenplay. So, what are some specific ways in which we can write something good? Funny enough, after this script sold, my answer to that question changed. Well, maybe not changed. But it reminded me that the bells and whistles of a spec script (sexy concept, GSU, bankable genre) aren’t as important as what’s underneath the hood.

Which leads me to the premise of today’s article.

Every genre is a drama in disguise.

Therefore, if you want to write a good script in any genre, you must first understand the basic tenets of dramatic writing. Dare I say, you should even write a drama. Just so you understand how to entertain people without any tricks. With the drama genre, you entertain readers through the simple act of character exploration.

With that in mind, the number one thing you want to do is anchor your screenplay with someone we want to root for. I would even say, 90% of the time, you want to anchor it with someone we like. Because the second we like someone, we’re willing to go with that person wherever they take us.

And you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to achieve this. The main character in Love of Your Life, Maya, is just a nice person. Not to mention, she’s an ER doctor. So her job is to literally save people. It’s hard not to like someone like that.

Imagine if screenwriter Julia Cox, instead of going the ER nurse route, made her main character a selfish drug addict. I want you to sit in that for a moment. Consider how differently you would feel about this character (a character built around negativity). It would be much harder for you to instantly start rooting for her.

Now, ironically, Maya becomes more prickly as the story goes on. But it works because it’s a result of progressive character development. She was a happy in-love person. Something terrible happened to her. So we understand why she’s shifted from the positive end of the spectrum to the negative.

This leads to the next dramatic lesson of this article, which is that you can always do things to STRENGTHEN THE BOND between the reader and the main character. The stronger you make that bond, the more connected we are to that character. Seeing a character lose the love of their life takes a character we already like and makes us care for them EVEN MORE. That’s because we sympathize with them. And for anybody who’s lost a loved one, we empathize with them. These are two incredibly strong tools that, along with likability, make the bond between us and the hero elevate to nuclear levels.

But Cox takes that development to an even HIGHER level. Let me explain. Normally, you don’t have time to show the bond between two characters in a screenplay where one is going to die. Scripts move too fast. This forces the writer to kill off someone we barely know 10-15 pages into the script. In some cases, the script will even start right after a death.

Note how different the effect of death is on the reader if it’s done before the screenplay starts versus watching two people fall in love for 20 pages. That’s what Cox opted to do. So this wasn’t some random person our protagonist loved. This was a character WE OURSELVES GREW TO KNOW AND LIKE. To see Maya lose him hurt us almost as much as it hurt her. Which means that now we are connected to Maya EVEN MORE. We already like her. We sympathize and empathize with her. But by allowing us to get to know the character before they die, we have so much more attachment to Maya and what she’s going through.

Moving on, any good dramatic script takes their protagonist through a range of experiences. This makes the character stereo as opposed to mono. We like contrast in characters. We like depth. But there’s a way to do it and a way not to do it. Cox shows you the right way. First establish who Maya is (good, positive, happy) and then throw something devastating at her. This takes her to a dark place where she lives in the opposite of the above emotions.

The way NOT to do this, which I see all the time, is to smash all these conflicting emotions into the protagonist right away. They’re happy one second. They’re angry for no reason a second later. They’re cool as a cucumber. Then they’re a bull in a china shop. This may create contrast within your character, which technically makes them “complex,” but the chaotic nature of it leaves readers confused rather than intrigued.

From that point on, Love of Your Life is driven by two dramatic factors. And these are the factors that will power any dramatic screenplay. One: resolution from within – Your hero must resolve that which is broken inside of them. Two: relationship resolution – Your hero must resolve all unresolved relationships in the story.

Note how I’m not saying anything about plot. That’s because plotting is not as important in a dramatic screenplay. The “plot” is essentially the main character’s arc. We’re there to see them resolve their brokenness. This is why it’s so important to establish the likability and sympathy early on. Because the less we like the hero and the less with sympathize with the hero, the less we’ll care about them resolving their internal issue. On the flip side, if you create amazing likability and sympathy (and, in this case, empathy), then we’re with you hook, line, and sinker. We’ll be dying to see your hero resolve their issue (in Maya’s case, to get past her grief and move on from the death of her husband).

However, when it comes to the drama genre, a single internal arc for your protagonist isn’t enough to power the entire screenplay. Remember, you often don’t have a strong plot in these dramas. So, you need more.

