And you thought yesterday was the apocalypse…

For those fans of Jersey Shore, you know the term “GTL” well. Of course, I don’t watch Jersey Shore so I had to get my “GTL” definition from someone else. But from what I understand, it means “Gym, tan, laundry.” These are the things your average Guido (their word, not mine) needs to survive on a day-to-day basis. Food? Not important. Tanning though? That’s a life or death situation. Now of course, not knowing anything about Jersey Shore, I haven’t heard that The Situation is claiming to have knocked boots with Snooki, who is steadfastly denying the claim, but if I did watch the show – and I don’t – I would probably side with Team Situation on this one. I don’t know why he put Snooki on blast, but everybody knows The Situation don’t lie.

Now, what the hell does this have to do with today’s article? Well, there’s another acronym you should always be pumping your fist to as a screenwriter, and that acronym is “GSU”. GSU stands for “goal, stakes, urgency.” Every single one of your screenplays should have goals, stakes, and urgency. So before you go online to see if the rumors are true that Jwow had some work done to her face, let’s take a look at GSU in action.

Goal – The character goal is the heart of your story. A character must be going after something or else that character is doing nothing. And a character who does nothing is inactive and inactive people are borrrrrrrrrrrr-ing. You think Pauly D sits at home every night reading War And Peace? No! He has a goal – to get as many female numbers at the club as possible! Characters in movies should have the same devoted drive as Pauly D. So in The King’s Speech, the goal is to conquer his stutter. In Black Swan, it’s to conquer the dark half of her performance before the show. Now every once in a while, things get tricky and writers try to incorporate negative or benign goals. In Good Will Hunting, the goal is pretty much to endure the court mandated punishment. That doesn’t allow our character to be very active, so it’s a dangerous road to take. As that movie shows, it can be done, but you need advanced screenwriting skills to pull it off. And very few writers out there have those skills.

Stakes – Once you have a character goal, you can establish your stakes. You do this by asking two very simple questions: “What does my character gain if he achieves his goal?” And “What does my character lose if he fails to achieve his goal?” The bigger the gains and losses, the higher the stakes. Now don’t throw in your hair extensions just yet. Before you lose yourself to the beat, remember this. The stakes only need to be high relative to the character’s situation. So in Star Wars the stakes are the safety of the entire galaxy. That’s pretty high. In Black Swan, the stakes are the lead role in a ballet performance. Which in comparison, seems really low. But because that role is so important to our heroine, the stakes actually feel just as high.

Urgency – I don’t think I need to tell you how important urgency is. It could be the difference between getting to the Smush Room first or getting to the Smush Room second. And as everyone knows, you don’t want to use the Smush Room second. One of the biggest problems I see in amateur screenplays is glacial pacing. The writers don’t understand how to infuse urgency into their story. The most common way to do this is via a ticking time bomb, that point of no return by when your character needs to achieve his goal. You can throw ticking time bombs all over your screenplay so that the pace is always quick. For example, if Sammy and Ronnie meet for coffee and they talk and talk and talk and talk, it’s going to be boring. But if Sammy tells Ronnie at the beginning of the scene that she has to leave in 5 minutes, the scene’s going to have more pep. Also, like stakes, urgency is relative. If I told you I needed to get my wallet back from Snooki’s place, who’s leaving for Vegas at 6 AM, the ticking time bomb is going to be somewhere in the eight hour range. But, if I told you that you needed to trick Snooki into falling in love with you so we could start hanging out with the Jersey Shore crowd, the ticking time bomb would be longer – maybe two or three weeks. The idea is to make the time frame as short as you possibly can relative to the situation.

Now, let’s look at five movies and see how they GSU. Get ready to pump those fists!

BACK TO THE FUTURE

G – The great thing about Back To The Future is that the story is so basic. Therefore it’s a great template for learning screenwriting. The goal here is simple. Marty needs to get back to the future.

S – Back To The Future also does one of the better jobs setting up its stakes, as they’re entirely specific to the situation. What’s at stake is Marty’s existence. If he doesn’t succeed, he will cease to exist. Notice how organic that is to the story. Marty doesn’t just die because they needed high-stakes. He dies because he himself screwed up his mother and father meeting, and now must get them back together so that he can be born. There’s a beautiful irony to that. The more you can tie your stakes into the fabric of the story, the better off you’ll be.

U – I don’t remember the exact time frame here. But I think it’s one week. This is the perfect amount of urgency since it gives Marty and Doc a believable amount of time to take care of the problem but not so much time that it feels easy. This is a problem a lot of beginner writers make. They set the time frame so far ahead that it feels like the main character has forever to solve the problem.

THE GOONIES

G –The Goonies is a great reminder that when you’re writing a high concept idea meant for a mass audience, you want to keep the goal simple. The goal here is to find the secret hidden treasure. That’s it. We’re now on our way.

S – The Goonies also reminds us to push ourselves a little harder when it comes to key story decisions, such as creating the stakes for your story. I think if I were developing this back in the day, I would’ve been fine limiting the stakes to Sean Astin losing his house. But The Goonies did something really clever. They came up with a scenario – a golf course – that made it so everybody was losing their houses. That meant that every single kid on this journey had something at stake. So when you think you’ve figured your stakes out, always go that extra mile and come up with something even bigger.

