Genre: Crime/Mob Drama
Premise: (from Black List) A gritty, contemporary retelling of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO set in the underworld of the Hell’s Kitchen Irish mob.
About: This script finished with 4 votes on the 2008 Black List. It was later purchased by Phoenix Pictures, which has made Black Swan and Shutter Island. The idea is to make an underground crime/mob film in the style of Heat. It’s unclear where the project is now in the development process. The writing team of McGreevey and Shipman have since moved into television, creating and working on the series “Hemlock Grove” on Netflix.
Writers: Brian McGreevey & Lee Shipman
Details: 125 pages

While this script wasn’t for me, I fully admit that if you put Denzel Washington in it, it’ll be an instant hit!

Oh man. I always get sucked in by the “Monte Cristo” angle. “Oh yeah, sure. Monte Cristo storyline? I’ll read it!” Dingbat. How come I keep making that mistake?? Hindsight is 20/30 but I didn’t even need glasses to know that this genre wasn’t my thing. Never has been. The names. Ahhh, the names! They’re all the same! Jimmy and Jerry and Eddie and Jackie. Who’s who? Who knows! Every time, it happens. I don’t know if it’s because these scripts aren’t my thing or if these stories just don’t translate on the page. But I feel like I should’ve known better.

And I wanted today to be a happy review day! With Thanksgiving coming up, I’m going to be gone until Monday. So I wanted to leave a spec rainbow behind me. I had this vision of thousands of screenwriters being inspired then racing to their computers to finish their scripts this weekend. The whole reason I pluck these old scripts out of Forgottenville is in the hopes of finding that shiny overlooked gem. “Once Upon A Time” was essentially in the same spot on the Black List as Chris Terrio’s “The Ends of The Earth.” So I figured, we have a shot here. Oh, giblet sauce!

Anyway, so here’s the story. Finn Morgan and Eddie Donovan are best friends. One of them’s a good guy who’s going to be a lawyer (Eddie). The other is the next in line to control the city’s mob (Finn). Since their friendship wouldn’t be complete without a woman, we’ve got Molly, who’s with Eddie, but who Finn is clearly in love with. I think we know where this is going.

Finn kills a really important dude in town and frames Eddie for the murder, all in a not-so-subtle attempt to make Molly his own. When Eddie is then murdered in prison, Finn’s home free with his plan-o-love, and Molly reluctantly hops aboard the Finn Express.

Too bad the train stops at Eddie-is-still-alive Station! Yup, Eddie befriends some old guy in prison who helps him dig a hole out of the place and escape. It’s a little confusing why Eddie was mistaken to be dead in the first place, but a lot of that had to do with the fact that there’s so many people and so many things going on in the script, it’s hard to keep up.

One of those things is that we’re jumping back and forth between two different timelines, one set in the present, when Eddie comes back from prison, and one set 15 years ago, where we see Eddie betrayed and sent to prison. Tons of characters and lots of intricate storylines are hard to make clear on their own. Add intercutting time lines and we’re talking a whoopee cushion of confusion. Not to mention we’re also flashing back WITHIN the present time period, adding yet another timeframe to keep track of. Ouch. My head hurts!

Eventually, after we see all this stuff take place over about 90 pages, it becomes a revenge tale, with Eddie wanting to get payback for being framed by his supposed buddy (and losing his girl!). I kept waiting for the big Monte Cristo hook to happen, where Eddie got rich and powerful, but it never happened (sad face emoticon). Instead, the Monte Cristo thing was limited to an old man helping Eddie escape prison.

This script was a bit like Thanksgiving Dinner. You’re excited at first. You get to see all your family and how everyone’s doing and enjoy a nice meal. But it soon turns into a confusing mess where parents are asking you what you’re doing with your life and pointing out all of your mistakes and telling you to save money, leaving you feeling confused and frustrated. Okay, so it’s not exactly like a Thanksgiving Dinner. But I’m trying to tie in the holiday dammit.