You get that from UNRESOLVED RELATIONSHIPS between your hero and other characters. The cool thing about this aspect of drama is that you can add as many of these unresolved relationships as you want. For Love of Your Life, the two main unresolved relationships are her best friend, Jason, who she ran away from the second her husband died. And Ruth, the mother of her dead husband, who she also abandoned.

There is also another man Maya falls in love with that acts as a bridge between her husband’s death and those later character resolutions.  Any interaction with another character that contains an unresolved element counts.  So, in this case, the unresolved element is whether the two will remain casual lovers or become official.

The point is, we will keep turning the pages to see how those relationships get resolved.

It’s important to note that relationship exploration is not just about checking boxes. You still have to be creative in the way you explore these resolutions. For example, the conclusion of the Jason relationship could’ve gone in a much more conservative direction. It could’ve just been the two reestablishing their friendship.

But, instead, it veers into the potentially dangerous territory of a romantic relationship. There’s so much baggage here and these two both loved her husband so much, that getting together probably isn’t the best idea. But it’s that creativity in the exploration of the storyline that makes this relationship exciting to read. If it was a nuts and bolts resolution, it wouldn’t have been as compelling.

It’s a funny thing, screenwriting. Cause when you break it down – when you look at all of the individual components that make a script work – it seems obvious. But, of course, it never is. Coming up with this stuff requires taking a lot of risks, getting a lot of feedback, and receiving a lot of rewriting based on that feedback.

But I stand by what I said. If you can make a script work just on drama and character, you are so much better equipped to go into the sexier genres of action, horror, thriller, and sci-fi because those scripts will always take you to moments where you don’t have any fireworks to light to keep the reader invested. In those quieter moments, it is your dramatic writing skills that will get you through. So, it wouldn’t be the worst idea to write your own “Love of Your Life.” If only to sharpen your dramatic writing skills. :)

A 2 million dollar spec sale in 2024!

Genre: Drama
Premise: A young woman meets a man and they fall in love quickly. But then they encounter a devastating setback that will change the direction of both of their lives forever.
About: Last week, there was a big bidding war for this script and Amazon/MGM won it for 2 million dollars. It was like the spec script days of old! The writer, Julia Cox, has one feature screenplay credit, for Nyad, the Jodie Foster film about the real-life swimmer who swam from Cuba to Florida. As of today, Sydney Sweeney is being tabbed to play the main character, Maya, although no official deal has been made. Ryan Gosling is producing and I’d be surprised if he didn’t star in some capacity (there are three main male roles).
Writer: Julia Cox
Details: 120 pages

NOBODY. KNOWS. ANYTHING.

The famous words of William Goldman that assessed the competency of the people who run Hollywood.

After you hear the plot and analysis of today’s script, that phrase will be tattooed to your brain.

Because everything I’ve told you to do in order to sell a script… is the opposite of what this writer does.

How can any screenwriter understand anything going forward?

I don’t know.

But I do think there’s a bridge between the high-octane storytelling I preach and how this unconventional spec script sold. So let’s talk about it!

20-something Boston nurse, Maya, meets 20-something Charlie (who specializes in audio synthesis) while buying an end table from him. The sparks fly immediately so Charlie suggests they meet again and Maya doesn’t even try and play it cool. She’s in.

Over the next 20+ pages, the two fall into that kind of love that everyone around them rolls their eyes at. Cause it’s that annoying! But neither Maya nor Charlie care. They are so smitten that they spend every waking second together, oogling and smoogling each other. A couple of years pass and then they get married.

(Spoilers follow)

The year? 2020. The year of Covid.

Charlie gets sick. And sicker. Being an ER nurse, Maya is concerned. She keeps pushing Charlie to go to the hospital, especially because he has asthma. She finally convinces him to go but a couple of hours later, his health deteriorates and he dies. Maya is devastated. She shuts down. There isn’t a life for her without Charlie in it.

Cut to years later and Maya lives in Portugal. She basically eats, drinks, screws dudes, and sleeps. She is on autopilot. Until she meets a sexy Portuguese man named Felix. For the first time, Maya feels positive emotions again. She really likes Felix. And he likes her enough to push her towards a future together.

But emotions scare Maya and she bails, traveling through Europe, getting lost again. The years pass until she’s in her 40s and she finally feels like she can go back to the U.S. It is there where she must face the people she left when Charlie died. And one person, in particular, helps her see through her pain. A person who, in the most unexpected of ways, could be the love of her life.