U – Goonies shows us the power of the super urgent ticking time bomb. We’re not talking a week here. We’re not talking a few days. We’re talking less than a day until the house is signed away. This is why I always recommend condensing your time frame to something as short as possible. Having a week to save the house is still pretty compelling. But it’s not as compelling as only having a day to save your house.

INCEPTION

G – The goal in Inception is to plant an idea into rival Robert Fisher’s mind so that he’s no longer a threat to Saito.

S – The stakes here are Cobb seeing his children again. If he succeeds, he gets to be with them. If not, he’ll probably never see them again (or at least that’s what we’re led to believe). Inception spends a lot of time showing us visions of the kids as a reminder of the stakes but I’d argue that Inception was pretty weak in this category. It’s still not clear why he can’t have his father fly them over to him. And I’m not sure we really believe that if he doesn’t do this now, he’ll never see them again. But if you’re looking at it from a technical standpoint, Inception does have stakes in place.

U – There wasn’t a lot of urgency throughout the first half of the movie, which is why it played out so damn slowly. But once we get into the dreams, Nolan makes sure that the urgency is high. He achieves this mainly with a visual ticking time bomb – the van falling. We know that when that van hits the water, everybody is going to wake up. So if they haven’t achieved their goal by that time, that’s it. Now I still think that Inception fudges the rules in that three levels down they’re supposed to have months to pull off their plan. But since they’re always being pursued, and because Nolan introduces so many visual cues that the dream states in all three levels are becoming unstable, there’s a sense that if they don’t get this done now, they’re going to run out of time. It’s a little bit shaky but it still works. Having said that, if you’re one of the many people who felt like Inception was sloppy, there’s a good chance that the vague stakes and the vague urgency contributed to that.

UP

G – The goal is for Carl to get to Paradise Falls.

S – This is the first of the movies where you can technically argue that the stakes aren’t high. If Carl doesn’t get to Paradise Falls, what happens? Technically nothing. It’s not like he dies. It’s not like anybody loses anything. However, if you look closer, you’ll notice that Up decides to sacrifice physical stakes for emotional stakes. We’ve established that the one thing Carl and his wife were never able to do was to go to Paradise Falls. The point of this journey then is to take his wife to the place she always wanted to go. That’s why the stakes are still high. The trick to making that work is similar to what they had to do in Inception. Whenever you create emotional stakes, you have to do the legwork ahead of time and establish that bond so that we care. How well you pull  that off will determine how invested your audience will be. You’ll notice that, emotionally, we’re much more invested in Carl achieving his goal than Cobb , and that’s because that opening sequence did such an amazing job establishing the love between these two. We never really feel that in Inception, which is why the stakes seem so low. Who cares if Cobb is able to see his two kids if we don’t even know them? We never even see their damn faces!

U – The urgency here comes from two different areas, one of which is quite clever. Instead of having a stock timer counting down, Up uses the rapidly depleting hydrogen supply in the balloons as the ticking time bomb. If he doesn’t get to the cliff within a couple of days, he will not be able to get his wife (represented by the house) to the place she always wanted to go. The other is the bad guys (Charles and his dogs) chasing them. Remember that incorporating a chase is a cheap but solid way to up the urgency in any story.

AMERICAN BEAUTY

G – I purposely chose this one as the last example because it doesn’t easily fit the GSU mold. It’s kind of like Sammy Sweetheart in that sense. She’s on the show but she never gyms, tans or laundrys. So I’ll just repeat this warning. If an idea doesn’t fit easily into the GSU mold, be aware that you are now writing in unchartered waters. Good luck. Now let’s see how GSU applies to American Beauty. The goal in American beauty is open ended. It isn’t a tangible objective. Lester’s goal is to get his life back on track (however misguided his belief of what that means is). The reason it still works as a goal though is that it keeps our main character active. Lester goes out and gets a job at the local drive-through. Lester starts working out more. Lester makes friends with people he would never make friends with. Lester buys the car he always wanted to buy. Even though it’s unclear when the goal will be achieved, because it keeps our character doing things, it works.

S – Remember that whenever the goal is murky, both your stakes and your urgency will also suffer, since those variables are direct offshoots of the goal. In this case, the stakes are our hero’s happiness. If Lester is to continue down this path of letting the world push him around, he’s going to be miserable for the rest of his life. For that reason, failure to push forward means accepting defeat. Lester must succeed at obtaining this new life or else he’ll be miserable forever. I’d say avoiding being miserable forever would classify as high-stakes.

U – The truth is, there isn’t a lot of urgency in American Beauty. The official ticking time bomb is one year. We find that out at the beginning, when Lester tells us, via voiceover, that he’ll be dead in a year. This does create urgency later on when we feel his impending death approaching (and the mystery kicks in of who’s going to kill him). But the pace throughout the first half of this script is relatively slow. The question is, why does it still work? The simple answer is that the character work in American beauty is the best of any script written during the entire decade when this movie came out. Most of the relationships here are so volatile or so destructive (Ricky and his dad, Lester and his wife, Lester and Angela) that there is an invisible ticking time bomb ticking away above each of them. We know that sooner or later each of these relationships is going to go boom, and that alone creates the illusion of urgency, even though the physical countdown is relatively slow. I guess the lesson here is that not every movie needs urgency, but you better have the toolset and a damn good plan if you don’t plan to incorporate urgency.

My suggestion to you, after you GTL, is to open up your current screenplay and ask if it has strong GSU. If it’s lacking in any of the three areas, see if you can come up with a solution. Oh, and make sure to check out Jersey Shore tonight to see who’s lying, Snooki or The Situation. Then e-mail me and tell me what happened because I don’t watch the show.

