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Genre: Comedy
Premise: (from writer) A lost cache of Nazi gold could save the crumbling hometown of a failed actor. But the key to the treasure, an antique shaving mug, is also the key to his doom. He must outwit, battle and defeat weird and dangerous Nazi sympathizers who have skulked into town searching for him and the treasure.
Writer: Michael Wire
Details: 108 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

It’s comedy time here on Amateur Friday. I hope your laugh buds are tingling cause we got ourselves a wild one. Our writer, Michael Wire, is definitely insane in the membrane – but in a good way! “Shaving Mug Fracas” is a wild ride that may not have the focus a story this ambitious needs, but I see a lot of promise in Michael. If he can learn to sharpen his storytelling skills, he might very well be a comedy writer to watch for.

“Fracas” starts with former B-grade movie star Chad McSteele III (the actor who portrayed the superhero “Flying Falcon”) putting the finishing touches on one of those giant mechanical dinosaur heads you see in Monster Truck shows. McSteele used to have it all. The women. The fame. The house in the hills. But after a Youtube video surfaced of him screaming like a girl when his wire-frame harness malfunctioned on set, no one bought the illusion of Flying Falcon anymore. McSteele’s career was McSeeya.

So he moved back to his hometown, Verona, Arizona – a desert dump with a higher evacuation rate than Chernobyl, and started his auto-body business. In many ways, Verona IS Chad McSteele – a past-its-prime town that’s just wasting away.

With the banks moving in on Verona, demanding money that the town, and our hero, don’t have, McSteele is looking for any source of income to stave them off. So he starts selling old junk on Ebay. To his surprise, one item, a seemingly innocuous shaving mug, is garnering a serious bidding war. In fact, it’s already up to 1500 dollars!

Before McSteele can figure out why the hell anyone would want a boring mug, a German bombshell, Evita, and her creepy brother, Maxwell, show up wanting to buy the mug directly. When that plan fails, they hire some local skinheads to steal it for them. The skinheads do the job, but in the process see the letters “A.H.” inscribed on the mug. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who those letters refer to (but the skinheads still need it explained to them). And that means it’s time to up their asking price.

In the meantime, a plump dorky 40-something Brit named “Eggman” shows up ALSO willing to do anything for the shaving mug. It turns out he’s collected a whole set of Hitler’s toiletries and this is the last item he needs to complete it. When he learns that it’s been stolen, he hires McSteele to steal it back.

But that’s when things get really crazy. Evita and Maxwell’s boss, the ancient “Grandfather,” who may or may not have been a Nazi Zeppelin pilot back in World War 2, flies into town himself. He quickly buys some property near the town’s pride and joy, a famous American tank used in World War 2, and hires a number of shifty fellars to move in with him.

It turns out that that mug wasn’t really what our guests were after afterall. There’s something much bigger hidden inside the town of Verona. And the evil Grandfather is going to find it. It will then be up to McSteele to put those tights on one last time and stop him, and maybe, in the process, save Verona.

“Fracas” is reallllllyyyyy ambitious. And I think Michael may have chomped off more Nazi war crimes than he could chew. One of the hardest areas to nail in this kind of story is the first act – because you have to set up so many people and so many storylines in such a short period of time. If you’re not careful, the entire act can turn into an exposition dump. And I’m afraid that’s what happens here. Michael is exerting all of his energy on just making sure every piece of information is conveyed, as opposed to telling an entertaining story. In the process, scenes feel like numbers on a checklist. There’s no flow to them. Nothing evolves naturally from anything else.

I mean we start with a superhero, then cut to a dinosaur head, then cut to a German grandfather in another country, then cut back to McSteele’s body shop where we go into some exposition about a rival body shop, then a quick switch to McSteele trying to pay his workers, then to a mug McSteele’s put up on Ebay, then to Evita showing up, then to a really long bar scene setting up McSteele’s old flame, Julie. I mean I didn’t know which way was up after the first fifteen pages.

And it boils down to a writer trying to jam so many things into his setup without considering how the reader is going to process all of that information. You can’t just use your first act as exposition. It still has to entertain. It still has to read smoothly.

Another thing that bothered me was once we got through those 15 pages of exposition, we had a really long bar scene that had no discernible purpose.

