I listened to the entire 3 hour Joe Rogan interview with Quentin Tarantino yesterday and it’s an interesting listen for sure. Rogan isn’t much of a movie buff. Ironically, the only movies he seems to love are Tarantino’s. So the interview was more of a love fest from Rogan’s end and that prevented some of the more free-flowing conversation that you usually get from the podcast. Still, because it was Tarantino, there were lots of gems dropped. So many, in fact, that I thought I’d highlight the top 10 for you. I always learn something about screenwriting when Quentin speaks and this was no different. Let’s take a look.

1) Tarantino reads a lot of biographies – This may not seem like that big of a deal but it may be the most important tip on this list. I noticed, throughout the interview, that Tarantino kept referring to biographies he’d read. “I read this biography on So and So.” “Oh, I read her biography.” “Yeah, he’s got a great biography.” I’ve often wondered how Tarantino creates such vivid interesting characters. This may be his secret sauce. Biographies allow you to get into people’s heads in a way nothing else does. I’m sure, whether intentional or not, this is what allows Tarantino to access such incredible detail when he creates characters.

2) Go against the grain! – Tarantino points out that he grew up in a terrible era for movies – the 80s. Everything in the 80s was a correction of the avant-garde movies of the 70s. As a result, they were safe, they were friendly, they were politically correct. Tarantino responded to this with, “I don’t want to make those movies. I want to make something different.” Which is why his movies revolutionized the business. They were unlike any movies we’d seen. I want you to apply that mindset to the cinema of 2021. Are you writing movies that are just like the movies you’re seeing today? Or are you writing movies that you want to see? You can make both work. But the second option allows you to become a potential game-changer.

3) Let the character decide where the story goes, not the writer – This is a hard one for beginners to grasp because they look at their characters as fictional creations and therefore the idea of giving them creative autonomy is an assault on logic as well as their ego. But here’s why it’s a relevant philosophy. Screenwriters are too stringent. They’re trying to hit that first act break. They’re trying to shove in those Blake Snyder beats. Their intentions, much of the time, are in service to structure. If you see your characters as real people, their intentions will be much more pure. What they say and what they do is going to steer your story in a more unique direction. This explains why Quentin’s movies are so original. He doesn’t play God. He lets his characters play God.

4) But he gives himself an out – With that said, Tarantino gives himself an out. “I am the storyteller,” he says, “so if I have to steer [the characters] in a direction that I think is more interesting or more exciting, well then obviously I can do that. I have the power to do that. But I’m trying not do that.” In other words, this kind of rule works in theory but it doesn’t always work in practice. If characters are blathering away about something mundane or boring, it’s in your interest to reevaluate the scene and, possibly, steer it in a more interesting direction. Also, we’re talking about Quentin Tarantino here. His characters are so vivid and his imagination so active that his version of “letting characters take you where they want to go” is going to be more interesting than the average writer’s “let your characters take you where they want to go.” So don’t assume that following this advice is an automatic win. Sometimes you have to intervene.

5) Don’t be afraid to write uncomfortable moments – I already know this tip is going to trigger some people but it’s one of the things that sets Tarantino apart. Ever since that brutal torture scene in Reservoir Dogs, Quentin hasn’t been afraid to take on the PC Police. Here, Rogan brings up the scene in Hateful 8 where Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character gets brutally beaten and he basically asks Tarantino, “Is that okay?” considering it was a woman. Tarantino’s answer was that, of course it was okay. This was a really bad woman who had done really bad things. If she was a man and did the exact the same things, everyone would be fine with him getting beaten. So why should her gender matter? He acknowledged that it is tougher to watch. But that was the point. He wanted that moment to be uncomfortable. That was a deliberate artistic choice. This is a big reason why Tarantino’s movies feel so different. He’s comfortable with making people uncomfortable. So you can be the artist who stays between the lines and writes comfortable safe things. Or you can be the one who stands out.

6) Making a movie is easier than ever – Outside of maybe Robert Rodriquez and Kevin Smith, Quentin is the OG DIY filmmaker. When he got money in his bank account, his sole focus was to figure out how to use that money to make a film. He made 30 grand for writing True Romance and his first thought was, “I’m going to make Reservoir Dogs with that money.” You have to understand back in 1991 just how insane of an idea making a movie for 30 thousand dollars was. Just the cost of film processing alone was probably 30 grand. But the mindset back then was: FIGURE IT OUT. Do whatever you have to do to get your movie made. It just so happened that a producer was able to raise a million bucks for Tarantino to make Reservoir Dogs. But he would’ve made it for 30 grand if he had to. I bring this up because the barrier for entry to make a movie in 2021 compared to 1991 is 10 times lower, AT LEAST. Yet people seem to have more excuses than ever why they can’t make a film. I know not every screenwriter wants to be a director. But if you’re interested in directing at all, channel that original Tarantino spirit of getting your movie made no matter what. It’s still the fastest way into the business.

