This week, I’ll be reviewing the five screenplays that just missed The Last Great Screenwriting Contest finals. Script Number 10 is today, 9 tomorrow, 8 Wednesday, 7 Thursday, and 6 Friday. The Top 5 from the contest have already been announced. You can see them here.

Genre: Horror
Premise: When an estranged daughter returns to her childhood home to help with her mother’s extreme hoarding, she must find a cursed object in the clutter before a malevolent spirit can possess her mother forever.
About: Today’s script, Possessions, is special in that it was voted into the Top 10 by you, the readers of the site. I had a large pile of “Almost” scripts in The Last Great Screenwriting Contest which I then had a secondary competition for on Scriptshadow. Possessions beat out all the other scripts. Katherine Botts has been a frequent contributor to the site over the years and has gotten a [xx] worth the read for one of her previous Amateur Showdown efforts.
Writer: Katherine Botts
Details: 101 pages

Tessa Thompson for Norah?

I was reading Possessions for the second time last night (more on that in a sec) and there’s this moment that arrives where we realize the mother is possessed by a dead man. I stopped reading, looked up, and said to no one, “It’s a hoarder movie about possessions… and she’s ALSO possessed! Genius!” It was one of those cool little moments that make script reading so fun.

Ah, but what did I mean when I said I read the script twice? “You don’t have time to be reading scripts twice before you review them, Carson. You’re a producer now!” Well, it just so happens that I read an early draft of Possessions a couple of years ago. So let’s just say I “possessed” more information about the Possessions script than your average reader. Heh heh heh.

What I remember about that draft was that it was rough. There was a lot going on and it hadn’t all coalesced together yet. So I was curious to see what kind of progress Katherine had made. Let’s find out together, shall we?

Real Estate broker Norah Dodds is annoyed when her brother, Dylan, calls and tells her that their mom, Felicity, is acting up again. More so than usual. We get the impression that their mom has special needs. And now those needs are getting in the way of Norah’s career momentum! But since it’s her mom, she heads home to tackle the problem anyway.

Once at her childhood home, Norah is horrified to see that her mother, a practiced hoarder, has taken her hoarding to Def Con fire hazard levels. The house has become so decrepit that the city is threatening to condemn it unless they clean it out! Which is why Dylan called. Furious, Norah schedules out the week to get all the crap out of the house.

Meanwhile, the small town Norah grew up in is dealing with a problem of its own. While clearing out his deceased father’s home, Mark Echt finds a bunch of dead bodies in the basement!!! It turns out his dad was a serial killer! And the reason that’s relevant is because Felicity bought some items from Mark’s estate sale. And those items, which are possessed, are scattered around this house, hidden inside the hoarding!

Norah doesn’t know this yet, though. She’s too busy cleaning out the bazillion pieces of her mom’s crap so the city doesn’t condemn the property, as that would mean she’d have to spend even more time with her mother trying to find her a new place to live. We can’t have that happen. But Norah’s priorities change when an extensive yarn set in the basement ties her down and attempts to strangle her within the endless pile of trash scattered everywhere. We can see the house itself almost swallow her up.

After barely escaping, Norah realizes that there’s more going on here than mere hoarding. She does some research on the serial killer and suspects he’s cheated death, hid himself in his possessions, which will allow himself to transfer into a new body and keep living. Which is exactly what happens. Echt takes over Felicity’s body and kills her next door neighbor! When Norah identifies that her mother is now Echt, she takes him on in a final battle to save her mother, and maybe in the process, save their relationship!

There’s SOMETHING here.

I can see a horror movie built around the act of hoarding. There’s some sort of link there that makes sense.

Katherine’s also improved this script a lot since I first read it. My main note was that there was too much going on. Norah’s dad was still alive, which complicated things (he’s dead now and a big reason why Felicity’s become such an uncontrollable hoarder – much better), and Felicity also had Alzheimer’s, which added this whole other complex component to everything. It felt very “everything and the kitchen sink.”

Everything-and-the-kitchen-sink writing is when writers don’t have an editor. Whatever they think of, they put in their script. The problem with that is ideas start competing against each other. Imagine if in A Quiet Place, instead of just having alien monsters with super-hearing, there were also zombies. That’s everything-and-the-kitchen-sink writing. It doesn’t allow the most important subject in your movie to shine.

And that’s where I’m still having problems with Possessions.

It’s cleaner. It’s more focused. The story is sharper. But something about this serial killer storyline isn’t working for me and I’m trying to figure out what it is. It feels a little “everything-and-the-kitchen-sink” to me in that: What are the chances that at the exact same time that your mother’s home is being condemned for hoarding that, a few blocks away, they learned that one of the townspeople was a psychotic serial killer who cut up body parts and kept them in suitcases?

When there’s a serial killer like that – a “national news” type of serial killer? That happens maybe once every few years in our country. So no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t buy into that aspect of the story. The counterpoint to my complaint is that it’s part of the setup. It’s established early on in the first act. The unwritten rule is that you get one big coincidence in your first act. So why am I not giving Possessions that coincidence?

I gave it some deep thought and I think I may have figured out the problem. A serial killer is going to be the bigger idea in a movie 9 out of 10 times. So if you’re an audience member and you’re over here watching this slow family drama about hoarding and across town you’ve got this really interesting serial killer story…. you’re going to wonder why we don’t get to watch that.

I mean think about it for a second. Who’s the more interesting character? The woman who just came home because her mom’s been hoarding more than usual? Or the guy who just came home to find out his dead father was a rabid serial killer his whole life? Isn’t that guy the one we should be following?

I understand that the serial killer storyline makes its way into the hoarder storyline eventually. But it takes a while. And maybe that’s the real issue here. The hoarding story isn’t as potent as it could be and doesn’t move as fast as it could. There’s “slow” burn and there’s “too slow” burn. This is more of the latter than the former. If we could ramp up the pace and inject some plot developments with more punch, I might not have all this time to wonder why we’re not following serial killer dude’s son.

It’s frustrating because the script is DEFINITELY better than the first draft I read. In particular, the relationship between the mother and daughter is much more complex and dramatically interesting. But there’s a clunkiness to this serial killer component that needs to be ironed out before I can get on board with Possessions. And more needs to happen in this script for sure. It feels like the screenplay has three big horror moments. It needs seven or eight. The horror needs to be more potent.

Possessions got a ton of votes so make sure to counter my thoughts in the comments section!

Script link: Possessions (latest draft)

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

What I learned: Preferably, you should be following the most interesting character in your story’s orbit. So, early on, when you’re doing those initial drafts, keep an eye on your other characters. Do their lives sound more interesting? Are their situations more compelling? If the answer’s yes, consider making them your main character. If you still want to follow the character you originally envisioned, that’s fine. But you’re going to have to reimagine them to the point where you can honestly say they’re the most interesting character (or are in the most compelling situation) in the story.

Hello everyone. I wasn’t going to post anything this week but after watching Wonder Woman 1984, I couldn’t help myself. By the way, this is a stream-of-consciousness post, so I’m sorry in advance if it’s as nonsensical as the movie I just saw. Wonder Woman 1984 is one of the worst superhero movies I’ve ever watched. In fact, it’s so bad that I can’t think of any superhero movie that’s worse at the moment. Literally, the first 70 minutes of the movie is setup. We’re talking blatant 100% exposition setup. Diane meets Steve again. Some geeky girl finds a wish machine. Some oil magnate goes looking for the wish machine. For some reason, we go to Saudi Arabia on an invisible plane. Saudi Arabia then has a wall around it. I mean this was comically awful screenwriting. And you don’t get the excuses anymore. Marvel has solid scripts for all its superhero movies, which is why they all get near 90% RT scores. But this? It was as if not a single person challenged Patty Jenkins on how bad the screenplay she was writing was.