Does this sound like a 2 million dollar spec sale to you?

I’m guessing not.

Which is why I’m sure your first question is: WHY THE HECK DID THIS SELL FOR 2 MILLION DOLLARS?

Luckily, I think I can answer that question.

You see, there are two types of scripts that sell. The first is a good movie concept. Something like Leave The World Behind. But there is a lesser-known type of script that sells, and that’s the script that does an amazing job of emotionally connecting with the reader.

Which is the category that Love of Your Life falls under.

Because think about it. If you’re crying at the end of a screenplay, that story has succeeded in connecting with you. Which means it has a good chance of connecting with movie audiences as well. Which is the endgame here. All the studios and streamers care about is people watching their stuff. It doesn’t matter how those people get there – concept, emotion – as long as they get there.

The thing is, scripts that connect with readers on an emotional level are significantly more challenging to execute than concept-driven stuff. It takes way more skill to pull one of these off. Which is why it’s so rare. I can’t remember the last time a script blew me away on character and emotion alone.

So, you have to be someone who’s in tune with writing authentic characters who say authentic things. You have to understand what’s too melodramatic, what’s too cliched. If you don’t know exactly where those lines are, then when you write one of these scripts, they turn out like bad Hallmark movies. I can’t emphasize enough how hard these are to execute.

Because look at how many screenplay rules this breaks. It’s 120 pages (too many!). There are lots of 5, 6, 7 line paragraphs (too long!). There’s no clear goal driving the story. You’re working with an elongated time frame, which is always hard to wrangle.

But the hardest thing to get right  is the characters. You have to write authentic characters and Julia Cox does a really good job of that. Maya feels real from the very first page.

Another thing that scripts like this need is scope. Because they don’t have a concept, they need to feel big in other ways. This script includes the death of the main love interest on page 45, which is a big moment. And then the character travels the world to forget it. Time then passes. All of these things create scope.

If, however, your main character’s love interest had died and the whole movie takes place in a small town, that’s not enough scope to sell a script for 2 million dollars.

Not only that, but the themes are gigantic and universal here. A big reason why I think this script sold is because it’s arguably about the meaning of life. I know that’s not going to get the kiddies pressing play on Roku but for the adults, they won’t just press play, they’ll toggle the subtitles onto the largest font.

It really comes down to the characters, though. I can’t emphasize enough how weak the characters are in the majority of the scripts I read. They’re either thin, boring, uninspired, or plain. They rarely have personality. They always seem to act inauthentically. In other words, they don’t act like people. They act like writers are writing them.

That’s where Julia Cox excels. I didn’t detect a single inauthentic moment in this script. The characters always acted consistently and realistically. There’s a conversation Maya has with Charlie’s mother late in the script that’s a de facto apology for disappearing after his death. That’s such a tricky scene to write because there are so many temptations to go for the “make the reader cry” line. And those are the lines that always bomb, that always feel like a reach. Cox never gets over her skis in the scene. She just allows the characters to speak to each other.  Here’s a small part of that conversation…

(Spoilers)

For the majority of this script, I was going to give it a double worth the read. But the thing that pushed it up to an impressive was the stuff regarding Jason, her best friend. Jason is a huge ally to Maya in her romance with Charlie. So when she reunites with him back in the U.S. and the two decide to push it beyond friendship, I realized that it was actually Jason who was the “love of her life.” Maybe not the love she wanted. But definitely the love she needed. And it got me. Just like I suspect it got everyone else who read the script. Which is why it sold for 2 million dollars.

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

What I learned: Resist writing what you WANT the character to say and instead write what that person WOULD say.  If you can master this one tip, your dialogue will be better than 90% of the screenplays out there.  You can get a lot more dialogue tips like this in my DIALOGUE BOOK!

What I learned 2: Between this and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, we might be hitting a “feels” trend in screenwriting. Scripts about family, love, death, universal themes. Something to keep an eye on!

A Hugo Award Winning author adds a high concept twist to the giant monster space.

Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: A Door Dash driver is recruited to a secret parallel world where humans attempt to preserve giant monsters, carefully preventing them from transporting to earth.
About: Today’s book, The Kaiju Preservation Society, was optioned by Fox Entertainment two years ago, before the book was published. This is what agents do, by the way. Before a book is officially released, they try to build buzz and sell the movie (or TV) rights. It’s sort of like what they do with spec scripts. The difference is, even if the book fails to get a deal, it’s still going to be published so people can read it. John Scalzi has been a popular sci-fi writer for over a decade now. He won the prestigious Hugo Award (best science fiction novel) for his book, Redshirts, in 2013. He also wrote the Old Man’s War trilogy, which is a sci-fi franchise about an intergalactic war that needs soldiers, so they place a bunch of old people into young bodies to go fight the war.
Writer: John Scalzi
Details: about 264 pages

This is the kind of thing you want to write about to cast the widest net of potential suitors for your concept possible.

Hollywood is obsessed with giant monsters. But the challenge is finding new avenues into the giant monster space. Scalzi did that. Technically speaking, Godzilla is a kaiju. But nobody has the IP on the word “kaiju.” So, if you create some world where there are a bunch of new kaiju you invented, you’ve created a potentially lucrative franchise for a Hollywood studio. So it’s a forward-thinking move by Scalzi.

Not to mention, it’s a unique angle. The first thing you think of when you think ‘giant kaiju’ is not a preservation society. That, therefore, creates an intriguing contrast. You want to open the book to see how those worlds collide.

That’s why I wanted to check this book out. Now let’s find out if Scalzi nailed the execution.

Jamie Gray is an exec at a Door Dash like company called Fudmuud (Food Mood). But when Covid hits, his evil CEO billionaire boss, Rob Sanders, demotes him and he’s forced to be a driver. One night, he delivers food to an old friend who says, “Why don’t you come work with me?” Even though the guy doesn’t tell him what Jamie would be doing, Jamie says, ‘sure, why not?’

Several days later, Jamie is transported to another earth-like planet in a parallel dimension. On this planet, a bunch of giant monsters called “kaiju” roam. Along with 150 other people working for the organization, Jamie is tasked with preserving these kaiju. For example, one of his first missions is to fly a plane and spray pheromones over a kaiju (named “Bella,” in honor of Twilight) so that another kaiju (named “Edward”) will mate with it.

But what they’re really trying to prevent is when kaiju spontaneously transport between that earth and our earth, which happens during high nuclear activity. This is complicated by the fact that kaiju are made of nuclear energy. So, if one blows up, it thins the veil between the two earths, and other kaiju can cross over.

One of the only ways to fund the Kaiju Preservation Society is through donations from billionaires. And, occasionally, those billionaires want a return on their investment. Aka, they want to come see the Kaiju with their own eyes. Jamie is tasked with taking the latest billionaire out on an expedition and who should that billionaire be? ROB SANDERS!

Jamie is pissed but their little walk is the least of his worries. That’s because Bella, who has since been impregnated, has disappeared! Nobody from the KPS knows where she is. It doesn’t take a bunch of brain cells to figure out that Rob Sanders has something to do with it. But what has he done with Bella? And what might the consequences be back on the real earth???

No doubt you’ve heard the metaphor that a story is like a house. And if you build a shaky foundation for your house, it doesn’t matter how pretty the house looks inside or outside, it’s only a matter of time before it collapses.

I like this metaphor because it best describes how books like this are failed ventures. This entire story was built on a shaky foundation and it never recovered as a result.

What does “shaky foundation” mean, exactly? Think of your foundation as a series of pillars. If any of those pillars are weak, the house will probably fall down. And, if more than one is weak, the house will definitely fall down.

In this case, you have a Door Dasher who shows up at a guy’s house. The guy knows our protagonist from school and says, “Hey, why don’t you go to a parallel world and help the organization I work for preserve giant monsters.”

Let’s think about that for a second. Before we even get to the monster part, we are telling a random citizen that there are parallel worlds out there. That would be one of the most top secret pieces of information on the planet. And we are just inviting random Door Dashers to not only BE TOLD about that planet, but travel to it!? Oh, and also to work with giant monsters!!??

None of this makes any logical sense. That is how you build a weak pillar, a pillar that is going to crumble when you pack your story on top of it. Because you’re building everything on something that would never happen. If this were real, the government would spend millions upon millions of dollars to recruit very specific people into these jobs. The second your evaluation criteria for saving monsters is, “Can they get Thai food to my house before it gets cold,” your story loses all credibility. As do you! For even thinking that would work!