We were just talking about this yesterday. You don’t want to write scenes that convey the same information you’ve already given. So in the bar, McSteele runs into Julie, his old flame, and the two partake in a game of pool. The conversation they have is about A) how McSteele is down on his luck. B) How he’s lost all his money. C) How his superhero career ran out. Yet we already know all of these things. They’ve been conveyed to us quite aggressively. So the scene just sits there.

The scene does have conflict but nobody wants anything out of it and therefore there isn’t anything at stake. If I were to write this scene, I would’ve established beforehand that he and Julie don’t talk anymore – that she dislikes him – but she has something he really needs (possibly something that will help save his business). Now when he approaches her to play a game of pool, he secretly wants something from her. Ahh! Your scene now has a point, something at stake, and therefore some entertainment value. I wanted to see a lot more of that in the first act – entertainment value. Not exposition.

On the flip side, Michael has a wild imagination and some really great moments in his script. Eggman may be one of my favorite characters of the year. His obsession with the mug is hilarious. I loved that McSteele was a former movie super hero. I loved the Germans coming in to steal a secret treasure. I loved that the final battle takes place on Independence Day. I liked the huge mechanical dinosaur they used to attack the Germans. The plot with the gold hidden inside the tank was really clever. The set pieces, like the cop dressing up like a gorilla to take a wasp’s nest off the radio tower, and then the model planes swarming around him, was inspired.

So there’s a lot here to be excited about. But Michael just doesn’t bring it together. You have to work too hard to understand what’s going on. And in a comedy, you shouldn’t have to work hard at all. It should be breezy and easy to understand. I don’t know anyone who goes to a comedy to be challenged.

So that’s what I would say to Michael. Work on hiding your exposition more. Work on adjusting your plot so you don’t have so much exposition in the first place. Work on making all of your exposition scenes entertaining – not just info you’re conveying to the reader. And work on sharpening your explanation of the plot. There are a lot of moments in the script where you’re not clear enough on what’s going on, and I think it’s because certain plot points aren’t clear enough.

So I like Michael as a writer. I like his ambition here and that he’s pushing himself. The other day I chastised a script for making too many obvious choices. This script is anything but that. I can’t think of a single obvious choice Michael made. He just needs to do some simplifying and some smoothing out so the script reads more like a story and less like a prep-sheet for what’s to happen later.

Script link: The Incredible Shaving Mug Fracas

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: You have to be careful with your openings. Remember that an opening is the door you use to bring the reader into your home. If the reader walks in and there are monkeys on the ceiling and a plate of food being thrown at them and aliens having sex and a hot Columbian woman whispering sweet Cantonese nothings into his ear, that reader’s probably going to turn around and leave. It’s too hard to process all of that craziness right away. And that’s how I felt reading the opening here. I walked into a house and had no sense of where I was or what was going on. Invite your reader into your house and let them look around a little bit before you start throwing the batshit crazy at them.

I read way too many boring scripts. And the thing is, the whole time I’m thinking, “Aww man, if they had just done this or done that, the script would be so much better.” I want to reach through the screen and correct their mistakes for them. But I can’t. And that’s what’s the most frustrating. They don’t even know what they’re doing wrong – so they continue to make the same mistakes over and over again – and I’m helpless to stop it.

Which is why I’m writing today’s article. If there’s anyone who knows what makes a script boring, it’s me. And I’m here to reveal those mistakes so that you guys don’t make them anymore. Some of them will be easy to apply and some of them will take – gulp – years of practice. But at LEAST you’ll know what they are, which gives you a fighting chance. The biggest reason for a bad screenplay is ignorance – not knowing or understanding the mechanics of what make a story work. Well my friends, consider yourselves enlightened. Here are 10 possible reasons people are bored with your script.

Your movie idea isn’t interesting – This one seems obvious and yet it’s the most ignored piece of advice I give. Writers simply come up with uninteresting ideas. They want to write about a man coming to terms with the death of his mother or a woman’s road trip to discover the meaning of life. There’s no CONCEPT there. There’s no ironic component to make you sit up and notice. You need a SPECIFIC INTERESTING IDEA to explore or else we won’t care. So please, for the love of all that is holy, test-drive your idea with a dozen people before you write your script. If nobody seems that excited (beware fake excitement – which friends and family are good at) then move on to a better idea. It doesn’t matter how good of a writer you are if your idea is boring.

