Genre: TV Pilot – Paranormal/Procedural
Premise: When the FBI and CIA can’t figure it out, they send their cases to “Weird Desk,” a super secret organization dedicated to explaining the unexplainable.
About: Weird Desk was heading towards a 13-episode order last year on ABC when it was surprisingly derailed. For awhile, nobody knew why until word surfaced that Joss Whedon’s S.H.I.E.L.D. killed it. Although not exactly alike, there were some crossover elements that may have been too similar for the network’s taste. Writer David Titcher has been around for a long time, writing for shows like Punky Brewster and Who’s The Boss. More recently he scripted a couple of the Noah Wylie TV films, The Librarian. His biggest credit to date is probably 2004’s “Around the World in 80 Days,” which starred Jackie Chan.
Writer: David Titcher (rewrite by Carl Binder)
Details: 62 pages – 1st Revision, January 20, 2012

Like a lot of TV series, this one seemed to be flying towards the air when, out of nowhere, an evil obstacle intercepted it, killing the series as quickly as it was birthed. There are so many possibilities for why things get cancelled, and one of the main culprits is that your show is too similar to something else.

The thing is, people say Weird Desk got the boot because of Marvel’s S.H.I.E.L.D. But this has way more in common with The X-Files and Fringe, with a little Men in Black thrown in for good measure. The whole time I was reading it, I was thinking, “Man, this is a LOT like these shows.” So much so that I couldn’t imagine it getting on the air without a lawsuit. So maybe that’s the real reason behind its death? No way to know for sure. But what about the script itself? SHOULD it have been on TV? Did we miss out on some super amazing series? Was it at least better than S.H.I.E.L.D.? Let’s find out!

I get the feeling that Titcher is a big Indiana Jones fan. Morgan Tuttle is like an autistic lab version of Indiana Jones – the man is willing to go to whatever lengths necessary to get the job done, as long as it adheres to the laws of science. Weird Desk starts off with a rather wild teaser that has Morgan exploring the backyard of Albert Einstein’s last residence.

He’s looking for Einstein’s diary, which supposedly has the schematics to create a bomb so powerful it would make nuclear bombs look “like firecrackers.” He eventually finds some underground tunnel, goes inside, leaps into a bottomless pit, doesn’t die due to an Einstein anti-gravity floor, and finds the diary. What’s inside is so devastating, however, that he burns it on the spot.

Morgan then heads back to “Weird Desk,” a top-secret United States agency that investigates the paranormal, the extraterrestrial, the weird. Upon his arrival, however, Morgan is shocked to learn that he’s been assigned a PARTNER!

(cue record scratch)

Rosetta Stone (yes, Rosetta Stone), informs Morgan she isn’t thrilled about this either, but the only way they’d make her an agent is if she partnered with the guy nobody wants to partner with. Whereas Morgan believes in science, Rosetta believes in weird. Not everything can be explained with a mathematical proof, dammit!

So the two rush out to take on their first case. Up in a Washington suburb, a number of people are seeing “shadow entities,” shadows of people that whip by in someone’s peripheral vision.

They meet with Sara, someone who’s been seeing the shadows. Morgan thinks it’s all in her head. But then Rosetta starts seeing these entities too!!! Eventually the two determine that the combination of a rare gene that enables certain people to see beyond the normal spectrum combined with our dimension intersecting with another dimension is what’s causing these sightings. Uhhh, wha?? Yeah, that’s what I said. And that was the end of the pilot!

I read this before I researched the writer. When I finally did that research and found out that Titcher wrote for 80s sitcoms and scribbled out The Librarian movies, a lot of what I’d read made sense. Weird Desk has an extremely 80s feel to it; that safe, comedic “everything’s going to be okay” gloss that you’d find in 80s classics like, say, Teen Wolf.

Even the subject matter of the first show was kind of tame. Shadow entities? That sounds like the least frightening thing to explore in a crucial make-or-break pilot episode of a series where you can literally use ANYTHING as your antagonist. Although don’t tell that to Miss Scriptshadow. She thinks shadow people are terrifying.