Or wait. Maybe it’s more like Black Friday. You show up at 4 a.m., wait in line. Everyone is excited about all the great discounts they’re going to get so you all become best friends. Then the doors open and everyone becomes animals, out for themselves. Pretty soon you don’t know where you are or why you even came in the first place. The day ends up with you sitting in the video game section covered in discount games screaming “Why!! WHYYYYY????!!!.” Hmmm. Don’t know if that was much better.

Okay, outside of the obvious, that this script was so freaking hard to keep up with (I don’t feel like the writers had ever read a script before – if they had, they’d have known how difficult this was to read), it simply didn’t move fast enough. The big plot moment – when Finn frames Eddie – doesn’t come until page 57. FIFTY-SEVEN! The movie’s halfway over by that point. That moment should’ve happened on page 17.

And the reason it didn’t is because the writers committed to this dual time-frame approach, which I’m thinking was a mistake. Essentially, for 56 pages, we’re given backstory on how these guys are friends. Backstory is story that stands still. Present story is story that moves forward. There are examples of backstory being interesting (Lost did this well) but it’s almost always a fool’s game. Audiences are interested in the here and now.  And even more interested in what comes next.

I would’ve gotten to the betrayal quicker, shown Eddie adapting to life in prison, shown the breakout, then shown him rise up the ranks in the gang, possibly as a different person, then kill Finn. Although I guess that’s sort of like Gangs of New York, so maybe you play with it more. The point is, do something where the story is always pushing forward instead of always jumping back.

Which brings us back (ironically) to dual timelines. This approach is notoriously harder to pull off because a) it’s more complex and b) because you’re covering two stories, it takes you twice as long to get to everything. A few weeks ago we covered a dual-timeline script that worked – Fathers & Daughters – and a big reason for that was that it was a simple story. Just two characters. So jumping around didn’t confuse anything. Here, there’s so much going on that when you added the jumping back and forth, it became too much to bear. I think you need to think long and hard about using the dual-timeline approach. What is your reason for doing it? If it’s stylistic or “different to be different,” drop it. But if you think it’s absolutely positively essential to telling your story (no other way will work better), that’s when you do the dual-timeline.

Somewhere, buried inside this script, is a good story. But right now it’s more complicated than it needs to be. I’m sure there have been some rewrites since. Hopefully they addressed these issues.

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

What I learned: Read scripts. By reading scripts, you understand where readers get tripped up and you’re able to avoid those pitfalls. Writers who don’t read scripts tend to overpopulate their stories, over-complicate their plotlines and write vaguely. That’s how “Once Upon A Time” read to me. If you don’t have access to scripts, ask some of the folks here in the comments section for help. They can get you some of the scripts that are floating around out there.

It’s Thanksgiving so what better movie to extract 10 screenwriting tips from than “Planes, Trains and Automobiles!” Okay so there weren’t a lot of movies to choose from (it was either this or Pauly Shore’s “Son In Law”). Still, any time I get to break down a John Hughes script, I’m a happy man. The thing about Hughes is that he came from a marketing background. So he understood the fact that people have short attention spans. They don’t like to be confused. And they like to understand what they’re getting into. Which is why he kept all of his films easy to understand and, therefore, easy to market. The road trip film is a cinema staple. But its biggest strength (the fact that it’s so simple) is also it’s biggest weakness (it’s hard to make unique). Still, at its core, these kinds of films were built for screenwriters. The road trip angle gives the script a clear goal and forward momentum, and the contrasting personalities gives the script natural conflict. All you have to do is come up with a few interesting characters and scenarios we haven’t seen before. From what I hear, Hughes shot a TON of footage to ensure just that (twice the industry average actually) and there’s rumored to be a 3 hour cut of Planes, Trains and Automobiles somewhere in the Paramount film vault (this cut is 90 minutes). I live about four blocks from Paramount so maybe I’ll head over there before the big turkey day and see if I can find it.