You’re writing scenes that say the exact same thing – New writers take four or five scenes to make a point. Pro writers take one scene to make a point. Because of that, their scripts move faster and because of *that*, their stories are more entertaining. For example, if you want to point out that your main character is afraid to get close to people, then give us an early scene showing them pull away from an emotional moment. Do NOT then follow that scene with four extra scenes specifically showing different versions of that exact same point. That’s not to say you won’t keep hitting on your hero’s flaw throughout the screenplay. But you should only have one scene specifically dedicated to it. That’s the problem with a lot of young writers. They repeat the same things over and over and OVER again when we got it the first time. It’s MUCH more important to keep your story moving than it is to drive your point down our throats. 

Lack of a compelling/interesting/intriguing main character – Oh my God this one is huge. Your main character is who we’re going to be following for the entire movie. So guess what? If he’s got nothing going on, we’re going to be bored! Too many writers make their characters Average Joes doing average things. And yes, some movies require that type of protagonist, but you HAVE to find something interesting about them if we’re going to follow them around enthusiastically. Maybe your hero’s like Indiana Jones, who’s a professor by day and a superhero by night. Maybe he’s a janitor at MIT who’s secretly genius. Or maybe he’s just a really funny dude who doesn’t have any ambition (Knocked Up). Whatever the case, your main character has to be interesting in some way because if he’s not, it doesn’t matter what your plot is. We’ll be bored.

There’s no point to your scene – Pointless scenes are script killers. I usually run into pointless scenes as early as the second scene of the screenplay. In fact, that’s a pretty common place to find them because most writers know what their big fun exciting opening scene is going to be before they write their script. But once that scene is over and they get to characters actually talking, it’s like the writer doesn’t know what to do any more. It’s like they think as long as two characters are having a dialogue – regardless of what they’re talking about – that they’re doing their job. Wrong. If there’s no point to your scene – if characters aren’t trying to get something out of the scene or out of the other character, you’re just talking to yourself. One of the easiest ways to make a scene interesting is to make sure the characters in it want something. That desire (that point) will suck the reader in.

Endless action – Endless action is one of those false security blankets. Young writers believe that as long as there’s a lot of action happening, the reader will be entertained. But actually, if you’re giving us endless action, it’s just as boring as giving us endless dialogue. The reason action scenes work is because of what’s at stake. They work because you’ve used the previous 20 pages to set up how important this heist is or this battle is or this race is. Without that prep to establish the stakes, it’s just mindless action. So if you’re jumping from one action sequence to another with little to no breaks in between, I guarantee you we’re getting bored.

Scenes without conflict – Think of your scenes as a tug-of-war. One person in the scene wants one thing – the other person in the scene wants another thing. You write the scene to figure out who’s going to win that tug-of-war. Maybe Person A wins. Maybe Person B wins. Maybe nobody wins. But the fact that something is trying to be gained is what’s going to keep the scene entertaining. New writers RARELY add conflict to their scenes which is why their scenes are so boring. Now conflict can be tricky. It’s not just two people being angry with one another. In fact, sometimes a character may not even know he’s in a tug of war. So yeah, a conflict-filled scene could be as simple as a wife and husband arguing about who’s going to pick up the kids today. But it can also be a girl who secretly likes a boy and is trying to get him to realize it. Or it can be a wife who’s trying to get her husband out of the house before her lover shows up. However you look at it, scenes work best when there’s some sort of imbalance in them that needs to be resolved. So add some damn conflict to your boring scene!

Your characters are thin – I know too many writers who don’t care about digging into their characters. Some will use the excuse that they’re writing an action movie. Some will just say they’re not interested. But if you’re not digging into your characters and learning about them and understanding how they grew up and understanding the complications they went through and what regrets they have and what their dreams are and who they still hold a candle for – if you don’t know all those things about your characters, then guess what? Your characters will be thin. And thin characters are BORING characters. One of the reasons Avengers was so well-liked was because, even as an action movie, every single one of those characters had an intense backstory. I mean look at the Hulk. If that’s not a character with depth, I don’t know what is. So if they can do that in the biggest popcorn action movie of all time, then you can do it in your screenplay as well.