Still, when you break down the evolution of this TYPE of show, you see that they’ve gotten edgier, not less edgy. Just watch the pilot of Fringe, with all those ooey gooey dead passengers in the plane, to see what I mean. I understand that if you’re writing for one of the Big 3 networks, you have to be a little more mainstream, but you’re talking about the network who brought us Lost, one of the more thought-provoking shows ever put on television. There isn’t anything thought-provoking about Weird Desk. It’s just rehashing stuff we’ve already seen from The X-Files and Fringe, in less intense fashion.

Then there were little things here that didn’t add up. For example, the first scene shows Morgan going after Einstein’s diary. He succeeds, goes back to base, and finds out he’s being forced to take on a partner. There’s no cause and effect to that. If you’re going to be forced to take a partner, don’t you want the previous scene to show the hero nearly dying or screwing up BECAUSE HE DIDN’T HAVE A PARTNER?

That way, when a partner is pushed on him, it makes sense. “Oh yeah, he almost died cause no one was there to help him. Obviously, he needs a partner.” We got nothing like that here. So the partner thing came out of nowhere.

Then I couldn’t really figure out Morgan. This is a guy who claims to only believe in science, setting him up as the guy who thinks there’s a rational explanation for everything, but he solves this case by stating we’re intersecting with another dimension. True, he explains this via a bunch of gobbledy-gook that sounds like science, but it’s hardly “rational” sounding to us.

You can’t be mushy on your character beliefs. You can’t say a character sorta maybe is an alcoholic. They either are or they aren’t, or else we’re going to be confused.

But honestly, none of that stuff really mattered. Weird Desk’s biggest weakness is how safe it is. I don’t think you can write things this safe anymore. It’s gotten too competitive and audiences are expecting edgier fare. Look at shows like Extant, which has a woman coming back from space, pregnant, even though there was no one else in space with her. Or The Black List, on NBC, which has a dark anti-hero driving the story.

I hate to use the word “cheesy,” but this did feel a little bit like The Librarian 3. I think we will come back to a day where idealized 80s fare is in. The entertainment business has proven that it’s cyclical. But right now this feels too light for prime time TV.

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

What I learned: For the most part, your scenes should follow “cause and effect” logic. Because Thing A happens (cause), then Thing B happens (effect). Early on in Weird Desk, we get an effect (Morgan is assigned a partner) that didn’t have a cause. We never saw Morgan do anything that warranted him needing a partner. I don’t want to say that every single moment in a script should follow this logic because some narratives aren’t linear, and there are times where you want to withhold the cause for storytelling purposes. But for the most part, if shit just happens without a clear cause, the reader’s going to get frustrated and give up on you.

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!

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 (from writer): WW2 Romantic Drama, Coming-of-Age, LGBT
Premise (from writer): After a near-fatal crash-landing, an American pilot falls for her aristocratic physician, forcing her to confront her sexuality and gender prejudice of class-divided WW2 Britain.
Why You Should Read (from writer): It’s shamelessly greedy, I know, to try for a second bite at the AOW cherry when so many others are still vying for their first. But I got so much terrific advice from the first bite, and TCF’s evolved as a result. This is partly a ‘Thank you; I heard you.’ — Back on July 18th, 2013, Carson warned about the six types of scripts least likely to get you noticed. These included the coming-of-age script and the straight drama. Needless to say, I didn’t get that memo until ‘way too late and rolled two types into one script. Mulesandmud commented recently about a producer asking him why he’d ruin his career writing a female protagonist. I didn’t get that memo, either, and I’ve included two of ‘em. In poker parlance, I’m going ‘all in.’ No guts, no glory. But mostly I’ve just tried to write what I’m passionate about. In this case, a young woman’s coming-of-age / coming-out story set against the backdrop of WW2 and her work as a ferry pilot. Fictional protags, but lots of real historical details, events, and a few characters based on real people to heighten authenticity. I humbly invite you to again be the judges, and thank you in advance for your feedback.
Writer: Angela L. Neale
Details: 130 pages

This one garnered a TON of commentary in Amateur Offerings, mainly due to Angela’s willingness to thank everyone for reading her script and engage in discussion.  Having said that, Angela was slightly defensive at times. Some responses like, “I can’t do that because…” Or “That’s not possible.” With a script, anything is possible. You’re God. You can change anything and everything you want. For example, Angela mentioned that she couldn’t add anything else because her script was already 131 pages and that would make it even longer.