If you look back at Jurassic Park, they recruit paleontologists. They recruit scientists. They recruit people who make sense in that world. That’s a strong pillar. This is one of the weakest pillars I’ve ever seen an established writer build a story on top of. And I know why he did it, which I’ll share with you in the “what I learned” section.

I suppose if you looked at this book as a comedy, the Door Dash thing wouldn’t bother you so much. So let’s say that’s not an issue for you.

Even if you were able to ignore that, the book is bogged down by glaring structural flaws. The inciting incident doesn’t come until 80% of the way into the story! The inciting incident is Bella disappearing. Nothing of consequence happens before that. It’s all set up of the world and how things work. It was almost like Scalzi was planning to write a 500 page book, got bored, and conked out at page 250.

My biggest pet peeve of all when it comes to writing is when it’s clear the writer didn’t give 100% effort. This space is too competitive to only give 90% of yourself. Or 80% of yourself. If you want something that will resonate with people, you have to give every ounce of what you’re capable of giving to the story. This feels like Scalzi barely gave an ounce.

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

What I learned: You’ve heard countless times (including here) to write what you know. Because when you write what you know, you’ll be able to write specifically, which makes the story feel authentic. That DOES matter. However, this advice doesn’t always work. And this book is a prime example as to why. It is clear that all of this Door Dash nonsense that permeates the plot was born out of Scalzi writing this book during Covid, and ordering a lot of food from Door Dash, like many people did at the time. So he used that as a jumping off point for his main character. But it’s a tonally disastrous choice, as it clashes oddly with the subject matter. Jamie’s job needed to be better integrated into this subject matter. Whether that be a scientist or a geneticist or an animal behaviorist or a government figure. All of those would’ve been better choices than a Door Dash delivery guy. The second Scalzi made that creative choice, he doomed this book.

What I learned 2: John Scalzi made his own way.  His big break came with Old Man’s War. In 2002, instead of pursuing traditional publishing right away, he published the novel on his website, offering it as a free e-book. The novel gained popularity online, and through this, he caught the attention of readers and eventually the industry.

A radically inventive movie goes unseen over the weekend. Where are the cinephiles!?

I’m super bummed that “Here” pulled in just 4 million dollars this weekend. There was a time when you could build an entire marketing campaign around a movie like this. From the originality of the premise to the cutting-edge technology used to make the film (they’re utilizing new AI software to de-age the characters).

The technical aspects of the film seemed particularly challenging. For example, old Tom Hanks would have to move like 30 year old Tom Hanks in some scenes. Imagine flopping down on a couch like a 30 year old when you’re 70. So they would sometimes need to bring in body actors. And because it would be apparent if someone didn’t move like Tom Hanks, they’d have the body actors go through hundreds of hours of old Tom Hanks movies and practice the way that he walked at different ages.

That’s the kind of thing that, back when Zemeckis was king, everyone would’ve been talking about in the lead-up to this film’s release. Now, it’s a collective shoulder shrug.

Cast Away (a Zemeckis-Hanks classic) probably wasn’t as good as we remember. But the story BEHIND that movie captivated moviegoers for an entire year. “What!? Tom Hanks shot the first half of the movie at 220 pounds, then spent six months losing 70 pounds before shooting the second half of the movie!? That’s incredible!!! I have to see that movie!”

I may be overanalyzing. It could just come down to “It’s an old person’s movie.” But I’m surprised they didn’t put more of a marketing push behind it. Releasing something in movie theaters in 2024 without a gigantic marketing push is suicide. Comic book movies with 100 million dollar marketing campaigns struggle to get awareness. Why would you think a borderline indie film is going to gain awareness when the only Tom Hanks interview that came across my computer this weekend was a hiking walk with Kevin Nealon?

Right on cue, Judd Apatow came in to add fuel to the fire. “It’s all completion rate,” he said, discussing the new jargon from the streamers. Then, speaking from the faux perspective of a Netflix exec: “We must have them complete it. We cannot put out a film if anyone shuts it off!” He then continued on, “There’s an intensity to everything, [where it must be] sexy or exciting or terrifying. And I think it changes it so you don’t have quieter, subtler, whatever funny, human things because I think they’re afraid people are gonna shut it off or not go [to theaters]. You lose a lot of good stuff when everything is so wired.”

It’s both true what Apatow is saying and it’s not. You can DEFINITELY still tell those stories. You just can’t tell them on the big screen as often. And that’s what chuffs everyone who’s used to the old ways of business. Their ego is guiding them. It’s that need to not just create something that people see, but to get that red carpet treatment. To get that status that comes from being on 3000 screens. Who the heck cares as long as people see it?

