A 2 million dollar spec sale in 2024!
Genre: Drama
Premise: A young woman meets a man and they fall in love quickly. But then they encounter a devastating setback that will change the direction of both of their lives forever.
About: Last week, there was a big bidding war for this script and Amazon/MGM won it for 2 million dollars. It was like the spec script days of old! The writer, Julia Cox, has one feature screenplay credit, for Nyad, the Jodie Foster film about the real-life swimmer who swam from Cuba to Florida. As of today, Sydney Sweeney is being tabbed to play the main character, Maya, although no official deal has been made. Ryan Gosling is producing and I’d be surprised if he didn’t star in some capacity (there are three main male roles).
Writer: Julia Cox
Details: 120 pages
NOBODY. KNOWS. ANYTHING.
The famous words of William Goldman that assessed the competency of the people who run Hollywood.
After you hear the plot and analysis of today’s script, that phrase will be tattooed to your brain.
Because everything I’ve told you to do in order to sell a script… is the opposite of what this writer does.
How can any screenwriter understand anything going forward?
I don’t know.
But I do think there’s a bridge between the high-octane storytelling I preach and how this unconventional spec script sold. So let’s talk about it!
20-something Boston nurse, Maya, meets 20-something Charlie (who specializes in audio synthesis) while buying an end table from him. The sparks fly immediately so Charlie suggests they meet again and Maya doesn’t even try and play it cool. She’s in.
Over the next 20+ pages, the two fall into that kind of love that everyone around them rolls their eyes at. Cause it’s that annoying! But neither Maya nor Charlie care. They are so smitten that they spend every waking second together, oogling and smoogling each other. A couple of years pass and then they get married.
(Spoilers follow)
The year? 2020. The year of Covid.
Charlie gets sick. And sicker. Being an ER nurse, Maya is concerned. She keeps pushing Charlie to go to the hospital, especially because he has asthma. She finally convinces him to go but a couple of hours later, his health deteriorates and he dies. Maya is devastated. She shuts down. There isn’t a life for her without Charlie in it.
Cut to years later and Maya lives in Portugal. She basically eats, drinks, screws dudes, and sleeps. She is on autopilot. Until she meets a sexy Portuguese man named Felix. For the first time, Maya feels positive emotions again. She really likes Felix. And he likes her enough to push her towards a future together.
But emotions scare Maya and she bails, traveling through Europe, getting lost again. The years pass until she’s in her 40s and she finally feels like she can go back to the U.S. It is there where she must face the people she left when Charlie died. And one person, in particular, helps her see through her pain. A person who, in the most unexpected of ways, could be the love of her life.
Does this sound like a 2 million dollar spec sale to you?
I’m guessing not.
Which is why I’m sure your first question is: WHY THE HECK DID THIS SELL FOR 2 MILLION DOLLARS?
Luckily, I think I can answer that question.
You see, there are two types of scripts that sell. The first is a good movie concept. Something like Leave The World Behind. But there is a lesser-known type of script that sells, and that’s the script that does an amazing job of emotionally connecting with the reader.
Which is the category that Love of Your Life falls under.
Because think about it. If you’re crying at the end of a screenplay, that story has succeeded in connecting with you. Which means it has a good chance of connecting with movie audiences as well. Which is the endgame here. All the studios and streamers care about is people watching their stuff. It doesn’t matter how those people get there – concept, emotion – as long as they get there.
The thing is, scripts that connect with readers on an emotional level are significantly more challenging to execute than concept-driven stuff. It takes way more skill to pull one of these off. Which is why it’s so rare. I can’t remember the last time a script blew me away on character and emotion alone.
So, you have to be someone who’s in tune with writing authentic characters who say authentic things. You have to understand what’s too melodramatic, what’s too cliched. If you don’t know exactly where those lines are, then when you write one of these scripts, they turn out like bad Hallmark movies. I can’t emphasize enough how hard these are to execute.
Because look at how many screenplay rules this breaks. It’s 120 pages (too many!). There are lots of 5, 6, 7 line paragraphs (too long!). There’s no clear goal driving the story. You’re working with an elongated time frame, which is always hard to wrangle.
But the hardest thing to get right is the characters. You have to write authentic characters and Julia Cox does a really good job of that. Maya feels real from the very first page.