7) Quentin’s writer’s block advice – Tarantino’s process works like this. He’ll write a scene and, if he doesn’t finish the scene, he’ll get away from his writing pad (he still writes longhand), and just think about the scene in terms of what could make it better and where it could go next, and then he goes back to his pad, jots down all those notes and then he DOESN’T WRITE IT. He waits until the next day to implement that stuff. If he *does* finish a scene, he utilizes this same process but focuses more on the next scene and where that scene could go. Afterwards, he writes down notes and calls it a day. This way, he’s always going into tomorrow’s writing session with momentum. Cause he’s always got something prepped to write.

8) Audiences need someone to root for, even in Tarantino movies – One of Tarantino’s least successful films is Hateful 8 (by the way, this is one of my favorite Tarantino films). He recognized, after reading criticisms of the movie, that he made a choice the movie couldn’t overcome, which was that every character was a villain (that’s why it’s called the “hateful” 8). And while he personally loves the movie, he learned that making a film without anybody to root for isn’t the best way to go. Although he doesn’t say this in the interview, this may have been why he followed that movie up with one of his most likable characters ever in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’s Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt).

9) You can’t spell Tarantino without “fun” – What I’m about to tell you is something I don’t think even Tarantino realizes about his movies. Tarantino talks all the time about violent films that inspired him. He talks about “Manhunt,” “Taxi Driver,” “Mean Streets,” “A Million Ways To Die.” But those movies never touched the popularity or the box office of a Tarantino movie. And I think the reason for that is is because Tarantino likes to have fun in his movies. No matter how dark or violent his movies get, they have tons of jokes, they have tons of fun moments, they have tons of entertaining dialogue. What he’s done is basically figure out how to popularize dark cinema. He’s made it fun. I’m not saying you have to do this. But if you’re writing something dark and you want to broaden your audience (aka, get more producers interested), consider doing what Tarantino does and add those fun moments, those jokes, that dialogue.

10) Tarantino doesn’t like character arcs – Listening to Tarantino talk, you get a sense of his disdain for movies that have heroes who act one way for 70 minutes, only to completely change into a nicer more wholesome person for the final 30 minutes. You can tell he doesn’t buy it. He doesn’t see any authenticity in it. And if you look at his last movie, you can see that none of the three main characters, Rick Dalton, Cliff Booth, or Sharon Tate, change in the movie. They’re the exact same people at the end. To be honest, I don’t know what to make of this belief. I understand that artificially forcing a character transformation at the end of the movie is weak sauce. But it’s tough to sell characters who don’t learn anything at all over the course of their journey. There’s an element of “well then what was the point?” to the viewing experience. I’m not sure I agree with Tarantino’s take here. But, again, this is one of the many rules he lives by that makes his movies feel different from everybody else’s.

Genre: War/Thriller/Horror
Premise: 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.
About: This script finished on the lower half of last year’s Black List. I may be a little salty in this review considering Lafortune stole my Kinetic creative duo, Ric Waugh and Gerard Butler, for their next movie, Kandahar, about a CIA operative and his translator who flee from special forces in Afghanistan after exposing a covert mission. Grrrrrrr…
Writer: Mitchell Lafortune
Details: 97 pages

Krysten Ritter for Amelia?

I really like this setup for a movie.

You’ve got someone going into a remote, potentially dangerous, situation, and they’ve a job to do. They have to solve a mystery.

The reason I like it is that it keeps the main character active. I’ve read the “bad version” of this setup numerous times, which is the same thing but without the mystery. A new person comes to a remote location and just has to… hang out or whatever.

Since these movies are about the shit eventually hitting the fan, you need enough meat beforehand so that you don’t start the “shits hits the fan” section too soon. Because if the shit hits the fan on page 40, it’s really hard to come up with pure chaos for 60 straight pages. You want to delay that as long as you can. And this setup allows you to do so while keeping the story interesting. If there’s a murder to solve, every scene leading up to the “shit hitting the fan” moment contains dramatic tension.

Amelia Yates is a CID officer for the army. That stands for Criminal Investigation Division. She’s out in Afghanistan in 2008, trying to get by, when she’s chosen for a mission in Afghanistan’s valley of death, the Korengal. The U.S. has a remote outpost there and a soldier named Ismail’s gone missing.

Amelia’s a little concerned since this is an all-male unit. Normally, they’d send a male CID out there. But the only male CID they’ve got is on leave. So Amelia will have to substitute. She heads out to the Korengal, which people have dubbed “the most dangerous place on earth,” a tiny little valley in between huge mountains.

There, she meets the team, a bunch of dudes who are mostly good guys with a couple of bad apples. A youngster soldier named Grady is particularly scary as he seems to have left the laws of America back in his country. You get the sense he’s ready to pounce the second he sees Amelia alone.