The real problem with Here’s paltry box office may be its author, Robert Zemeckis. I’ve been low-key obsessed with Zemeckis’s career since his unprecedented hot streak. The man owned Hollywood for a decade. Romancing the Stone, Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, Contact, Cast Away. Why did he fall so quickly? I have a new theory every few years and my latest is that all of his previous films were built on top of such positive emotions. Back to the Future was pure joy. Forrest Gump was the most optimistic character in cinema history. A lot of his more recent movies are built on negative emotions. Sadness (Welcome to Marwen), despair (Flight).

I don’t want to dissuade all you unhappy writers ready to cry tears onto the pages of your latest depressing opuses. It’s not that movies built on negative emotions can’t work. But the audience is WAY smaller. And the margin for error is way slimmer. Basically, you have to be Hemingway at his peak to pull it off.

And, by the way, I don’t want something to be lost in all this, which is that I absolutely love the ingenuity of this idea. I commend Zemeckis for swinging for the fences. In a marketplace packed with base hits out to left field, Zemeckis gets major props for doing something so risky. But dude, Robert. When you’re swinging for the fences, you need to hit the screenplay right smack dab on the “Rawlings” logo.  You swung and you missed.  A screenplay like this (one with so many potential pitfalls) needs to be airtight.

Oh, and in stark contrast to Apatow’s recent complaint, a character-driven script JUST SOLD for 2 million dollars last week. At least I think it’s character-driven. We’ll find out on Wednesday when I review it. But it’s important to mention because sometimes Hollywood creatives get caught up in all the negative chatter. “The business is slow right now! There are no jobs.” If I had a penny for every time I heard “it’s slow” in Hollywood since I’ve been here, I’d be richer than Elon Musk.

There are opportunities. There will always BE opportunities. And, as writers, your opportunities increase in relation to how good your script is. So focus on THAT. And when you finish that, focus on getting your script out to as many people as you can. If it’s good, something good will come of it. I’m not saying you’ll sell it for 2 million dollars. But I promise you that if it’s good AND you get it out there, something good will come of it.

Okay, now for something completely off the beaten path. I’m finding that Chat GPT is quite good at suggesting movies. You just have to provide it with extremely specific criteria for what you’re looking for. This is the prompt I gave it last night: “This is going to be really difficult for you. I have seen almost every movie ever. However, I do have some weak points. Pre-1990, I have some gaps. And there are non-mainstream foreign movies I haven’t seen. I’m looking to watch a movie that’s not too serious. Something that will leave me feeling good. Give me some suggestions.”

It then spat out 20 movies, 16 of which I’d never seen before and 12 I’d never heard of before. The only problem with the suggestions was that a few of the foreign movies that looked good weren’t on any streaming services. But I finally settled on a 1978 movie called “The Silent Partner.” It’s a Canadian thriller. I loved that because Canada making a thriller movie may be the biggest oxymoron on planet earth.

The movie follows a bank teller at a Canadian mall who stumbles across a discarded bank withdrawal slip in the garbage which says, “I have a gun. Quietly hand me all the money.” He deduces that a potential robber chickened out at the last second, but that he’ll be back to try again.

So the next day, he covertly puts the majority of the money from his station in a bag. Sure enough, the robber comes back (he’s the mall’s Santa Claus) with a new note, demanding all the money. The teller gives him “all” the money (except for the money he smuggled away for himself) and the robber runs away. It’s the perfect crime. The bank just assumes that the robber took it all.

However, because of local news coverage of the robbery, the robber realizes what happened. It’s reported that 50,000 dollars was stolen but he only received 20,000. He now sets his sights on the teller, determined to get the remainder of his dough. At first, the teller is intimidated. But, eventually, he’s tired of being bullied and goes on the offensive.

I’m not going to pretend like The Silent Partner is some cinematic masterpiece. But it’s fun enough and weird enough that it’ll keep you entertained. The writing can be good but also silly. The teller collects exotic fish. Why?! There’s literally no reason. It doesn’t inform his character at all. It’s clearly something the writer thought would add “dimension” to the character. And there’s a scene where the bad guy beats up another character for literally no reason other than to make you hate him. You’re watching this and thinking to yourself, “What kind of crazy sh*t went on in the 70s to make people write this???” Still, it’s a $3.50 Amazon Prime rental. If you watch it, let me know what you think.