And that’s why I’m posting this article. Patty Jenkins is responsible for the next Star Wars movie. About X-Wing fighters or something. Why is Patty Jenkins responsible for the next Star Wars movie? Was there a single Star Wars fan in the universe who said, “I hope they get Patty Jenkins to direct a Star Wars movie.” No. Not one. So why was she chosen to not only direct a Star Wars movie but shepherd the next wave of Star Wars feature films for Disney? Maybe they really liked her pitch? Maybe it was for another reason. The only one who knows for sure is the person who’s slowly sucking the life out of Star Wars with every decision she’s made, Kathleen Kennedy. But, surely, after seeing Wonder Woman 1984, you have to kill this Patty Jenkins Star Wars project, right? There’s still plenty of time to do so. And Kennedy has fired people way further into the process. If her number one priority is making a quality Star Wars film, she has to fire Jenkins. If her priority is something else, she’ll keep Jenkins on. She better make the right decision because I haven’t seen a lack of narrative thrust in a major motion picture as abysmal as Wonder Woman 1984 in over a decade. It’s literally first year film school student “I don’t know how to tell a story” bad. And you’re going to let this person direct the next Star Wars movie???? Oh my god.

The weekend wasn’t all bad as Pixar released their latest film on Disney +, “Soul,” and, unlike Wonder Woman 1984, Pixar actually cares about storytelling. Not only that, but this is the weirdest Pixar movie yet. It’s about a music teacher who wants to become a Jazz pianist and gets a shot at a major gig but ends up dying after the audition. He somehow avoids going to Heaven, and plummets into the “before” version of Heaven where little souls are preparing to go down to earth and become humans. He meets a soul there who hates earth and doesn’t want to become human, and then the two end up back down on earth, but the hater soul ends up in the jazz musician’s body while the jazz musician ends up in a therapy cat’s body (yes, you read that right), and the two team up to get the musician to that gig.

One thing Pixar does more and more of that I tell writers NOT TO DO is they overcomplicate things. There is so much world-building and mythology and rules that need to be established here, it’s kind of overwhelming. And they never do things the easy way. Which is harder to execute but better for the story. For example, when the two get thrust back to earth, the jazz pianist doesn’t end up in his body. He ends up in a cat’s body. It’s so weird but it’s that weirdness that makes Pixar movies different from anything else out there. They also do an amazing job with exposition. Exposition is a top 5 enemy for any screenwriter. But the reason Pixar gets away with it is that a) the things they expose are usually interesting. This whole “before dimension,” for example, is an interesting place. So we’re willing to learn about it. And b) they show instead of tell as often as possible. One of my favorite expositional pieces was the “lost souls.” These are people down on earth who have lost their way. And here in the “before dimension,” they’re represented as these spooky one-eyed monsters who trudge around this dark space endlessly. It really captured what a lost soul would look like.

I don’t think everything comes together as cohesively as it could have. But Pixar does such a great job making you care about its characters that you overlook those weaknesses and just go with it. I’m not sure where “Soul” ranks on the list of Pixar movies, but it might creep into the top 5. It’s really different and, unlike other family movies, you don’t know where it’s going. It really does surprise you again and again. Check it out if you have Disney +!

Sorry! I was out all yesterday so I wasn’t able to catch up on the Black List madness until the evening. Count me both shocked and thrilled, then, when I saw not one, but two active Scriptshadow readers in the Top 5!!!

I still remember meeting Angela and her newborn baby a few years ago when she was moving to San Deigo, worried about her chances of getting a staff writing job if she was outside of LA. Looks like, in the end, her decision was the right one! She’s also been killing it with her blog, LA Screenwriter, for a full decade now. So happy for you, Angela!

And then what can you say about Mayhem Jones (Sophie)? Is there anyone on this planet who possesses more positivity than her? I remember how bad I felt that I didn’t give Headhunter that ‘worth the read’ mark because I like Mayhem as a person so much. But you know what she said to me afterwards? She said, oh god, I don’t care about that at all, I was just happy to get a review on Scriptshadow.

I bring up that positivity because I’m always happy to see the people who remain positive succeed. It confirms the power that staying positive has. It’s so easy to become bitter. And I think the more bitter you become, the harder it is to succeed. Not so much because your writing gets worse. It’s more that people don’t like to be around people who bring them down. Or who are always complaining. Or who think the world is conspiring against them.

Now despite me missing the boat on my Headhunter rating (I’ll gladly take the L on that one!), I think we all agreed on one thing with Mayhem during that review – she has voice for days. A really strong voice. And those are the scripts that tend to do well on the Black List. Clever concepts do well. But dating back to the Diablo Cody days, Black List has always been about finding unique voices. And we all said during the day of her review that she had that part nailed.

Okay, with that, let’s take a look at this year’s Black List!

Title: HEADHUNTER – 29 votes
Writer: Sophie Dawson
Logline: A high-functioning cannibal selects his victims based on their Instagram popularity, but finds his habits shaken by a man who wants to be eaten.
Thoughts: WAY TO GO, MAYHEM! By the way, I don’t know if this is a new draft that went out. I’ll be curious to hear from Mayhem about this. Would love to know if she took any of your notes. And for those of you wondering where the review is on the site, Mayhem informed me a couple of months ago that her script was picking up steam and I didn’t want my review to affect any buzz so I took it down.

Title: CHANG CAN DUNK – 28 votes
Writer: Jingyi Shao
Logline: A young Asian-American teen and basketball fanatic who just wants to dunk and get the girl ends up learning much more about himself, his best friends, and his mother.
Thoughts: This is one of those loglines that only works when it has a big “28” behind it, indicating the number of votes it got on the Black List. Cause as a logline alone, this is screaming to me, “Too thin!” But with 28 people vouching for it, the cuteness of the idea all of a sudden sounds a lot more appealing. Plus, it’s one of the best titles in the bunch.

Title: NEITHER CONFIRM NOR DENY – 26 votes
Writer:Dave Collard
Logline: An adaptation of David Sharp’s book The CIA’s Greatest Covert Operation that chronicles the clandestine CIA operation that risked igniting WWIII by recovering a nuclear-armed Soviet Sub, the K-129, that sunk to the bottom of the ocean in 1968.
Thoughts: Scriptshadow Rule 2156b-L. Never ever write a screenplay about the Cold War. Nobody goes to see movies about the Cold War. People go to see movies about real wars all the time. Because, you know, it’s war! And war is exciting. But a war where there was no actual warring? People aren’t interested in that. BUT! Scriptshadow Law 78-9864E. Hollywood is due for a great submarine movie. And this sounds different from your usual submarine subject matter. This puts me on the fence for this one. I’m not sure if I want to confirm or deny.

Title: IF YOU WERE THE LAST – 25 votes
Writer: Angela Bourassa
Logline: Two astronauts who think they’ve been lost in space forever fall in love, becoming content with their isolated lives, only to suddenly have to return to Earth.
Thoughts: I’ve read 4 of Angela’s scripts and the thing that always strikes me about them is that they’re a) always easy to read, and b) cerebral. There’s always an element in the storytelling that makes you think a little deeper. If You Were The Last sounds like it fits in that camp. Simple story. Complex situation. Can’t wait to check this one out.

Title: TWO FACED – 25 votes
Writer: Cat Wilkins
Logline: A high school senior attempts to get her principal fired after observing racist behavior, but she quickly learns he won’t go down without a fight.
Thoughts: I don’t think I’m going to like this one if it’s super serious. I’m in more of a ‘heal the nation’ mindset these days so when it comes to social subject matter, I’m looking for lighter fare. If this is more of a satirical take on the topic, like Election, count me in. (P.S. Election is one of my favorite movies. If you haven’t seen it, check it out!).

Title: BRING ME BACK – 22 votes
Writer: Crosby Selander
Logline: When a woman on an interstellar voyage falls in love with someone during a cryosleep simulation, she attempts to discern whether the man is a real passenger on the ship or just a figment of her imagination.
Thoughts: I reviewed this one in the newsletter. Definitely one of the more interesting concepts of the year. Its weakness is that it’s so ambitious you’re expecting more from it than it’s able to deliver. That’s the thing when you get really really ambitious with a concept. The execution has to be amazing in order to live up to what you promised. But it’s a pretty good script.