1) If you don’t have a ticking time bomb in your road trip movie, you probably don’t have a road trip movie – If your characters are heading to a destination in your script, they should need to get there by a certain time. And it should constantly look like they’re not going to make it. Here, of course, our characters are trying to get home by Thanksgiving.

2) Look for the visual jokes in these movies – Writers get caught up in the humorous back and forth between their characters when they write road trip movies. It’s all about the dialogue between the leads. But remember, the visual jokes tend to be the ones that hit the hardest. There’s no better laugh in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” than when Steve Martin finishes his shower only to see that John Candy’s used all the towels and the only dry one left is a tiny washcloth. Never underestimate the power of visual jokes that are just WAITING to be found.

3) The idiot shouldn’t think he’s an idiot – With Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis films becoming so popular, self-aware comedy has become huge. But remember it’s not the only way. Some of the funniest characters are the characters who have no idea that they’re grating, that they’re smothering, that they’re annoying, that they’re rude. The idiot shouldn’t always think he’s an idiot. He should think he’s the smart charming guy. That’s what makes John Candy’s Del Griffith so memorable. He has no idea how annoying he is.

4) If characters are stuck together, they better really be stuck together – What drives me craaaaazy in these scripts is when writers keep their characters together for no logical reason at all. If there’s a moment where characters would logically split up, you either have to come up with a believable reason why they don’t or you should split them up (and reunite them later somehow). That’s what happens here. They finish the bus ride and, during lunch, Steve Martin just says, hey, there’s no reason for us to be together anymore. And they go their separate ways.

5) The two things a buddy road-trip movie MUST have – When you write these movies, there are two things you must adhere to. Assuming, of course, you already have two characters with friction between them, the first is that things need to KEEP GETTING WORSE for these characters. At first it’s the plane being diverted to a different airport. But later it’s getting robbed. Later still it’s blowing up a car. And the second is that the IRRITANT character needs to KEEP GETTING MORE IRRITATING. At first John Candy’s just leaning on your shoulder on the plane. But later he’s sleeping on you with his hands between your legs. And later still, he almost kills you by slipping your car between two semis.

6) Give your comedy more leeway by avoiding caricatures – I learned this one from critic Leonard Maltin. He noted that the reason this movie’s occasional slapstick scene (them nearly crashing into two semis) didn’t disrupt the film’s more serious tone, is because neither main character was a caricature. They both had real goals, real lives, real backstory, real emotions, real frustrations. They were genuine. And because we believed them as people, we bought into the sillier parts of their adventure. Had they been hamming it up for the screen and thinly drawn and “caricatures” of real people, the movie would’ve quickly devolved into empty nonsense during those sillier moments.

7) Caricatures work great for one-scene characters though – One place to go wild with caricatures, however, is with one-scene characters. These guys don’t need to be deep, so you can have fun with them. Owen the redneck Truck Driver (“My wife’s so strong her baby came out sideways and she didn’t even scream”) is a great example.

8) If your story’s fast, write fast – This is by no means a hard and fast rule. Every writer should develop a method that works for them. But there’s something to be said for writing fast when your story’s time frame is fast. This story takes place over three days and John Hughes wrote it in three days. There’s something about the energy you write with when you’re writing fast that matches the energy of a fast story. Keep in mind, though, that Hughes routinely does 20 drafts AFTER his first draft.

9) Write that scene an actor is going to love – Steve Martin, who was really hot at the time of this movie, said he signed on because of two scenes. The scene where he curses out the car rental attendant with 18 “fucks” in one minute, and the “seat-adjustment” scene in the car. You have to be thinking of your actors when you write because actors are the number one element for getting your script purchased. What scenes in YOUR script will an actor be dying to play?

10) Write the dramatic version of your comedy first – Again, I don’t think every comedy should be written this way, but I know Judd Apatow does it a lot (and tells all his writing disciples to do as well). To make sure the emotional beats are there, the reality is there, and the characters are authentic, write the DRAMATIC version of your comedy first. Then, as you rewrite, start looking for and adding jokes. Although I have zero evidence to indicate this is how “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” was written, it sure feels like the kind of movie that could’ve been written that way.

Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: (from IMDB) Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark become targets of the Capitol after their victory in the 74th Hunger Games sparks a rebellion in the Districts of Panem.
About: This is the second film in The Hunger Games franchise, a set of films adapted from writer Suzanne Collins’ novels. The first film was a huge surprise hit, grossing over 400 million domestically, and turning its star, Jennifer Lawrence, into a household name who is now the most sought after actress in Hollywood. Catching Fire came out this weekend and grossed 170 million dollars domestically, a little more than the original film did on its opening weekend. The Hunger Games represents a huge shift in the business, with every production company and their mother trying to get their hands on the next big female-driven sci-fi YA novel franchise. As Hollywood is prone to do, the saturation of the market is already beginning to destroy it. Terrible films like The Host and the awful-looking Divergent are dampening audience enthusiasm for the trend. Despite this, The Hunger Games continues to thrive and until it’s over, studios will probably continue to develop these projects.
Writers: Simon Beaufoy and Michael Arndt (based on the novel by Suzanne Collins)
Details: 146 minutes long!

One of the things I find strange is that despite The Hunger Games now being one of the premiere franchises in Hollywood, and despite the full-on media blitz they’ve put together the last few weeks to make everyone is aware of the latest incarnation reaching theaters this weekend, nowhere can you find an interview with the screenwriter of the film.

That’s because The Hunger Games, and movies like it, represents one of the most thankless screenwriting jobs in Hollywood. Sure, you get to write one of the biggest movies of the year, but all the credit will go to the two people who sandwiched you in the process – the author of the original book, and the director who put the movie on the big screen.

To that end, that middle cog, the screenwriter who adapts these huge books, is allowed little to no creativity. His job amounts to that of a translator. Maybe that’s why Catching Fire feels so empty inside. Its two talented screenwriters, Simon Beaufoy and Michael Arndt, weren’t allowed to do anything but translate. And it’s left this movie without a soul.

A few months have passed since the last games. Katniss, our heroine and winner of the 74th Hunger Games, is now being asked to go on tour with her co-winner, Peeta, to use their celebrity to distract all the districts from the fact that they’re all hungry and miserable, which is a common theme throughout the franchise.

Now for those who don’t remember, there can only be one winner of each games. But Katniss and Peeta, buddies from the same district, bucked the system and “co-won” the Games, to the dismay of the country’s prickly President Snow. In an arrangement of backstory so complicated I couldn’t begin to explain it in one post, Katniss must pretend to the public that she loves Peeta, even though she secretly loves another guy back in her district. Peeta, on the other hand, is desperately in love with Katniss.

After going on tour, the big bad president decides that Katniss is becoming a symbol for rebellion and announces a “Survivor All-Stars” version of the Hunger Games, bringing all the former winners back to fight each other to the death. Katniss and Peeta are, once again, thrust into the games. And the prez is hoping that both of them will be killed once and for all. But when the normally distant Katniss starts making allies, everything about the president’s plan starts to fall apart.

There’s this saying in professional sports that you want to be either really good or really bad. Really good cause you can win it all. Or really bad so you can rack up high draft picks and turn your team’s fortunes around. What you don’t want to be is stuck in the middle, one of those teams that’s never going to threaten for a championship but is too good to ever get a high draft pack. You will be perpetually mediocre for the entirety of your existence. Catching Fire, I’m afraid, is a team stuck in the middle.

There simply wasn’t anything that stuck out with this film. The emotional beats were never high enough. The kills were never violent enough. The twists were never shocking enough. Everything was right down the middle.

That’s something that bothered me about the first one also, but the first one had an ace up its sleeve. It had a great concept. A bunch of children being forced to kill each other for the entertainment of others. This script doesn’t have that luxury. The competitors Katniss and Peeta play against are adults now, which makes this less unique.