 

Genre: Period/Historical/Adventure
Premise: The year is 1627: A headstrong Highlander, together with his uncle – an embittered veteran who hates him – must struggle across war ravaged Europe to rescue his young sister after she is kidnapped by a band of ruthless mercenaries,
About: I’ve just been informed that this script made the semi-finals of the Page Contest for the adventure/historical category. So make sure to send Graham some congratulations in the comments section. — Every Friday, I review a script from the readers of the site. If you’re interested in submitting your script for an Amateur Review, send it in PDF form, along with your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted in the review (feel free to keep your identity and script title private by providing an alias and fake title).
Writer: Graham Kinniburgh
Details: 120 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

I picked Orphans Of The Sword for this week’s amateur review for a couple of reasons. The first is nepotism. Going to be honest. I probably never would’ve read this otherwise. But Graham has been such a loyal reader and he’s always been polite and nice when he sends in his submissions. He’s not like some e-mailers who only e-mail me when they want something (cough cough – shame on some of you). I’m no different than anybody else in the industry. I’m more likely to give somebody a shot if I’ve heard of them before. So if I’ve gotten to know a person a little bit, even if it’s just through a few e-mails, I’m more likely to read their stuff.

The second is I thought Orphans would be a great follow-up to Inherit The Earth. Both scripts are about an intense journey with our heroes encountering a lot of obstacles along the way. This is one of the most popular story templates out there so I wanted to compare and contrast the way a pro handled it versus the way an amateur handled it. So with that, let’s get started.

It’s 1627, the year Larry King was born. Jamie, a headstrong Highlander with a reckless streak, becomes aware of his father’s existence through a lost letter. So he heads off to the army regiment that his father is supposedly in charge of in hopes of beginning a relationship with him.

But before he’s allowed to meet his father, he runs into Duncan, one of the members of the regiment. If this were a Western, Duncan would be the guy who when he walked into town, everybody else ran for cover. It turns out, actually, that Duncan is his father’s brother, and therefore his uncle. But the family connections don’t end there. It turns out that his father has also married someone new and they have a daughter, Elizabeth, who is staying with the Army. That makes Elizabeth Jamie’s half-sister.

While waiting to meet his father, Jamie also runs into a band of mercenaries who the Army have reluctantly allowed into their regiment. The mercenaries are basically a bunch of reckless warriors who take what they want when they want. And they’re currently wreaking havoc on morale and protocol.

So when the Army has had enough, and gives them their pink slips, the mercenaries don’t exactly go quietly. The next day, they retaliate with a surprise attack. They’re able to kill most of the regiment, including Jamie’s father. They also snatch up Elizabeth and disappear into the countryside.

Because Jamie wants to get his sister back and Duncan wants some cold hard revenge, the two agree to team up and follow the mercenaries across the country. But because Duncan usually works alone, he’s none too happy to have to deal with this idealistic whippersnapper who tends to slash first and think later.

Now I want to make something clear. Orphans of the Sword is one of the better screenplays I’ve read for Amateur Friday. We have a solid storyline here. The goal is strong. The stakes are high. We have tons of conflict inherent in the central relationship. I mean this is a lot better than the stuff we usually review.

However, because I’m not a period piece guy, I tend to be a little more critical when these specs come around. And there were some choices that I think did a disservice to the story.

The very first thing that needs addressing is the lack of a title card. Whenever you have a period piece, especially if it’s set before the 20th century, you need to provide some context for your audience. I have no idea what was going on in 1627. To be honest, I don’t know the difference between 1627 and 1726. Or 1276 for that matter. So we need some context here, especially because our characters are jumping in and out of all these different armies and I’m not sure who these armies are or who they’re fighting for or what they represent. A quick title card can clear all that up.

Speaking of time, I wasn’t a fan of the big time jump in the middle of the movie. You set up a scenario whereby a couple of guys are chasing after a group of men to save a woman. That type of storyline lends itself to urgency. Every day that goes by is a day that something could happen to that girl. So when we jump forward two years and are thrown into this random war that Jamie is now a soldier in, it was unclear if the Elizabeth storyline even mattered anymore.

I think that’s why The Last of the Mohicans worked so well. Once the woman was kidnapped, it was one giant race to get her back. Now I’m not saying a movie like this can’t work any other way. I know that script Unbound Captives which sold for 4 million bucks (eerily written by the same person who played that female character in The Last of the Mohicans) took the same approach as this one, in that lots of time passes after the character’s kidnapped, but I didn’t like that script for the same reason. Maybe there’s a happy medium here. But I just thought it was strange that we were all go-go-go, only for the story to stop, jump forward two years, then reboot the chase storyline all over again.

Another issue I had was with the villain. If I understand this correctly, our original villain (the one who kidnapped Elizabeth) is later replaced by his son (the new villain). I’m not a fan of this. Villains are extremely important to movies. We attach ourselves to them with the same intensity that we attach ourselves to heroes. To just replace the villain 70% of the way through the story, to me, is like replacing the hero 70% of the way through the story. This is the person I’ve grown to hate. Therefore this is the person I want the final showdown to be with. Again, I think this choice was a victim of the big time jump. It allowed that choice to happen (as the son was able to grow older).