I’ve seen writers say this kind of thing a lot. You can add anything. You just have to get rid of some stuff as well. Getting feedback on what’s clicking and what isn’t allows you to make those cuts. Sure, you may think that Count Harold’s subplot is an essential component to conveying your theme, but if it only casually intersects with the main plot, it might be time to jettison it. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s see what’s causing all the discussion.

The Cloud Factory introduces us to 18 year old World War 2 pilot Jenny Morgan, or “Bubbler” as she’s known to her friends (a “bubbler” is what they call water fountains in Wisconsin. I remember being told this as a child and I’m still baffled by the term).

Once in Europe, Jenny ends up piloting a bad plane that crashes after take-off, barely surviving the ordeal. She’s sped over to the nearest hospital, where she befriends a cute nurse, 25 year old Allison. Allison is a lesbian but does NOT get involved with patients and is NOT into the whole teenage thing. 18 is way too young for her.

Uh-huh, riiiii-ght Allison.

Jenny is just now coming into her sexuality. She hasn’t had a boyfriend or girlfriend or anything yet. All she knows is that she’s attracted to Allison more and more every day. Pretty soon, the two find themselves sharing lingering looks and touches, skating that line between professional and personal, until Allison can’t handle it anymore.

Once she graduates from patient to civilian, Allison is all about The Jenny, and the two hang out non-stop. In the meantime, Jenny is being questioned about her involvement in that plane crash, with the implication being that she’s in some serious doo-doo if it was her fault.

The rest of the script is pretty straight forward. Jenny and Allison hang out a lot, talk about life a lot, and become closer. That’s essentially “The Cloud Factory” in a nutshell.

The Cloud Factory is one of those scripts you read and you just sort of nod your head every once in awhile, mumbling things like, “Not bad,” but never feel all that close to what’s going on. This is confusing for the writer, who believes that by writing such a personal character piece and not some wham-bam effects heavy blockbuster, that emotion is ALL the reader should be feeling.

What they don’t realize is that people talking and developing a relationship is a pretty generic thing to watch. To keep a reader engaged, the script needs structure and it needs drama. These are two things The Cloud Factory is lacking.

Let’s start with the lack of drama, which, to keep things simple, means a lack of conflict. There is some conflict in the script, in that Allison and Jenny aren’t sure if the other likes them. But it’s so light to the point of it not even existing. We know, since we’ve seen both of them confide in friends, that they like each other. So there’s no doubt in our minds that they’re going to get together. That eliminates a ton of potential suspense.

It also leaves the exterior world responsible for injecting all the conflict into the story. Unfortunately, there isn’t any exterior conflict. Besides a pesky close-minded nurse, there’s no reason why these two can’t be together. At least none that was clear. Being a lesbian in the army wasn’t exactly given a huge endorsement, but according to other characters, it wasn’t a career-ender either. And while the hospital seemed to look down upon worker-patient relationships, you didn’t get the sense that anything terrible would happen if one occurred.

In any script, you have to establish stakes. If you want to convey that two people will have a tough time being together, you have to make clear that if they’re caught, they’ll have hell to pay. Look no further than the greatest love story of all time, Romeo and Juliet, to see how that works. People’s LIVES are at stake. Their families’ lives as well. Here, it just seemed like if Allison and Jenny got caught, someone was going to get a slap on the wrist and a dirty look.

But that isn’t the biggest problem with The Cloud Factory. The biggest problem is the lack of structure. Once we get into that hospital, the script just sprawls on endlessly into a mostly mundane “we’ve seen it all before” relationship.

If your entire focus of a script is a love story, it’s gotta be one hell of a love story. Two people talking about life and how difficult being a lesbian is for 115 pages in a hospital isn’t enough. I mean look at The Fault In Our Stars. There was so much AT STAKE in that movie. This might be this girl’s last chance to do anything exciting again ever. She wants to find out what happened after her favorite book ended. And this is going to be her ONLY shot. This is it! The drama is heightened. We want so much for her doctors to let her go and find out the truth. That’s drama!

So what I’m going to do here is pitch the Hollywood-Friendly version of this story. Angela can ignore it, but if you want to make this more mainstream and more studio-friendly, this is the route to go.

In this new version, Jenny’s plane crashes, but she’s not injured as badly. She’s hurt just enough for, maybe, a week of hospital stay. This is where she meets Allison, just like now, and the two start up a friendship, which leads to a relationship.