And maybe they could’ve made that cool IF the personalities of these competitors were big and exciting enough. But they weren’t. In fact, Haymitch’s (Woody Harrelson) description of everyone was way more exciting than the competitors themselves. He goes on and on about a girl with fangs, for instance, yet we never see fang girl in the actual games! Or we’re told about this really dangerous brother and sister team – yet the two die before they can tie their shoes! Or we’re warned about this “really weird” husband and wife team. Except the only weird thing about them is that the woman talks to herself sometimes. The guy’s not weird at all.

That’s what’s beginning to bother me about this franchise. There are so many promises that aren’t being kept. I mean, The Hunger Games are supposed to be this violent battle to the death, but the death is by fog and bee’s nests and drowning. I understand that this is PG-13, but if you’re selling “brutal” and give us “cuddly deaths” instead, you can see why we might be upset.

Another thing that ticked me off was the script’s shift away from immediate storytelling to “franchise” storytelling (a.k.a. setting things up for the 3rd and 4th movies). The Hunger Games was a self-contained movie. Catching Fire is more about the beginnings of a revolution we’re not going to see for another 2 years. Cliffhangers are wonderful when you get to watch the next show a week later. It’s not so fun when entire birthdays are passing before you get to see the next episode.

Also, once you start setting things up for other movies, the most important aspect of storytelling – only including what’s relevant to the story – gets tossed aside and your narrative becomes bloated. Joss Whedon is a huge opponent of this approach for this very reason, which is why he said, “Let’s just make a great Avengers movie and let the sequels figure themselves out when we get there.” I agree with him. Just make each individual movie work. Don’t tell me, “Oh my god, I have to go save my sister!” And then cut to black.

Even if you strip all these problems away, Catching Fire still has issues. This love story thing has never made a lot of sense. She has to pretend she loves Peeta so the public will what? Root for the power of love? Have hope? I don’t even know. And it’s a huge plot point since they keep talking about it all the time, which only makes it more frustrating that it doesn’t make sense. Tack on to that how the third variable in the love triangle isn’t even around. How can you have a love triangle if one of the parties isn’t even there? And then, of course, there’s zero chemistry between Katniss and Peeta. Watching the two make out is like watching your best friend kiss his sister. Although admittedly, it’s not clear if this lack of chemistry is due to the writing or the actors.

I hate to generalize but the “YA” label is so appropriate here. “YA” stands for safe choices, a simplified story, and a lack of sophistication. That’s what Catching Fire is. And I get that there are statements being made in the story about society and our obsession with celebrity and how it detracts from the real problems. But deeper themes don’t resonate unless the core story itself works. And the core story here is just so darn safe and comfortable, it’s hard to see this as anything more than the fast food of sci-fi movies.

[ ] what the hell did I just see?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I think YA novel adaptations will only continue to become a bigger part of Hollywood as the self-publishing revolution continues and more and more people are writing these stories. But as far as the sci-fi/dystopian young female protag novels? These are going to die with The Hunger Games. Move away from this trend and start a new one. It’s always better to be the new guy on the block over the desperate dude chasing a dying trend anyway.

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 it gets 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: Sci-fi
Premise: (from writer) Framed for the murder of a mafia boss, a futuristic courier has four hours to fight his way through hostile gang territories to deliver his message that will prevent an all out turf war.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: (from writer) Yeah, it’s basically a futuristic version of The Warriors but with cyborgs, mutant tigers and four-armed chainsaw wielding maniacs. So, you know, better. Hoping I’m passing the Hollywood litmus test of “it’s X but different” here. I put a rough draft of this up on the tracking-board forums and it ended up being requested by three management companies as well as a producer reaching out to me. This is the latest draft and I’m hoping lightning will strike twice.
Writer: M.D. Presley
Details: 110 pages

It’s the end of the week, and with next week being Thanksgiving, it’s going to be a turkey shortened fortnight. I’m not even sure if there’s going to be an Amateur Friday next Friday since most of you will be lined up at Best Buy at 4am for Black Friday (next to me of course) buying your X-Box 8s. Which means this is your last opportunity for awhile to give some feedback and help a fellow amateur writer.

