Tarantino’s writing probably contains more exceptional elements than any other writer in the business.

The worst scripts in the world?  They aren’t the worst scripts in the world.  There are scripts even worse.

Make sense? Probably not. But it will be by the end of this article.

Consider yourselves lucky.  Here at Scriptshadow, we don’t let you see the bad stuff. The scripts you see on Amateur Offerings every week? Those writers have at least demonstrated an understanding of the craft. But the truly bad ones? Those don’t make it in front of your eyes. For that reason, you don’t know what it’s like to read something truly bad.

I remember a couple of years ago, I read this script where I had ZERO understanding of what was going on.  This writer had the ability to write pages and pages of story where nothing actually happened, so I’d find myself having read 10 pages, but not being able to remember anything that transpired.  If you put a gun to my head, I’d probably tell you it was about a goddess trying to blow up a volcano. But if the writer had told me it was about a Christmas tree who fell in love with a menorah, I wouldn’t have argued. It was that vague.

But look, the truth is, these “really bad” scripts are often the result of new writers who haven’t studied the craft and who have never gotten feedback. They write down exactly what’s in their head as they’re thinking it, believing it will make sense to us because it makes sense to them, not realizing that writing a screenplay requires a stricter kind of logic that takes some trial and error getting used to.

So to me, those aren’t the worst screenplays. The worst screenplays are the AVERAGE SCREENPLAYS.

There’s no emptier feeling I get than when I read an average screenplay. I mean, at least with a really bad script, you remember it. With an average script, it’s forgotten as soon as you put it down. It goes through you like fast food. And the sad thing is, I’ve been reading 15 of these scripts a month.  It feels like this huge collective of screenwriters has accepted mediocrity.   So when I see the spec market starving, it doesn’t surprise me.  Who’s opening up their checkbook for another average script?

Let me give you an example. I once read a buddy-cop script (I had to go back to it to re-familiarize myself) that had the two cops who hated each other, it had the standard “witty” back-and-forth banter, it had the familiar drug plot, it had the cop who was secretly one of the bad guys. This is the exact dialogue going on in my head as I read it (“Seen that before. Seen that before. Seen that before. Seen that before.”). I must’ve said that to myself 80 times. There wasn’t a single elevated element in the story.

I don’t know what writers expect after writing these scripts. Do they think they should be praised because they successfully gave us an average version of something we’ve already seen before?

With a script, you have to stand out somehow. A series of average elements isn’t going to cut it. Readers want to see original takes on elevated material. Which brings us to the term of the day: Exceptional Elements.

An exceptional element is any element in your script that’s better than average. You’d like to have as many of these in your screenplay as possible. But realistically, you probably won’t get past 3. Which is fine, because that’s all you need to write something noticeable, and definitely all you need to write something better-than-average.

To add some context, there are three scripts I really liked over the last few weeks: Hot Air, Cake, and Tyrant. Let’s see what the exceptional elements were in each. With Hot Air, the dialogue (especially Lionel’s) was an exceptional element, the characters were an exceptional element, and the plotting was an exceptional element (I never quite knew where things were going next).

In Cake, the creation of a severely unlikable protagonist who we still ended up caring about was an exceptional element, the unusual premise was an exceptional element (haven’t seen that before) and the unique voice (the offbeat weird way the writer saw this world) was an exceptional element.

In Tyrant, the intricate nature of the relationships were an exceptional element, the lack of fear in pushing the boundaries was an exceptional moment (a few uncomfortable rape scenes, etc.) and the ending was an exceptional element (in that it revealed something shocking about our main character that we never would’ve guessed).

Before we get into specifics here, I want you to think about the screenplay you’re working on now. And I want you to take off your bullshit hat. Put your critics hat on, the guy who can tear down the latest blockbuster in a 300 word paragraph. That’s the guy we need judging your script. Now ask yourself, what are the exceptional elements in your script? What can you honestly say stands out from anything out there? Need some reference? Here are a dozen of the more popular screenplay elements to choose from. If you’re exceptional with just three of them, tell us in the comments section, cause we’re going to want to read your script.

Clever or unique Concept – One of the easiest ways to elevate your script is a great or unique concept. Dinosaurs being cloned to make a Dinosaur Theme Park (Jurassic Park). People who go inside other people’s heads (Being John Malkovich).

Unique or complicated characters – This is a biggie. If you’re going to have only one exceptional element, it should be this, because a script is often defined by its characters. Give us Jack Sparrow over Rick O’Connell (Brendan Frasier in The Mummy). Give us Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street) over Sam Witwicky (Transformers).