Another thing that scripts like this need is scope. Because they don’t have a concept, they need to feel big in other ways. This script includes the death of the main love interest on page 45, which is a big moment. And then the character travels the world to forget it. Time then passes. All of these things create scope.
If, however, your main character’s love interest had died and the whole movie takes place in a small town, that’s not enough scope to sell a script for 2 million dollars.
Not only that, but the themes are gigantic and universal here. A big reason why I think this script sold is because it’s arguably about the meaning of life. I know that’s not going to get the kiddies pressing play on Roku but for the adults, they won’t just press play, they’ll toggle the subtitles onto the largest font.
It really comes down to the characters, though. I can’t emphasize enough how weak the characters are in the majority of the scripts I read. They’re either thin, boring, uninspired, or plain. They rarely have personality. They always seem to act inauthentically. In other words, they don’t act like people. They act like writers are writing them.
That’s where Julia Cox excels. I didn’t detect a single inauthentic moment in this script. The characters always acted consistently and realistically. There’s a conversation Maya has with Charlie’s mother late in the script that’s a de facto apology for disappearing after his death. That’s such a tricky scene to write because there are so many temptations to go for the “make the reader cry” line. And those are the lines that always bomb, that always feel like a reach. Cox never gets over her skis in the scene. She just allows the characters to speak to each other. Here’s a small part of that conversation…
(Spoilers)
For the majority of this script, I was going to give it a double worth the read. But the thing that pushed it up to an impressive was the stuff regarding Jason, her best friend. Jason is a huge ally to Maya in her romance with Charlie. So when she reunites with him back in the U.S. and the two decide to push it beyond friendship, I realized that it was actually Jason who was the “love of her life.” Maybe not the love she wanted. But definitely the love she needed. And it got me. Just like I suspect it got everyone else who read the script. Which is why it sold for 2 million dollars.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Resist writing what you WANT the character to say and instead write what that person WOULD say. If you can master this one tip, your dialogue will be better than 90% of the screenplays out there. You can get a lot more dialogue tips like this in my DIALOGUE BOOK!
What I learned 2: Between this and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, we might be hitting a “feels” trend in screenwriting. Scripts about family, love, death, universal themes. Something to keep an eye on!
A Hugo Award Winning author adds a high concept twist to the giant monster space.
Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: A Door Dash driver is recruited to a secret parallel world where humans attempt to preserve giant monsters, carefully preventing them from transporting to earth.
About: Today’s book, The Kaiju Preservation Society, was optioned by Fox Entertainment two years ago, before the book was published. This is what agents do, by the way. Before a book is officially released, they try to build buzz and sell the movie (or TV) rights. It’s sort of like what they do with spec scripts. The difference is, even if the book fails to get a deal, it’s still going to be published so people can read it. John Scalzi has been a popular sci-fi writer for over a decade now. He won the prestigious Hugo Award (best science fiction novel) for his book, Redshirts, in 2013. He also wrote the Old Man’s War trilogy, which is a sci-fi franchise about an intergalactic war that needs soldiers, so they place a bunch of old people into young bodies to go fight the war.
Writer: John Scalzi
Details: about 264 pages
This is the kind of thing you want to write about to cast the widest net of potential suitors for your concept possible.
Hollywood is obsessed with giant monsters. But the challenge is finding new avenues into the giant monster space. Scalzi did that. Technically speaking, Godzilla is a kaiju. But nobody has the IP on the word “kaiju.” So, if you create some world where there are a bunch of new kaiju you invented, you’ve created a potentially lucrative franchise for a Hollywood studio. So it’s a forward-thinking move by Scalzi.
Not to mention, it’s a unique angle. The first thing you think of when you think ‘giant kaiju’ is not a preservation society. That, therefore, creates an intriguing contrast. You want to open the book to see how those worlds collide.
That’s why I wanted to check this book out. Now let’s find out if Scalzi nailed the execution.
Jamie Gray is an exec at a Door Dash like company called Fudmuud (Food Mood). But when Covid hits, his evil CEO billionaire boss, Rob Sanders, demotes him and he’s forced to be a driver. One night, he delivers food to an old friend who says, “Why don’t you come work with me?” Even though the guy doesn’t tell him what Jamie would be doing, Jamie says, ‘sure, why not?’
Several days later, Jamie is transported to another earth-like planet in a parallel dimension. On this planet, a bunch of giant monsters called “kaiju” roam. Along with 150 other people working for the organization, Jamie is tasked with preserving these kaiju. For example, one of his first missions is to fly a plane and spray pheromones over a kaiju (named “Bella,” in honor of Twilight) so that another kaiju (named “Edward”) will mate with it.