Which, of course, makes Amelia’s job a lot tougher. She’ll be responsible for talking to all these men, one by one, to try and figure out how Israel disappeared. Everything goes swimmingly at first, or at least as swimmingly as you can imagine in the remote Afghanistan mountains, but Amelia starts learning some unsettling things. Such as that it wasn’t just Ismail who went missing, but his entire unit.

Also, everybody seems to be on edge here. They’re all going a little cuckoo in the head. For example, they keep telling Amelia that they’ve been attacked by monsters. Amelia assumes they’re suffering from some collective mental disorder until she starts seeing some strange things herself. Like one day she sees Ismail walking around, perfectly fine. Then the next day, he’s gone.

Things come to a head when attacks ramp up on the base and Amelia sees giant alien spider monsters attacking them from all sides. They end up winning that firefight and then, the next day, Amelia wonders if what she saw was real. Good news comes down the pipe as home base closes her mission. She can come back now. But she’ll have to wait for a helicopter to come and get her. And maybe, just maybe, that helicopter’s never coming.

Most bad scripts you can tell are bad right away because the signs are obvious. But, every once in a while, you run into a good writer who’s not the best storyteller and, for those scripts, it takes longer before you realize the script is in trouble.

But the writer usually provides you with a few signs ahead of time if you’re paying attention, which was the case with War Face. There’s a scene early on, right before Amelia is about to go to Korengal, where she’s walking through the barracks at night and she hears someone behind her, possibly dangerous, spins around, stabs him in the neck, kills him, only to realize it’s another officer. She freaks out, runs to a friend, tells him what she’s done, and he says, “don’t worry about it. I’ll cover it up for you.” And then Amelia just leaves.

You can’t have your main character murder someone and resolve that murder within a page. You just can’t. Just the logistics of covering up the murder take time. But the mental repercussions are something you have to deal with in writing. You have to take us through a few scenes to show the transition from that mistake to being able to move forward. To try and get away with your hero killing someone then leaving for her mission a page later does’t ring true at all.

That’s when I first said, “Something tells me this is going to get sloppy.”

Which is exactly what happens. After a couple of strong interrogation scenes when Amelia first gets to Korengal, the weirdness begins. They’re attacked but it’s not clear by who. Soldiers start having nightmares galore which we don’t realize are nightmares until after the fact (one of the number one ways to identify amateur writing), Amelia sees Ismail alive, but wait, maybe it was just her imagination, Amelia buries a group of child-aliens, more attacks, some giant-aliens attack the base, they barely survive, then Amelia finds Ismail again, he now says I’m a translator for a parallel world, we cut to another world that has giants.

If ever there was a script that embodied the phrase, “everything and the kitchen sink,” this would be it. It’s a jambalaya of cheap tricks, anything the writer could think of to keep the story scary. You can only use cheap tricks for so long. Audiences will give you one scary moment that turns out to be a nightmare. They won’t give you five.

Also, it’s not a good idea to build a story around everybody going insane. It encourages the writer to be sloppy. If you know you never have to explain anything cause you can always depend on the “it may have been a hallucination” explanation, you’re likely to keep going back to the well even though each subsequent use of it results in diminishing returns.

I mean, if all of this wackiness wasn’t enough, we finish off the script with a time machine. That’s not clever writing. That’s lazy writing. You want the rules of your world to be clear and easy to understand. If we’re still learning about the rules on the second to last page (now we can time jump!), your rules are not clear nor easy to understand.

Which is too bad because the script had potential. Like I said at the outset, this is a strong setup for a movie. I could even imagine War Face without the supernatural angle. Just the idea of a woman going into an all-male unit where someone’s missing and everyone’s been stuck there for 18 months is an exciting setup for a film. It’s still cool with the supernatural stuff, but this is exactly what I was complaining about in my Thursday article. Where so many writers go wrong is that they overcomplicate things. If you would’ve had a simpler story here, this could’ve been so much better.

Let’s finish off with some positives though. I loved the choice to use Korengal for a couple of reasons. One, it’s really hard to come up with places that audiences haven’t been to in movies. Movies have covered EVERYTHING. So I always applaud writers who can find a location that is both new and interesting.

Two, you want to come up with ideas that support superlatives. I love that Korengal is considered “the most dangerous place on earth.” That’s the kind of thing that makes a logline pop. Imagine if this story instead took place in “an extremely inhospitable place.” Doesn’t have nearly the same level of gravity to it does it? You want words like “most,” “worst,” “biggest,” “most devastating.” Movies are about extremes. Play to that.

Finally, I liked the choice to focus this around a female lead. Writers have been changing their leads to females over the last three years for no other reason than they hope it improves their chances of selling the script. Here, going with a female lead actually makes the script better. If this is a male soldier going into an all-male outpost, it’s a completely different movie, and not as interesting, in my opinion.

So there’s still stuff to celebrate about War Face. But once you get into that place where every scene could be a character’s imagination, all the stakes go out the window.