Title: BUBBLE & SQUEAK – 21 votes
Writer: Evan Twohy
Logline: Two newlyweds traverse a fictional country on their honeymoon but slowly realize they’re yearning to take separate journeys.
Thoughts: Some great titles this year. Love this title. The thing that sticks out to me about this logline is the “fictional country” part. I don’t even know what that means. Which leads to me being half frustrated and half intrigued. What is this fictional country? What is it like? With that said, somebody should’ve taken Scriptshadow’s logline service. I could’ve helped Evan nail the back half of this thing.

Title: EMERGENCY – 21 votes
Writer: KD Davila
Logline: Ready for a night of partying, a group of Black and Latino college students must weigh the pros and cons of calling the police when faced with an emergency.
Thoughts: Whoa. Speaking of needing a logline service. Yikes. WHAT’S THE EMERGENCY??????? This is my yearly reminder to everyone that, often times, the writer of a Black List script does not write their own logline. Their agent or manager does. And those people do not know how to write. So you get this. The emergency needs to be in the logline.

Title: FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE – 19 votes
Writer: Emma Dudley
Logline: Twenty-four-year-old, quiet, self-conscious Hazel has struggled with her sexuality ever since her conservative dad walked in on her kissing a girl at a middle school sleepover and flipped his absolute shit. On the way back to her hometown for her dad’s wedding, Hazel gets drunk and makes out with an older, attractive female flight attendant. She’s thrilled to have moved past her hang-ups and had some fun until she arrives home and realizes that the flight attendant is her dad’s fiance.
Thoughts: I will fix this logline. “On the flight home to her conservative father’s wedding, Hazel hooks up with a female flight attendant, only to later find out the flight attendant is her father’s fiance.”

Title: VIDEO NASTY – 18 votes
Writer: Chris Thomas Devlin
Logline: Three teenagers who rent a cursed VHS tape are pulled into an 80s slasher movie that threatens to trap them forever.
Thoughts: This is one of those projects that’s more a movie than a script. As a script, it’s average. But you can envision how fun this would look from a marketing standpoint. It’s one of those ideas where, if it’s done well, it’ll look like a good time. And it’s a pretty decent concept. Not the most original. But still, fun. You can read my review here.

Title: SATURDAY NIGHT GHOST CLUB – 17 votes
Writers: Steve Desmond, Michael Sherman
Logline: After being haunted by a terrifying entity, a twelve-year-old boy teams up with his eccentric uncle and three other misfits to form their own ghost club, investigating all the paranormal sites in town so that he can find and confront the ghost that’s tormenting him.
Thoughts: Everyone is still trying to come up with the next Goonies or the next Ghostbusters without it feeling like Goonies or Ghostbusters. Which, when you think about it, is almost impossible to do. But this seems to strike the right balance. My only complaint would be mixing up a 12 year old with adults. It should be either all kids or all adults.

Title: THE SAUCE – 17 votes
Writers: Chaz Hawkins
Logline: A depressed, selfish black man fights for his life after taking a job at a white-owned beauty parlor, whose monstrous owners concocted a wildly popular shampoo that requires a sickening ingredient.
Thoughts: This sounds like it’s cut from the same clothe as Hulu’s “Bad Hair.” I’m not sure anybody saw that movie. But, for those who did and liked it, this script may be for you.

Title: SHARPER – 17 votes
Writers: Brian Gatewood, Alessandro Tanaka
Thoughts: A chain of scam artists goes after one wealthy family with the perfect plan to drain them of their funds. But when love, heartbreak, and jealousy slither their way into the grand scheme, it becomes unclear whether the criminals are conning or the ones being conned.
Thoughts: I love a good con movie. But just remember, whoever wrote this logline, that it isn’t the generalities that make a script sound appealing. It’s the specifics. You need to tell us what’s specific about these characters or this setup that makes it different from every other film in the same space.

Title: BIRDIES – 16 votes
Writers; Colin Bannon
Logline: When Tabitha, a struggling foster kid, wins a contest to become part of the BIRDIES, a popular daily YouTube channel featuring the radiant and enigmatic Mama Bird and her diverse brood of adopted children, she soon learns that things get dark when the cameras turn off.
Thoughts: This sounds good. Balancing these kids shows or kids personalities against a dark backdrop has been a proven recipe for Black List success. Dating back to number 1 scripts, The Muppet Man and The Beaver.

Title: POSSUM SONG – 16 votes
Writer: Isaac Adamson
Logline: After discovering his secret songwriting partner dead, a country music star struggling to record new material makes a Faustian bargain with a family of possums who have taken up residency within his walls.
Thoughts: Without question, this sounds like the most whacked screenplay on the list and, for that reason, I’m all about it. Shades of “The Voices,” here, which used to be in my Top 10 list.

Title: THE BLACK BELT – 15 votes
Writer: Randall Green
Logline: Eighth grader Simon Paluska dreams of being a Taekwondo Black Belt, but he’s not allowed to take lessons. So he buys a Black Belt on Amazon for twenty-five bucks. Then, he has to use it.
Thoughts: This is a fun idea that has the potential to be a thoughtful commentary on the state of humanity in 2020. Why spend 20 years attempting to master a discipline when you can get it sent to your door in 48 hours?

Title: RIPPER
Writer: Dennis MaGee Fallon
Logline: London, 1888: When their friends begin dying at the hands of a brutal killer, an all-female crime syndicate, The Forty Elephants, must work together to take down the predator stalking them – Jack The Ripper.
Thoughts: Is it even allowed to have a screenplay list without a Jack the Ripper concept on it? I don’t think so. With that said, this doesn’t sound like any Jack the Ripper script I’ve ever come across before. That means it’s either going to be amazing or awful.

Title: A BIG, BOLD, BEAUTIFUL JOURNEY – 14 votes
Writer: Seth Reiss
Logline: After both attending the same wedding solo, David and Sarah embark on a big, bold, beautiful journey with a little help from their 1996 Passat GPS and a little bit of magic for the road trip of their lives.
Thoughts: Quite possibly the worst logline on the list. That’s not at all saying that the script is bad. But your logline is basically, “Two people go on a road trip!!!” Wow. A road trip? I HAVE TO READ THAT. The most specific thing in your logline can’t be the car. You have to highlight something about the characters or the plot that separates it from other movies. If you’re not separating it from other movies, what makes you think we’d want to read it?

Title: ENEMIES WITHIN – 14 votes
Writer: Cat Vasko
Logline: In the 1950’s, Joseph McCarthy and his right hand man Roy Cohn sit at the height of their influence, casting aside democratic norms unchecked – until the Army’s lowest-level lawyer, John G. Adams, stumbles upon the shocking truth behind their power grab, and makes it his mission to reveal this to the public.
Thoughts: I mean, I guess if you’re going to do a political movie, McCarthy is a good subject. But, I mean, aren’t we all politcaled out at this point?

Title: THE MAN IN THE YARD – 14 votes
Writer: Sam Stefanak
Logline: When a dangerous stranger shows up at her front door, a depressed widow must confront her own past in order to protect her two children.
Thoughts: Pro – Strong setup. Con – Unoriginal. There are certain setups that work well. A dangerous person, or people, showing up at a house is the beginning of a lot good scripts. So this one will come down to the execution.

Title: SUNCOAST – 14 votes
Writer: Laura Chinn
Thoughts: An awkward teenage outcast comes of age against the backdrop of the hospice where her brother (and coincidentally, Terri Schiavo) are dying.
Thoughts: There are certain subject matters that don’t get my reading juices flowing. Hospices are definitely in my top 5.

Title: FISH IN A TREE – 13 votes
Writer: Jeff Stockwell
Logline: Based on the eponymous novel by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. A young girl in an intimidating new school finally faces seemingly insurmountable obstacles in her learning and in her social life when she crosses paths with an energetic-but-inexperienced substitute teacher.
Thoughts: It’s based on a book so I guess the logline doesn’t matter. But these movies are supposed to highlight the ironic differences between the two main characters. This doesn’t do that. It’s just some “young” girl who meets an “energetic” substitute teacher.