Just like I talked about last Thursday, feedback is so critical to a writer’s progress (REAL feedback, not pat-on-the-back bullshit feedback). Just the other day this writer sent me his first ten pages, which he’d been told was bad but he didn’t know why. I read it and the script had way too much going on in the opening. It was impossible to understand where the script was going or what it was about. I told him he needed to simplify it, dial it back, which is what he’s now doing. Afterwards, I thought to myself, what if no one had told him what he’d done wrong? He might’ve written five more scripts exactly like it. You have to know what’s wrong with your writing before you can improve it.

And with that, let’s discuss Cipher!

Cipher is set in a future city run by gangs. These gangs communicate through couriers via an extensive number code. The only way to remember these numbers is a special memory drug called “cipher” which lasts until the drug’s high runs out. Eventually, your memory goes back to normal, and whatever code you’re carrying disappears for good.

One of the best couriers in the business is a dude named Manx. He’s so deep in the courier trade, he’s forgotten who he really is. And it doesn’t help that he’s constantly morphing his face to look like other people, a part of his cover.

So one day Manx delivers a message to one of the biggest gang leaders in town, a dude named Gomi. When Gomi decodes the message, a calm comes over him and he delivers a code for Manx to deliver to his rival that will end the gang war and bring peace to the city. In essence, Manx holds the key to peace on earth.

But before Manx can deliver the message, he’s attacked by Cobb, a dirty cop. Manx gets away, but when he comes back later, Gomi AND Cobb are dead, and it looks like Manx did it. Little does he know, Cobb is still alive and has framed Manx to look like the killer. The evil Cobb wants to keep the war going for his own reasons and poor Manx is a casualty of that plan.

Manx tries to get away but is snatched up by Gomi’s top sergeant, a hot chick named Bledsoe, who plans to kill him. But when she realizes he’s been framed, she becomes his partner instead, and the two go on a journey through the city to get to the other big boss, Aquila, to give him the code that will end the war. But in order to get there, they’ll have to go through every single gang in town, and they must do it all before Manx’s cipher high runs out.

Cipher was hard to decipher. You read through the first twenty pages of this thing, and you know you’re reading a movie. I mean the setting itself is movie-like. The future is very well detailed. The craziness of the body and gene modification alone made for a world we’ve never seen before. The idea of a courier running around through it all, passing secret codes, battling weird gangs – all that’s very movie-like.

But the attention to detail in Cipher is its own worst enemy. I got to page 30 and I was just exhausted. So much information had entered my brain, that even simple sentences became hard to read. Here’s an example: “In a daze, Bledsoe draws out her STASH, a case containing a DOZEN ampoules. A myriad of different abilities denoted by different COLORS, all nearly clear and the HIGHEST QUALITY.” And then here’s a later (unconnected) dialogue exchange:

BLEDSOE
This is the farthest I’ve ever been without my brozen.

MANX
Just keep your head down and don’t make eye-contact.

BLEDSOE
Pfft. Techen ain’t scitte. All into data driving and node blasting.

I’m not saying any of those sentences don’t make sense. But they’re all a mouthful and I had to read everything twice to get it (“What are ampoules again?” “Why are there different colors?” “What’s a brozen? Is that a term of endearment? Like, ‘Hey brozen, how ya doin?’”). And it felt like every sentence was that way after awhile – packed with information I didn’t entirely understand.

And then there were the characters. Lots of them with lots of weird names and lots of different affiliations. And the problem was you were never sure which character being introduced was only going to be around for a page and which would be around the whole screenplay. So after awhile you sort of give up trying to figure out who people are. Then low and behold, page 30 rolls around and you realize that that character 20 pages ago IS an important character and you only have a semblance of who they are. So you go back to their intro, which you always hate to do and almost universally spells doom for the script, and you find out who the person is, rereading the entire page they were introduced on, before going back and trying to find your place again. However, the story is so thick and detailed, you’ve forgotten what’s happening. Forcing you to go back a page and re-read where you are to catch up again. Does that sound like the kind of process a reader wants to go through again and again?