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

What I learned: I’m going to teach you a trick. Writers like to use phone calls to family members early in a script to establish exposition or create sympathy. For example, if you want to show that your character loves his kid but the conditions of the story don’t allow you to write a scene where they’re together, you might have him call and talk to his kid briefly. Here’s my tip. ALWAYS PUT A TIME LIMIT ON THESE PHONE CONVERSATIONS. It takes what is, essentially, an unimportant scene that doesn’t move the story forward, and gives it some dramatic tension in order to make it a little more entertaining. Wanting to talk to your kid but not having enough time is always more entertaining than giving your characters as much time as they want. There’s a scene early on in War Face where Amelia calls her dad right before she leaves for her mission and it was the perfect opportunity to create a time-sensitive phone call. “Come on Amelia, chopper leaves in two minutes. Gotta move.” That would’ve juiced up this phone call quite a bit. Instead, it’s a normal phone call with all the time in the world. Therefore, it’s boring. And it outs itself as a scene only meant to create sympathy for the protagonist.

FAMMMMMMMMMIIIIIIIIILLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!

Genre: Action
Premise: Dominic Toretto is pulled back into a life of crime one last time when he finds out that his long lost brother, Jakob, is attempting to construct a super-weapon.
About: The ninth installment of the Fast series is here! The film made 70 million dollars at the US box office this weekend, which tops the post-pandemic high of A Quiet Place 2 (50 million). These two films were obviously meant to be on a double-bill. For the first movie, you get nothing but silence and in the second movie, you get nothing but noise.
Writers: Daniel Casey, Justin Lin, story by Alfredo Botello, based on characters by Gary Scott Thompson
Details: 2 hours and 25 minutes

Something funny happened when I was figuring out where I was going to watch this movie.
Since all the theaters close by have closed down, I have to find random theaters to travel to each time I want to see a film.

Anyway, you know how you sometimes space out when you’re googling something and you’re not really thinking as you type? When I googled Fast 9 showings, I oddly received a Miriam Webster definition of the word “family.” It took me a few seconds to figure out what happened but I guess, subconsciously, in searching for Fast and Furious showings, I had inadvertently typed the word “family.”

In retrospect, I’m surprised Fast 9 doesn’t show up when you type “family.” I had a little running bet with myself on how many times the word would be used in the latest installment (my over/under guess was 100) and I lost count at 20. That was after two scenes (I’m kidding – sort of – because even though it wasn’t technically said that many times, I could tell the characters all wanted to say it that many times). My next contest should be you get to write once scene, three pages max, the only stipulation being that you have to use the word “family” in dialogue 100 times. I’m curious to see if it could be done.

In this latest installment of Fast and Furious, Dom and his wife, Letty, are living off the grid when they get a message that Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) crashed his plane in a remote forest. That plane was transporting a special device. If Dom doesn’t retrieve it, someone bad will.

So Dom reluctantly gets the band back together and off they go. At the plane, they retrieve one half of a black crystal ball type device. No sooner do they get it than a private military force that Dom will eventually learn is run by his long-lost brother, Jakob (John Cena), start chasing them.

After Jakob gets the half crystal ball, Dom chases him, but watches in shock as Jakob launches his car off a cliff and gets snatched up, Knight Rider style, by a really cool looking stealth jet. After regrouping, the team realizes that Mr. Nobody hid the other half of the crystal ball in a vault in Edinburgh, Scotland of all places. They have to get that other half before Jakob does!

After Jakob beats them to the second piece, an Edinburgh chase sequence ensues with Dom’s team riding in a big giant super-magnet truck. They use this truck to “suck” Jakob’s car through an entire section of the city, slurping the car up and into the back of their truck.

Things are looking great for Dom’s team. They even learn that Han, the eponymous Tokyo Drift character who supposedly died a few movies ago, is back and alive!!! Unfortunately, Jakob’s team of meanies bust him out and secure both halves of the magic ball. Only then do they learn that the magic ball, code-named ‘Ares’ because of course it is, can destroy the entire planet or something. So they’ll have to do everything they can to stop Jakob, possibly even go into space!!!!

Okay, I’ll hold on while you finish laughing.

Look, at this point, Fast and Furious exists in its own universe. You either launch your weirdo spaceship into that universe or you don’t. I hung on for the ride, no pun intended, because I think it’s funny. I get just as much joy out of the moments where Dominic Torreto is about to leave a discussion for the 50th time, only to stop, turn back, wait for his close-up, and deliver a line that inevitably includes the word “family,” as I do watching rocket cars shoot into space.

But if you’re comparing F9 to other F movies, it doesn’t rank high. It’s a little too slow and I’m going to explain why. But first, let’s talk about mcguffins.

A while back someone asked me to write an article about how to write Marvel movies since the biggest movies each year were inevitably franchise films with tons of characters, the exact opposite of what I preach for spec screenwriters (which is to focus on one great protagonist).