Title: THE NEUTRAL CORNER – 13 votes
Writer: Justin Piasecki
Logline: A Nevada court judge who moonlights reffing high-profile boxing matches must face his demons when he’s assigned to the Olympic fight of an ex-con he’d previously sentenced for murder.
Thoughts: When I saw this title, I thought it was going to be the true story about how Kathleen Kennedy greenlit Rogue Squadron. But seriously. Contrary to “Fish in a Tree,” this is how you connect your two characters in a logline. A judge has to face a man he sentenced to murder. There’s conflict in that setup. There’s history. We see that and we can start to envision the movie. That’s how it’s done.

Title: GUSHER – 12 votes
Writer: Abigail Briley Bean
Logline: Based on the story of Anna Nicole Smith, a shrewd young mother rises out of a small Texas town to become a famous Playboy centerfold, but when she falls in love with an eighty-nine-year-old billionaire, his son and the entire world believe she’s nothing but a gold digger.
Thoughts: My friends. I never thought we’d see that day. But it’s finally here. An Anna Nicole Smith biopic. May screenwriting rest in peace.

Title: BIKRAM – 11 votes
Writer: Silpa Kovvali
Logline: In the truly unbelievable story of Bikram Choudhury, his young wife Rajashree catapults the yoga guru to the heights of fame and fortune, and is left fighting for her survival when he brings their brand toppling down.
Thoughts: I’ve heard things about Bikram here and there that would indicate there’s an interesting story to tell here. But it’s the kind of thing I’d rather see in documentary form than fictional film form.

Title: BORDERLINE – 11 votes
Writer: Jimmy Warden
Logline: A bodyguard protects a pop superstar and her athlete boyfriend from a determined stalker in 1990s Los Angeles.
Thoughts: This is another script I would never read unless I’d heard that other people read it and liked it first. It’s too generic of a premise to get me interested on the logline alone. But it has the kind of dramatic elements that could result in a good script if the writing is strong.

Title: LURKER – 11 votes
Writer: Alex Russell
Logline: An obsessed fan maneuvers his way into the inner circle of his hip hop idol and will stop at nothing to stay in.
Thoughts: Am I having deja vu? Music star. Stalker. Same management. Same vote tally. If you spell Alex Russell backwards do you get Jimmy Warden?

Title: MY DEAR YOU – 11 votes
Writer: Meghan Kennedy
Logline: Based on a short story by Rachel Khong. A love story set in the afterlife about our struggle to let go of the past, even when our present is heaven… literally. Tess keeps searching for the love of her life without realizing he’s right there next to her the whole time, helping her look.
Thoughts: A love story set in heaven. In theory, these ideas have potential. But they’re always hard to pull off because heaven isn’t easy to conceptualize. It’s easy to come off as cliche. Yet, if you get too specific, you could put some people off. But anyway, I just noticed there are lots of love stories in this year’s list! Yay for love.

Title: OCCUPIED – 11 votes
Writer: Tara Cavanagh
Logline: When a tactless Nordstrom’s store manager denies two trans women access to the bathroom, Fran and Althea seek restitution and occupy the ladies room in protest.
Thoughts: If this is a “contained thriller” situation where they set up shop in the bathroom for the whole movie, that’s kind of a genius idea. Hot button topic. Contained thriller. Who’s not going to pass that script around?

Title: REPTILE DYSFUNCTION
Writer: Creston Whittington
Logline: A chemical leak in a local water supply in Central Florida wreaks havoc on the invasive population of pythons, leading a family to the fight of their life to survive.
Thoughts: Can we get a quick amen for this title? I am totally down for snakes in a Florida house. Although I’d be lying if I told you I knew how this script was going to be longer than 20 pages. “The front door is blocked! What do we do!??” “Try the back door!” The family runs to the back door. There are no pythons. They charge out the door and to their car. They drive away. The end.

Title: ST. SIMMONS
Writer: Greg Wayne
Logline: When a very fat and possibly gay boy from New Orleans is visited by an angel called Barbra Streisand, he sets out on a holy crusade in daytime television to touch and save the soul of every obese person in America before his demons consume him – if only to make his daddy proud. It’s the true gospel of Richard Simmons.
Thoughts: I will never be a fan of biopics. But if you’re going to write a biopic logline, this is how you write one. With a little style. Side story. I once saw Richard Simmons in the airport. He literally said “Hello” to every single person in the terminal. And there were more than 300 people. All with booming energy.

Title: THE U.S.P.S. – 11 votes
Writer: Perry Janes
Logline:: Following in his murdered mother’s footsteps, Michael Griffiths enlists in the United States Postal Service… only to discover a mail route full of surprises and a job that means maybe, just maybe, saving the world.
Thoughts: Another logline only 75% finished. You need to tell us more about the mail route in the logline. WHY it may be about saving the world. As it stands, I don’t know if this is an inspirational small story about a guy who finds meaning through his mail route or a wacky balls-to-the-wall supernatural comedy.

Title: ANNALISE & SONG – 10 votes
Writer: SJ Inwards
Logline: Annalise is a girl who quite literally “sees the world differently” than everyone else and finds herself a lonely, misunderstood outcast who keeps her “cursed sight” a secret as a consequence. But everything changes when Annalise meets her new neighbor, Peter Song — a fellow teenager whom everyone else sees as a disfigured boy, but whom Annalise sees entirely differently.
Thoughts: A lot of vagueness going on in this logline, making it hard to evaluate. While I’m all about the message of inspirational stories like “Wonder,” they’re just not my cup of tea. So I probably won’t be reading this one.

Title: BLOOD TIES – 10 votes
Writer: Aaron Katz
Logline: Based on the New Yorker article by Nathan Heller. A true-crime thriller based on the story of two brilliant college lovers convicted of a brutal slaying. An obsessed detective investigates the true motives that led to a double homicide, and the decades of repercussions that follow.
Thoughts: After just having finished “Murder on Middle Beach,” I’m reminded of how awesome true crime stories can be. But the thing is, they play out so much better in that documentary format. So while this does sound interesting, I wonder why not focus on it in doc form where it can truly shine.

Title: THE BOY WHO DIED
Writer: Monisha Dadlani
Logline: A young girl creates a robot version of Harry Potter while her father simultaneously is treating Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe for a terminal disease.
Thoughts: Okay, that comment about the possum wall script I made above about it being the wackiest of all the ideas? I take that back. This is it. I have a feeling that Monisha has deep conflicted feelings about Harry Potter and they’re all coming to light in this script. This sounds so weird, I have to check it out.

Title: CRUSH ON YOU – 10 votes
Writer: Shea Mayo
Logline: Summer on a secluded campus takes a dark turn for three college girls when a supernaturally sexy mystery man begins haunting their dreams.
Thoughts: All I can say about this logline is that I laughed as soon as I read it. Are we about to get 50 Shades of Gray meets Nightmare on Elm Street? I think so. And, for some reason, I want to read it.

Title: THE CULLING – 10 votes
Writer: Stephen Herman
Logline: A troubled priest confines himself to a remote cabin in the middle of the woods where he attempts to make a last stand against the demon that terrorized his family when he was a child.
Thoughts: I reviewed The Culling in the newsletter. Decent script. This is the one where I said it’s a good lesson in how to create metaphors in your writing. The monster he’s trying to kill in the movie is a stand-in for his alcoholism. Herman doesn’t nail the execution but does a good enough job that the script works.

Title: MAY DECEMBER – 10 votes
Writer: Samy Burch
Logline: Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under the pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.
Thoughts: This sounds old fashioned. Like a play to me. For that reason, I’m thinking it only works if the dialogue is awesome.