Spinning a well-known idea – Taking ideas and spinning them is one of the easiest ways to stand out. Instead of that same-old same-old buddy cop script I talked about earlier? Make it two female cops instead (The Heat). Or set some ancient story in a different time (Count of Monte Cristo in the future – a script that sold last year). This is what’s known as a “fresh take,” and Hollywood loves fresh takes.

Take chances – How can you expect to be anything other than average if you don’t take chances? Playing it safe is the very definition of average. So you’ll have to roll the dice a few times and get out of your comfort zone. Seth McFarlane made a comedy about a grown man who was best friends with his childhood teddy bear.  Nobody had ever written anything like that before.  That’s rolling the dice.

Push boundaries – This will depend on the script. But if you’re writing in a genre that merits it, don’t play it safe. Push the boundaries. That’s what Seven did when it came out. We’d seen serial killer movies before. We’d never seen them with kills that were THAT sick, that intense.

Plotting – A deft plot that keeps its audience off balance (with mystery, surprises, dramatic irony, suspense, setups, payoffs, twists, reversals, drama, deft interweaving of subplots, etc.) can put you on Hollywood’s map. Hitchcock’s big exceptional element was his plotting.

A great ending – A masterful ending is a huge exceptional element because it’s the last thing the reader leaves with. If you can give them something immensely satisfying (The Shawshank Redemption) or shocking (The Sixth Sense) and it works? You’re golden.

Dialogue – One of the hardest elements to teach and the most dependent on talent. There are definitely ways to improve your dialogue, but usually people are either born with this element or they aren’t. Don’t fret if you aren’t though, because you still have all these other elements to choose from.

Imagination – If you’re writing fantasy or sci-fi, you better show us something we haven’t seen before. For example, if you’re going to put your characters in yet another mech suit (Matrix sequels, Avatar, Edge of Tomorrow), why should we trust you to give us an imaginative story? These are the genres that demand originality. So if you don’t have anything besides what you’ve seen in previous sci-fi movies, don’t play in this sandbox.

Voice – If you see the world in a different way from everyone else, it’s one of the easiest ways to stand out. This is all about the unique way you write and the unique way in which you observe the world. Having a truly original voice is almost the anti-average, because if someone can identify who you are by your script alone, it means you have a unique take on the world.

Scene writing – Are you an exceptional scene writer? Are you able to pull readers into every scene? Read Tarantino’s scenes like Jack Rabbit Slims or the Milk scene at the opening of Inglorious Basterds. Or watch the scene where the detective questions Norman Bates in Psycho. The level of suspense in these scenes is off the charts.

A great villain – Typically someone who’s complicated and not just evil for evil’s sake (which is the case in almost every average script I read). I still can’t get over The Governor in The Walking Dead. The way he fell in love with a woman and cared so deeply for her daughter, only to set up a plan to kill women and children a few scenes later.

In general, to avoid writing something average, you have to be your harshest critic. You have to be self-aware enough to call yourself on your bullshit. Look at every individual element in your screenplay and ask yourself, “Is this unique?” In some cases, it won’t be. That’s fine. As long as you have exceptional elements to offset the average ones. The Heat had an average plot. But by putting two women in the cop rolls instead of men, it gave the genre a fresh take. Exceptional element success.

The truth is, readers really want to love your script. But you’re preventing them from doing so when every element in your screenplay is something flat, derivative, uninspired, or rushed. Writing a great screenplay means doing the hard work, and that means not being satisfied with a bundle of average components. Average dialogue, average scene-construction, average concept, average imagination, average characters. We’ve already seen all these things so what do you gain by showing them to us again? Get in there and raise the quality of your script by infusing it with as many exceptional elements as you can. I’m rooting for you because the better you get at this, the more good scripts I get to read. Good luck!

Genre: Book (Sci-fi)
Premise: When a resilient and clever astronaut gets stuck on Mars, he must use every trick in the book to get rescued.
About: A computer science geek, Andy Weir, took three years to research his novel before writing it, wanting to make sure the story was as realistic as possible. After being ignored by publishers, Weir offered the book for free on his website, before eventually selling it on Amazon for 99 cents. After the book shot up Amazon’s best-seller list, Crown Publishing came in and offered Weir six-figures for the book. That’s a big leap from 99 cents. This, of course, led to Fox optioning the movie rights, which, it’s been rumored, will have Matt Damon starring and Ridley Scott directing.
Writer: Andy Weir
Details: 385 pages

 

Okay, remember what we do here on “Adapt This Book Wednesday.” We take a book that’s been optioned by Hollywood and we figure out how we’d adapt it. When you get into this business, adapting material will be your number one source of income, so it’s a skill you’ll want to get good at.

Generally speaking, when you read a book you’re going to adapt, you’re looking for a couple of things. First, you want to find the component of the book that’s going to be the narrative spine. This might end up being the entire story. But other times a book will be so big or so complex, you’ll be forced to tell only a piece of it. Figuring out what piece that is could be the difference between a good script and a bad one.