Not understanding the phrase “stuff needs to happen” – Stuff needs to HAPPEN in your screenplay. The problem is that young writers don’t know what the word “happen” means. They think it means your character going to bars and talking with their friends or going to work for yet another boring workday. Yeah, technically something is “happening” in those scenes, but nothing INTERESTING is happening. In order to make something of interest happen, have the scene push your story forward. So instead of plopping two characters down in a location to discuss their lives, have them trying to figure out something that has an impact on the story. Maybe one of them is thinking of moving to a new city. Maybe one of them is thinking of asking their dream girl out. Now there’s an actual purpose to the conversation so we’ll be invested in how it ends. “Happening” basically means writing a scene where you’re pushing the story forward. If you’re not doing that, your scene’s probably boring.

An unfocused story – I can tell you right now, one of the quickest ways to reading boredom is when I lose track of what’s going on. The script’s become so unfocused that I don’t care anymore. We’ve ended up in a house in another state with a character whose goal I’ve forgotten trying to contact somebody I don’t know about something that’s never been fully explained. Of course I’m bored. A lack of focus almost always stems from an unclear character goal. If we’ve forgotten (or never been told) what the protagonist is after and why, then the script drifts into a sea of murkiness. So the lesson here is, MAKE SURE THE READER KNOWS WHAT THE CHARACTER IS AFTER. There’s never any doubt that Indiana Jones is going after the Ark. That’s why that script whizzes by. So make sure you establish that and don’t be afraid to remind us every once in awhile. Because as soon as we lose track of what’s going on, we start to lose interest.

You’re not putting enough effort into your choices – Recently I read this script I felt could easily be a movie. It was very marketable and the kind of thing a studio would want to add to their slate. But it was incredibly boring. And it was boring because every choice the writer made was the most obvious choice in the world. The main character was a cliche obvious choice. The scenes were all scenes I’d seen a million times before. The funny sidekick character had nothing new to him. It was like the writer never thought past the first thing that popped into his head. It’s your job as a writer to always ask the question: “Can I come up with something better, more interesting, more original, or cooler than this?” Chances are you can. But most writers don’t take the time because it’s too much work. Well I got news for you. Screenwriting ain’t all fun. It’s work. I would go so far as to say if writing a script is pure fun for you, you’re not working hard enough. Challenge your choices. Come up with better ones. Don’t be the guy who sends out a script where everything is obvious, general, and cliché.

And there you have it. Now get back to your current screenplays and make sure you’re not making any of these mistakes. Good luck!

Can an actor jump into the screenwriting world without a hitch? Past experience tells me no. But today’s actor may break the mold.

Genre: Crime
Premise: Two brothers go on a bank-robbing spree in rural Texas with a determined near-retired Texas Ranger on their tail.
About: This script sold just a few weeks ago! The writer, Taylor Sheridan, is actually best known for a recurring role on the TV show, Sons Of Anarchy.
Writer: Taylor Sheridan
Details: 113 pages – undated (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Have to admit, didn’t know much about this one going in other than that it sold. Oh, and that the writer was an actor. So that made it interesting. Always curious to see if the front-of-the-camera guys can hack it behind the camera. Or hack it before the camera even starts rolling. Can’t be an easy transition having assistants waiting on you hand and foot one day, then being kicked by those very same feet the next.

In fact, I have a writer friend who’s writing a project for someone right now and nobody cares what he says. They’re just changing everything. And I’m listening to these changes thinking, “They can’t be serious. They’re destroying the most BASIC things that make the screenplay work.” I mean, you’d think that common sense would take over at some point. And this is a known respected filmmaker he’s working for! Yet they’re just butchering the script. So sad.

The questionably titled “Comancheria” follows two brothers, Tanner and Toby, as they make rural Texas their bank-robbing playground. Toby is the sensible brother. He’s clean cut and focused and doesn’t take chances. Tanner, on the other hand, is a loose cannon if there ever was one. These brothers haven’t spent a lot of time together lately. Tanner’s been stuck in jail and Toby’s been taking care of their dying mother, whom neither of the brothers liked much.