This is what happened with Bledsoe. At first I thought she was an unimportant stripper. But later she’s got Manx in a prison cell so I was like, “Is she a cop??” But it didn’t seem like she was a cop so I had to go back and check. Complicating this even more is that she has a MAN’S NAME. And then, of course, once you’re not really sure who one of the main characters is, it’s a snowball effect. The vagueness of that character extends to whatever situation they’re in, which means you never totally understand a scene, which makes you frustrated, which means eventually you check out of the story.

And I’m not going to say this is why every story should be dumbed-down. But the more complex and the more detailed and the more populated and the more subplots and the more world building and the more vocabulary you have in your story, the more complicated that story becomes to tell. So it usually takes a writer awhile and a number of scripts to realize that while THEY understand their 10,000 characters and super complex world they’ve built because they’ve put 500 hours into it and know it intimately, the reader’s only spent 2 hours with it, which means if you haven’t been patently clear as far as who every character is and how everyone is connected and what’s going on (which takes a lot of writing to figure out), we’re going to get confused!

And the reality is, even if you’re the best in the world at keeping things clear, sometimes you’ve written more information than the writer can keep up with. And it’s your job to know when you’ve done that and PULL BACK.

I mean a quick look at Cipher and I’d make a few choices right off the bat. Don’t give your lead girl a male name. You already have a ton of people in this. Why risk that we’re going to be confused as to the sex of one of your main characters? And when you’re introducing a major character in a character-heavy pace, make sure WE KNOW you’re introducing them. Give them a big intro. Describe them in a way that sets them apart from the minor characters. I’d also drop the face morphing. It feels like you have some thematic and character reasons to include this, but it does more harm than good. It’s confusing. This is “Warriors in the future.” Why complicate it? These are just a few of many ways to make things easier on the reader.

But this isn’t one of those hopeless cases where Presley doesn’t have any talent. I think he’s just overwriting. He’s spending too much time on his world and overcomplicating his story. We’ve said it a million times here on the site, but when in doubt, KISS. Keep it simple stupid.

Script link: Cipher

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

What I learned: When you overcomplicate the world and rules, readers get tired trying to figure it all out and give up .

E.T. is a strange film to talk about from a screenwriting perspective. Throughout the first half of the film, not a whole lot “happens.” And what I mean by that is, once E.T. and Elliot meet and Elliot brings him into the house, the next 40 or so minutes have the two simply hanging out and avoiding mom. I’m not sure I’d advise a screenwriter to try that approach today. The reader would be itching to get out of the house and get the story “moving.” It begs the question, is E.T. a product of its time? Could the same film be made today? The answer is probably “no.” I think we’re too impatient and too cynical to have E.T. in this world. Then again, you could make the argument that E.T. is lightning in a bottle. There was nothing like it, there will be nothing like it, and it was just a one-off, something that inexplicably worked where any movie attempting something similar would’ve failed. Today’s theme is FAMILY FILM tips, a genre that pretty much died when Spielberg grew up. Is there another writer/filmmaker in the shadows ready to replace him? If so, I hope he reads today’s 10 tips!

1) SYMPATHY FOR THE ANGEL – You want a scene that creates sympathy for your main characters so that we’ll root for them (preferably the very scene you introduce them with). This is doubly important in a family film. I mean, how does a family film work if we’re not rooting for the main characters??? The writer, Melissa Mathison, knows this, and creates a great introduction scene for E.T. where we see him left on earth. It is the terrifying feeling of watching his ship head home without him that immediately endears us to the alien. We’re afraid for him. We want him to find a way back.