But what they’re really trying to prevent is when kaiju spontaneously transport between that earth and our earth, which happens during high nuclear activity. This is complicated by the fact that kaiju are made of nuclear energy. So, if one blows up, it thins the veil between the two earths, and other kaiju can cross over.
One of the only ways to fund the Kaiju Preservation Society is through donations from billionaires. And, occasionally, those billionaires want a return on their investment. Aka, they want to come see the Kaiju with their own eyes. Jamie is tasked with taking the latest billionaire out on an expedition and who should that billionaire be? ROB SANDERS!
Jamie is pissed but their little walk is the least of his worries. That’s because Bella, who has since been impregnated, has disappeared! Nobody from the KPS knows where she is. It doesn’t take a bunch of brain cells to figure out that Rob Sanders has something to do with it. But what has he done with Bella? And what might the consequences be back on the real earth???
No doubt you’ve heard the metaphor that a story is like a house. And if you build a shaky foundation for your house, it doesn’t matter how pretty the house looks inside or outside, it’s only a matter of time before it collapses.
I like this metaphor because it best describes how books like this are failed ventures. This entire story was built on a shaky foundation and it never recovered as a result.
What does “shaky foundation” mean, exactly? Think of your foundation as a series of pillars. If any of those pillars are weak, the house will probably fall down. And, if more than one is weak, the house will definitely fall down.
In this case, you have a Door Dasher who shows up at a guy’s house. The guy knows our protagonist from school and says, “Hey, why don’t you go to a parallel world and help the organization I work for preserve giant monsters.”
Let’s think about that for a second. Before we even get to the monster part, we are telling a random citizen that there are parallel worlds out there. That would be one of the most top secret pieces of information on the planet. And we are just inviting random Door Dashers to not only BE TOLD about that planet, but travel to it!? Oh, and also to work with giant monsters!!??
None of this makes any logical sense. That is how you build a weak pillar, a pillar that is going to crumble when you pack your story on top of it. Because you’re building everything on something that would never happen. If this were real, the government would spend millions upon millions of dollars to recruit very specific people into these jobs. The second your evaluation criteria for saving monsters is, “Can they get Thai food to my house before it gets cold,” your story loses all credibility. As do you! For even thinking that would work!
If you look back at Jurassic Park, they recruit paleontologists. They recruit scientists. They recruit people who make sense in that world. That’s a strong pillar. This is one of the weakest pillars I’ve ever seen an established writer build a story on top of. And I know why he did it, which I’ll share with you in the “what I learned” section.
I suppose if you looked at this book as a comedy, the Door Dash thing wouldn’t bother you so much. So let’s say that’s not an issue for you.
Even if you were able to ignore that, the book is bogged down by glaring structural flaws. The inciting incident doesn’t come until 80% of the way into the story! The inciting incident is Bella disappearing. Nothing of consequence happens before that. It’s all set up of the world and how things work. It was almost like Scalzi was planning to write a 500 page book, got bored, and conked out at page 250.
My biggest pet peeve of all when it comes to writing is when it’s clear the writer didn’t give 100% effort. This space is too competitive to only give 90% of yourself. Or 80% of yourself. If you want something that will resonate with people, you have to give every ounce of what you’re capable of giving to the story. This feels like Scalzi barely gave an ounce.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: You’ve heard countless times (including here) to write what you know. Because when you write what you know, you’ll be able to write specifically, which makes the story feel authentic. That DOES matter. However, this advice doesn’t always work. And this book is a prime example as to why. It is clear that all of this Door Dash nonsense that permeates the plot was born out of Scalzi writing this book during Covid, and ordering a lot of food from Door Dash, like many people did at the time. So he used that as a jumping off point for his main character. But it’s a tonally disastrous choice, as it clashes oddly with the subject matter. Jamie’s job needed to be better integrated into this subject matter. Whether that be a scientist or a geneticist or an animal behaviorist or a government figure. All of those would’ve been better choices than a Door Dash delivery guy. The second Scalzi made that creative choice, he doomed this book.
What I learned 2: John Scalzi made his own way. His big break came with Old Man’s War. In 2002, instead of pursuing traditional publishing right away, he published the novel on his website, offering it as a free e-book. The novel gained popularity online, and through this, he caught the attention of readers and eventually the industry.