Needless to say, the two have very different reasons for robbing these banks. Tanner just wants some easy money. Well, that and the thrill of the game. But for Toby, this is much more personal. His wife left him a long time ago and for that reason, he has to watch his kids grow up from afar. And since every person in the history of his family has been poor, he wants to break that chain and make sure his kids have the kind of money where they’ll never have to worry again.

So after they rob a few banks, 70 year old Marcus Hamilton, a Texas Ranger about to become a Texas retiree, is called in to take a look at the robberies and see if he can’t figure out how to stop these guys. The thing with the brothers is that they’re robbing these tiny little banks out in the middle of nowhere and only taking the drawer money, which can’t be tracked.

It sure takes a lot longer than robbing a single bank vault but it’s damn effective as it’s almost impossible to get caught. But as most bank robbing sprees go, at some point something goes drastically wrong or the bank robbers get greedy. With time running out on when they need the money, Tanner gets greedy, and it’ll end up costing the brothers, potentially with their lives.

The thing that stuck out to me most about this story was how simple it was. We had two brothers with a clear goal – to rob a series of banks. We also had two “villains,” Marcus and his partner, with a clear goal, to capture the brothers.

The key to making a narrative like this work is to make sure that your hero’s goal is strong. Sheridan did a great job establishing how important stealing this money was for Toby. Everything he was doing was for his kids, who he had a very complicated but loving relationship with. As long as you establish that your hero desperately wants to achieve his goal, then by association, we’ll want him to achieve it as well.

The strength of a goal is determined mostly by motivation, and how well you establish that motivation. What that means is digging into your character and getting to know him and getting to know why he wants to do what he wants to do. Sheridan spends a lot of time in the conversations between Tanner and Toby discussing Toby’s kids, the way they’ve pulled away from him, the way his ex-wife has facilitated that divide. This is a man with nothing in this world other than his children, and even though he doesn’t know them that well, he loves them to the point where he’d do anything for them. The specificity of this relationship is what makes us believe that it’s real and go along with it. In other words, it’s not just slapped in there by a lazy phone call at the beginning of the movie from his son saying something like, “I miss you dad,” and the dad replying, “I miss you too, son.” Believe me, I see that kind of cheap tactic ALLL the time.

Another thing that stuck out to me here was the dialogue. Boring dialogue is usually normal dialogue. Characters speak in a very plain obvious way. They use very plain obvious sentences. Good writers find ways to play with the sentences, to give them a slightly different feel so they pop off the page. But it’s a tough skill to learn because you have to do it without it FEELING like you’re doing it. So these heightened lines must sound as relaxed and normal as everyday conversation. Lots of writers have trouble with that. But Sheridan nails it. Let’s look at quick exchange in the middle of the movie. Ranger Marcus is asking an old man at a diner if he saw anything during the robbery.

MARCUS
Ya’ll been here for a while?

OLD TIMER
Long enough to watch someone rob the bank that’s been robbing me for thirty years.

Perfect example. I can think of a million boring versions of this line that average writers would’ve written. “Not long, nope.” “I suppose so.” “I wasn’t keeping track.” I could go on. There’s nothing wrong with these answers. But they’re average. They’re not memorable. They don’t pop. Why go average when you can go heightened?

MARCUS
You say you saw them?

OLD TIMER
Saw the guy running from the bank.

MARCUS
What’d he look like?

OLD TIMER
Had a mask on. But he ran pretty good, so I’d gather he’s youngish.

MARCUS
That so … What’s youngish in your book?

OLD TIMER
Younger’n you and me, but older than all these little girls running around here pouring tea.


We have another interesting answer here. He could have easily given an age. He could’ve said “25.” And again, that would’ve been fine. But when you’re writing scripts, and especially when you’re writing dialogue, you’re trying to elevate the reality of the world you’re portraying. This answer is brilliant. It answers his question but in an unexpected interesting way.