One of the reasons the current draft is kinda rambly is because there’s no focused time frame. There’s no finish line for the reader to look forward to. So I say, the army informs Jenny that she’ll be shipped out in two weeks. Make it clear that after this happens, Jenny will never be back here. This is the only time she will ever be in this town. This way, the stakes are high. Their relationship will only last until she has to leave.

The two then spend the second week in the city together (after that first week of recovery and getting to know each other), fall in love, both ignoring the reality that this affair is temporary. The more they fall in love, the more devastated we’ll be that that that love is coming to a close. Sort of an elongated version of Before Sunrise.

From there, I would create more exterior conflict wherever possible. Your job is to make us doubt that this relationship is going to work out in as many ways as possible. For example, maybe Allison is more torn between this life of being a lesbian and taking the “easier” traditional route. An old boyfriend comes back into town (in the second half of the script). He’s rich. He’s well-liked. Marrying him will result in that easy perfect life, whereas being a lesbian means fighting a battle every day that she doesn’t know if she can fight. Show her battling with that as the deadline approaches.

I would also put them a lot closer to the war, possibly in a city that’s in constant danger. I don’t like ideas where the most unique or biggest parts of the idea aren’t explored in the script. This is a script about women flying fighter planes during World War 2. Except for 90% of the story, we’re not flying in fighter planes and we’re nowhere near World War 2. By putting them in a place that’s more affected by the war, that danger could impede upon their relationship in interesting ways.

As far as integrating the pilot stuff more, maybe Jenny learns at some point that they need extra fighters for a big mission and they’re considering bringing in female pilots. This is her DREAM. And it’s finally coming true. So as the end of the two weeks nears, she’ll get the call. They want her for the mission. And now she has to make a choice – go out there and live her dream or stay with this woman she’s fallen in love with. That gives the script that bigger focused ‘climax’ it’s desperately in need of.

I’m not saying you MUST do this or the script has no chance. You can go with the slower artsier less plot-point-y type of screenplay, but I contend that every story needs drama, big or small, and right now The Cloud Factory is too low-key. It needs a few shots of adrenaline.

I hope that helps Angela, if not in this script, then in the next script she tackles. Her writing is strong. But storytelling is where it’s at. That’s what you have to master.

Script link: The Cloud Factory

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

What I learned: In every story, your job is to make us doubt that it’s going to work out for your protagonist in as many ways as possible.

 

We’re going to do something a little different in today’s article. We’re going to talk about the actual PRESENTATION of a screenplay. The way it’s written, the way it looks to a reader on the page. While not as important as story, the choices in how one presents his work can have a big influence on how the reader interprets it. The theme you’ll find here is that while some approaches are preferable to others, every writing choice you make should be made for one reason: it’s the best way to tell the story at that particular moment. With that said, here are some common issues I run into when I read scripts.

CLIPPED WRITING

Clipped writing is something I see a fair amount of.  The idea behind this is that traditional writing is too long-winded for screenplays, which require a more “to the point” approach.   The problem is, some people have taken this so far that it’s unclear what’s being said.  After awhile, the reader starts to feel like they’re reading an illiterate robot.  For that reason, this style probably shouldn’t be used outside of special situations.  Maybe, for example, a character wakes up at the beginning of the script and is confused. So the confused stutter-pattern of clipped writing helps convey the character’s confusion.  There are also times when it works in action sequences.  But for the most part, try to write full sentences.

BOLDED SLUGS (or BOLDED UNDERLINED SLUGS)

Bolded slugs (or bolded underline slugs) have become in fashion lately.  And to a certain extent, they make sense, as they visually signify a new location or scene, which can be helpful to the reader.  Where bolded slugs get annoying is when there are a lot of short scenes or the writer is a slug-lover, so that four times a page, we’re stuck staring at big chunky ugly disruptive lines of text.  My suggestion would be this.  If you write a lot of long scenes, like, say, Tarantino, you can use bolded slugs.  But if you’re constantly jumping from one place to the next, step away from the bold.  It’ll shift the reader’s attention away from what really matters, which is the action and the dialogue.