Title: 1MDB – 10 votes
Writer: Scott Conroy
Logline: The incredible true story of the multi-billion dollar Malaysian government corruption scandal which led to the conviction of Prime Minister Najib Razak and almost $5 billion in settlements paid out by Goldman Sachs.
Thoughts: This is a documentary. It’s not a feature film. Let me take that back. It can obviously be a feature film. But its true identity is in doc form so that’s the version I’ll wait for.

Title: REWIRED – 10 votes
Writers: Adam Gaines, Ryan Parrott
Logline: Harvard. 1959. A young Ted Kaczynski is experimented on by Dr. Henry Murray during a secret CIA psychological study that may have led to the creation of the Unabomber.
Thoughts: Some subjects are so sad, they don’t translate well to storytelling. I’m not sure I want to know anything more about the guy who blew up a bunch of pre-schoolers. (edit, sorry! wrong killer)

Title: STORY – 10 votes
Writer: Emily Siegel
Logline: When a journalist turned stay-at-home mom relocates to Los Angeles to rebuild after a personal trauma, she blurs the lines between fact and fiction… only to find herself at the center of her own story.
Thoughts: If Franklin Leonard was smart, he’d start advertising logline consulting on his lists. What does this logline even mean? Is she writing a novel or something and the novel starts becoming reality? That’s what the end of the logline indicates but there’s nothing that comes before it to confirm whether that’s the case or not. I’m confused.

Title: COSMIC SUNDAY – 9 votes
Writer: MacMillan Hedges
Logline: A small percentage of the population is stuck in a time loop and have had to create a society that functions within the same day, repeated day in and day out. One man struggles to find himself for the first time in ages amidst a society clinging to a sense of normalcy.
Thoughts: This actually sounds like a fun angle into the time loop sub-genre. I do sense a complication in that, if everyone is aware of the loop, then they can keep living each day as if it’s different from the last, and essentially cancel out the loop’s influence. But I guess if the rest of the world isn’t changing, that’s where the conflict comes from. Oh, and the day needs to be the worst day of the week – Monday. And the title needs to be changed to, “Somebody’s Got a Case of the Mondays.”

Title: EARWORM – 9 votes
Writer: Austin Everett
Logline: A former music therapist is recruited to use a mysterious machine to dive into the memories of a serial killer on death row.
Thoughts: I’m struggling to connect the protagonist’s job to the events of the story. Is her singing going to inspire him to tell the police where the bodies are buried? Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, if this were a musical, it would be awesome.

Title: EXCELSIOR! – 9 votes
Writer: Alex Convery
Logline: The true story of the meteoric rise (and subsequent fall) of Marvel Comics and the star-crossed creators behind the panel: Stan Lee & Jack Kirby.
Thoughts: Hmmm. This or Falcon and Winter Soldier? If you held a gun to my head, I’m not sure I’d be able to give you an answer. Which means I’m dead. Which means I don’t have to read this.

Title: FLIGHT RISK – 9 votes
Writer: Jared Rosenberg
Logline: An Air Marshal transporting a fugitive across the Alaskan wilderness via a small plane finds herself trapped when she suspects their pilot is not who he says he is.
Thoughts: Ooh yeah, baby. I’m digging this. I love planes. I love contained tension-filled situations. This has a good setup. Shades of The Grey.

Title: HIGH SOCIETY – 9 votes
Writer: Noga Pnueli
Logline: A depressed, progressive woman stuck in a conservative small Texas town starts micro-dosing the entire town with marijuana to make them all get along.
Thoughts: Not sure I love this premise but Noga has one of my favorite unproduced scripts out there, Meet Cute. So I’ll be reading this for sure.

Title: HORSEGIRL – 9 votes
Writer: Lauren Meyering
Logline: Living under the full time care of her cancer-stricken mother, a twenty-six-year-old, socially awkward, horse-obsessed woman attempts to prove her independence by winning a hobbyhorse competition.
Thoughts: Hmmm… this sounds just weird enough that I think I’d like it. But they just had that other weird horse girl movie and that convincingly portrayed the weirdness of horse girls so I don’t know how this script tops it.

Title: MAGAZINE DREAMS – 9 votes
Writer: Elijah Bynum
Logline: A Black amateur bodybuilder struggles to find human connection in this exploration of celebrity and violence.
Thoughts: I mean, I wish I could comment on this entry but this isn’t even a logline. It does have shades of last year’s Black List script, Apex.

Title: MOUSE – 9 votes
Writer: Kelly O’Sullivan
Logline: When seventeen-year old Minnie’s best friend Callie is killed in an accident, she struggles to find an identity of her own and forms a complicated friendship with Callie’s grieving mother.
Thoughts: Where’s the unique element? The unique element is what allowed for The Big Sick to stand out. Right now, this feels like a subplot.

Title: MURDER IN THE WHITE HOUSE
Writer: Jonathan Stokes
Logline: The President is murdered during a private dinner, and Secret Service agent Mia Pine has until morning to discover which guest is the killer before a peace agreement fails and leads to war.
Thoughts: I’m getting an Agatha Christy meets As The World Turns vibe from this. Also, isn’t this the plot of every James Patterson book?

Title: NANNY
Writer: Nikyata Jusu
Logline: Aisha is an undocumented nanny caring for a privileged child. As she prepares for the arrival of her only son, who she left behind in her native country, a violent supernatural presence invades her reality, jeopardizing the American Dream she’s carefully pieced together.
Thoughts: This is a new sub-genre that’s becoming more and more popular. We saw it recently with the release of His House. Very serious social-minded subject matter mixed with horror. I do like that Jusu is not going with the obvious here. Most writers would’ve made the heroine South American. It sounds like Aisha is Japanese. By the way, does anybody find it strange that His House has a 100% RT score and only a 6.4 IMDB score?

Title: A SINGLE POINT OF FAILURE – 9 votes
Writer: Terry Huang
Logline: Journalists race to expose how Boeing knowingly misled regulators, pilots, and airlines to cover up a problematic flight software system on the 737 MAX, leading to two major airplane crashes and the deaths of 346 people. Based on real events.
Thoughts: This is definitely a documentary, not a narrative feature. But I’ll watch it because: plane crashes! The story with this is pretty fascinating. When these planes started having problems, then crashing and killing people, Boeing took the approach of, “It’s only because you don’t understand the plane, pilots.” Yes, I’m sure that multiple planes almost crashing and two crashing has nothing to do with the makers of the plane.

Title: STATE LINES – 9 votes
Writer: Rachel Wolf
Logline: When headstrong but well-intentioned college student Sara Jane bails on Senior Spring Break to drive a fourteen-year-old girl to get an abortion, she’s shocked to discover that her passenger is an undercover pro-lifer who has kidnapped her.
Thoughts: I like the twist on this one. These controversial political topics are not my cup of tea these days, though. I might read this.

Title: VICELAND – 9 votes
Writer: Chris Parizo
Logline: The true story of how Vice magazine grew from a free magazine in Montreal into a multi billion dollar media empire, making two of its founders multi-millionaires while the third founder was kicked out and went on to modernize the white supremacist movement by creating the Proud Boys.
Thoughts: Right on cue we get… a big political script! There’s a better chance of me going to my local grocery store and reading the ingredients of every single item in there than reading this script.

Title: EMANCIPATION – 8 votes
Writer: Bill Collage
Logline: Based on a true story, a runaway slave has to outwit bounty hunters and the perils of a Louisiana swamp to reach the Union army and his only chance at freedom.
Thoughts: Ooh, if they wrote this like 1917? This would be awesome.

Title: FIGHT OR FLIGHT – 8 votes
Writers: Brooks McLaren, DJ Cotrona
Logline: A mercenary takes on the job of tracking down a target on a plane but must protect her when they’re surrounded by people trying to kill both of them.
Thoughts: If you’ve been paying attention you saw “plane” in the logline and thusly recognized that this would be something I want to read. I’m always down for a good “unexpected team-up” too. This looks like it’ll be a fun read.