Also, you’re looking for potential problems in the material and creative ways to solve those problems. In some cases, you can just cut the problematic part of the story out. But there are some problems that are so ingrained in the story that you can’t avoid them. Take the whole Chilean Miner incident from a couple of years back. You had a few dozen men trapped in a tiny mine space. How do you even begin to shoot that story?  How do people move around?  Or will everyone just stay in one spot?  How do you keep that interesting for two hours?  Would it be better to tell the story of the people trying to save the miners?  These are key choices that need to be figured out in the script stage. And while some solutions are easy, there are usually a couple of big ones that make your life miserable. With that in mind, let’s check out The Martian.

Mark Watney is fucked. His team just abandoned him on Mars. It wasn’t really their fault. A dust storm threatened to blow over their rocket. A quick decision needed to be made. And Mark was presumed dead.

So poor Marky wakes up, barely alive, and heads over to his little Advanced Mars Tent where he realizes that his communications satellite was destroyed and he has no contact with anyone. He does some calculations and determines that the soonest NASA can save him is in 4 years.

So Mark starts keeping a journal (which is what we’re reading) chronicling the end of his life. But then Mark starts doing some math in his head (there is a LOT of math in The Martian), and tries to figure out if he can generate enough food and water to last four years. Mark is a botanist, so he realizes that if he uses the square footage in his tent to grow potatoes (of which he has a few frozen), he may get close. And so begins Mark’s journey to stay alive.

Things keep going wrong along the way (he gets communication with NASA only to later lose it, his tent blows up, he loses all his food, he gets stuck outside with low oxygen, etc.) until he and NASA figure out a way to send his crew-mates back to get him, while Mark drives the Mars 4-Wheeler 3000 miles to a future land-sight, and use the rocket there to lift off in a precisely timed one-and-done rendezvous with his ship. I’m not going to tell you if Mark makes it or not. But you can probably figure it out.

Okay, so before we get to the adaptation part, I have to say that THIS BOOK ALMOST DROVE ME INSANE! It starts out great. We’re in Mark’s head, he’s trying to plan out the square footage of farmland he can use to grow potatoes so he can stay alive (he fertilizes it with his own shit by the way). He has no way to talk to anyone. It seemed exciting. How was he going to get out of this???

This “prep to stay alive” section went on for what I figured was 1/3 of the book. Then I looked at the Kindle progress bar. 10%. TEN PERCENT!!!??? How the hell was he going to keep this going for another 90% of a book? It felt like an uncrossable chasm, which is exactly what it turned out to be.

The Martian isn’t so much a story as it is a math textbook. This entire book is math!!! Every single page was some variation of this: “I figured if I tripled the oxygen in the HAB unit, I would decrease the percentage of the neutrons, which would allow me to create 340 liters of water every six days. The problem was, if I tripled the oxygen, I increased the chance of a fire by 32%! Not to worry. By dividing the square footage of the room by 7 and adding the appropriate carbon offset, I would decrease that percentage by 73%, which, while dangerous, was still within reasonable levels.”

The 250 middle pages in the book were ALL like this.

Adaptation Problem #1 – The whole fucking book is math!
Obviously, showing a main character do math in his head for two hours, even if it’s Matt Damon, isn’t going to get anyone into the theater. So this is a pretty big issue. It’s such a big issue, in fact, that you can’t include it. Or you can’t use any math equations that we can’t show visually. I guess we could show Matt Damon counting out potato spuds and planting them. But everything else was percentages and elements and a bunch of math gobbledy-gook. So as difficult as it is to say, for a book that is based almost entirely on math, I don’t think you can include any of that in the movie, other than some throwaway lines to NASA (“I figured if I decreased the hydrogen load by half, I’d have a little more energy”).

Adaptation Problem #2 – Almost the entire story takes places inside Mark’s head
So what do you do about this? Is Mark going to be silent the whole movie? You could use voice over, but listening to Matt Damon speak to us in his head for two hours will get annoying fast. You could pull a “Wilson,” like they did in Cast Away, but it’s a delicate balance to get those things right. You also run the risk of everyone saying, “They just copied Cast Away.” You could pull an “Avatar” and make him use a video diary. That’s probably the best option of the three. — Mark does have a communication line with NASA for awhile, so I guess you could have him tell them what he’s doing while he’s doing it. But the best thing about this story is Mark being alone with no help. What might work is having Mark work silently while cutting to NASA where all the talking happens during their surveillance (they have satellites watching him that are orbiting Mars). It’s sort of a clever way to get into his head without really being in his head. “What is he doing now?” “It looks like he’s packing to make a trip. I think he’s going to try and find the Mars Rover.”

