I hope you don’t think you’re going to learn a lot about dialogue in this article. Dialogue is a constant battle for me. It’s something I don’t totally understand. The reason for this is that dialogue is the one aspect of screenwriting you can’t truly “break down.” You can’t divide dialogue into three acts. You can’t add a character arc to dialogue. You can’t give dialogue backstory. You simply write down the voices in your head. And while some people have interesting voices to draw from, others don’t.

The funny thing is, dialogue looks so damn easy from afar! In fact, it’s why most people get into screenwriting. They think, “I can write better dialogue than THAT!” So they dive in, write up 120 usually autobiographical pages (likely the crazy adventures of them and their friends – “Our life is just like a movie!!!”), show it to their inner circle, get a bunch of polite but suspiciously distant “I liked its” punctuated by one brave soul who’s willing to say what everybody’s thinking: “I don’t get it. It’s just a bunch of people talking.”

Ohhhh. You learn your first lesson. Dialogue actually has to have a POINT! It actually has to move the story forward. Why didn’t somebody tell me? Quentin Tarantino has ten minute scenes about Royals with Cheese. Why can’t I do that? Because you’re not Quentin Tarantino. You’re you. And “you” has to learn that within every scene of dialogue, there must be a purpose. In fact, you should be doing SEVERAL things with your dialogue at once. And that’s where we learn just how difficult dialogue is. Sure, if all you had to do was have characters talk, dialogue would be easy. Instead, there are five main things that need to be accomplished whenever characters speak. Let’s take a look at them.

MOVE THE STORY FORWARD – Every scene should have a point. It should be moving the plot along in some way. If a problem is introduced into your story and a scene goes by without the characters attempting to address that problem, guess what? You’re not moving your story forward. So when your characters are talking, make sure the majority of what they say centers around pushing their own goals and needs along. You do that, you’ll be pushing the story forward. If no one wants anything? If characters just talk about life and stuff? Your dialogue isn’t doing its job.

REVEAL CHARACTER – You want to use your dialogue to tell us more about your characters. Screenplays are short. They’re not like TV shows where you have hundreds of hours to delve into a character’s life. Therefore you have to sneak character development in wherever you can. Dialogue certainly isn’t the only way to do this, but it’s one way. If a character says he just spent three hours at the gym, that tells us he’s a workout freak. If a character always talks about his ex-girlfriend, that tells us he’s not over his ex-girlfriend. One of the big ways to reveal character through dialogue is to identify your character’s fatal flaw and keep hitting on it throughout the script. Look at Rocky. Here’s a character who doesn’t fully believe in himself. So we get a scene where he expresses fear at the idea of fighting Apollo. We get a scene where he nervously flirts with Adrian. We get a scene where Mick tells him he’s a bum. The dialogue is constantly reminding us that Rocky doesn’t believe in himself yet, which is a key part of his character.

EXPOSITION – Exposition is the worst. It’s hard enough to make dialogue sound good on its own. Now we have to waste it on logistical story elements every 8 minutes? It’s like trying to pick up a girl and then her disapproving friend walks up. The words just don’t come out as easily. This is why the trick with exposition is to simplify what you need to say and convey it in as few words as possible. Exposition is always going to trip up your dialogue a LITTLE bit. But at least this way you minimize the damage.

KEEP IT UNDER 2 PAGES – To me, this is one of the hardest things about dialogue. If we had 5-6 pages for every conversation, dialogue would be as easy as accusing Justin Bieber of fathering your baby (baby baby ohhhhh…). But the average film scene is 2 minutes long. 2 MINUTES! That’s only 2 pages for your characters to say everything they gotta say. This is why new writers hear this critique so much: “Cut cut cut cut cut.” You gotta cut everything down to its bare essence because you don’t have time in your scene to include all the bullshit. Sure, some scenes are longer than others.  A five minute dialogue scene is not unheard of.  But it’s still rare.  Which means learning how to scrunch all your dialogue into a very small space. 

ENTERTAIN – This is the scariest part of all when it comes to dialogue. After you do all that stuff – the story, the exposition, the characters, the minimizing – the dialogue still has to entertain us! It still has to sound like two people talking in real life, even though in real life, every one of these conversations would probably go on for more than an hour! That means going back, smoothing it all out, editing it, rearranging it, adding a joke or two, and continuously asking yourself, “Does this sound like two people really talking?” Until the answer is “Yes,” keep rewriting it.