Title: THE GORGE – 8 votes
Writer: Zach Dean
Logline: A brazen, high-action, genre-bending, love story about two very dangerous young people, who despite the corrupt and lethal world they operate in, find a soulmate in each other.
Thoughts: It isn’t a Black List unless there’s a Zach Dean script on it. Dean continues to be one of the only big writers who routinely writes original ideas. And I’m guessing this script is better than 90% of the scripts listed above him.

Title: HERE COME THE BANDITS – 8 votes
Writer: Ethan Dawes
Logline: Mickey Bradley, a wildly talented minor league baseball player in his early twenties who returns home to Los Angeles after an injury and coaches a little league team full of misfits who remind him why he fell in love with baseball in the first place. And theres a sweet romance in there too.
Thoughts: I mean, I’m trying to think of a way to phrase this that’s respectful. But is this for real? Hasn’t this movie been made 624,872 times already? I suppose if the voice is unique. Or maybe it’s a reminder to me and everyone else that Hollywood has certain movies it will always make every 3 years and this is one of them. So maybe we’re the dummies for not profiting off that.

Title: PLUSH – 8 votes
Writer: Alexandra Skarsgard
Logline: Sex, money, and one schoolyard fad that took a nation by storm. Based on the true story of Ty Warner, the enigmatic entrepreneur behind a ‘90s toy craze that sparked madness, murder, and a billion-dollar empire.
Thoughts: Sometimes I think a computer writes these Black List scripts. With that said, if there was indeed murder involved in the plush craze, maybe this is good. You know what they say. If you have a dead body, you have a movie. However, something tells me the only thing that’ll get murdered with this script is the time I spent reading it.

Title: TOWERS – 8 votes
Writer: Aaron Rabin
Logline: A businessman’s obsession with his competitor leads him down a rabbit hole of self-discovery, fantasy, and delusion.
Thoughts: Not enough information to judge the concept but I do like stories about people who become unhealthily obsessed with other people. Definitely a fast way to driving one’s self insane.

Title: TRESPASSER – 8 votes
Writer: Gabe Hobson
Logline: A father and daughter living in remote isolation must fight for survival after aliens arrive seeking revenge for killing one of their own.
Thoughts: Okay, first off. Aliens. So I’m in. I’m not sure I like the thing about them already having killed an alien though. But I do like the attempt to make a sci-fi idea cheap to produce (one location – out away from everything where that location would be cheap to secure).

Title: UNCLE WICK – 8 votes
Writer: Gabe Delahaye
Logline: An action comedy wherein Benji Stone, a lovable but deeply unpopular sixteen year old, is pulled into an international assassination plot by his uncle, a retired undercover assassin charged with babysitting Benji for the weekend.
Thoughts: This sounds fun. When I read the title, I thought, “How cool would it be if this was a John Wick spinoff and they were so obsessed with building a franchise that they were actually going to make comedic offshoots?” Cause that’s basically what this is.

Title: WHAT IF? – 8 votes
Writer: Alvaro Garcia Lecuona
Logline: An unassertive seventeen year old turns his high school on its head when he asks out his crush, a transgender classmate.
Thoughts: I believe this is one of five trans-centered scripts on the list? Hey, if you know a certain topic is going to be popular on the Black List, why not take advantage?

Title: BELLA – 7 votes

Writer: Jason Markarian

Logline: Set against the backdrop of an unprecedented crime wave that gripped New York City in the 80s, a hyper-stylized action thriller about a cop’s daughter who, after her father clings to life following an assassination attempt, goes on a rampage to unearth her father’s assassin and weed out deep-rooted corruption in the NYPD.

Thoughts: In one of my articles, I said that if a writer was smart, they’d write a female version of Joker. I guess someone listened!

Title: DUST – 7 votes
Writer: Karrie Crouse
Logline: A young mother in 1930s Oklahoma is convinced that her family is threatened and takes drastic steps to keep them safe.
Thoughts: I think this is the dust storm project? It’d be nice if that was somewhere in the logline. It is nice to know what a movie is about sometimes.

Title: FRENEMY – 7 votes
Writer: Ariel Sayegh
Logline: A chronicle of the infamous Lindsay Lohan/Paris Hilton feud of 2004-2006 over who would be Britney Spears’ best friend.
Thoughts: I like how it says “the infamous.” I had zero knowledge that there was ever a Lindsay Lohan Paris Hilton feud over anything. You know what would be hilarious? If this had never happened. But the movie operates as if it did. Cause you can believe that it happened. If you told me that Mr. T and Vanilla Ice warred with each other, I’d probably believe it. It sort of makes sense. I guess I’m setting myself up for disappointment if this turns out to be a true story.

Title: GABI SEEMS DIFFERENT – 7 votes
Writer: Victoria Bata
Logline: After spending several years recovering from a devastating car crash that pulled her out of the spotlight, Gabi, a famous pop star, gets ready to perform again for the first time. But with the pressure mounting and her memory failing her, the young woman begins to doubt who she really is — and if Gabi really survived the crash at all.
Thoughts: Maybe it’s because I’m getting to the end of the list and I didn’t intend for this to go on for 10,000 words, but I have no idea what this is about. I think they should wrap this script up into “Frenemy.” There are some crossover components that work well. The more I think about it, the more obvious this decision is. I want royalties when that makes these writers billionaires.

Title: GENERATION LEAP – 7 votes
Writers: John Sonntag, Thomas Sonntag
Logline: After a global pandemic causes NASA to send a crew of astronauts into deep space to find another habitable planet, the crew is unexpectedly awoken from hypersleep and must survive a mysterious new threat that comes from the future generations they sought to save, and the one place they never expected – Earth.
Thoughts: As a narrative structure, the setup of leaving someplace at the beginning and having to come back later – it doesn’t work well. Audiences like moving forward, not backward. You can start the movie with the astronats coming back. That might work. But if you build up to them leaving and then put them in space and then have wake up, talk to each other, realize they have to go back. All that stuff is logistical and sucks the momentum out of a story and, on top of that, it just feels messy. So we’ll see where the writers took it.

Title: GET LITE – 7 votes
Writer: Eric Gross
Logline: Saunders, a headstrong Bronx teenager, is caught between his love of Litefeet subway dancing and his strict father’s insistence on becoming an engineer. After he finagles his way onto a ragtag Litefeet crew, he’s exposed to an electrifying new world as well as a new crush. Now he has to decide who and what he’s willing to sacrifice in order to compete in the biggest dance competition of the year: Kingdome.
Thoughts: Uh oh. Did somebody say an updated Footloose? Uh Footlooose. Uh Footlooose. Kick off the Sunday shoes! Yes, I’m now singing my thoughts on Black List scripts. I don’t know how much I have left. Of course, I learned earlier that music can help you enter a serial killer’s mind. And there’s a serial killer in the number one script on the list. This is like… all coming together, man. It’s like a giant equation. Parallel universes. Kevin Bacon!

Title: GOOD CHANCE – 7 votes
Writer: Tricia Lee
Logline: A feisty transgender teen helps a church-going, undocumented Asian woman escape deportation, and they form an unlikely friendship that helps them heal the rifts in their own families.
Thoughts: This one’s not doing it for me. You want the disenfranchised character to have to team up with a member of the patriarchy. That’s where things get interesting. That’s where you get conflict. The unexpected team-up is so much juicier than the expected team up.

Title: HANDSOME STRANGER – 7 votes
Writer: Greg Navarro
Logline: Based on the incredible true story of serial killer Paul John Knowles and the week he spent with British journalist Sandy Fawkes in the midst of a murderous killing spree.
Thoughts: These serial killers just won’t go away, will they. I haven’t heard about this story and it does sound kind of interesting. But I’m giving the ribbon to Mayhem right now. Her serial killer concept is definitely the best so far.