Adaptation Problem #3 – Story Length
The length of this story is really freaking long. It’s somewhere between 2 and 4 years (it’s hard to know for sure because the actual time gets buried in numbers). That’s a really long time to cover in a film. Of course, Tom Hanks gets stuck on that island for four years, but that’s a big beautiful island he can prance around. Mark is stuck in a 75 square foot room for the majority of The Martian. It’s not the same thing. You have options here. You can make the tent a lot bigger. Maybe it has multiple rooms, which would allow you to mix up the visuals a bit. You can condense the time with montages of course. Or you can cut out a lot of the story entirely and just focus on one particular section of the story. I’d lean towards that. There are some escapades that get Mark out of the tent (he goes to get the Mars Rover), but for the most part, he’s in that small room calculating solutions for his current problems.

I think I know how I would do this. The most exciting parts of The Martian are the beginning and the ending. The beginning because it’s that shocking moment when he’s first left alone on the planet. And the end because he’s got to drive this Mars truck thing 2000 miles across bumpy terrain that his vehicle was never made for. He gets stuck in a dust storm. His car flips on its side. He’s got to get to the location in time to be launched up so he can catch the fly-by of his crew-members. This is all visual stuff that we can SHOW on a movie screen that would keep the audience engaged. Nobody’s going to be engaged by a man in a room with a calculator.

So if I were these guys, that’s where I’d start the film, with Mark in the Mars Truck, driving, looking ragged and beaten, like he’s been through hell and back. We may not know exactly what happened to get him here, but his face tells us a lot of it. You can knock this journey down to 10 days, which is a good solid timeframe for a movie (much better than 4 years at least!).

If you wanted to, you could occasionally flash back to how Mark got here, like the original storm that knocked him down, the swirling dust making it impossible for his crew members to see him. He watches as one of his crew walks only 5 feet away but can’t see him. Mark can hear them talking to each other, frantically asking where he is, but Mark’s com is out so he can’t communicate back. I don’t usually like flashbacks, but if you used them to show harrowing moments like this, they’d raise our understanding of how difficult it was for Mark just to get this far, and therefore make us root for him more.

I don’t think Mark should talk in this. First of all, actors love that shit. So Damon would be all over this. You’d get all the exposition you needed by cutting to NASA or the Mars Ship while they watched him. If you needed to know what Mark was doing, you’d have one of them say something like, “It looks like he’s re-calibrating his course. Shit, that’s going to take him right into the storm. And he doesn’t know it!” The rest of the script is pretty self-explanatory and visual (launch into space and catch a ride), and should pretty much write itself.

That’s how I’d approach it at least. What about you guys??

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

What I learned: A lot of books take place over a long period of time. One of the first things you should try and do is find a way to condense the time-frame if possible. Condensed time-frames are much easier stories to tell. If you’re doing an adaptation of a Martin Luther King biography, for example, maybe focus on one super-charged summer of King’s life rather than trying to bring us through all 39 of his years.

Genre: TV Pilot – Medical
Premise: A freewheeling drug addict physician runs a discreet medical call service to Los Angeles’s rich and powerful.
About: Even if you’re sitting pretty in the feature world as one of the big up-and-coming directors like Jonathan Levine, you STILL gotta be writing pilots. TV is where it’s at. This show is being made on USA, which, while it hasn’t quite found its way into the same class as the prestige networks (HBO, AMC, NETFLIX), it’s definitely in the second tier, with shows like Burn Notice, Royal Pains and Psych. Psych was pretty good. But I never watched Burn Notice cause whenever I saw the poster, I couldn’t see anyone who was burned, which confused the hell out of me (I’d later learn that “burn notice” was some kind of CIA code that had nothing to do with burning, leaving me to wonder how many other people never gave the show a chance for the same reason). Rush was one of the hotter pilots in town and was recommended highly to me. You may know writer Jonathan Levine as the director of 50/50 and the writer/director of Warm Bodies.
Writer: Jonathan Levine
Details: 58 pages (June 2013 draft)

Tom Ellis will play William Rush

Hey. It’s fun reading scripts again! I’ve been on a reading sushi roll lately. We had Cake, which was like a Caterpillar Roll, Hot Air, which was like a Spicy Tuna Roll, and Tyrant, which was like a Dragon Roll!

To keep this analogy going, every writer starts out with a bowl of seaweed and rice. It’s what they do with the rest of the roll that sets them apart. Your signature dish is your “voice.” Do you want to keep things conservative and make a solid California roll? Or do you want to deep fry that center and give your diner a crunchy surprise in the middle? Are you a big wasabi guy? Or do you think that extra bit of spice overrides the other flavors?