THE ‘GET INSIDE THE CHARACTER’S HEAD’ ACTION LINE

Using your description to tell us what a character is thinking is considered shoddy writing.  However, I do see it quite a bit (there was a decent amount of it in “The Fault In Our Stars.”).  Where it becomes problematic is when a writer gets carried away with it and starts using it for things we already know.  As you can see above, we can tell from the dialogue that Miss Scriptshadow doesn’t want to see X-Men, so using description to tell the reader afterwards feels like overkill.  If you want to make sure the reader gets the point, there are other options, like using an action.  So you might cut to Miss Scriptshadow’s computer, see that she’s looking at a trailer for “The Other Woman,” longingly, then click it closed with a sigh.  I’m telling you: Only use this device sparingly.  It can get annoying quickly.

LOVE OF ADVERBS

Forget the dialogue here.  Look at the action text.  Carson “walks aggressively.”  He “angrily opens it.”  Adverbs make your writing look weak and indecisive.  Instead, try to find a verb that says the same thing.  You’ll notice that your sentence all of a sudden looks manly and strong!  “Carson barges towards the fridge.”  “He whips it open.”  Just make sure that you have the right verb for the action.  Don’t put in a verb that doesn’t fit just to avoid the adverb. In other words, don’t say Carson “dances over to the fridge” just because I said you had to verb it.

SIMPLIFY YOUR WRITING WHENEVER POSSIBLE

Readers don’t want to have to work for basic information.  Screenwriting should be simple and to the point (most novelists will actually tell you the same thing).  The above is a really clunky sentence, the kind a man could get lost in and never come back.  If I had to read a whole script of that, I’d swallow a box of brads and die by internal bleeding first.  To simplify this, focus on two things.  First, figure out how to turn useless segments into actions, then figure out what’s redundant or isn’t needed.  For example, there’s no need to say “wound up,” since we already know he’s wound up and it interrupts the flow of the sentence anyway.  So we’ll drop that.  “Clicking and clacking” does add some sound to the scene, but I’m not sure it’s necessary.  “Disastrously fighting this war-like mess with an ever-deepening desperation” is redundant.  If we really want to convey Carson’s anger, we can add an action, like him shouting in frustration at the end.  So the new simpler text would look like this:

I’m not saying you should NEVER offer detail in your writing.  You just only do it when it’s important.  Like if a detective walks into a crime scene where very specific things will be important to know later on – then go for it – describe away.  But a guy looking for munchables?  We don’t need to get into any detail with that, unless you’ve got some amazing jokes you can weave into his search (even then, it’s probably not worth it – simplicity should usually win out).

SUBSEQUENT ACTION LINES (NO SPACES IN BETWEEN)

While I can’t speak for everybody, this practice drives me CRAAAA-ZY.  I don’t know who came up with it, but the sooner it goes away, the better.  First of all, you want to be weary of any writing device that goes against what readers are used to unless you’re positive it makes the script better.  The above looks so odd to a reader, they’ll probably stop for a second and wonder if it’s a formatting error before moving on.  I’m not even sure of this device’s intention.  I just know that it looks and feels odd.

THE BEAT SHOULD NOT GO ON

There was a time and place for “beat” when the screenplay was a technical blueprint.  But these days, it’s more about making the screenplay readable.  Anything that breaks the suspension of disbelief is our enemy.  So when you say “beat,” what does that mean?  It means fake-ish artificial term that has no organic reason to be in your story.  Whenever you can, replace “beat” with something more natural so as not to draw attention to its technical-ness.  For example, I’d probably write this instead…

THE DREADED ‘WALL OF TEXT’

Okay, this above scene is kind of funny, but that’s not what we’re looking at.  When a reader turns the page, they immediately see a general snapshot of said page.  The last thing they want to see during this moment is a “WALL OF TEXT.” At least three paragraphs with five lines or more.  At least one character who talks forever (or two characters who exchange 6-7 line chunks of dialogue each time they speak).  There’s no doubt that there will be times in your script where you’ll need to write a lot.  Characters do occasionally have monologues (even those should be rare though).