Title: I.S.S. – 7 votes
Writer: Nick Shafir
Logline: At any given moment in time there are roughly six astronauts living on the International Space Station (ISS). The station itself is divided into two segments one half Russian, one half American. When a world war event occurs on Earth, America and Russia find themselves on opposing sides. As such, both nations secretly contact their astronauts aboard the ISS and give them instructions to take control of the station by any means necessary. The six astronauts must each secretly choose between their friendships with each other and their allegiance to their country.
Thoughts: I’m having deja vu here. Did I review this script? If not, I know I’ve encountered at least a couple of other similar ideas. And, look, it’s a good setup for a movie. But I don’t think anybody’s figured it out yet. The space station is the most cinematically-unfriendly location in existence. There’s nowhere to go that isn’t ugly to shoot. It’s all cramped. That’s why I suggest, if you’re making something like this, to set it in the future, where you can create your own space station.

Title: MARGOT – 7 votes
Writer: Emily Adams
Logline: Annie Mills has always known Margot Ellison to be two things: her best friend and a devout Mormon. But as high school graduation nears and Margot starts to crave change, the girls must grapple with the fear that growing up might require growing alone.
Thoughts: Where is the strange attractor? This was a subplot on like 150 episodes of 90210.

Title: THE PEAK – 7 votes
Writer: Arthur Hills
Logline: A troubled young surgeon travels to a desolate peak to climb the mountain where her father suffered a mental breakdown years earlier, only to realize halfway up the rock wall that she might be subject to the same fate.
Thoughts: Deja vu again! Did I review this already? Definitely a familiar sounding concept.

Title: REALITY – 7 votes
Writer: Heather Quinn
Logline: A woman abruptly discovers nothing she’s known until now is real, and she must recover the truth in order to save the rest of the country, still trapped inside of the lie.
Thoughts: I think my head just exploded.

Title: RUBY – 7 votes
Writer: Kat Wood
Logline: After her husband is attacked, assassin Ruby is lured into the open to hunt down those responsible, leading her back to the boss who wants to keep her in the fold at any cost.
Thoughts: This is that big project that sold to Amazon, I believe. I would’ve thought this would’ve done better as it was one of the more high profile specs of the year.

Title; TIN ROOF RUSTED – 7 votes
Writer: Michelle Harper
Logline: When two life-long best friends discover that they’re both pregnant, they promise to embark on their journey together. But with the constant pressure of outsiders, the two struggle midst personal differences and must re-learn that what connected them as children can still be their glue as adults.
Thoughts: I am definitely not the audience for this.

Title: WAR FACE – 7 votes
Writer: Mitchell Lafortune
Logline: A female U.S. Army Special Agent is sent to a remote, all-male outpost in Afghanistan to investigate accusations of war crimes. But when a series of mysterious events jeopardize her mission and the unit’s sanity, she must find the courage to survive something far more sinister.
Thoughts: Ugh. TELL US WHAT THE SINSITER THING IS. Just so everyone knows, seasoned readers usually throw these scripts out when they read the logline. You have to tell us what thing is that’s going to sell the movie so that we know it’s a sellable movie. Anybody can write a logline that reads, “A mysterious woman meets a strange man and the two become roommates in an odd home that has a history no one in town wants to talk about.” Give us the hook.

Title: THE WOMEN OF ROUTE 40 – 7 votes
Writer: Erin Kathleen
Logline: A struggling single mother must confront dangerous forces – and sins of her past – when her world collides with that of a serial killer. Inspired by the true story of Delaware’s only serial murderer, the Route 40 killer.
Thoughts: Mayhem, you’re still winning the serial killer concept contest.

Title: YOM KIPPUR – 7 votes
Writer: Brett Melnick
Logline: After getting high on the night of Yom Kippur, three distant cousins wake up with muddled minds and empty stomachs as they find themselves in the middle of a kidnapping and a major drug ring.
Thoughts: I like mixing something that’s supposed to be pure with something impure. That’s the recipe for a lot of good concepts. This does feel a little disjointed, though. I was hoping for the two elements to mesh a little more organically. But this isn’t a bad idea.

Many years ago I went to one of those Screenwriting Expos.

I think that’s what it was called, actually – “The Screenwriting Expo.”

This was back in the day when the word “e-mail” was as buzzy as saying “TikTok.” “You’ve got mail” was as addictive a sound as the “ding” you hear when you get a new text. It was the original dopamine hit. In other words, it was a simpler time. And a world where the only screenwriting information you could get was from books and expos. So I was excited to be there.

However, the more I walked around the place, the more I realized it was nothing more than a giant excuse for bottom feeder industry types to hawk their wares and get you to sign up for classes or mentorships or newsletters you didn’t want to sign up for. I went from top of the world to ‘lost all faith in humanity’ in 60 minutes.

However, there was one teacher from the Expo I still remember. I don’t remember his name (for the purposes of this article, I’ll call him Jason). But what I do remember is that he was passionate, a stark contrast to the 200 other tricksters who leered at everyone as if they were giant walking wallets.

After everyone who’d signed up for the class arrived, Jason popped in a DVD of “Stand By Me,” and proceeded to pause it every so often to explain the screenwriting mechanisms that were going on underneath the surface.

It was instructional, effective, and fun, due to his outsized passion for the movie. I mean, I dug Stand By Me. But this guy really REALLY liked Stand By Me.

The part that he liked the most still sticks with me to this day. Jason went bonkers over Gordie’s midpoint story to his friends about a pie-eating contest. If you haven’t seen the film or don’t remember it, it’s about four 12-year-old friends who travel across the state to see a rumored dead body in the woods.

The scene in question occurs as the friends are taking a break and they ask Gordie (this is based on a Stephen King story so, of course, there has to be one writer in the mix) to tell them a story. We then cut out of the kids story and for EIGHT ENTIRE MINUTES we get a story THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING ELSE IN THE MOVIE. I capitalize that because that’s what this teacher kept emphasizing.

“EIGHT MINUTES! EIGHT MINUTES THE STORY WENT ON! AND IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING ELSE IN THE MOVIE!”

The story Gordie tells is funny. It’s about an overweight kid who enters a pie-eating contest and the experience is so overwhelming that, at the end of it, he throws up. That leads to the other contestants throwing up. Which then leads to the audience throwing up. Soon everybody is throwing up.

Jason kept hitting on the fact that you just “don’t do this.” You don’t stop your movie for eight minutes to introduce brand new characters and a brand new story that has nothing to do with anything else in the movie. If these characters were related to our heroes, you could justify it. If these characters somehow came back into the story later on, you could justify it. But none of that happens. It’s its own self-contained movie within a movie.

Jason was so obsessed with this little scene that, over the years, I’d find myself recalling the famed sequence and wondering why he’d gotten so worked up about it. His point seemed to be contradictory. He both loved the scene but was baffled that they’d included it. I couldn’t resolve what his message was.

Flash-forward to 2020. I’m reading a script just a few days ago from a very talented writer. He’d written a road trip movie and, during the script, one of the main characters tells a story that we flash back to. The story, like Stand By Me, was eight pages long. The story, like Stand By Me, wasn’t directly connected to anything else in the plot.

The flashback was pretty good, mainly because the writer was good. But as I weighed the flashback’s impact, I couldn’t help but realize it took up a full 10% of the screenplay. 1/10th of the script was dedicated to a story that wasn’t connected to the plot. What I mean by “not connected” is if you were to eliminate the flashback, nothing else in the script would have to be rewritten. That’s the easiest way to identify if something is necessary in your script or not. If you can get rid of it and you don’t need to make a single other change anywhere? It probably wasn’t a necessary scene.

Analyzing this sequence brought me back to Jason’s Stand By Me class. Because I finally understood what he meant. If a scene is not moving the story forward, it’s either a) pausing it, or b) moving it backwards. As a screenwriter, you want to avoid both of those things. Pausing and going backwards are antithetical to keeping an audience invested. Therefore, you should avoid them.

What Jason was saying was that the screenwriters for Stand By Me, Bruce Evans and Raynold Gideon, knew this. They understood that each scene must push the story forward. And that this pie eating story tangent wouldn’t do that. However, they decided that the scene was still worth it anyway. I suspect they felt it helped viewers understand Gordie better, since it showed how talented a storyteller he was and gave us some insight into him as a person (since you can get a feel for a person by the kind of stories they gravitate to).