Okay, since the Scriptshadow Newsletter is still on the fritz (I continue to search for a mass e-mail app that’s easy to use), I’ll offer two SCRIPT CONSULTATION DEALS right here on the site. I’m offering HALF-OFF script notes for two people only. One from the U.S. and one from anywhere outside the U.S. These will go quick so e-mail me right away! (carsonreeves1@gmail.com).

Includes a tip that will get the reader to turn all 110 pages of your script!

Today’s article was born out of this realization I had the other day that the entire goal of screenwriting boils down to making the reader turn the page.

I can’t emphasize this enough. The reader must have an insatiable appetite to turn the page. Because the second they don’t feel that need, they’re done with you.

That’s an important distinction between screenwriting and novel-writing because it’s different when you sit down and read a novel. You get the novel for the specific purpose of being entertained by it. So you’re willing to invest more time into it.

With a screenplay, the goal is different. It’s to determine if the script can be turned into a movie. The second the reader determines that it cannot, he’s free to stop. So that trigger is much faster on a screenplay, which is why understanding what makes a reader turn the page is so important.

Of course, I can’t give you universal reasons why readers turn pages. But I can tell you my reasons. And most of those reasons are going to line up with the people around town who read scripts. So let’s get into it.

A KICK-ASS CONCEPT
I can’t stress this one enough because it gives you a huge buffer for the start of your script. If someone sends me a really good marketable concept – like A Quiet Place or The Platform or Inception – you get 20 pages right off the bat. Even if the writing is bad, I will still give you 20 pages.

This is because a good marketable concept is hard to find. So even if the writing sucks, I’m thinking, “Could I bring another writer on to fix this?” I can see the movie so I’m willing to invest more of my time to see if there are solutions to the problems in the script.

But if it’s some indie concept or low concept (a road trip between a mother and daughter through the south), you don’t get any pages. I will literally stop reading on page 1 if the writing doesn’t capture me in some way. So, if you want 20 pages right off the bat, write that big concept script of yours. It’s going to make your post-script life so much easier.

VOICE
If the writer has a unique voice that sparkles on the page, that’ll get you 15-20 pages. I won’t go into what voice is in detail. I’ve written other articles on that. But, basically, it means the uniqueness in how the writer sees the world and their ability to translate that into their writing. It often involves a unique sense of humor. And you can see it by reading writers like Diablo Cody, Quentin Tarantino, Charlie Kaufman, Taika Waititi, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Yorgos Lanthimos.

WRITING IS A CUT ABOVE
If the writing is a cut above, that earns the script anywhere between 10-15 pages right off the bat. By writing, I mean the way the writer writes. Their sentence structure, their word choice, their turn-of-phrase, their intelligence, the way they weave their thoughts together. If that’s done in an advanced way, it usually (but surprisingly not always) means the script is worth reading. Look at Chandler Baker’s “Big Bad” short story that I reviewed. That’s what I mean by writing that’s a cut above.

Now, I’m not going to lie. If you have none of those things, your script is probably in a heap of trouble. But I’m about to surprise you. If you can be good at a few nuts and bolts things in screenwriting, you can still get that reader to turn the page. And if you keep rolling these things out, like breadcrumbs, throughout the script, the reader is going to be at the end of the screenplay before they know it.

A MAIN CHARACTER WHO I REALLY WANT TO BE AROUND
This is the biggest cheat code in all of screenwriting. Because as I said: The goal is to get the reader to turn the page. That goal remains the same whether we’re on page 1 or page 40. Interest can be lost so quickly during a read, it would shock you. The reader could be deeply invested in your story on page 27. But by page 35 they’re bored out of their mind. I’ve seen it happen more times than I can count. So you want a situation where you don’t have to keep coming up with something amazing every single page in order to get the reader to turn to the next one.

Enter a main character I want to be around. Either I like him or I’m intrigued by him or he’s funny or he’s caught up in something crazy that I have to see how he’s going to get out of. Giving us a main character who we want to be around is the thing that makes us turn all 110 pages. Even if the rest of your script is average, the reader will keep turning the page. I’m talking about Jordan Belforte, Arthur Fleck, Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Bella in Poor Things, Erin Brokovich, and Mildred Hayes in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

The large majority of the scripts I read have weak forgettable main characters. The writers seem comfortable with everyman and everywoman types who have no outstanding qualities. The story becomes the big star of the script and the main character, because he’s so bland, is overshadowed in the process. At the very least, give us a character with something to overcome. Because anything that is unresolved is a reason to turn the page. I must turn the page to see if it gets resolved.