A radically inventive movie goes unseen over the weekend. Where are the cinephiles!?
I’m super bummed that “Here” pulled in just 4 million dollars this weekend. There was a time when you could build an entire marketing campaign around a movie like this. From the originality of the premise to the cutting-edge technology used to make the film (they’re utilizing new AI software to de-age the characters).
The technical aspects of the film seemed particularly challenging. For example, old Tom Hanks would have to move like 30 year old Tom Hanks in some scenes. Imagine flopping down on a couch like a 30 year old when you’re 70. So they would sometimes need to bring in body actors. And because it would be apparent if someone didn’t move like Tom Hanks, they’d have the body actors go through hundreds of hours of old Tom Hanks movies and practice the way that he walked at different ages.
That’s the kind of thing that, back when Zemeckis was king, everyone would’ve been talking about in the lead-up to this film’s release. Now, it’s a collective shoulder shrug.
Cast Away (a Zemeckis-Hanks classic) probably wasn’t as good as we remember. But the story BEHIND that movie captivated moviegoers for an entire year. “What!? Tom Hanks shot the first half of the movie at 220 pounds, then spent six months losing 70 pounds before shooting the second half of the movie!? That’s incredible!!! I have to see that movie!”
I may be overanalyzing. It could just come down to “It’s an old person’s movie.” But I’m surprised they didn’t put more of a marketing push behind it. Releasing something in movie theaters in 2024 without a gigantic marketing push is suicide. Comic book movies with 100 million dollar marketing campaigns struggle to get awareness. Why would you think a borderline indie film is going to gain awareness when the only Tom Hanks interview that came across my computer this weekend was a hiking walk with Kevin Nealon?
Right on cue, Judd Apatow came in to add fuel to the fire. “It’s all completion rate,” he said, discussing the new jargon from the streamers. Then, speaking from the faux perspective of a Netflix exec: “We must have them complete it. We cannot put out a film if anyone shuts it off!” He then continued on, “There’s an intensity to everything, [where it must be] sexy or exciting or terrifying. And I think it changes it so you don’t have quieter, subtler, whatever funny, human things because I think they’re afraid people are gonna shut it off or not go [to theaters]. You lose a lot of good stuff when everything is so wired.”
It’s both true what Apatow is saying and it’s not. You can DEFINITELY still tell those stories. You just can’t tell them on the big screen as often. And that’s what chuffs everyone who’s used to the old ways of business. Their ego is guiding them. It’s that need to not just create something that people see, but to get that red carpet treatment. To get that status that comes from being on 3000 screens. Who the heck cares as long as people see it?
The real problem with Here’s paltry box office may be its author, Robert Zemeckis. I’ve been low-key obsessed with Zemeckis’s career since his unprecedented hot streak. The man owned Hollywood for a decade. Romancing the Stone, Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, Contact, Cast Away. Why did he fall so quickly? I have a new theory every few years and my latest is that all of his previous films were built on top of such positive emotions. Back to the Future was pure joy. Forrest Gump was the most optimistic character in cinema history. A lot of his more recent movies are built on negative emotions. Sadness (Welcome to Marwen), despair (Flight).
I don’t want to dissuade all you unhappy writers ready to cry tears onto the pages of your latest depressing opuses. It’s not that movies built on negative emotions can’t work. But the audience is WAY smaller. And the margin for error is way slimmer. Basically, you have to be Hemingway at his peak to pull it off.
And, by the way, I don’t want something to be lost in all this, which is that I absolutely love the ingenuity of this idea. I commend Zemeckis for swinging for the fences. In a marketplace packed with base hits out to left field, Zemeckis gets major props for doing something so risky. But dude, Robert. When you’re swinging for the fences, you need to hit the screenplay right smack dab on the “Rawlings” logo. You swung and you missed. A screenplay like this (one with so many potential pitfalls) needs to be airtight.
Oh, and in stark contrast to Apatow’s recent complaint, a character-driven script JUST SOLD for 2 million dollars last week. At least I think it’s character-driven. We’ll find out on Wednesday when I review it. But it’s important to mention because sometimes Hollywood creatives get caught up in all the negative chatter. “The business is slow right now! There are no jobs.” If I had a penny for every time I heard “it’s slow” in Hollywood since I’ve been here, I’d be richer than Elon Musk.