Maybe I wrote that article, maybe not. I don’t remember. But the answer to his question is mcguffins. The mcguffin is the thing that all the characters are after. You use mcguffins because a) it keeps all your characters active (they’re all pursuing the mcguffin) and b) it streamlines character goals. If you have six characters with six different things they have to achieve, that takes forever to setup and execute. But if you give them a mcguffin, then all six of them have a goal and it only takes a couple of minutes to set up.

However, in these really big movies, what you’ll see is that one mcguffin isn’t enough. So they do this thing where they split the mcguffin into two (or more) mcguffins. This allows them to do a couple of things. They can split the characters up into several groups so they all have something to do simultaneously. We saw this with the attempts to get the infinity stones in Avengers Infinity War. But it also allows you to give your characters a “win” mid-story and still have work to do. They’re able to get one half of the mcguffin (yay!) but they still have that other one out there.

I don’t love split-up mcguffins. They always feel video-gamey to me. By that I mean the only reason they seem to be split up is because the writers wanted more flexibility with the plot. But I get it. When you have this many characters, you don’t have much of a choice. I just like when split-up mcguffins are organic. A great example is Indiana Jones. You had to get the staff *AND* the medallion. That’s so much better than clumsily hacking an object in half and, for some unknown reason, putting the two halves on different sides of the planet.

It didn’t bother me that much but for those of you thinking of incorporating this device, try your hardest to choose mcguffins that are split organically. Don’t create a key and, for no reason whatsoever, have somebody chop it up into three pieces. It’s lazy!

One of the criticisms you’re going to hear coming out of this movie is that it’s too slow. But, to be honest, I don’t know how a movie like this *can’t* be slow. When you have this many characters you’re trying to keep track of, many of them with their own journeys, it’s almost impossible to keep the plot moving.

One of the brilliant things about John Wick is that where John Wick goes, the movie goes. So you can always keep things moving. But here, you’ve got Dom trying to figure out his life, his brother trying to figure out his, you got the wives who go off on a side quest, you’ve got Han, who’s introduced back into the mix. In the case of someone like Han, you can’t just plug-and-play that plot point. You’ve got to have the “explanation” scene of how he survived the previous film’s death. And it’s not just that. You’ve got to stop everyone’s story and get them all together so that Han can explain everything to them.

Every time you have to sit your characters down and talk through current plot points, you’re slowing your script down. Which is why you always want to keep your plot and characters moving. Fast and Furious has become so bloated with characters, each of whom are now required to have their “moments,” that it’s become very hard for the story to keep any momentum at all.

But let’s be real. You’re not coming to Fast and Furious movies to whine about whether a cafe scene was necessary or not. You’re here for the action set pieces. Specifically action set pieces THAT WE CAN’T SEE ANYWHERE ELSE. So if you get that right, all else is forgiven. Did they get it right?

I’m going to point to two action highlights for me. The first occurs in that early jungle sequence where Dom’s team of cars is trying to get away from the private army’s team of cars. Tej (Ludacris) realizes that they’re about to enter an old landmine site. I thought this was a really clever idea. Basically, you take one of the most famous movie scenes ever – Han Solo trying to escape from Darth Vader by flying into an asteroid field, and bring it into a car-chase.

They didn’t stop there. They added a cool rule, which was that, taking into consideration the half-second of lag before these landmines explode and the expected blast radius, that the cars had to be going at least 80 miles an hour or else hitting a landmine would blow them up. This was not easy to do when you’re driving on grassy lumpy terrain. Also, Roman (Tyrese Gibson) is driving a large armored car that only goes up to 70 mph. So he’s just going to have to hope that he doesn’t hit any landmines. This whole sequence was clever.

Another set piece I liked was the one in Edinburgh. Due to the chaos of the situation, Ramsey, their computer expert, is forced to drive. There’s only one problem: SHE CAN’T DRIVE. She never even got her license. But they have to stop Jakob and she’s the only one near a car right now. This is a great way to take a basic setup and make it fresh. If Dom is driving this car, it’s one of 100 Fast and Furious Dom car chase scenes. We’ve seen it already. With Ramsey, it’s a completely new experience. She’s a disaster at the wheel but she’s their only shot so she does her best. It added a fun spin to a mid-movie set piece.

With that said, something was missing here. Movies are weird. Each one of them has a certain energy to it. And when a movie is really cooking, it’s usually because everyone’s on that same elevated wavelength. We’ve seen that in this franchise before. Fast 7, with James Wan directing, had that special extra gear to all the action. But everybody here looked a little bored. Which I suppose is one of the challenges of trying to draw a franchise out this long. Inevitably, you get to a point where it’s hard to get excited that you’re doing yet another version of what you’ve already done.

It was still fun going back to the movies. So I had a good time. But they need something more than John Cena to jolt this franchise for the next film. John Cena was fine. But I think we all know where Fast and Furious needs to go to keep this franchise on top. And that is Mars.