As screenwriters, making sure every scene moves the story forward is one of the most important pieces of advice we can follow. The scripts that derail the quickest are the ones where too many scenes aren’t pushing the story forward. Think of it like a car ride. As long as you’re moving forward, you’re happy. But the second you get stopped in traffic. Or the second you get stuck behind a long stoplight, you start feeling anxiety. You didn’t get in the car to stop. You got in it to continually move forward until you got to your destination. A script read works the same way. If there’s too much stopping (scenes that don’t push the story forward), the reader gets anxious. And, at a certain point, that anxiety hits a breaking point. We’re out.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you can never write a scene/sequence that doesn’t move the story forward. Like the pie-eating contest. As long as you recognize that it’s a gamble and that, therefore, the scene has to be amazing, you should be okay. Just don’t make a habit out of including these scenes. Jason was quick to point out that every other scene in the movie pushed the story forward.

A funny thing happens when you read a ton of scripts in a row. Especially the way I did it over the weekend. I needed to finish all the entries and I was running out of time since I had to post the semifinalists Monday, so I had zero breaks. As soon as I finished ten pages of one script, I put it in a pile and immediately opened up the next one.

When you’re reading that much, an almost “Matrix-like” clarity comes over you about what really matters in the first ten pages (and, by extension, the script). I realized that all I cared about were two things. One, give me an entertaining scene that grabs me. And two, introduce me to somebody I care about. If you do one of those two things, I’ll read on. If you do both of those things, I’m *excited* to read on.

Let’s unpack this because we talk about these things all the time, but I’m not sure everyone knows why they’re important other than they hear people like me say they are. Too many screenwriters approach the craft from a subjective point of view. They think that because they are writing something, the script will automatically be interesting. It is their belief in themselves that guides their decisions.

So, for example, if they like ‘driving and talking’ scenes, they might start the script with a married couple driving and talking and simply assume that because they like that scenario, other people will as well. But two people talking while driving without anything else going on is a poor scene prompt. In all likelihood, it isn’t going to yield an interaction that a third-party (the reader) would enjoy.

The mental shift writers need to make is to stop seeing their script from their own selfish point-of-view and start looking at it from an OBJECTIVE point-of-view. Transport yourself into the reader’s head then ask if what’s on the page is entertaining *to that person.* It is from this perspective that you will more likely generate a strong scene.

From there, you either come up with a new, more entertaining scene prompt, or you can reimagine the current scene in a more entertaining way. The best way I’ve found to do this is to inject a problem into the scenario. A problem achieves three things. It forces your characters to act. It forces your characters to make choices. And it creates conflict between characters. Because, often, when two (or more) people are faced with a problem, they have different ideas about how to deal with it. And those ideas conflict with one another, resulting in an interesting dialogue.

So if we’re going with this car scene. What if, instead of them driving in the car, we start with them on the side of the highway, their car having broken down. This is our “problem.” Already, it’s a more interesting situation because we’re curious how they’re going to resolve the problem. And what good writers will do is they’ll add factors that pressure the characters, which make the situation even worse.

For example, if this were a married couple, maybe Doug, the husband, dragged his feet all morning even though, Lucy, his wife, stressed to him how important it was that they be on time today because she has a huge meeting. So they’re already late as it is, and now their car has broken down, and she’s got a huge meeting. Look at how much more interesting the dialogue is getting. He might want to call AAA to get the car towed first but, since she’s in such a hurry, she wants to get an Uber, now! That’s what they’re arguing about.

And we can go even further. Maybe they have a 4 year old daughter they’re taking to pre-school. And it’s burning up outside. And she’s in the back of the broken car and now she’s burning up. And so Lucy is already furious that Doug has put them in this position but now their daughter’s safety is in danger. You can see how introducing a problem and then building little agitators into that problem can take a boring car driving scene and turn it into this intense compelling opening.

I’m not sure writers who see writing through a subjective lens can come up with that scene. It’s only writers with an objective mindset that come up with scenes that entertain others. Now there is a writing philosophy out there that goes something like, “Write whatever you want and, if you like it, others will too.” While I’m not going to completely dismiss that philosophy, it relies more on luck. When you completely dismiss the audience and write for yourself, you tend to come up with blander, less dramatic, more pretentious stories.

And, by the way, you shouldn’t be thinking this way ONLY for the opening. The opening may be the most important scene since it’s the scene that either hooks the reader or doesn’t. But you want to take that attitude into every scene in your script. Ask yourself, is the reader being entertained right now or am I assuming they’re enjoying themselves because I’m writing words for them and I’m a good writer?

The other way to hook a reader is to introduce a character who’s instantly intriguing in some way. They are a ‘hook’ in and of themselves. This is the harder route to go, for sure, because character is the hardest thing to get right in screenwriting. Most characters in scripts read like characters when they need to read like people.

There are lots of theories on how to construct a character that feels real and lively and compelling. But I’ve found the starting point is always a commitment to creating a compelling character in the first place. I know that sounds obvious but it actually isn’t. Most writers come up with an idea, start writing the script, and figure out the characters along the way.

If you want to write a strong character, you must think of them apart from your story. This is how Wes Anderson created one of his most famous characters ever, Max Fischer, from “Rushmore.” He and Luke Wilson started with Max, tried to make him as weird and unique as possible, and only then did they come up with a story for him. I dare anybody to go watch that movie and not come away mesmerized by that character.

So you first have to make that mental commitment. Then use your first scene as a resume that lets the reader know what they’re going to be getting. I have a couple of examples for you. The obvious one is “Joker.” Joker, the movie, doesn’t even really have a plot. It’s just this really weird damaged person trying to fit into society who keeps getting kicked down. And that’s how we meet him. He literally gets kicked and beaten down. You want to keep reading after that opening scene SPECIFICALLY to see what happens with that character.

Another example is Cassandra from the upcoming movie, “Promising Young Woman.” That script starts out with a really drunk woman at a bar who gets picked up by a seemingly cool guy who then tries to take advantage of her back at his place, only for her to reveal she’s stone-cold sober and exposes his motives. This woman goes around doing this all the time. But what really makes her interesting is that she doesn’t know where the line is. Is she a hero? Or is she a villain? That’s when you really get into “interesting character territory,” when the answer to that question isn’t easy.

By the way, you’ll note that both Promising Young Woman and Joker started with entertaining scenes. Joker has his sign stolen that he’ll have to pay for if he doesn’t get it back. And we’re pulled into Cassandra’s situation because we’re worried for her. We see this wounded animal at a bar and think she might be in danger. That’s the ideal way to do it. Start with an entertaining scene AND a compelling character. Those always turn out to be the best scripts.

This topic is obviously more nuanced than 1500 words allow. There are scenarios where two people in a car talking can be entertaining, such as if you have strong dialogue skills able to carry a scene all by themselves. And there’s a discussion to be had about how writing for yourself can lead to some off-the-wall weird stuff you’d never be able to tap into if you’d focused solely on pleasing others. So I’m not saying you have to do it the way I’ve laid out.

All I can tell you after reading that many pages in a row is that the scripts that suffered the most were the ones that started with a weak or common scenario and had bland or simplistic characters. Your two most important components are your story and your characters. If you can’t make either of those pop in the first scene, why would anyone keep reading? This article is a game plan to tackle that. I’ll leave it up to you whether you want to use it or not.

Carson does feature screenplay consultations, TV Pilot Consultations, and logline consultations. Logline consultations go for $25 a piece or $40 for unlimited tweaking. You get a 1-10 rating, a 200-word evaluation, and a rewrite of the logline. They’re extremely popular so if you haven’t tried one out yet, I encourage you to give it a shot. If you’re interested in any consultation package, e-mail Carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line: CONSULTATION. Don’t start writing a script or sending a script out blind. Let Scriptshadow help you get it in shape first!