There are opportunities. There will always BE opportunities. And, as writers, your opportunities increase in relation to how good your script is. So focus on THAT. And when you finish that, focus on getting your script out to as many people as you can. If it’s good, something good will come of it. I’m not saying you’ll sell it for 2 million dollars. But I promise you that if it’s good AND you get it out there, something good will come of it.
Okay, now for something completely off the beaten path. I’m finding that Chat GPT is quite good at suggesting movies. You just have to provide it with extremely specific criteria for what you’re looking for. This is the prompt I gave it last night: “This is going to be really difficult for you. I have seen almost every movie ever. However, I do have some weak points. Pre-1990, I have some gaps. And there are non-mainstream foreign movies I haven’t seen. I’m looking to watch a movie that’s not too serious. Something that will leave me feeling good. Give me some suggestions.”
It then spat out 20 movies, 16 of which I’d never seen before and 12 I’d never heard of before. The only problem with the suggestions was that a few of the foreign movies that looked good weren’t on any streaming services. But I finally settled on a 1978 movie called “The Silent Partner.” It’s a Canadian thriller. I loved that because Canada making a thriller movie may be the biggest oxymoron on planet earth.
The movie follows a bank teller at a Canadian mall who stumbles across a discarded bank withdrawal slip in the garbage which says, “I have a gun. Quietly hand me all the money.” He deduces that a potential robber chickened out at the last second, but that he’ll be back to try again.
So the next day, he covertly puts the majority of the money from his station in a bag. Sure enough, the robber comes back (he’s the mall’s Santa Claus) with a new note, demanding all the money. The teller gives him “all” the money (except for the money he smuggled away for himself) and the robber runs away. It’s the perfect crime. The bank just assumes that the robber took it all.
However, because of local news coverage of the robbery, the robber realizes what happened. It’s reported that 50,000 dollars was stolen but he only received 20,000. He now sets his sights on the teller, determined to get the remainder of his dough. At first, the teller is intimidated. But, eventually, he’s tired of being bullied and goes on the offensive.
I’m not going to pretend like The Silent Partner is some cinematic masterpiece. But it’s fun enough and weird enough that it’ll keep you entertained. The writing can be good but also silly. The teller collects exotic fish. Why?! There’s literally no reason. It doesn’t inform his character at all. It’s clearly something the writer thought would add “dimension” to the character. And there’s a scene where the bad guy beats up another character for literally no reason other than to make you hate him. You’re watching this and thinking to yourself, “What kind of crazy sh*t went on in the 70s to make people write this???” Still, it’s a $3.50 Amazon Prime rental. If you watch it, let me know what you think.
Okay, since the Scriptshadow Newsletter is still on the fritz (I continue to search for a mass e-mail app that’s easy to use), I’ll offer two SCRIPT CONSULTATION DEALS right here on the site. I’m offering HALF-OFF script notes for two people only. One from the U.S. and one from anywhere outside the U.S. These will go quick so e-mail me right away! (carsonreeves1@gmail.com).
Includes a tip that will get the reader to turn all 110 pages of your script!
Today’s article was born out of this realization I had the other day that the entire goal of screenwriting boils down to making the reader turn the page.
I can’t emphasize this enough. The reader must have an insatiable appetite to turn the page. Because the second they don’t feel that need, they’re done with you.
That’s an important distinction between screenwriting and novel-writing because it’s different when you sit down and read a novel. You get the novel for the specific purpose of being entertained by it. So you’re willing to invest more time into it.
With a screenplay, the goal is different. It’s to determine if the script can be turned into a movie. The second the reader determines that it cannot, he’s free to stop. So that trigger is much faster on a screenplay, which is why understanding what makes a reader turn the page is so important.
Of course, I can’t give you universal reasons why readers turn pages. But I can tell you my reasons. And most of those reasons are going to line up with the people around town who read scripts. So let’s get into it.
A KICK-ASS CONCEPT
I can’t stress this one enough because it gives you a huge buffer for the start of your script. If someone sends me a really good marketable concept – like A Quiet Place or The Platform or Inception – you get 20 pages right off the bat. Even if the writing is bad, I will still give you 20 pages.
This is because a good marketable concept is hard to find. So even if the writing sucks, I’m thinking, “Could I bring another writer on to fix this?” I can see the movie so I’m willing to invest more of my time to see if there are solutions to the problems in the script.