Moving over to our heroes, I liked how Graham infused the “buddy cop” model into a period piece. I thought that was really clever and worked well. For me, stories tend to work best when there isn’t just external conflict, but also conflict working within the central character dynamic. Here was my problem though. I never understood why Duncan was such a reclusive asshole. He seemed to be an asshole only because the story needed him to be. It’s important to remember that as a screenwriter, you’re essentially a psychologist. Your job is to get into who your characters are and why they became that way. If your character is like Lester Burnham from American beauty, a spineless weakling who never sticks up for himself, you need to find out why he became that way. So we fairly quickly find out that Carolyn stole his masculinity. Maybe I missed it, but it would be nice if Duncan had some traumatic event happen to him that made him the person he is.

I’m probably being too harsh here because this is an amateur script. I mean, it really is better than a lot of the scripts I review on Amateur Friday. But I do think it needs fixing and I would love if the narrative was more streamlined and not interrupted by these big chunks in time. Part of the problem is that I don’t understand what’s going on during this time jump. I don’t understand what all these wars are. So when the movie stops to thrust these characters into these battles, I don’t care because I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe a better explanation of that would help.

Still, if you’re interested in period pieces, especially from this time, you’ll probably want to check this out. And I wish Graham further success with the screenplay in the Page competition. He’s a good writer and someone to watch out for.

Script link: Orphans of the Sword

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me (but writer has potential)
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I think a late Second Act surprise storyline can recharge a road trip movie (or any movie that revolves around a journey). The thing about a long journey is that, no matter how you spin it, it’s eventually going to become predictable. You’re moving forward. There’s only so many ways to do that. That’s what I really liked about Inherit The Earth. As we hit the 70 page mark, the story was beginning to get stale. The arrival of the cult changes that because it gives us a different type of story to focus on. Much like how Cloud City came about in The Empire Strikes Back, we were thrust into a different rhythm than the previous 70 pages, which sort of rewired our expectations . After that story played out, we were recharged and ready to move forward again. That moment never happened in Orphans of The Sword. The chase was definitely interrupted, but because we were never clear why it was interrupted or what the interrupting storyline was (or why so much time had to pass), it didn’t have the same effect as the cult sequence in Inherit the Earth. So don’t be afraid to change things up in the second half of your second act. A story diversion might be just what you need before you throw your characters into the big climax.

Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: A geneticist who specializes in cloning risks his reputation and life’s work to save his sick daughter.
About: The Keeper Project is a 2009 PAGE Award Bronze Prize winner in the Sci-Fi category. That makes it Top 31 out of 6300 entries. — Every Friday, I review a script from the readers of the site. If you’re interested in submitting your script for an Amateur Review, send it in PDF form, along with your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted in the review (feel free to keep your identity and script title private by providing an alias and fake title).
Writer: Michael Coleman Jr.
Details: 108 pages

You guys wanted Amateur Friday scripts with a little more luster behind them? Well I aim to please, senorita. But not without reservations. Someone asked me the other day what my favorite genre is, and I told them sci-fi. And then it hit me. Outside of Passengers, I don’t have a single sci-fi script in my Top 25. Wow, what’s up with that sci-fi writers? I dug deeper. There have been like zero good sci-fi specs in the market this year. Black Lister What Happened To Monday was the last sci-fi script that was actually ambitious AND had potential. But otherwise we’re getting a lot of “I Am Number 4” clones. Yuck. So let’s start bringing some game sci-fi writers. Send me your damn good sci-fi screenplays for Amateur Friday. In the meantime, let’s review this one.

Baltimore, 2027. Dr. Abraham Keeper, 53, treats his sickly 11 year old daughter, Abigail, at their home. Despite her fast-approaching expiration date, Abigail seems to be in high spirits. Maybe that’s because her father is a fantastic doctor, and he’s been doing cloning and stem cell research around the clock to save her life.

Keeper’s lab seems to be a hotbed for activity. The cloning councils and the government aren’t exactly in support of what he’s doing, and it seems like there’s a new angry group outside every day protesting his practice. He even has junkies hanging around for who knows what reason. One of those junkies, 25 year old Erica Blue, has a unique connection with Keeper. We know this because whenever she passes by, she gives him a really intense look.

Later on, when Erica takes off her shirt at home, we see that she has a SECOND MOUTH on the back of her neck. What the! That can’t be good. This country already has an obesity problem. Imagine if you had a second mouth. We don’t have to be math majors to figure out that one mouth plus another mouth means Erica used to be a patient of Keeper’s. Maybe even a daughter of sorts. But because of her deformity, he cast her away like a cheap tube of toothpaste.

Back at the labs, Keeper takes on a new assistant and the two push harder than ever to iron out the cloning process in time to save his poor Abigail. But with the boards and the government and the protestors squeezing him from every side, time is running out to do the saving.

The Keeper Project is thinking man’s sci-fi with a healthy dose of character development. This is definitely stronger than most of the sci-fi amateur scripts I read. And I can see why it finished high at Page. It’s actually similar in many ways to another high profile script that came out of Page, Maggie, which if you remember I reviewed awhile back.

However, there’s something missing here for me. Michael knows how to create a hook. He knows how to explore characters. He knows how to create tension and suspense and conflict. But the script lacked that elusive “wow factor.” That thing that makes a reader readjust the way he’s sitting so he can lean in a little closer and ingest that story even faster.