But if there are a lot of pages that look like this?  With big huge paragraphs and character exchanges where both characters are taking forever to say shit?  The reader has given up on you.  The correct way to write is to rarely go over 3 lines per paragraph, and your characters shouldn’t exchange more than 2-3 lines at a time (this will differ depending on character and scene, but it’s an average to keep in mind).  Also, it should be noted that the WORST place this can happen is on your first page.  I see a LOT of amateur writers open with that wall of text and I just know the script is going to be bad. :(

IN SUMMARY
A good reader – and I’m talking about the reader who you’ll eventually have to get past to sell your script – takes his reading job just as seriously as you take your writing job.  So he’s going to have his set of reading quirks, things he can’t stand.  The last thing you want is to trigger any of those annoyances, because then the reader is judging you on something other than what they should be – the story.  Like that wall of text.  Again, when I see that, I know it’s over.  I know it’s over right away.  Sure, there are like 2 exceptions in the last 10 years of scripts overcoming this, but for the most part, readers know it’s a disaster.  Just remember that your job is to make things as easy as humanly possible for the reader.  You want their read to be effortless.  So don’t do anything weird or annoying unless you’re absolutely sure it makes the reading experience and your story better.

What about you guys?  What are some things that drive you nuts when you read?

 

Genre: Romance/Drama
Premise: (from IMDB) A cancer-stricken teenager falls in love with a young man who inspires her to seek answers about a mystery she’s been dying to figure out.
About: You gotta give it to Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber. These guys have found their niche, and they’re pretty darn good at it. That’s really all you can ask for as a professional screenwriter, to be the ‘go-to’ guys in a particular genre. Starting with 500 Days of Summer, about the realities of relationships, they moved to The Spectacular Now, which was about alcoholism, then this, which is about cancer, and next will be a another high school movie, about suicide. Young demo fare that has a little extra kick to it. And “Stars” looks like it’s going to be their biggest hit to date. As I noted in my newsletter, the book the script is based on has over 15,000 reviews on Amazon. The Holy Bible has 11,000 reviews. Hallelujah, John Green.
Writers: Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber (based on the novel by John Green)
Details: 115 pages (second draft – June 11, 2012)

How this freaking screenplay got me, I have no idea. I went into this fully expecting to hate it. Cancer never works in movie form. It just doesn’t. It’s too depressing. I think that’s why it took people so long to jump on the Breaking Bad bandwagon. They had to hear from at least 5 people that it was an awesome show before they finally, begrudgingly said, “Okay! I’ll watch your freaking cancer show!”

The number of cancer scripts that are written despite this is staggeringly high. People like to write about cancer! There were like 8 Black List scripts covering the C word last year. I think it’s because writers assume their script is “deep” if it’s about cancer. Their script is going to be taken seriously because it’s, like, tackling serious stuff ‘n shit.

This always backfires though. That’s because cancer is, almost by definition, melodramatic. And nearly every one of these movies hits a tired formula: A guy hates his life, meets a cancer chick. She shows him how to live every day to its fullest. Then the cancer hits her hard. Man Cry. Then she dies. But it’s okay because he’s learned something from her. Ahhh! Kill me now (no pun intended). That’s what I thought I was up for here.

But damn you, novelist John Green. You got me. You got me good.

16 year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster has had cancer since she was 13. Luckily, one of the 1 in a million experimental drugs worked on her and is currently keeping her cancer at bay. The problem is, the cancer has decimated her lungs and she requires oxygen tanks wherever she goes or else she faints.

Hazel has a pretty good attitude about the whole thing, but it isn’t until she meets Augustus that she realizes how much better it can be. Augustus comes to a cancer support group to support his buddy Isaac, and that’s where he sees Hazel and instantly falls in love with her.

Augustus is no stranger to this ugly disease though. He once had cancer himself and they ended up having to chop his leg off in the process. Now if you’re anything like me, you’re looking at this and going, “Who the f*ck doesn’t have cancer in this story? Does the dog have cancer?  Does the goldfish have cancer?” Guys, I don’t know how they did it. But despite all the coincidences, they somehow make all of this feel natural. And while it was never specifically stated that the goldfish didn’t have cancer, I’m pretty sure he’s cancer-free.

After getting to know each other, Hazel and Gus get onto the topic of their favorite books. Whereas Augustus, being a 17 year old guy, loves the adapted novella of his favorite video game, Hazel likes some obscure book about a girl dying with cancer. Augustus rolls his eyes at this. Really?? But she insists it’s good. And when he reads it, he agrees, except for the ending, which ends in mid-sentence! Since it’s from the point of view of the girl, it ends when her life ends.

He’s furious and desperate to know what happened to all the other characters. She says it’s pointless. She’s written to the author numerous times but he lives in Amsterdam and is a recluse. Augustus is one determined dude though, and somehow gets through to the guy. When the author invites them to his home, Hazel is floating on air. She gets to go to another country with a guy she’s falling in love with AND get the answers to her favorite novel of all time from the author himself!