If my character is a coward, I must turn the page to see if he ever becomes brave. But if my character is fine and has no flaws, what do I get by turning the page? To keep finding out they’re fine? Do you really think that’s enough to make me keep reading?

GOOD SCENE-WRITING
As many scenes in your script as possible should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. If you do this well, we will want to turn every page because every page gets us closer to finding out how the scene ends. However, I don’t care how a scene ends if you don’t set up a problem that needs to be resolved. If you don’t set up a goal that needs to be achieved. Pretend each scene is a mini-screenplay. It should have a setup (which gives us the goal or the problem), conflict (things get in the way of solving the problem or achieving the goal), and resolution. If you’re able to do this consistently in each and every scene, then the reader has to keep reading to see how each scene resolves. But if you’re just showing snippets of characters lives without structure, then hell no am I going to turn the page. I’ll be bored within 2 pages, 3 pages tops.

DANGLING CARROTS
Getting down to the nitty-gritty – the way to get a reader turning each and every page is to dangle carrots in front of them. If there are no carrots, there’s no reason for the donkey to keep walking. Let’s say your opening scene is your hero getting ready for work. Why should I keep reading about that? Honestly, tell me why. Cause you thought of it? Cause you wrote it? This is the error in so many writer’s thinking processes. The reader owes you NOTHING. They don’t turn the page to be “a good person.” They only turn the page IF YOU GIVE THEM A REASON TO TURN THE PAGE.

So, what you might do here is, while your hero is getting ready for work, have his wife trying to calm him down about his big meeting with the boss today. Today is the day that he’s going to ask for that raise. This is called DANGLING A CARROT. Now I have to turn the page to find out what happens when he asks for the raise! Does he get it or is he turned down!

Even better, the more meat you put on the carrot, the more pages the reader will turn. For example, if you open your script with a murder and you make that murder brutal and you make it so we really want to find out who did it, that’s a meaty freaking carrot right there. So you might get 10-15 turned pages out of it before the reader demands more information about the murder.

SUSPENSE
Any time you can create suspense, readers will turn the page. Suspense is the skillful withholding of information to keep the audience in a state of anxious anticipation. In screenwriting, it’s almost always tied to the negative. So, if you show us a terrorist secretly planning to blow up a plane AND THEN you show our clueless protagonist get on that very plane, you are creating an open line of suspense.

Any time you open a line of suspense, the reader has to turn the page. And, as you can see, that line of suspense can cover 5, 10, 15 pages easy, until the plan either succeeds or fails. But we’ve seen suspense work for even longer. Look at Titanic. That whole movie is suspenseful because we all know what the passengers do not: That the boat sinks. So we have to turn the page in a script like that so we can see who lives and who dies when the boat sinks.

UNEXPECTED THINGS HAPPEN
I read more screenplays than you can possibly imagine that never do anything surprising in them. As a result, I don’t want to turn the page. But when you do unexpected things, you STAY AHEAD OF THE READER. Which means the reader has no choice but to CATCH UP. What’s the only way they can catch up? By turning the page.

Strange Darling is a good example (spoilers). We think the killer is the guy. It turns out to be the girl. Scream kills off who we think is the main character in the very first scene. Kinds of Kindness has all sorts of unexpected things happening in its multiple stories. Poor Things goes bananas with some of its early creative choices. If I don’t feel like I have a handle on something, I have to turn the page to get a grip on that thing. Don’t overwhelm your script with unexpected moments. But a few smartly placed unexpected moments can keep the reader riveted (and riveted readers turn the page!).

Let’s wrap things up here. The most powerful thing you can do as a writer is to ask yourself, at every single point in your screenplay, “Why would the reader keep reading?” And the answer can’t be because you worked hard on your screenplay and you deserve it. I wish the world worked that way but it doesn’t. You need to be able to logically convey WHY the reader should turn the page. Whether it’s the concept, the writing, the voice, the main character, the unexpectedness, the suspense, or something out of your own bag of tricks! Whatever you have to do to get the reader to turn the page, do it. Cause they’re bored and they’re ready to give up the second they open your script. Don’t let them!