Now that we know the stipulations working against us for writing brilliant dialogue, let’s talk about the tools you can use to fight these inhibitors. I don’t have all the answers. I fight against dialogue every day. That said, I know these five tools help improve dialogue.

COME IN LATE, LEAVE EARLY
This was mentioned in the comments the other day and it’s a great tip – especially for beginners. Come into your scene as late as possible and leave your scene as early as possible. In other words, only give us the meat of the scene. Not the fat. Say your characters are meeting at a coffee shop. Tom is getting the coffee while Sarah waits at the table. Tom says, “What do you want again!?” “A double mocha decaf!” “Large?!” “Uhh, yeah, large!” Tom waits, grabs the coffees, walks over, sits down, a moment for the two to get settled, they ease into a conversation…and then SOMEWHERE around here they actually start talking about the story. UHHHHHHH…NO! Why the hell would you include all that irrelevant nonsense?? Start with them ALREADY AT THE TABLE WITH THEIR COFFEES. Catch them five minutes into their conversation, right when they’re talking about the important stuff. That’s what I mean by “Come in late.” Then, as soon as you’ve met the point of your scene, get out. Once Obi-Wan and Luke agree on a transport fee with Han in the Cantina scene, they don’t sit around for another five minutes chatting about the weather on Kashyyyk. We cut away. Now obviously there’s some flexibility in this rule. Sometimes you want William Wallace to take his time riding through the village, building up the suspense, before he BEATS DOWN the English. But for the most part, coming in late and getting out early will keep your dialogue focused and on point. You won’t write a bunch of boring shit if you only include the meat.

SET-UP
The best dialogue scenes are set up ahead of time by carefully building up your character’s goals, secrets, motivations, etc. You then place them in a scene (preferably with something at stake), and watch the dialogue write itself. For example, Joe and Jane talking about their friend’s wedding is boring. But if we find out beforehand that Jane plans to kill Joe in this scene, talking about that wedding becomes a lot more interesting. Paul meeting his potential father-in-law is mildly entertaining. But if Paul’s girlfriend tells him beforehand that she’ll never marry someone her father doesn’t approve of, now Paul meeting his father-in-law is SUPER entertaining. Watching Mick beg Rocky to be his coach is a strong scene no matter where it is in the film. But the reason it’s a classic is because we watched Mick kick Rock out of his gym and tell him he didn’t believe in him earlier. So if a scene isn’t working, go back in your script and see if you can set it up better. Once you find the right situation, the dialogue will write itself.

SUBTEXT/DRAMATIC IRONY
This is one of the best ways to improve your dialogue. Give one character a secret. Give both characters a secret. Or tell the audience something the characters don’t know. If you do any of these things, you’ll create subtext, unspoken words beneath the text. If we know that Frank plans to break up with JoJo, then anything they talk about before the break-up will have subtext. If Julie secretly likes Tom and the two accidentally get stuck in the bathroom at a party, anything they talk about (Math class, bird watching, dinosaurs) will have subtext. There are other ways to achieve subtext (which you guys are free to highlight in the comments section) but this approach tends to create the most powerful dialogue situations.

STAY AWAY FROM ON THE NOSE
When we first write dialogue for a scene, we often think literally. If a character asks, “Are you thirsty?” We might have the other character respond, “Yes. Could you get me some water?” That’s a very literal on-the-nose response. Most people talk in and around what they’re trying to say instead of saying exactly what they’re thinking. They use slang, sarcasm, manipulation, indifference, caution – any number of things – to keep the conversation off-center. Rarely does dialogue go down a straight path. So let’s ask that question again. “Are you thirsty?” A more interesting response might be, “No, my lips always dry up and bleed like this.” Your characters are not robots. Nobody speaks literally. So make sure you’re mucking up the dialogue and that no one is speaking on-the-nose.

KNOW YOUR FUCKING CHARACTERS (KYFC)
Writers hate doing character biographies because it takes so much damn time, but holy hell does it work. Why? Because the more you know about your character, the more specific you can make their dialogue. Bad dialogue is usually general – vague, non-specific. Rick comes home late one night and spots his roommate, Jed, on the couch. “What’s up man?” “Not much. How’d your day go?” “Shitty. I’m exhausted.” This is the most general boring conversation EVER. Let’s say I did some character biographies ahead of time though and found out that Rick is an aspiring actor and Jed is a compulsive gambler. Let’s try this again. (Rick stumbles in) “I’ve got two words: Fuck Stanislofsky.” “I need to borrow money.” Rick gives Jed a look. Jed: “What?? How was I supposed to know Vick would tear his MCL.” “I’m not giving you any more money.” “Come on. The Raiders are a sure thing.” It ain’t going to win any Academy awards but it’s certainly better than “How’d your day go?” Why? Because it’s SPECIFIC. It reveals character. It has the people in the scene saying things only they would say. Do your homework on your characters. I promise it will pay off.