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

What I learned: I really really really really really believe you should think twice about putting any characters in chairs talking to each other in an action movie. Some of you might say, “you have to slow down sometimes,” and that’s true. But there are other ways to do it. Say Ramsey and Tej have to infiltrate an upscale party to find a villain. You might put them on the dance floor together while they covertly scan the party to see if their villain is present. During that time, you can also include some exposition. You can give the audience a “slow” moment and still keep some tension to the scene as well as keep the momentum of the story going.

One of the struggles of being a screenwriter is trying to decode the matrix that is the feature length screenplay. If you could master all the individual pieces and put them together like so, you’d be living the dream – making a living off screenwriting. But decoding the matrix is a lot harder than it looks on the surface. There are an untold number of variables that need to come together in just the right way for a screenplay to work.

One of things I’ve found helpful is identifying what your CORE SCREENWRITING PHILOSOPHY is. What this allows you to do is measure any script you’ve written against that philosophy to see where you’re making mistakes. If your philosophy is A, B, and C and your script is B H and Q, you know you have to replace H and Q with A and C.

Conversely, if you’re just winging it – if you’re just making up new rules with every screenplay you write – you can expect a lot of failure because you’re always in uncharted territory. So what I thought I’d do today is share my screenwriting philosophy. Ironically, I didn’t have this philosophy as a writer. I formulated it once I started consulting because I realized that 90% of writers were making the same mistakes. Namely, they were making their screenplays way too complicated in one area or another.

So what is my philosophy?

Simple story, complex characters.

Yeah yeah, I know. Not revolutionary. I believe this is Pixar’s philosophy and a few other screenwriting professors out there. But I adopted it because it works.

Let’s talk about this in more detail. What do I mean by “simple story?” A simple story is a story with an easy-to-follow plot. Some movies that you may be familiar with that follow this formula: A Quiet Place, Nobody, 1917, The Invisible Man, Parasite, Uncut Gems, Aliens, Good Boys, Lion.

In every single one of these films, a clear story is laid out. A Quiet Place – survive an onslaught of aliens. Nobody – take out a drug lord. 1917 – deliver a message. The Invisible Man – survive, and ultimately defeat, the ghost of a dead husband. Parasite – a poor family tries to take over a rich family’s home. Uncut Gems – A man has to make enough money on betting in a single day to pay off his debtors. Aliens – Go and kill all the aliens. Good Boys – Retrieve an expensive drone. Lion – A grown man tries to find his parents.

We are never confused about anything that’s happening in these stories because they KEEP THEIR PLOTS SIMPLE. Now let’s look at a few films that didn’t follow this rule: Tenet, Cloud Atlas, Glass, Ready Player One, Wonder Woman 1984, Alien Covenant. Note how all of these films fell apart halfway through their viewing, if not sooner, for believing that MORE STORY COMPLEXITY was better.

What was driving the story in Cloud Atlas? Who knows? There were too many characters and too many timelines to keep track of. What was going on in Tenet? I don’t know. There were a thousand different rules, many of which seemed to contradict each other. The script also had too many “guy behind the guy behind the guy” moments. Glass? There was literally no point to that movie other than to see three people with “sort-of” powers being kept in a mental ward. Ready Player One – More like Ready Player What The Hell Is Going On There’s Way Too Much Plot In This Movie. Wonder Woman 1984 – We don’t even have to get to how disastrous the plot was with WW1984 as it couldn’t even decide what genre it was (Romantic Comedy? Action Superhero?). Alien Covenant – Probably the best example since you can compare it to one of the best action sci-fi films ever, Aliens. Aliens = go kill the aliens. Alien Covenant = Go to a planet, look for source of distress call, find a few aliens, learn there used to be a civilization here, a robot meets a version of himself, they hang out, the people try to figure out whether to leave or stay?

Simple story, guys. Adapt that mindset and it’s going to make your screenwriting life A WHOLE LOT EASIER.

On to the second half of the equation – complex characters.

Why does the story have to be simple but the characters complex? Why not the other way around? Because there’s nothing more frustrating than watching a film where you don’t know what’s going on. You don’t have to worry about that as much on the character end. Sure, you can overload a character to the point where we lose our feel for them. But audiences like characters who have depth, who are interesting, who are dynamic.

Which brings us to “what is a complex character?”

A complex character is any character that is experiencing conflict both internally and externally. The external part is a given. That’s what the movie is for – to put a bunch of stress on your hero (aliens trying to kill Ripley, for example). But you can add more than just concept conflict. You can add conflict from other characters.

In a lot of movies, you’ll see broken family relationships as an issue. An absent father. A married couple who separates. Sibling rivalry. A deceased family member. Any element of external stress you place on your character makes them more “complex.” Peter Quill (Guardians of the Galaxy) lost his mother. That loss defines almost everything about him. This is even more true for one of the most famous characters of all time, Bruce Wayne. The loss of a parents birthed one of the most powerful characters ever.