All I know about sushi is don’t go to a place called “He Said Su-Shi Said” on Sawtelle and Olympic. I can promise you right now, your experience will not be good. And with that winning bit of advice, on to Rush!

Our show title is derived from our main character’s name – William Rush. Our introduction to Rush (the character, not the show) attempts to do something all writers should be doing when they introduce their main characters. Give us a reason to like them and give us the flaw that haunts them. Rush is making a move on an attractive club hopper while doing coke (ah, his flaw!) who then overdoses. He calmly walks over to his suitcase, takes out a syringe of adrenaline, and jams it into her neck (he saves her. We like him!). Rush, it turns out, is an on-call doctor.

But not the kind who takes Obamacare. Oh no, Rush runs a different kind of operation. He performs medical jobs for high-class clients who prefer to keep their personal fuck-ups… discreet. For example, the Los Angeles Dodgers clean up hitter, Red Cummings, beats his girlfriend up regularly. Can’t have that making the papers, so he calls Rush in to treat her injuries privately.

Obviously, the temperature of Rush’s moral compass rarely rises above freezing. This is a man with no feelings, no judgments. He just wants to do his job, get paid in cold hard cash, then go home and do drugs. Anything to keep him numb. From his actions? From his thoughts? We don’t know yet. But there’s no question this dude has some skeletons in his closet.

Rush is surprised when his one true love, Sarah, comes back in town, and since she’s the only thing that’s ever been good to him, he decides he wants to be a part of her life again. The problem is, Sarah doesn’t fall for his bullshit like all these dumb aspiring actresses and club-hopping cocaine addicts do. She knows that when you date Rush, you date his addictions, and howdee-doody time, that always ends badly.

It’s probably for the best, since Rush’s job is getting more dangerous by the day. Turns out Red has some gangster friends, one of whom gets shot and needs attention pronto. As if trying to save a gun-shot victim with spurting blood and no tools isn’t hard enough, Rush has to do it with a gun to his face.

But that’s the crazy thing about Rush. These surprises don’t phase him. Maybe, just maybe, they might even excite him. But if Rush ever plans on getting someone like Sarah, someone he respects and loves, he’s going to have to give this life up. And we get the feeling that no matter how much he wants to, that ain’t going to happen. This is who he is.

So where are, like, the burned people?

I’ll give Rush this. It lives up to its title. This pilot flew by, one of those rare reading experiences where you look up at the page number and it’s actually BIGGER than you expected.

Here’s my thing with the show, though. And it’s funny I wrote earlier that USA hadn’t cracked the top tier of programming yet, because that’s exactly what this feels like. An “almost edgy” show.  And heck, that may have been what Levine was going for.  Maybe that’s what USA wanted and so that’s what he gave them.  But Rush isn’t edgy enough to hang with shows like Breaking Bad and House of Cards.  It was definitely edgier than shows you find on network TV, but that doesn’t get you a seat at the cool kids table.

The biggest chance it took was Red and the girlfriend-beating. Walking in after Red had teed up on his woman and Rush not doing anything about it was hard to watch.  But that’s what you have to do as a writer if you’re writing this kind of material.  You have to create uncomfortable situations.  It’s what helps you stand out from the competition.

With that said, it still felt too safe. There was never a moment where I felt something truly shocking was going to happen. Like at the end of the “Shield” pilot where our hero cop just shoots a man in cold blood. Once that shit happens, the relationship changes between the writer and the audience. The audience no longer feels comfortable. They feel like the floor can slide out from under them at any second. And that’s a great place to have an audience because it keeps them excited. The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones have become famous for this. Here, everything felt like one of those USA posters with their Kardashian lighting and that big safe blue sky in the background to let you know everything was going to be okay in the end. I wasn’t scared.

That’s not to say this was a bad pilot by any means. It had a handful of really good scenes, including a star-maker in the middle where Rush is performing surgery on this gangster using clueless fellow gangsters as nurses and working with practically no equipment. The highlight is when they blow a fuse and the lights go out, leaving the room dark, and Rush tells everyone to get their phones out and hold them over the body to light it as he continued to save the man. It was a cool image and something I’d never seen before.

Levine also shows how to hide exposition well. Remember, when you’re trying to give the audience information, you can’t have your character stand up on a podium and call out all the facts. The audience will groan. You need to be clever. So let’s say you have to tell the audience that Sarah and Rush have been together for four years. How would you go about conveying that without drawing attention to it? Go ahead, write the dialogue now then compare it to below. Notice how Levine hides the info inside a comeback line from Sarah.

That’s good writing!

But in the end, while I’d probably recommend reading it, Rush had too many traces of ‘formula’ for me to really get behind it. I like my TV serialized, so it takes a good procedural to win me over. And this felt like House mixed with Royal paints (or how Royal Pains looks, since I’ve never seen it). My hope is that they’re going to push the boundaries with this show and take things up a notch. No more big, bright, and pretty. Give us rusted and broken. We’ll see what Levine has in store for us soon.