And that’s all I got my friends. I know it’s not the end all article on dialogue but the truth is I don’t know everything about dialogue. Which is why I’m turning to you. Please. I want to learn. Tell me how YOU approach this aspect of screenwriting. What tips and tricks help you? This is the least defined area of screenwriting. Let’s try and crack it.

Genre: Thriller
Premise: Based on a true story, a local detective reluctantly accepts the case of the most notorious serial killer in Alaska’s history.
About: Scott Walker is from New Zealand. He made a big splash a few weeks back when he signed with WME as a writer/director/producer. Agencies seemed hot on him but I’m not sure what generated all that heat. Is he a commercial director? Did he direct a hot short? I’m not sure. But this is the project he wants to break in with. It will star John Cusack, Nicholas Cage, and Vanessa Hudgens.
Writer: Scott Walker
Details: 120 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

This is a great week here at Scriptshadow. We have three awesome scripts. Unfortunately, this is not one of them. I really wanted to like this. When I read the synopsis on Deadline it sounded great: “[Frozen Ground is about] the hunt for Alaska’s most notorious serial predator, Robert Hansen. John Cusack is playing Hansen, regarded in the community as a respected family man but who, in the span of 12 years, abducted more than 24 women, flew them into the Alaskan wilderness and hunted and murdered them.”

Exciting right? Um, well, yeah…IF that was what the script was about. But that is definitely not the script I read. If you forced me to come up with a real synopsis, it would look more like this: “An apathetic cop occasionally wanders around Anchorage, bumping into a troubled annoying girl who doesn’t want anything to do with him.” That’s a way more accurate breakdown of this screenplay. Read on at your own peril.

It’s 1983 in Anchorage Alaska. A local teenage hooker, Cindy Paulson, runs into a hotel screaming that she’s been assaulted. But since she’s a hooker, the cops don’t pay her much mind, letting her go and forgetting the whole thing.

Soonafter, police dig up the body of a young woman in the wilderness. The people of Anchorage aren’t happy. This apparently isn’t the first female body that’s been found. Somebody is out there abducting women, and they want the police to do something about it. But the police shrug it off, pointing out that most of the missing women are hookers or runaways and probably ran off on their own. The town is getting frustrated. They want the police to admit something’s wrong.

However when another girl is killed, the police have no choice but to act, and bring in Glenn Flothe, a hotshot detective. Unfortunately, Flothe isn’t interested in the case. He’s hanging up his spurs (or transferring, or something – it’s not clear) and the last thing he needs is a serial killer case because those things take, like, a long time n’ stuff.

But the chief strong-arms him into it and he reluctantly starts digging. Eventually he figures out that Cindy (the teenage hooker) was assaulted by this killer – which makes her the only victim that got away. So he starts following her around, getting to know the hooker lifestyle, since that’s the pool the killer’s drawing his victims from. Why a supposedly accomplished detective doesn’t know how the hooker trade works is beyond me. I’d think you’d run into a lot of hookers if you investigated murders for a living.

When we’re not with Flothe and Cindy, we’re with Hansen, our killer, who it turns out is living a double life. He’s got a picture perfect family in the suburbs and he’s got a secret cabin in the wilderness where he keeps these girls before setting them free in the forest and hunting them. Although I don’t remember much hunting to be honest. I remember one girl got away accidentally and he shot her before she got to the fourth tree. But I don’t remember any specific hunting. Of course by the time I’d made it to page 60, my head was about to explode due to all of the confusing long descriptive paragraphs, so I may have missed it.

So how is Frozen Ground?

My guess is that Scott spends a lot more time in the directing world than the screenwriting world because if you were to put this side-by-side with an amateur script, I’m not sure you’d be able to tell the difference. The character count is way too high. The paragraphs are long and complicated to get through. And there were just an endless amount of clichés. There isn’t a single choice in this movie we haven’t seen in the serial killer genre before.