What is the “wow factor” exactly? Is Simon Cowell involved? The wow factor is a lot like love. You don’t know it until you feel it. But if I were referencing other sci-fi films, the wow factor would be the kung-fu in The Matrix. It would be the unexpected twists and turns in Moon. It would be the documentary angle that makes everything so real in District 9. It would be the tripiness of the dreams within dreams of Inception. It would be the “what the fuck is going on right now” feeling you got when you first read Source Code. It’s an edge. Something that separates your script from every other script out there. And while The Keeper Project is always strong, I kept waiting for it burst out of its shell and become great. But the lack of a wow factor kept it from happening.

The problem? I think it’s too safe of a story. I preach following the rules a lot here on this site. And I stick by that. You need to know the rules. But you also need to step off the beaten path every once in awhile and take chances. Break some of those damn rules. Because those deviations are what’s going to make your movie unlike any other movie out there. It’s your own personal edge. I was watching Stand By Me the other day, and in that movie, somewhere around the midpoint, the entire movie stops so that the main character can tell a story about a pie-eating contest where the hero barfs on everybody. It’s ten minutes long. It has no effect on the plot. There is no information in it that sets up later story developments. It’s just a random story. No screenwriting book would allow you to make that choice. But it worked. Because it wasn’t safe. Because we’re not expecting it.

The point I’m getting at is that The Keeper Project played things too safe. Human cloning has been explored a lot in sci-fi over the last 20 years. The “Clone Wars” were even mentioned in the original Star Wars, back in 1977. So if you’re going to write a story about human cloning, you gotta push the envelope. You gotta give us something new. Having a second mouth on the back of your character’s neck is a little freaky, sure. But I think audiences want more.

That’s not to say I didn’t appreciate the story. Like I said, there’s some actual character development here. That’s rare in sci-fi. I love that Michael actually dug into these characters. Also, while I wouldn’t call the surprise ending mind-blowing – it was telegraphed throughout most of the second act – it was pretty darn good.

I just think sci-fi comes with certain expectations. Audiences want to connect with interesting characters, sure. But they also want to leave that theater talking about that cool scene or that moment that wowed them. The Keeper Project too often pulls its punches.

There were some smaller issues I had as well. I didn’t understand why Erica Blue didn’t go to the press or the police once she was discarded by Keeper. Wouldn’t that have been the logical thing to do? Expose him? I thought Veronica (the assistant) was a messy character. Once she realized that this guy was cloning human beings, I wasn’t buying that she just went with it. Maybe if she’d been with him for ten years. But she just started like a week ago. I would’ve been like “fuck this,” and walked out. And finally, the one setback for using the stem cells from the clones to save his daughter seemed to be the physical deformities. Did that mean he wasn’t saving his daughter because she might have a little mouth on the back of her neck? Wouldn’t a 4 hour operation with Dr. Hollywood take care of that? I just couldn’t figure out why a tiny deformity took precedence over a daughter’s life.

Now despite these issues, this was way better than most of the scripts I review on Amateur Friday. I want to make that clear. I’m just being hard on it because I demand so much from my sci-fi. But I liked this better than Maggie, which won the Page competition. I’d just like to see a draft with a little more teeth, no pun intended. Anyway, read it and decide for yourself.

Script link: The Keeper Project

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

What I learned: Most of the time, you’ll want to use as few words as possible to describe a room or a space. Therefore you might describe a barbershop like this: “This barbershop is straight out of the 50s. Even the TV is black and white.” You want to convey the essence of the space in as few words as possible then move on. But the one time you do want to get into more detail, is when you describe your main character’s home. Why? Because a home tells us A LOT about a character. Is the place dirty? Clean? Modern? Old-fashioned? Filled with art? Bare? Big? Small? I think it’s okay to take a couple of paragraphs to describe a home. Just make sure that what you’re describing tells us about the character who lives there.

So I’m sitting there reading Sex Tape last week and it hits me. Even the high level professionals getting a million bucks a script struggle with their second acts. And then I really start thinking about it (always a bad thing), and it clocks me. Not only do they struggle with it. They FAKE IT. No seriously, they do. They don’t know how to get through their second act so they throw up a bunch of smokescreens and set pieces and twists and turns, all in the hopes that you won’t figure out that they have no idea what they’re doing. And hey, who can blame them? It really is a fucked up act. I mean the first act is easy. You set up your story. The last act is simple. You conclude your story. But if you’re not setting up and you’re not concluding, what the hell are you doing? And why does the most confusing act have to be twice as long as the other two? Well, I’m going to answer that for you. It’s time to figure out the dreaded SECOND ACT.

UNLESS YOUR MAIN CHARACTER HAS A GOAL, YOU WILL ALWAYS STRUGGLE WITH YOUR SECOND ACT
This is technically a pre-second act tip, but it’s such an important one, it’s worth noting. Your main character needs something he’s after (a goal). The reason for this is, much of the second act will be dedicated to your character’s pursuit of this goal. So if there’s no goal, there’s nothing for your character to do. There are exceptions to this rule just like there are exceptions to everything (The Shawshank Redemption and Lost In Translation do not follow this format). But for the most part, if you want to conquer your second act, giving your hero a clear goal is essential.