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

What I learned: (The Uncertainty Factor) Remember, one of the best types of TV characters are the ones with a shitty moral compass. Give us a protag who lives right on that line between good and bad, so that every situation they’re in, we’re not sure what they’re going to do. So when Rush walks into a room, is he going to help the client (Red), even though it means someone else gets fucked (the battered girlfriend), or is he going to do the right thing and save the person in need? That’s what makes shows like this exciting, is the uncertainty-factor whenever our character walks into a situation.

Hey guys. Quite a few of you e-mailed to say you wanted a forum to discuss my new favorite script, Hot Air, which I reviewed in the newsletter. Since discussing awesome scripts was what this site was originally made for, how can I deny you that opportunity? Here’s some Hot Air. What did you think??

Genre: Drama
Premise: New York’s most hated conservative talk-radio host has his world turned upside-down when his 16 year-old niece shows up at his doorstep.
About: I heard about this script a couple months back. Someone told me it was really good. I read the logline and thought, “That sounds abysmal,” and have forgotten about it ever since. Going back through my files, I spotted it, rolled my eyes, and said, “Okay fine, I’ll give it a shot.” It was hard going at first, but the script keeps getting better and better til the very last page. This is Reichel’s BREAKTHROUGH script, believe it or not. He got representation off it at The Gotham Group and CAA.
Writer: Will Reichel
Details: 112 pages

At first he might seem like an odd choice, but looking back at Gangs of New York, I think Daniel Day Lewis would love to play this character.

My friends, welcome to the number 1 Black List script of 2014. But Carson, you say, how can you possibly know what the number 1 Black List script is six months before the Black List comes out!? Well, I knew The Imitation Game was going to run away with it two years ago, didn’t I? And then last year with Draft Day I knew… well, okay, I had no idea that Draft Day was going to win. But that’s beside the point. Hot Air has great characters, it has the whole political slant going for it (The Black List loves it some politics), and it has echoes of past Black List winners, like Juno.

Oh no! you’re now saying to me. Not another Juno! Let me ask everyone, when did you all start hating Juno? Because all during its script run, everyone loved it. Then all during its movie run, everyone loved it. And then all of a sudden, everyone hated it. Actually, none of that is important. Hot Air really isn’t that much like Juno. That’s what’s great about the script – it doesn’t quite feel like anything you’ve read before. Or Juno. Man, I hated that movie.

I have never listened to Rush Limbaugh, but my impression of Lionel Macomb, our hero, is that he’s a unique cross between Limbaugh and Howard Stern – he’s a conservative New York shock jock who gets angry for the people, who’s tired of these damn liberals for giving out all these free rides, dammit!

His topic of the month is border hoppers, or more specifically, illegal aliens and their children. Should the children get U.S. citizenship or should we send them back to Mexico? You can guess where Lionel comes down on this issue. “Send ’em home!” he tells his audience, who’s most assuredly pumping their fists in agreement.

The thing is, not as many people ARE pumping their fists for Lionel lately, as they’re moving over to the hot new show on the block, Garret Whitley. Whitley is also a conservative, but his strategy is the opposite of Lionel’s – he kills ’em with kindness. The worst part about Whitley’s rise? He was a former disciple of Lionel himself!

As if that isn’t enough to think about, Lionel gets the shock of his life when his 16 year-old niece, Tess, shows up at his door looking for a place to stay. Now you’d think if your homeless teenaged niece showed up, you’d give her a bed to sleep on. Except this is Lionel Macomb, who basically tells her to fuck off.

To be fair to Tess, it’s not her fault. It’s Tess’s mother (Lionel’s sister) that Lionel truly despises. Sis is a selfish drunk who’s been screwing people over her whole life, including Lionel. He doesn’t need any of that in his life right now.

But Tess is a resourceful little gal, and after a threat to get on Twitter and let the world know that her uncle is willingly sending her into the arms of the very social services sector he rails about every morning for ripping off Joe America, he relents to let her stay a week until they can figure out a more permanent solution.

While Lionel would love to ditch Tess, his lawyer points out that the more they allow Tess to traverse around New York on her own, the more likely she is to get into trouble, which could come back to haunt him. The lawyer suggests a strategy – keep Tess close so she can’t hurt you.

So Lionel starts bringing Tess to work, where she learns the ins and outs of the talk show circuit, namely that whenever someone of importance wants to take on Lionel in his coveted radio ring, they hang up on him and go to the next guy. Lionel isn’t exactly a fraud, but he’s getting softer in his old age. Tess believes that if he debated some real people, maybe his ratings would stop slipping.