We have a serial killer who kills young women. He’s currently keeping a young woman captive. We have a detective who’s about to quit/move/retire (it wasn’t clear which). I’m okay with using SOME clichés in a movie because it’s impossible to avoid all of them. But when every single choice is unoriginal, it’s hard to muster up any interest in the story.

Then you have the main character, Flothe. There is absolutely nothing interesting or memorable about this character. He might as well be invisible. He has no distinctive traits, no memorable qualities, no meaningful relationships, nothing to give us a sense of who he is. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a character this plain. The only purpose he seems to serve is to move the plot forward. There isn’t an ounce of depth or exploration in him at all. It’s fascinating in a way. I’m not sure someone could come up with a character this unremarkable if they tried.

There is no urgency to the story. For a while, Hansen has a girl at his place. So there’s a momentary shred of urgency in her storyline. But it’s never played up. It’s never pushed upon. Then, (spoiler) midway through the script, Hansen kills her, which leaves no reason for Flothe to hurry up and find this guy. That’s one of the reasons Silence Of The Lambs worked so well. They needed to get to Buffalo Bill before he killed this woman. If there’s no one to save, where’s the drive? What’s pushing the story forward? The story fell off a cliff after that happened.

I wish I could say something good about this script. I suppose the goal is clear. That they have to find the killer. But even that seems neutered for some reason. We just don’t care about Flothe. There’s nothing about him you can latch onto, you can root for. In Lambs, one of the reasons we were so attached to Clarice Starling’s plight was that she was the underdog. Nobody believed in her. Women don’t usually make it in a job like this. Every minute of that movie, she had to prove herself, and we felt that struggle as she chased Buffalo Bill. Here, Flothe goes after the killer, just because. Ho-hum. It’s his job so why not? He doesn’t even WANT to go after the killer. He’s forced into it. This is why I always say, make sure your hero DESPERATELY WANTS to achieve his goal. If he doesn’t, why do we care if he succeeds or not?

Look, this might be a really early draft. But pretty much everything needs to be changed in this script. We need a main character with more depth. We need a main character who cares. We need urgency. We need more clarity in the storyline. We can’t have so much needless wandering around by the characters. The bad guy needs to do something more interesting than simply holding a girl captive, which we’ve seen 8 billion times in these movies. I couldn’t get onboard with anything here. This script wasn’t for me.

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

What I learned: One of the reasons this is such a pedestrian treatment of the serial killer genre is because our main character has so little at stake. What does Flothe personally gain if he solves this case? Nothing. He didn’t want the case in the first place. What does he lose if he doesn’t solve it? Nothing. He gets to get the hell out of here like he wanted to all along. There’s no immediate threat from the killer either. He probably won’t strike for another 6 months. You can also ensure your safety as a woman by not being a hooker. Just don’t go sell yourself for money and you’re safe. So there’s no threat to the general public. There wasn’t nearly enough at stake here for any of the parties involved for me to care.

Genre: Drama/Sports/Thriller
Premise: Based on a true story, Olympic Gold Medal wrestler Mark Schultz accepts an invitation to train at the facilities of a reclusive wrestling fanatic. What starts out as a dream opportunity slowly turns into a nightmare.
About: Steve Carell is starring in this one with Channing Tatum. Bennet Miller, the director of Moneyball and Capote, will direct. For those of you who don’t know, Miller was one of the very first directors (maybe the first?) to accept the digital medium, shooting his first film on digital tape. The film, The Cruise, was a small documentary, but a fun little film that followed around a semi-crazy tour guide in New York City. Definitely worth a rental if you can find it. Today’s writing pair is an out of left field duo, particularly for a high profile release. E. Max Frye hasn’t written anything since 2003, when he knocked off a TV movie titled, “Second Nature.” And Dan Futterman is known more for his acting than his writing, appearing in TV shows Judging Amy, Will and Grace, and Sex and The City (although he did write Miller’s “Capote.”) I also noticed that Futterman starred in one of my favorite spec screenplay success stories, “When Trumpets Fade.”
Writers: E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman (story by E. Max Frye, Dan Futterman and Bennet Miller)
Details: July 1, 2008 draft – 124 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).

In case you weren’t aware, Scriptshadow is the unofficial all things Channing Tatum website! Pretty soon you’ll be able to buy Channing Tatum dolls, unwashed Channing Tatum T-shirts (complete with sweat stains), and clay molds of Channing Tatum’s abs. I’m having a clearance on Robert Pattinson Chia Pets by the way. Only $7.99 with shipping.