A MAJOR CHARACTER THAT’S BEING TESTED
Okay, here’s why most second acts fail: Because writers don’t realize the second act is about CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. That’s not to say there isn’t action in your second act. Or plot. Or thrills. Or horror. There can be all these things. But the bigger overarching purpose of the second act is to explore your characters. Once you realize that, you’re way ahead of everyone else. All of this starts with your character’s defining flaw – or “fatal flaw” – which is loosely defined as the thing that’s held your character back his/her entire life. Once you identify that flaw, you’ll create a journey to specifically test it over and over again. These tests will force your character to grow, which will in turn bring us closer to your character. So in The Matrix, Neo’s fatal flaw is that he doesn’t believe in himself. Therefore many of the scenes in the second act are geared towards testing that problem. The building jump. The dojo fight. The Oracle visit. The Subway fight. Each time, that lack of belief is being tested. And each time, he comes a little closer to believing. Now, note how I didn’t say it had to be your hero who had the flaw. Many times it’s a secondary character who does the changing in a story. So if you look at a movie like Star Wars, Han’s flaw is that he’s too selfish. That flaw is tested when he and Obi-Wan get in arguments, when he’s given the chance to save the princess, and when he’s given a chance to join the Death Star battle. Or Cameron in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. His flaw is that he doesn’t take chances in life. Virtually every scene in the movie is Cameron being given a chance to let loose, to “enjoy life.” Personally, for me, I think the best stories are when everybody goes through some sort of change. So make sure that your second act contains a healthy dose of character exploration.

MORE CHARACTER EXPLORATION – RELATIONSHIPS
Relationships are the other main way you’re going to explore character in your second act. Long story short, you’d like to have two or three unresolved relationships in your movie, and you want to use your second act to resolve them. Much like the character flaw I mentioned above, there’s usually a key issue in every relationship that needs to be fixed. Many of your scenes in the second act will be used to explore that issue. In Good Will Hunting, the three biggest relationships are Will and Sean, Will and Skylar, and Will and Professor Lambeau. Each relationship needs to be resolved. The key issue with Will and Sean is opening up. The key issue with Will and Skylar is fear of commitment. And the key issue with Will and Professor Lambeau is what to do with Will’s talent. In the second act, Good Will Hunting jumps back and forth between these relationships, continually hitting on these issues, pushing each of them to the breaking point. Now of course, how much time you spend on this will have a lot to do with the kind of movie you’re writing. Good Will Hunting is an unapologetic character piece. But I’m not sure I’d recommend intimately dissecting three separate relationships in a movie like 2012 or Taken. But that doesn’t mean you should abandon the practice altogether. Maybe you cut down the number of relationships explored. Maybe you cut down the depth or the time used to explore those relationships. But you should probably have at least two relationships you’re exploring in your second act.

THE MIDPOINT STRIKE
One of the problems with second acts is that they go on FOREVER! 30 pages longer than the first and third acts. No wonder they’re so damn cryptic. But you have a secret weapon at your disposal to fend off this pit of boringness: the MIDPOINT STRIKE! Please don’t go around using this term. I just made it up for this article. The midpoint is that point in the story where the audience is sort of used to what’s going on, and is starting to feel like they have a handle on things, and are therefore on the verge of getting bored. By WHACKING them with the midpoint strike, you can change all that. So in Star Wars, it’s when they get to Alderran and the planet has been destroyed! In Jerry McGuire, it’s when Sugar steals Cush away from Jerry at the draft. In Psycho, it’s when Norman has killed and disposed of Marion Crane’s body. In Avatar, it’s when they destroy Home Tree. You need something to JOLT the story onto a different path. If you don’t, the script gets too predictable. You have a lot of options with what to do with the midpoint strike. It can be plot based, character based, internal, external, a big twist, the death of a character. Anything that changes the game a little bit. So in Source Code, it’s when Coulter finds out that he’s dead (character based). Or in Star Trek (2009), it’s when they realize Nero is going to destroy Earth and they have to either rendezvous with the rest of the star fleet or take a chance and stop him on their own (plot based). You get bonus points if your Midpoint Strike ups the stakes. So in Star Trek, earth potentially being destroyed is a pretty big upping of the stakes, wouldn’t you say?

THE BUILD (AND THE POWER OF OBSTACLES)
Here’s something I don’t think enough writers realize. A second act should BUILD. There should be peaks and valleys, sure. But overall, the audience should feel like we’re BUILDING towards something. In most screenplays I read, the second act does the opposite. It peters out. It sputters to the finish line. So how do you avoid this? By placing obstacles in front of your character’s goal, and by making each obstacle bigger and more difficult than the previous one. Here’s an analogy. Think of a video game. In most video games, the goal is to get to the final level and defeat the boss. Each level before that, then, is an “obstacle” to achieving that goal. And each level, in order to make getting to and defeating that boss harder, is more difficult than the previous. So if you look at Raiders Of The Lost Ark, all Indiana has to do at first is get to Cairo, walk around in a half-disguise, and look for the Ark. His obstacle is not getting caught. Pretty simple. But then he gets caught and buried in a cave. Now he has to get out. A slightly bigger obstacle. Then he gets out and has to destroy a plane and a bunch of Nazis. Bigger obstacle. Then he has to catch up with the caravan carrying the Ark and stop them. Bigger obstacle. Since each obstacle is more difficult, we get the sense that we’re BUILDING towards something. Now the truth is, this is an imperfect science, because sometimes you need to give your characters a breather, and you do that by throwing in a smaller obstacle. For example, while Luke and Han gunning down Tie-Fighters in the Millennium Falcon was a big obstacle, I wouldn’t say it was bigger than escaping the Death Star. Still, on the whole, your main obstacles should continue to get bigger and more imposing. This is what will create that necessary BUILD that makes a second act fun to watch.