The trick with broken family relationships is that there has to be some authenticity to the way you write them. If all you’re doing is creating a “daddy didn’t hug me enough” character because people like me told you to, it won’t work. You need to dig into your own life and expose some of your own family experiences to make that feel honest. And if you didn’t have those experiences yourself, draw on your friends’ experiences. If you just try to make it up out of whole cloth, it won’t work.

Once you’ve got the external taken care of, you want to move to the internal. This is an area where a lot of writers get it wrong because it can be confusing. Some people say give your character a fatal flaw. Others say give your character some “inner conflict.” Others say give your character a “vice,” like alcohol or sex addiction. A lot of writers don’t know the difference between these things and they don’t know if you’re only supposed to use one, two, or all of them.

Here’s the way I look at it. Your character should be going through at least one INTERNAL STRUGGLE. That struggle can be a flaw. That struggle can be some sort of inner conflict. That struggle can be addiction. Take your pick. The important thing is that there is a struggle. Because struggle tends to be the thing that makes characters interesting.

One of the reasons Michael Corleone (The Godfather) is considered one of the best characters ever is because his internal struggle is so intense. Does he continue to live a good honest life or does he submit to a life of crime in the family business? More recently, you have a character like Wade Wilson (Deadpool). His internal struggle is the inability to be with the woman he loves because he looks like a monster. That’s the baggage he carries throughout that story (and the baggage he eventually overcomes).

You can go with traditional fatal flaws as well. A flaw is just an internal belief system that is holding your character back in life. A “fear that you are not enough” is a flaw. Being stubborn is a flaw. Being too prideful is a flaw. Thinking that the world is against you is a flaw. Always putting yourself before others (selfishness) is a flaw. Always putting others before yourself (selflessness) is a flaw. Keep in mind movies are about taking these internal belief systems (or flaws) to the extreme. It’s okay to put yourself first. But if you’re doing it to the point where it’s destroyed all of the relationships in your life, then it’s a serious flaw that needs fixing.

What happens when you have too simple of a character? Go watch Dunkirk. A technical masterpiece. But do you feel anything during that movie? Very little. Because there was zero complexity to any of the characters.

I’m already anticipating that some of you are going to bring up films like Avengers. Or Fast and Furious. Or Star Wars. “Those stories,” you will say, “are anything but simple. So why do they get passes?” I agree with this assessment to a point. With so many characters to keep track of, it’s impossible for the story not to get complex. However, here’s the thing that those movies do that keep them on track. They tell you the goal IN BIG BRIGHT LIGHTS. And then, fifteen minutes later THEY TELL YOU AGAIN. Fifteen minutes later, THEY REMIND YOU OF THE GOAL. Fifteen minutes later, HEY! REMEMBER THE GOAL! HERE IT IS AGAIN!!!” In other words, they know their story is complex so they go out of their way to remind you what’s going on. And they often choose plot points that are easy to understand. For all the craziness going on the final two Avengers movies, we’re never lost because the goal – STOP THANOS!!!!!! – is so clear. So if you are writing a movie that has some intricate plotting, keep that in mind. You want to keep reminding the reader what the point is.

As I wrap this up, I’ll remind you that this is my screenwriting philosophy. It doesn’t have to be yours. But you should have one. Or you should be in the process of figuring out what your philosophy is. That way, whenever one of your scripts goes haywire, you’ll know how to get it back on track.

So I ask you, what’s your screenwriting philosophy?

“Cosmic Sunday, wake up in the late afternoon! Call Parnell, to see what he’s doin…!”

Genre: Sci-Fi/Time Loop/Comedy
Premise: 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.
About: This is MacMillan Hedges’ second time on the Black List. The first was for “The Searchers,” an exploration of John Wayne and John Ford’s unique relationship on the set of the famous film.
Writer: MacMillan Hedges
Details: 110 pages

This feels very much to me like a Jason Sudekis movie.

Yesterday I announced the countdown to Sci-Fi Showdown. What better way to blast things off than with a sci-fi script? That is, of course, if you consider loop movies “science-fiction.” I know some of you out there are getting bored of loop scripts. Dare I ask you this then. Are you bored of roller coasters? Cause they have loops. And last time I checked there are plenty of them still delivering thrills and chills around the globe. “Bored of loops.” How dare you.

29 year old Bill Button wakes up in his parents’ house for Thanksgiving, walks downstairs, punches his Uncle, then goes to work, one of those stale glass office buildings with between 5-15 floors.

Co-workers tell Bill they heard all about his wild day yesterday, where he drove a bus full of children off a ledge to their fiery death. We’re not quite sure what’s going on yet but a picture is starting to form.

Bill, along with everybody else in this office, is part of a group called the AWAKES. They’ve been stuck in a time loop for 74 years. There are also people – people who live all around them – called STUCKS. The Stucks are unaware that they are also in a time loop.

I think an entire 1/12th of the world is AWAKES. More on that later.

Bill is trying to make it through each day without killing himself. Except for Sunday. Sunday, or “Cosmic Sunday” as its known to Awakes, is the day of the week where you’re encouraged to do anything you want – kind of like a “Loop Purge.” According to upper management at Bill’s work, Cosmic Sunday keeps you sane.