27 year old Mark Schultz is a world champion wrestler who won a gold medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic games. Mark is an intense no-nonsense guy. Even though he’s achieved what 99.99999% of the world could only dream of, he’s already set on his next goal, winning gold at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.

The thing is, being a world champion wrestler – even the best wrestler in the world – doesn’t pay a lot. In fact, Mark makes $5000 a year as an assistant coach at the University of Wisconsin. He works under his brother, 31 year old Dave Schultz, who also won a gold medal at Los Angeles.

Dave is the more popular of the two brothers. No matter what Mark does, it’s always Dave who gets the spotlight. It doesn’t bother Mark much. He loves his brother more than anything. But it would be nice if people would acknowledge him every once in awhile. He did, you know, win a gold medal too.

After Mark’s let go due to budget cuts, he’s tasked with figuring out how to train with no income. Out of desperation, he puts together a lazily edited set of training tapes but he may as well be trying to sell Kim Khardashian-Kris Humpries T-shirts. Nobody’s buying.

Then, out of nowhere, he gets a call from a man claiming to represent John Du Pont. Du Pont’s family is extraordinarily rich and owns a huge piece of land known as Foxcatcher Farms. Du Pont is a big wrestling fan and it’s come to his attention just how little money the U.S. wrestling team has to train. So he constructs his own facility and asks Mark to head it up. Anybody Mark recruits, he’ll pay them full salaries and living expenses!

Mark can’t believe his luck and the first thing he does is call his brother to join him. But Dave has a family and is wary about the invitation. The question he asks Mark will prove to be prophetic: “What does DuPont get out of it?”

When we meet Du Pont, we immediately sense something’s off about the guy. One moment he’s excited, the next reserved. Sometimes he’s obsessive, other times chummy. One day he wants to blend into the background, the next he wants to be the star. But all that matters to Mark is that Du Pont wants to win the gold as much as he does.

But as the months go by, Du Pont becomes more obsessive about the team. He starts participating in the practices, and names himself as one of the coaches – paying a hefty donation to the wrestling Federation for the privilege. It becomes even creepier when we find out Du Pont doesn’t do anything for a living. He’s never had a job. All of this money comes from his nearly dead senile mother.

Du Pont starts hounding Mark about his brother, Dave. Why hasn’t he recruited him yet? Why isn’t he out here with the team? What at first seems like a suggestion has become an obsession. Where the fuck is Dave?

Eventually, Du Pont makes Dave an offer he can’t refuse, and Mark finds out the truth. Du Pont was recruiting Dave a full two months before he called Mark. When Dave said no, Du Pont recruited Mark in hopes that he would convince his brother to come. This whole façade was just to get Dave here.

But Dave’s arrival doesn’t go as Du Pont expected. Dave and Mark become intensely close as they train, and Du Pont is sort of left out in the cold. Neither Dave nor Mark will give him the time of day. This doesn’t sit well with Du Pont, who decides to go to extreme measures to rectify the situation.

I don’t know what it was about this screenplay, but it got under my skin. Du Pont got under my skin. There was something so damn creepy about the guy. I really wish Channing Tatum wasn’t in this because if they found a worthy actor to play across from Carell, I think Carell could win an Oscar for this role. Du Pont is just a fascinating character.

I’ve already told you guys this but it bears repeating. Actors love playing characters like Du Pont. It allows them to flex their acting muscles. They get to play shy, aggressive, aloof, angry, sweet, passive-aggressive. Think about it, if you were an actor, wouldn’t you want to play that role as opposed to, say, a one-note character? Someone who’s just angry all the time? Or happy all the time? Actors love to be challenged. So write them a challenging role.

But what’s unique about Foxcatcher is that both lead characters are weird. Mark is also an odd duck who’s way too obsessed with wrestling, to the point where he has no love life, no real friends, no anything. I’m used to there being a “straight man” in a dynamic like this, but there is no straight man. That made each scene between the two fascinating. I was never quite sure what each character would do, what they would say. I’m used to scenes that all read the same. But that’s what was so cool about Foxcatcher. There was no “same.”

And there were just some really creepy sequences in this script. For example, Du Pont enters this over 50 wrestling tournament and starts training with the Olympians for it. Mark travels with him as his coach, and we see Du Pont wrestling these other men his age, but they’re clearly letting him win. That’s when we realize the entire tournament is a sham, paid for by Du Pont so he can win. Every single one of these wrestlers is being paid to lose to Du Pont. It’s just so odd and sad and unsettling.