BUILD BUILD – EVERYWHERE BUILDING!
Take note, the build is not relegated to the plot. It should be incorporated into your character’s fatal flaw and those unresolved relationships as well. That way, the story is building ON EVERY FRONT! For example, in Back To The Future, George McFly’s fatal flaw is his lack of belief in himself (hey, kinda like Neo). At first this flaw is tested when Marty introduces him to Lorraine at school. She’s more interested in Marty though, and George slinks away. Nothing is lost because she barely paid attention to George in the first place. Next, he asks her out at the diner. This time, there’s more on the line because he’s all alone and putting himself out there. In the end, of course, he’s gotta take down Biff AND ask Lorraine to the dance, the ultimate test of whether he finally believes in himself. We get that building sensation because each test had more at stake than the previous one. — Now on the “unresolved relationship” front, let’s look at one of the greatest rom-coms of all time, When Harry Met Sally. Their unresolved issue is trying to remain friends. At first they don’t really like each other so it doesn’t matter. But then they start hanging out, making that pact more difficult. Then they start dating other people, making it even more difficult. Then they start getting into serious relationships, making it even MORE difficult. So the act of trying to remain friends becomes more and more challenging by building the obstacles in front of that goal. As long as all the elements in your second act – plot, fatal flaw, relationships – are BUILDING towards a conclusion, you’re in good shape.

THE FALL
The end of your second act is when your character has tried everything. He’s overcome all the previous obstacles. He’s managed to keep his relationships together. He may even believe he’s overcome his flaw. But then all of these things (either bit by bit or all at once) should come crumbling down on top of him. He should lose the girl. He should fail to defeat the villain. He should fall back into his own ways. The last 10-15 pages of your second act is the steady decline of your main character, ending with him at the lowest point of his life. Neo unable to defeat Smith in the train station. Kristin Wiig losing her boyfriend and best friend in Bridesmaids. The Man In Black LITERALLY dying in The Princess Bride. The end of your second act should LOOK like it’s over for you character. That there’s no hope. And with that my friend, you’ve done it. You’ve concluded your second act and are ready to cross into the third.

There you go folks. Pat yourself on the back. I just want to leave you with one warning. What I’ve given you is the template for a TRADITIONAL SECOND ACT. One which includes a character who’s going after a clear goal. Unfortunately, not every movie follows this template. There is no character goal in The Shawshank Redemption. Will is not going after anything in Good Will Hunting. Ditto the characters in When Harry Met Sally. So it’s important to remember that while these tips give you a starting point for navigating your second act, there is no one size fits all solution. For example, there are no unresolved relationships being mined in the second act of Taken. Could there have been? Sure. Would they have made the movie better? Maybe. But the point is, every story is unique, and the big challenge will be putting yourself in enough screenwriting situations where you begin to understand which of these elements are needed and which aren’t. But hey, you’ve got yourself a starting point. Which is more than some of these professional writers can say. Feel free to leave your own Second Act tips in the comments section.

Genre: Dark fantasy
Premise: In the city of The Burgue, a police inspector pursues a serial killer who is targeting fairies.
About: Travis Beacham sold this script back in 2005. While becoming a town favorite, it has often been deemed too expensive to make, particularly because it doesn’t have a pre-built in audience. However, the script jump-started Beacham’s career and allowed him to do assignment work on some of the biggest projects in town. He eventually got sole credit on Clash Of The Titans, and is the writer on Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming self-proclaimed “biggest monster movie ever,” Pacific Rim. If you’re a writer who wants to write big Hollywood effects-driven flicks, Travis Beacham is probably your template-writer on how to get there.
Writer: Travis Beacham
Details: 116 pages – July 22, 2005 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Do not adjust your screens. That déjà vu you’re experiencing does not mean the Matrix has reloaded. Killing on Carnival Row HAS been reviewed on Scriptshadow before. But it was Roger who reviewed it, not moi.

Before and since then, I have heard numerous screenwriters tout how this screenplay is the greatest thing since Final Draft. Imaginative, daring, edgy, fascinating, original, dark – these adjectives bombard my sensitive ears whenever Killing on Carnival Row’s brought up. Which begs the question? Why haven’t I read it?

Well, I don’t dig the fairy thing. These kinds of fantasy worlds remind me of Harry Potter, whose movies have provided me with some of the more severe “what the fuck” expressions that have ever graced my mug. So the last thing I wanted was to crash the party with a big fat negative review of a script everybody considered their script girlfriend. So I avoided it. And avoided it. And avoided it. And then one day I woke up and for no good reason proclaimed, much like Annette Benning’s character in American Beauty, “I shall read Killing On Carnival Row today!” But I knew if I was going to do this, I was going to have to do it in style. So I went to the costume shop and bought one of those cheap fairy costumes. I strapped on my wings and got ready to immerse myself in The Burgue.

Worgue.

Killing on Carnival Row introduces us to Inspector Rycroft Philostrate. Besides being a mouthful, Philostrate is kind of this deep dark dude who roams this deep dark city known as The Burgue. Philostrate has just learned of the killing of a poor defenseless fairy, and it’s his job to find out who the killer is.