But if it’s some indie concept or low concept (a road trip between a mother and daughter through the south), you don’t get any pages. I will literally stop reading on page 1 if the writing doesn’t capture me in some way. So, if you want 20 pages right off the bat, write that big concept script of yours. It’s going to make your post-script life so much easier.
VOICE
If the writer has a unique voice that sparkles on the page, that’ll get you 15-20 pages. I won’t go into what voice is in detail. I’ve written other articles on that. But, basically, it means the uniqueness in how the writer sees the world and their ability to translate that into their writing. It often involves a unique sense of humor. And you can see it by reading writers like Diablo Cody, Quentin Tarantino, Charlie Kaufman, Taika Waititi, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Yorgos Lanthimos.
WRITING IS A CUT ABOVE
If the writing is a cut above, that earns the script anywhere between 10-15 pages right off the bat. By writing, I mean the way the writer writes. Their sentence structure, their word choice, their turn-of-phrase, their intelligence, the way they weave their thoughts together. If that’s done in an advanced way, it usually (but surprisingly not always) means the script is worth reading. Look at Chandler Baker’s “Big Bad” short story that I reviewed. That’s what I mean by writing that’s a cut above.
Now, I’m not going to lie. If you have none of those things, your script is probably in a heap of trouble. But I’m about to surprise you. If you can be good at a few nuts and bolts things in screenwriting, you can still get that reader to turn the page. And if you keep rolling these things out, like breadcrumbs, throughout the script, the reader is going to be at the end of the screenplay before they know it.
A MAIN CHARACTER WHO I REALLY WANT TO BE AROUND
This is the biggest cheat code in all of screenwriting. Because as I said: The goal is to get the reader to turn the page. That goal remains the same whether we’re on page 1 or page 40. Interest can be lost so quickly during a read, it would shock you. The reader could be deeply invested in your story on page 27. But by page 35 they’re bored out of their mind. I’ve seen it happen more times than I can count. So you want a situation where you don’t have to keep coming up with something amazing every single page in order to get the reader to turn to the next one.
Enter a main character I want to be around. Either I like him or I’m intrigued by him or he’s funny or he’s caught up in something crazy that I have to see how he’s going to get out of. Giving us a main character who we want to be around is the thing that makes us turn all 110 pages. Even if the rest of your script is average, the reader will keep turning the page. I’m talking about Jordan Belforte, Arthur Fleck, Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Bella in Poor Things, Erin Brokovich, and Mildred Hayes in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
The large majority of the scripts I read have weak forgettable main characters. The writers seem comfortable with everyman and everywoman types who have no outstanding qualities. The story becomes the big star of the script and the main character, because he’s so bland, is overshadowed in the process. At the very least, give us a character with something to overcome. Because anything that is unresolved is a reason to turn the page. I must turn the page to see if it gets resolved.
If my character is a coward, I must turn the page to see if he ever becomes brave. But if my character is fine and has no flaws, what do I get by turning the page? To keep finding out they’re fine? Do you really think that’s enough to make me keep reading?
GOOD SCENE-WRITING
As many scenes in your script as possible should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. If you do this well, we will want to turn every page because every page gets us closer to finding out how the scene ends. However, I don’t care how a scene ends if you don’t set up a problem that needs to be resolved. If you don’t set up a goal that needs to be achieved. Pretend each scene is a mini-screenplay. It should have a setup (which gives us the goal or the problem), conflict (things get in the way of solving the problem or achieving the goal), and resolution. If you’re able to do this consistently in each and every scene, then the reader has to keep reading to see how each scene resolves. But if you’re just showing snippets of characters lives without structure, then hell no am I going to turn the page. I’ll be bored within 2 pages, 3 pages tops.
DANGLING CARROTS
Getting down to the nitty-gritty – the way to get a reader turning each and every page is to dangle carrots in front of them. If there are no carrots, there’s no reason for the donkey to keep walking. Let’s say your opening scene is your hero getting ready for work. Why should I keep reading about that? Honestly, tell me why. Cause you thought of it? Cause you wrote it? This is the error in so many writer’s thinking processes. The reader owes you NOTHING. They don’t turn the page to be “a good person.” They only turn the page IF YOU GIVE THEM A REASON TO TURN THE PAGE.