The only reason this script didn’t rate higher for me was because it’s not the typical kind of movie I like. With that said, I don’t think anybody could’ve executed this story as well as Sheridan did. I mean the writing is top notch. The dialogue is top notch. The character development is waaaay beyond what I’m used to in a screenplay. If I was into this kind of movie, Comancheira would get an impressive. As it stands, ‘double worth the read’ will have to do. Oh, and one last piece of advice to Mr. Sheridan – GET RID OF THIS TITLE. It screams “Don’t watch me.”

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Be careful about mimicking real-life dialogue. There’s a certain rhythm to real life conversation that’s important to capture, but as far as the vocabulary and the flavor, real life conversation is pretty dull. When you’re writing dialogue for a movie, you’d like for it to be slightly heightened. Not overtly so. But it should definitely have more pop. “No thanks” might become, “Not for me, compadre.” “What are you up to?” might become “What the hell happened to you?” Now all of this is dependent on the character delivering the dialogue (i.e. an average Joe will speak in an average way) and the story you’re telling (comedy dialogue will be more flavorful than drama dialogue), but in general, avoid stale dialogue by looking to invisibly heighten it. Don’t be afraid to add a little flavor.

They attached, they waffled, they attached again, they waffled, and now, finally, Leo and Martin are back together again with The Wolf Of Wall Street.

A day off for me but this review is pretty darn good, so I don’t feel so bad. I actually read the book “The Wolf Of Wall Street” a long time ago and thought to myself, “They’ll never make a movie out of this. The main character is the most despicable human being ever.” Though I guess since Scorsese makes tragedies, that doesn’t matter as much. Still, I’m curious as to how he’ll keep us invested in what has to be the single most evil most disgusting flesh-container ever recorded in written form. I also want to know when Scorsese and Dicaprio are getting married. I mean, put on a ring on it already! Here’s guest reviewer Daniel Holmes to report on the script and potential nuptials.

Today’s screenplay proves you can only hide for so long before something comes for you and makes you do something you don’t want to do…

Genre: Contained Horror
Premise: A family lives in a nuclear fallout shelter, hiding from a deadly race of mutated humans known only as, the breathers.
About: This is a script that’s been getting a lot of heat lately. Lots of people I talk to really love it. Hence, I had to read.
Writers: The Duffer Brothers
Details: 105 pages – undated (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

There is one type of script that is absolutely perfect for the spec market – this one. If you come up with a contained horror scenario that’s intense, that has immediacy, and that’s a little bit different from what’s come in the past, somebody will buy it. Shit, I’LL buy it. You can make these movies for a cheap price AND they’re easy to market. So they’re always going to be in high demand.

But that doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want. You have to find that fresh angle. Hidden is by no means original, but it has just enough new that it doesn’t feel like yet another contained thriller clone.

For example, almost all scripts with people hiding from an unseen danger put several strangers together. It’s a smart way to go because you can create a mysterious backstory behind each character (that can be revealed over the course of the script) and the potential is high for conflict since you have a bunch of different personalities.

But Hidden took the unique approach of sticking us with a family. You definitely lost some potential conflict with the choice, but what you gain is an overwhelming sense of love between the characters and an “us against them” mentality. This created a strong bond between us and the characters, which meant we were rooting for them from Page 1.

And remember that when you have the audience rooting for your characters, you can pretty much get away with anything. You can even ignore some of the things I preach all the time because if we’re desperately rooting for the characters, the structure isn’t as important. We just want to see the characters win, regardless of the mechanics beneath them. The closeness of this family really helped in that sense. I read on because I wanted to see them survive.

Speaking of the family, it includes Claire and Ray Hewitt, former middle-class suburban parents, and their seven-year-old daughter, Zoe. They’re down in this shelter because a year ago, on an ordinary Sunday, a mass hysteria rose up when a unique virus started infecting everyone. The virus turned ordinary people into dangerous and uncontrollable beasts.

The Hewitt family tried to get away like everybody else, but when the military started attacking civilians, they fled into the woods and found this hidden shelter. They’ve been here ever since, hiding. And it’s gone pretty well. Except they’re finally running out of rations and will need to find food somewhere else – not an easy task since going to the surface is the equivalent of suicide.

But hunger is just one of many invisible clocks ticking down for this family. And those clocks start ticking a lot faster when an accidental fire sends smoke out the ventilation shaft up into the forest. It’s only a matter of time, now, before the breathers spot the smoke and seek out its origin. When that happens, it’s doubtful our family will be able to remain…hidden.