The main witness at the crime scene – to give you an idea of how weird this world is – is a seal/sea creature named Moira who speaks in song. She sings out what she saw, probably making things more confusing than they were in the first place. But that’s okay, because we later find out that she impressed enough people to make it to Hollywood Week on The Burgue Idol.

Philostrate surmises from the Rebecca Black breakdown that the place to look for answers is Carnival Row, the quarter of The Burgue where all fairies live. But we soon find out this isn’t a professional visit. Oh no. It turns out Philostrate is in love with a fairy hooker named Tourmaline. So the two make some very graphic but very sweet human-fairy love, and afterwards throw out wishful asides about becoming a “real couple” someday. Riiiiight. Not to ruin the moment here guys, but there’s a bigger chance of Harry Potter hooking up with Volgemart.

Anyway, our fairy killer isn’t done fairy killing yet, and after taking out another clueless wing-flapper, he kills Tourmaline herself, the hooker fairy! Uh-oh, shit just got personal. And to make things worse, the press has picked up on the ordeal. They’re calling our fairy serial killer: Unseelie Jack (I think “Seelie” is the name of one of the quarters in The Burgue. But I can’t tell you for sure. This is a script where, remember, people peel off seal-like exteriors and speak in song).

Philostrate is pretty down about the whole Tourmaline thing, but apparently not that down, cause he starts hooking up with this other fairy named Vignette quickly afterwards. Karma comes back to bite his ass though, as Philostrate soon becomes the number one suspect for the fairy killings! Say what!? That’s right. They think HE’S Unseelie Jack. So Philostrate does his best Harrison Ford impression, trying to solve the case while on the run, and develops deeper and deeper feelings for Vignette. Will they catch him? Is Philostrate Unseelie Jack? Find out…well…in the comments section here on this review.

I’m guessing you already know where I stand on this one. In a lot of ways, Killing on Carnival Row was exactly what I expected it to be. A story where film geeks go to gorge themselves. You got your dark noir-ish city. You got your hot naked fairies. You got your half-human half-seal singing whatchumacalits. This is a movie that David Fincher or Guillermo del Toro would hit out of the park. In fact, this script is basically Seven meets the fairy world. Meets Harry Potter. I’m not sure what fairy sex would look like onscreen, but this movie wants you to know.

The writing style’s also very visceral. I may not have liked the world I was in, but I definitely felt like I was there. There is no doubt Beacham thought this universe up and down and back and forth. Carnival Row has the same attention to detail as films like Star Wars, Avatar, and even Lord Of The Rings. Reading it is kind of like the difference between playing a good video game and a bad video game. In a bad video game, you walk outside the expected field of play and you see a bunch of blurry pixels. Do the same thing in a good video game, and you might find this huge beautiful wheat field, glimmering in the sunset. The details and depth here are just first rate.

In fact, I think Beacham’s kind of a genius in that sense. When you think about the highest paying screenwriting jobs in Hollywood? They’re usually effects driven films with lots of monsters. So why not show Hollywood you can write effects driven movies with lots of monsters? But the difference between Beacham and everyone else who takes this approach is that Beacham really studied his world. This isn’t some slapped together paper-thin universe. This is a full blown bona fide mythology. Carnival Row may not ever be made, but the script will be reaping assignment residuals for the rest of Beacham’s life.

Another biggie I realized halfway through the script, is that even though I wasn’t into the subject matter, I would definitely go see this movie. I mean, imagine the trailer for this sucker. Naked fairies and huge mechanical dragonfly blimps and singing seal whatchumacalits. It would be unlike anything you’ve seen before. And I think that’s what I’m forgetting here. My narrow-minded grown-up Harry Potter references aside, you have never seen a movie like this in your life. That alone should merit making it.

As for the script itself, let’s just say while reading it, I felt like the uptight yuppie dude walking through downtown Tijuana. I had a hard time comprehending what the hell was going on half the time. For example, fairies are often referred to as scum in this world. But I always thought fairies were cute and sweet. Tinker Bell may be many things – annoying near the top of the list – but I’d never equate her to a cockroach. Why they gotta be so fairy racist in this movie? I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. Trolls. Yuck. Lizard people. Icky. Fairies? Cute!

And on the story front, I had a hard time figuring out why the hell they were after Philostrate. One second Philostrate’s the main detective on the case. Next, he’s the main suspect. Hold up, WHAT?? When the hell did this happen?? Did I miss something? Don’t you have to, like, have the one-armed man kill your wife but she erroneously whispers your name into the phone before she dies to become a number one suspect in a murder? If someone could explain this plot point to me, I would be grateful.

But when it was all over? I appreciated Carnival Row. It’s different. It’s bold. It’s extremely well-written. So I definitely think it’s worth reading. But I will not be joining Team Philostrate or Team Tourmaline any time soon.

linkage: While I won’t be linking to the script here, this script can actually be found online.  Just type the title and “PDF” into google and you should find it no problem.  

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

What I learned: Pay particular attention to the way you describe your action. If you look at the first scene in Killing on Carnival Row, you’ll find a lot of descriptive visceral words. “Laboured BREATHING” “SPLISH SPLASH” “BURSTS” “Eerie WAIL” “slams” “kicks free.” Notice how I haven’t even told you what the scene was about but you still have a strong sense of what’s happening. Compare that to if I used, “runs” “flies” “screams” “breathes”. Those words do the job, but not nearly as effectively. So choose your adjectives and your descriptive phrases wisely. You want to connect with that reader on a visceral level.