However, as you might expect, the trip to Amsterdam doesn’t go as planned, and it gets even worse when they come back. Something truly shocking throws Hazel’s life into disarray. And it’s not that her cancer’s back. It’s much worse.

(huge spoilers to follow) When you look at The Fault In Our Stars from the outside, there’s no way it should have worked. It’s a story about two people with cancer falling in love. There are more schlocky melodrama pitfalls in that idea than any other story idea I can come up with. I mean it’s bad enough that ONE person has cancer. But two???

But here’s how John Green and the Neustadter/Weber team got it right. They focus on making these characters “people” first. They strip away the cancer and ask who they are. What they like, what they hate, what they fear, what they dream, their personalities (basically the exact opposite of what Godzilla did with any of its characters).

I think that’s where everybody gets it wrong with cancer stories. They try and define the characters by their cancer, which is not only depressing, but disingenuous. These people had lives before they got diagnosed, and by seeing that, we start to connect with them like we would connect with any character.

Hazel and Augustus are fun. They don’t sit around and discuss how shitty their lives have been. They laugh. They joke around. They enjoy each others’ company.

Also, The Fault In Our Stars did something really clever. They created an actual story here. We have a mystery and a big goal for our characters (get in touch with the author and find out what happened at the end of that book). Sure, we could’ve watched these misfits fall for each other within the confines of a high school that ostracizes them. I’m sure there’s a story there somewhere. But the book goal made this feel bigger. It gave the story a sense of adventure.

I also learned something really powerful while reading this script. When you’re dealing with these really overly-emotional subjects (it doesn’t have to just be cancer – it can be depression, suicide, addiction, whatever), the best way to do it is to make the reader laugh at first. And make them laugh for awhile.

The first half of “Stars” is a lot of fun. And we love that because we go into this expecting the opposite – a lot of “the cancer is back” lines or really depressing trips to the hospital. “Stars” just shows these two characters having fun and falling in love, ingeniously baiting us into a false sense of security.

Then, when we get to the final act, and you DO start bringing out all the heavy-handed stuff, you’ve got us so far wrapped around your finger that it works. These are things (the cancer being back) that would never work if you heavy-handedly dropped them into the first act. They only work once you’ve made us feel good for a really long time.

About the only thing I didn’t love in “The Fault In Our Stars” is when they met Van Houten (the author) in Amsterdam. This is always a tricky screenwriting thing to pull off. You’ve built the whole story up to this meeting. And you can’t just give the characters what they want. You can’t have them walk in there and the author go, “Oh yeah, this is what happened in the novel.” That would be too easy. There’s no conflict in that, no drama.

So I get why Green had the author be a jerk. But for me, it was too much. It wasn’t just the opposite of what we were expecting, it was the EXTREME opposite, and whenever you use extremes in writing, you’re treading on dangerous waters because you risk the reader seeing through the illusion.

With that said, Green redeemed himself with the author’s surprise reappearance at the ending. It’s a testament to how good of a writer he is. Even with the character I hated most, he still arced him, still changed him, allowing me to feel better about how he treated our protagonists earlier.

The Fault In Our Stars is one hell of a miracle. It manages to find the humanity in a story that’s so often oversaturated with drama. The character work here is great. The story is really really good. I did not expect this at all. But this was a really good script.

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

What I learned: Undercut dark moments with unexpected humor. This is the best way to write these types of movies. The audience is expecting lots of depressing talk, so you can have fun with that and play with their expectations. At one point, Hazel is in her back yard, on the phone with Augustus, and everything just sort of hits her at once. The doctors won’t let her go to Amsterdam. She’s got another test tomorrow. Her father is depressed. She’s staring out at this swing set that her father made her when she was a little girl, when she didn’t have cancer and there was actual hope in the world. It’s so depressing. So how does Augustus respond to this? Does he go into some deep monologue about the philosophical meaning of life and all that dreck. No. He pauses and then says, “I demand to see this swing set of tears.” He later comes over. The two agree they have to get rid of this depressing ass swing set and sell it on Craigslist. With these movies, you can’t strangle us with insufferable depression. You have to have fun. And this is a great way to do it.