Lots to like about this one! The writing itself was top-notch. The brothers have an amazing ability to keep descriptions sparse, so that the script moves along quickly, yet still pack interesting shit into their action, so that the info both moves the story forward and paints a powerful picture of the situation.

I read lots of scripts from writers who hear their writing needs to be sparse, but they take it to the extreme. The writing ends up containing so little meat, so little detail or depth of information, that it’s as if the words disappear somewhere between the page and your eyes.

I loved how the brothers would take time, for example, to explain how a rat was able to get into their food supply and chew through the cans, cutting their survival time in half. It’s stuff like this that paints a detailed picture of their predicament – that shows the unique things a family in this type of situation would have to go through. There’s meat here. There’s specificity.

But the real power of the script came in the writers’ ability to tell a story. Again, so many new writers focus on how to string words together. And it’s not that that isn’t important. It is. But it’s not nearly as important as telling the story and keeping the reader interested.

Right away, we hear about these “breathers.” The way the family talks about them, you’d think that the devil himself was hunting them. And yet we don’t know what they are yet because the writers have chosen to make them a mystery. Well guess what? That mystery is a storytelling device to keep us, the reader, interested. We will keep reading until we see these breathers for ourselves.

Then there was the smoke that went up through the ventilation shaft. We knew that the breathers might see this and possibly find them. So from the moment that smoke went out, we’re in a deep state of anticipation as we hope against all hope that they’re not going to show up. That’s storytelling. You manipulate the plot in such a way where the reader *has* to read on because they *have* to find out what happens next.

And then there were, of course, the set pieces of the script. For a movie this small in scope, the set pieces are incredibly well-crafted. What I loved about the brothers was that they knew when they had a high-impact scene, and they milked the hell out of it.

Too many writers extend scenes that have no business being extended. You only want to milk scenes if the set-up is big, the stakes are high, and the situation is compelling. There’s a scene, for example, where the escaped smoke has caused the leaves hiding their doorway to blacken with soot. This means that the parents have to go topside to replace them with fresh leaves in order to stay hidden. So they do, leaving Zoe alone in the shelter.

This is the exact kind of scene you want to milk. You’ve set up a dangerous situation. The stakes are through the roof (literally). You’ve left your youngest character alone. Go to town with this scene. Zoe watches them, for example, from the underground “periscope,” and thinks she sees breathers running towards them. She has to warn them, but has no way to. We cut back and forth between the breathers getting closer and Zoe trying to open a hatch she’s not strong enough to open. The brothers milk every second of this scene, and appropriately so, as it’s the perfect kind of scene you want to milk.

What’s really impressive is they have about five of these sequences throughout the script, all about 10 pages long, all of which move like the Chicago wind. Truthfully, I was shocked at how quickly the brothers were able to make such a tiny movie move so fast.

For me, this was a guaranteed impressive through the first two acts. However, while I liked the twist ending, I’d heard there was a twist ahead of time, so I was anticipating something a little flashier. Unfortunately, while the twist did its job, it didn’t quite live up to the expectation in my head. Don’t get me wrong. It was cool. It just wasn’t “fall out of your seat” cool.

So even though that brought it down a notch, this is one of the better horror scripts I’ve read in a while. It’s a little different. The characters are compelling. The writing is great. You just don’t see all of those things in a horror script these days. For that, I commend these guys. A job well done!

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Show and Tell. Any good screenwriter will tell you to SHOW things, not TELL things. But there’s actually a way to show while telling, and I call it the “Show and Tell.” Here, on page 10, the brothers want to establish how many days the family has been down here. So they highlight hundreds of marks on the wall (this is them showing). Zoe then asks how many days they’ve been down here. Claire answers, “Count for yourself.” Zoe counts, and tells us the number (301). So technically, since there’s a discussion about the days, we’re telling. But the conversation is motivated by a ‘showing,’ the walls. So it’s a combination of the two. Which is way better than someone going, “Man, if we hadn’t been down here for 300 long days already…” which, believe it or not, is the kind of clunky exposition I read all the time.