On a typical Sunday, for example, Bill will lace himself up with C-4 explosives, head over to the local Six Flags, stand in front of the ferris wheel, then blow himself up. Why Bill gets so much joy out of killing himself in front of children is anyone’s guess. But as he points out to a concerned upper management office worker – “What does it matter? They’re all going to forget by tomorrow.”

One day downtown Bill spots a raving madman screaming that there’s a way out of the loop. Bill can finally become a “Stuck” again. That is, assuming, that the guy is telling the truth. Which is anything but a guarantee considering everyone in this reality is going insane (if they haven’t done so already). Will Bill get out? Does he really want to get out? Or has the loop become the only way he can exist?

When they first wrote Groundhog Day, it was originally supposed to start in the middle of the loop. But after reading that version, producers decided it was too confusing and it would be better to start the loop at the same time as the main character.

Since then, audiences have become more familiar with time loop movies, a shorthand has developed, and therefore it is more acceptable for loop films to start mid-loop. We saw this most prominently with Palm Springs, where we started thousands of years into the loop.

Cosmic Sunday, however, shows you why those original Groundhog Day producers were so concerned. When you’re thrown into a loop, you’re not sure what’s going on. And if the loop ruleset is complicated, you’re REALLY not sure what’s going on. The big difference between Cosmic Sunday and Palm Springs is that Palm Springs only needed to keep track of two people. Cosmic Sunday needs to keep track of 1/12th of the world’s population.

I think.

The fact that I don’t know for sure is evidence that this script is way too complicated. I originally thought that only the people who lived in Saratoga Spring were stuck in the loop. But then I noticed there were plenty of people in Saratoga Springs who weren’t stuck in the loop.

So I thought, hmm, okay, maybe these are people who live outside Saratoga Springs but who are visiting Saratoga Springs for the day. Hence, while they’re not affected by the loop, they are around people who are. But then halfway through the script, we get this semi-vague line about how 1/12th of the world’s population is stuck in the loop. Which means about 750 million people throughout the world are having to pretend to not be stuck in a loop.

Just trying to work that out mentally hurts my head.

There’s a bigger note here about science-fiction rules that everyone planning to submit to Sci-Fi Showdown needs to keep in mind. You need the rules of your science-fiction story to be clear. If they’re not, the reader will always be reading your story through a foggy haze. They’ll only understand about 75% of what you’re putting down. And for anyone who’s watched a messy movie, you know how that feels. You *kind of* understand what’s going on. But not really.

It’s basically the difference between The Matrix (clear rules) and The Matrix Revolutions (messy rules).

Even the labels in Cosmic Sunday don’t make sense. The people who know they’re in the loop are referred to as “AWAKES” and the people who don’t know they’re in the loop are referred to as “STUCKS.” But shouldn’t it be the opposite? The people who know they’re in the loop are the ones who are “STUCK” in a loop. It just feels like we could’ve come up with a better working vocabulary.

And I still can’t wrap my head around 1/12 of the world’s population secretly hiding from the rest of the world that they’re in a loop. There seem to be laws that force you to keep the loop a secret from the Stucks. Except for on Sundays, when you can drive a bus full of children off a ledge and into a fiery death. If the non-loopers are going to forget everything tomorrow, then why not do whatever you want every day? Someone actually asks this question in the script and we get a shaky answer. Something about how loopers will stop finding meaning in life if they do that.

I guess that kinda makes sense but… again… only kinda.

This is not to say I don’t think the writer thought hard about the rules of his universe. There are plenty of examples where you can tell he has a solid understanding of what living in this bizarro universe is like. When two “AWAKES” go out on a date, for example, it isn’t a normal date. It’s the craziest date ever. In one instance, Bill and his date reenact the Honey bunny diner scene from Pulp Fiction, shooting several people dead in the process. That brazen recklessness makes sense to me considering the circumstances.

But I think Hedges bit off more than he could chew. No matter how much you try to understand the rules governing this world, there are way more questions than answers. For example, presumably, the people “STUCKS” kill on one of those dates – their families and friends move on to the next day. Therefore, those families and friends are living the rest of their lives mourning the loss of a family member to a brutal diner murder. Why is that okay for AWAKES to do then? Ditto the mothers and fathers of those kids who died on the school bus.

Hedges would’ve had an easier time if he’d limited the loop to this one town of Saratoga Springs. But I give him props for finding a loop concept that hasn’t been done before. Cosmic Sunday is definitely different from every other loop script out there and if you’re looking to read something different, check it out.

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

What I learned: “It’s” always equals “It is.” The only time you ever use “let’s” is when you’re saying “let us.” For everything else, use “lets.” “Who’s” equals “who is” or “who has.” For everything else, use “whose.” “You’re” always equals “You are.” For everything else, use “Your.” If the word that follows “a” starts with a vowel, you change it to “an.”