Lionel is reluctant at first, but as Whitley starts to widen the gap in their head-to-head matchup, Lionel realizes Tess is right. If he has a shot at staying relevant, he’s going to have to take on his nemesis. But if he’s spent the last five years playing it safe, does he still have what it takes to hang with the big boys? We’re going to find out.

Okay, so is this yet another “broken person comes into another broken person’s life and both of them teach each other something” story? Yes. But it’s a really good one, about as good as you’re going to see. Put frankly, this is how you fucking do it.

There are so many good things about this script, I don’t know where to start. First, Lionel is written REALLY WELL. When this guy spouts out his bullshit over the air, you fucking believe it (sorry about all the “fuckings.” Lionel has rubbed off on me).

Not only that, but Lionel is the kind of character we call “Actor bait.” I can’t stress it enough. If you want to get a script made, write a part that an actor can’t refuse, that an actor would die to play. The character of Lionel gets to spout out some of the most aggressive insane passages of dialogue any actor will get to say on screen, ever. Of-fucking-course actors are going to kill to play this part.

Speaking of, you usually want one “dialogue-friendly” character in your script. Someone who naturally has a lively, interesting way of speaking. If you write dialogue-friendly characters, you tend to get awesome dialogue. Here we have two. We have the over-the-top Lionel, and we have the clever and chipper Tess. Whenever these two say something, it’s usually interesting (i.e. Lionel: “How’d you know where I live?” Tess: “I followed the trail of fire and brimstone.”).

Then there were a lot of little things I noticed. Although the time frame for Tess’s stay actually stretches to 4 weeks, it’s constantly re-upped, giving the illusion of urgency in every section. So at first, she’s only allowed to stay for the weekend. Then it’s a week. Then, when things haven’t been figured out yet, it’s another week. This “series of deadlines” works so much better than if we would’ve said straight out, “You can stay for a month,” as that would of felt like too much time to the reader. Very clever!

Reichel also keeps the pressure on our protagonist as his ratings slip and the advertisers threaten to drop out. This keeps the stakes high during a storyline that could’ve easily felt blasé (guy sits in a booth and talks to people). Those advertiser meetings are tough on Lionel and we feel his pain as things get worse. The thing about stakes is they force your character to act. If your hero were to sit around and do nothing, he’d be screwed. Because there are stakes, Lionel has no choice but to take on Whitley in the end.

Also, Reichel takes a time-tested premise and spins it a little. Typically, in this scenario, it’s the daughter who shows up at our hero’s doorstep. But in this case, it’s the niece. Now technically this is the less compelling choice, since there’s less at stake with a niece than a daughter. But a spin is only as good as its execution, and what’s great about this twist, is what Reichel does with it. Reichel uses the niece to explore this whole complicated brother-sister backstory between Lionel and Tess’s mom that evolves in the most unexpected but satisfying way. I loved it.

Then there were the subplots. When you have a straight up character piece centering on two characters, that relationship isn’t going to be enough to carry the whole story. You have to build in subplots – meaty little conflict-laden relationships that need to be explored in their own right.

Lionel’s past and subsequent rivalry with Whitley was perfect. Lionel’s relationship with his girlfriend/publicist who was happy to fix Lionel’s public life but tired of fixing him privately was also great. And Tess’s relationship with a senator’s intern where (spoiler) she ends up getting played, was yet another awesome thread.

But when you REALLY know that you’re dealing with a hotshot is when subplots interweave with one another. Tess’s relationship with the senator’s intern actually weaves into Lionel’s brawl with Whitley in the script’s climax.

It’s so disappointing to read scripts where it’s clear the writer hasn’t put any effort into the story. When you’re deftly interweaving subplot threads with one another and making them pay off in the climax?? You’re a baller. There’s no way you’re coming up with that in a single weekend. That kind of thing takes time and dedication.

I loved this script! And I don’t even like or care about the world of conservative radio talk show hosts. If I have any complaints, it’s that maybe Lionel started to be too nice to Tess too early. I would’ve liked to have seen them spar more. And Tess also needed a little more room to breathe. Lionel is SUCH a big personality that Tess disappeared at times.

But yeah, other than that, this was awesome. Top 25!

[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive (Top 25!)
[ ] genius

What I learned: A cliché can work for you IF you build an honest backstory around it. Tess walks around with an old polaroid camera, taking pictures of everything. I’m not going to lie, when I saw, “Pretty alternative girl with a camera,” I winced a little. But when we find out WHY she has the camera (it was her only honest connection with her mother, who used to own and use the camera herself), it made sense.