So, what you might do here is, while your hero is getting ready for work, have his wife trying to calm him down about his big meeting with the boss today. Today is the day that he’s going to ask for that raise. This is called DANGLING A CARROT. Now I have to turn the page to find out what happens when he asks for the raise! Does he get it or is he turned down!
Even better, the more meat you put on the carrot, the more pages the reader will turn. For example, if you open your script with a murder and you make that murder brutal and you make it so we really want to find out who did it, that’s a meaty freaking carrot right there. So you might get 10-15 turned pages out of it before the reader demands more information about the murder.
SUSPENSE
Any time you can create suspense, readers will turn the page. Suspense is the skillful withholding of information to keep the audience in a state of anxious anticipation. In screenwriting, it’s almost always tied to the negative. So, if you show us a terrorist secretly planning to blow up a plane AND THEN you show our clueless protagonist get on that very plane, you are creating an open line of suspense.
Any time you open a line of suspense, the reader has to turn the page. And, as you can see, that line of suspense can cover 5, 10, 15 pages easy, until the plan either succeeds or fails. But we’ve seen suspense work for even longer. Look at Titanic. That whole movie is suspenseful because we all know what the passengers do not: That the boat sinks. So we have to turn the page in a script like that so we can see who lives and who dies when the boat sinks.
UNEXPECTED THINGS HAPPEN
I read more screenplays than you can possibly imagine that never do anything surprising in them. As a result, I don’t want to turn the page. But when you do unexpected things, you STAY AHEAD OF THE READER. Which means the reader has no choice but to CATCH UP. What’s the only way they can catch up? By turning the page.
Strange Darling is a good example (spoilers). We think the killer is the guy. It turns out to be the girl. Scream kills off who we think is the main character in the very first scene. Kinds of Kindness has all sorts of unexpected things happening in its multiple stories. Poor Things goes bananas with some of its early creative choices. If I don’t feel like I have a handle on something, I have to turn the page to get a grip on that thing. Don’t overwhelm your script with unexpected moments. But a few smartly placed unexpected moments can keep the reader riveted (and riveted readers turn the page!).
Let’s wrap things up here. The most powerful thing you can do as a writer is to ask yourself, at every single point in your screenplay, “Why would the reader keep reading?” And the answer can’t be because you worked hard on your screenplay and you deserve it. I wish the world worked that way but it doesn’t. You need to be able to logically convey WHY the reader should turn the page. Whether it’s the concept, the writing, the voice, the main character, the unexpectedness, the suspense, or something out of your own bag of tricks! Whatever you have to do to get the reader to turn the page, do it. Cause they’re bored and they’re ready to give up the second they open your script. Don’t let them!
You voted for the scene. Now you get to read the screenplay!
Genre: Thriller
Premise: A paranoid factory inspector touring the headquarters of a successful razor company on the verge of a sale is offered an exclusive glimpse of their newest – and most shocking – product yet.
About: Today’s script was the runner-up in last month’s Scene Showdown. In that showdown, five scenes went head to head against each other. I told the top three writers that, if they wanted to, they could send me the full script and I would review it on the site. Teddy is the only writer, so far, who’s taken me up on the offer. So here’s his script! You can go read Teddy’s runner-up scene here.
Writer: Teddy Abularach
Details: 99 pages
It always feels a little nicer when we get to review some homegrown Scriptshadow screenplays. I love supporting our own. And I commend the writers who put their scripts up for review because no matter how much myself and the readers love you, we’re always honest. And honesty can a big party on the proverbial dance floor or one of those big horse pills you have to swallow. Let’s see what Mr. Teddy Abularach has in store for us today with his offbeat tale, The Factory. I’m hoping for a dance party.
36 year old Scott Mangella is so exahusted from life that when he takes his 3 year old daughter, Eloise, on the subway train, he instantly falls asleep. This allows a gang of thugs to steal poor Eloise away. Scott wakes up but it’s too late. They’ve run off with his daughter.
15 years later, Scott has finally gotten over the trauma and has his life together. He’s got a wife, a new son, and a flashy job as a building inspector. In fact, he’s been hired to inspect a razor company’s production building out in the middle of the desert. So off Scott goes.
Once there, he sees that every single worker is sick. They’re all sniffling or vomitting. Scott needs wifi for some of his tools to work but he’s told they don’t have wifi. What about a phone, he asks. We don’t have those either. “Actually, there was a rumor about a payphone in the basement,” one worker says.