2) Don’t be afraid to change the direction of your story if it’s not working – Your first take on an idea isn’t always the best. As you write, you may discover there’s a much more interesting story to tell. The stubborn writer ignores this truth and continues on writing because it’s too much work to change. The smart writer follows the better idea, even if it means a drastic rewrite. Spielberg started E.T. as a horror film where a group of aliens terrorize a family in a remote cabin. But the script wasn’t working (it’s a mess – I’ve read it). His favorite part was a key friendship that emerges between one of the aliens and one of the children. That idea, a friendship between an alien and a boy, became the focus of his next draft.

3) Find the high concept (the hook) in your un-commercial idea – Spielberg admits that E.T. is autobiographical, outside of the alien of course. I realized that this is what sets Spielberg apart from everyone else. When he comes up with an autobiographical idea, he doesn’t film a direct translation of it. He finds a hook to get people in the door (in this case, an alien) then tells the emotional story about his life through that hook.

4) If you play with a new toy too much, you get bored – One of the great things about E.T. is the deliberate development of the alien. Sure, he could’ve started talking on page 15, but he has to learn about this world and interact with these people and make mistakes before he finds out how to speak. I find that most writers get their shiny new toys (an alien, a robot, a monster) and burn them out right away. By page 30, there’s nothing left to discover. Take your time developing your new toy. Make sure he evolves over the course of the story, not within the first 20 pages.

5) Bring your own family issues and problems into your stories – Did your parents’ divorce fuck you up? Is your mom a raging alcoholic? Are you unable to meet the lofty standards your father expects of you? Whatever shitty family circumstances have shaped you as a person, use your scripts to explore them. Family dynamics always feel authentic when the writer is drawing from his/her own experiences. You see that with Spielberg here in E.T., who was notably torn up by his parents’ divorce and his father leaving the family. That undercurrent hits the family hard and plays a big role in the story.

6) URGENCY ALERT – Remember, you always want to infuse some urgency into your story. Here, it’s the government looking for E.T. We keep cutting back to them getting closer in their search, so we know it’s only a matter of time before they find out E.T. is at Elliot’s. This script is a lot less interesting if we ONLY focus on Elliot and E.T. hanging out and becoming friends. We need to feel like their time’s running out. Urgency!

7) Wish-fulfillment – I think a big thing when you’re writing family films is wish-fulfillment. You want to integrate some sort of wish-come-true (to be a superhero, to be invisible, to have an alien as your best friend) and then make your hero (usually a child) need to keep that secret. When executed well, this approach rarely fails.

8) Family movies can be serious – I think too many writers become goofy with their family screenplays. It’s all farting and burping and poop jokes and over-the-top humor. What I loved about E.T. was that it took itself just seriously enough that you forgot you were watching a movie. It dealt with real family issues and real problems (loneliness). These days, it’s all flash and no depth (see the alien family film “Aliens in the Attic” as an example of what NOT to do).

9) Family Fun and Games – Blake Snyder was the inventor of the phrase “fun and games” and it refers to the section at the beginning of your second act, after your concept has been established. So here, it’s when Elliot moves E.T. into the house. At this point, you just want to have fun with your idea. So with E.T., Elliot has him meet the family, E.T. learns about television, he gets drunk, he goes out on Halloween. I don’t think the Fun and Games section is right for every genre (I didn’t see it in “Prisoners” for example) but the one genre it is an absolute requirement for is family films. You can also dedicate more TIME to the Fun and Games section in a family film (it’s traditionally supposed to be under 15 pages – but here it lasts over 30).

10) Alternate Goal Character – E.T. is one of the rare movies where neither the main character (Elliot) or the villain (there is no villain in E.T.) have the goal that’s driving the story. In this case, it’s actually E.T. who has the goal (he’s trying to get home). It’s a nice reminder that SOMEONE in the story has to have a goal that’s driving the story forward or else your story’s going nowhere. I mean think about it. What if E.T. didn’t want to go home? We wouldn’t have a movie!