This is your chance to discuss the week’s amateur scripts, offered originally in the Scriptshadow newsletter. The primary goal for this discussion is to find out which script(s) is the best candidate for a future Amateur Friday review. The secondary goal is to keep things positive in the comments with constructive criticism.

Below are the scripts up for review, along with the download links. Want to receive the scripts early? Head over to the Contact page, e-mail us, and “Opt In” to the newsletter.

Happy reading!

TITLE: BROKEN
GENRE: Sci-fi/Disaster
LOGLINE: When the human race is forced to evacuate earth for the moon, it leaves behind a crusty old engineer who finds new purpose in the company of a mute nine-year-old girl.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: I’ve had a dozen different writers read this script and give excellent, detailed notes on it–which of course called for a complete rewrite. A month later, this beauty’s been retooled, buffed and polished; she purrs like a tigress, 95 pages of lean muscle, just itching for baptism in the fiery crucible of the AOW. Hm, was that a mixed metaphor? …Nah.

Other interesting facts? At one point the protagonist is trapped in a bunker while an earthquake rips it apart, while performing invasive surgery on himself, WHILE conversing with a hallucinatory version of his former girlfriend.

And by the end of this script, I hope you’ll have fallen in love with a bitter, grouchy, hateful, suicidal old man. Who doesn’t save any cats. Thanks for reading, and enjoy!

TITLE: Barabbas
GENRE: Historical Action
LOGLINE: In 30 A.D., a charismatic stonemason bent on revenge leads a band of guerrilla rebels against the Roman occupation of his homeland.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: This is the story that led up to the biggest trade in human record. It is Braveheart meets Gladiator, with characters on a collision course that splits history in two. Come for the battle, the intrigue, and the epic. Stay for the sacrifice, the betrayals, and the passion that drives a man to darkness.

As co-writers, we work from 3,000 miles apart. Yes, we have two of the WASPiest names imaginable. No, they’re not pen names. We’ve been polishing this script to a trim, accelerative tale that strengthens, weaves, and deepens with each choice our characters make. The ending is the most difficult we’ve ever worked on, but the feedback on the resolution has been powerful. We have to earn the effect we want a story to have, and with this script we aim to challenge, to provoke, but most of all…to entertain.

TITLE: THE SORCERER
GENRE: Mystery, Bio-Pic, True Story
LOGLINE: When brilliant-but-forgotten inventor Nikola Tesla dies mysteriously at the height of World War 2, a couple of FBI Agents race to discover the whereabouts of his final creation – a devastating and world-changing death ray – before it falls into the hands of the Nazis, and along the way put together the clues that reveal the deepest mystery behind Tesla’s life: what drove him to madness.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: Tesla’s life was fascinating. He came from nothing and rose to the height of his profession, battling it out with Thomas Edison and JP Morgan, becoming friends with Mark Twain and George Westinghouse, and electrifying the world…only to die penniless and alone after seeming to lose his mind. He’s also a man relatively few people know about when compared to his peers. If you like mysteries without easy answers, smart and ruthlessly powerful men pioneering the future, and/or underdogs who never stop going for their dreams, you can find something for you in this story.

TITLE: Finishing Last
GENRE: Comedy romance
LOGLINE: A third generation car salesman attempts to transform his nice guy personality to save career and in doing so finds himself attracted to a quirky woman who loathes the new him.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: It’s a feel good comedy romance, which has the following:
No sex… well maybe a small amount. In fact, I’d hardly call it sex, more like a reference to it. No gratuitous violence… I don’t think a kick in the nuts is gratuitous? Maybe mild violence at the most. No bad language… Okay a few F-words, but you’d have to be a saint to be offended by that.

I don’t think I’m selling this very well?

It’s a low budget… no, that just makes it sound cheap. It’s a story of unrequited love… that sounds better… and written for the sole purpose of having an amusing story that couples could go and see together. It does not pretend to be anything but a humorous love story with some oddball characters… I’m rambling now. I’m really not selling this. I’ve been told it has some charm… God; it just comes over as being smug.

Anyway, I think you might like it.

TITLE: Reeds in Winter
GENRE: Historical Adventure/Love Story
LOGLINE: Forced to leave the family he loves, a man who misused his wealth to move his family across the country with the infamous Donner Party must do whatever it takes to rescue them from freezing, starvation and cannibalism.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: If I were to say I wrote a script about the Donner Party, I think I could feel your eyes roll to the back of your head. While the backdrop of my story includes the Donners, they are not the main focus. There were many families who traveled on that infamous journey, and one family, the Reeds, overcame very tragic events and survived intact. I worked hard to keep the bits that I felt would make a great movie, and, if you’re interested in history, look them up because that shit really happened. The story made me think about what lengths I’d go through to ensure the safety of my family. I don’t know if I could ever do what James Reed had to do, and I hope I never find out.