Scott heads to the basement to look for this pay phone where he stumbles upon large rectangular boxes. He opens them and sees that they contain unconscious children. Scott grabs one of the girls and attempts to escape to his car, but they capture him and, for some reason, put him down with the kids so he can learn their daily routine.
These kids are either going to be sex trafficked or eaten. And the reason this is a razor company is because a lot of these kids have acne and the people who eat children don’t like acne. So they need sharp razors to cut their acne-laden skin off.
Scott soon learns that his long lost daughter is one of the children being held here. He’s determined to get her out alive. He’ll have to get past company CEO Ferdinand, who wants to kill him but can’t, since the company inspecting them would be too suspicious if Scott disappeared. So he makes a deal with Scott to let him go but only if he never tells anybody about this. Scott agrees but of course he’s not going to give up. He must save his daughter! Will he??
Let me start out by applauding Teddy for writing something so unique.
In a world of SAME SAME SAME, it’s fun to see someone buck the system and do their own thing.
But as far as my own personal taste, this script was a little too weird for me. I’m not sure I ever bought into the premise. I’m not sure I ever synched up with the tone. I’m not sure I believed a lot of the things that were happening. You’re allowed, as the Pied Piper, to go as far down Zany Road as you like. But, if you keep heading out to nowhere, the rats that are following the tune of your flute are eventually going to head back to the center of town.
The first moment I became concerned was the 3rd or 4th scene where Scott takes part in a therapy session. We just watched the devastating kidnapping of his young daughter but now we cut to jokey-joke time with a stoned therapist who admits to smoking pineapple express right before their session.
Is this an intense thriller or a straight comedy? There is no way to tell after four scenes.
We eventually learn that Scott is an inspector and he’s doing an inspection on a razor company. Building this story around a razor company felt like a strangely specific choice and contributed to the wacky feel of the screenplay, despite it often trying to lean into intense drama.
Then begins a strange sequence where the company tells Scott that they don’t have wifi. A ten million dollar company that doesn’t have wifi??? You’re a liar as a writer if you’re trying to pass that off as believable. Anyway, there are “rumors” of a “pay phone” in the basement so Scott heads down there to call his bosses.
Why would there be a single phone in the entire company? And why would it be in a basement? And why would it be a pay phone? I’ve never heard of a company with a pay phone before. Most importantly, why would you send the inspector guy down into the place that has your big secret lying around?
To Teddy’s credit, the razor company theme comes into play because it’s important they cut off the acne-laden skin first. The logic is a little bizarre but there’s at least some connective tissue between the company and the kidnapped children.
After that, the plot becomes clear: ESCAPE. But Teddy keeps bumping up against his own troublesome setup. Ferdinand can’t kill Scott since he was hired to inspect this place and it would be too suspicious to the hiring company if Scott disappeared. So Ferdinand must cut a deal with Scott whereby he allows him to leave as long as Scott refuses to ever talk about what he saw.
Which, of course, makes zero sense because what man is going to live the rest of his life voluntarily leaving his daughter to be eaten? Ferdinand would know this. Scott certainly knows this. So any deals the two make would either be a lie to each other or a lie from the writer. It simply isn’t happening that Scott would leave his daughter alone here.
In that capacity, The Factory is way too messy. The setup is messy. The tone is messy. And a lot of the plot logic is messy.
I suppose if you want to go full Kookyville, like Netflix’s “They Cloned Tyrone,” you could. In that case, I would strip away any and all seriousness and get as wacky as possible. But, if not, you need a more solid foundation here. You need more grounded choices. You need to abide by logic throughout the story (there is no such thing as a large company that only has one phone in the whole building, which is in the basement, and it’s a pay phone).
And you would need to build a plot whereby the villain wasn’t making deals with the protagonist that make zero sense. The plot should be designed so that if the bad guys get anywhere close to Scott, they kill him.
Despite all this, I thank Teddy for putting his script up here for all of us to read. I suspect if you like early Charlie Kaufman, you might enjoy this. I’m excited to hear what everyone else thinks.
Script link: The Factory
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Even when you’re writing satire or zany material, it does not mean you can abandon real-world logic. Actions still need to make sense. Motivations still need to make sense. Plot developments still need to make sense. People offering deals (I agree to leave and never talk about this) that, in the real world, they know a person would never abide by, is sloppy storytelling. You must infuse logic into those scenarios if you expect, us, the readers, to buy into them.