Foxcatcher also has that train wreck thing going for it – sort of like yesterday’s screenplay. But you get the sense the wreck is going to be much bigger here, and it is. This is a true story so you can look up what happens for yourself. Foxcatcher is a strange exploration of mental illness and obsession that will stay with you for days. I actually had a dream about this screenplay after I read it, which never happens. That’s how big of an impact it left on me. Fascinating stuff.

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

What I learned: If possible, send your characters into a meal scene with an unsettled issue. Late in the screenplay, Du Pont slaps Mark in front of the entire team. He then disappears and Mark can’t get a hold of him for days. Mark is then invited to a big meal with some people Du Pont is trying to impress. All Mark wants to do is talk to Du Pont about what happened, but Du Pont wants nothing to do with it (conflict!). This adds all this tension and subtext to the dinner scene that would never be there if the two characters were hunky-dorey and happy with one another.

Genre: Drama/Love Story
Premise: A man is released from the mental hospital with his mind set on getting his wife back. He’ll unfortunately need the help of a woman as crazy as him.
About: This is perfect subject matter for David O. Russell, since it’s pretty well known he’s a bit nuts himself. Playbook’s been in the headlines a lot lately, first for having a female character that every actress in Hollywood wanted to play, and then because it broke up the long-time friendship/partnership between David O. Russell and Mark Wahlberg. Apparently, after The Fighter’s success (Wahlberg brought David on to direct when nobody else wanted anything to do with him), Mark just figured he’d automatically be cast in Playbook. Instead, Russell went with Bradley Cooper, and Mark was pissed. Next thing you know it’s Selena Gomez and Demi Lavato all over again. Or is it Samantha Ronson and Lindsey Lohan all over again? Oh I don’t know. I’ll check PerezHilton and get back to you.The film also stars Jennifer Lawrence, Julia Stiles, Chris Tucker and Robert De Niro.
Writer: David O Russell (based on the novel by Matthew Quick)
Details: 127 pages – 2008 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

It’s hard to talk about David O. Russell without mentioning all the controversy that follows him. This guy creates so much drama, you could throw him on the cast of Jersey Shore and the show wouldn’t skip a beat. I’ve been lukewarm to Russel’s work. I’ve always thought he was interesting, but there’s this consistent lack of focus in his storytelling that’s always bothered me. For example, Christian Bale’s character was so dominant in The Fighter that the whole boxing match at the end with Mark Wahlberg felt tacked on. To be honest, I’m still not sure who the main character was in that movie.

Well that’s about to change today. This is my favorite thing Russell has done by far. Just last week, in my review of Black, I talked about the need to exploit a genre and give it something new. This is the perfect example of that. It’s the most offbeat love story I’ve read in a long time.

30 -year-old Pat Peoples, a former high school substitute, has just gotten out of the mental hospital, and is moving back in with his parents. All he can think about is getting back together with his wife, Nikki. Unfortunately, the reason Pat got stuck in the hospital in the first place is because he mercilessly beat up the man who Nikki was cheating on him with.

What Pat didn’t realize was that the reason Nikki was cheating on him was because he’d given up on life. Now that Pat has been allowed back into the world, he’s decided to change. All he cares about is getting in the best shape possible and being as optimistic and positive as possible, so he can prove to Nikki he’s worthy of being hers again.

Pat’s brother eventually sets him up with Tiffany, who’s a piece of work herself. Her husband recently died, and she was so traumatized that she started having sex with every guy she worked with. Obviously, this became problematic for the company so they let her go. That means Tiffany’s living with her parents just like Pat! The blind date is a disaster. Pat’s disgusted by this woman, and when the night is over, he hopes to never see her again.

Unfortunately, when Pat goes jogging the next day, Tiffany joins him, staying a perfect 10 paces behind him. This leads to a hilarious conversation where Pat explains he wants nothing to do with her and Tiffany explains she wants nothing to do with him, yet they keep running exactly 10 paces from one another the entire time. This becomes a daily ritual between the two until Pat realizes that Tiffany, through a mutual friend, has access to his wife (who, it should be mentioned, has a restraining order against Pat).

Tiffany agrees to deliver a secret letter to Nikki if, and only if, Pat agrees to become her partner in a modern dance competition that takes place in three weeks. The last thing Pat wants to do is dance, but he realizes it’s the only way he’ll be able to communicate with his wife, so he agrees to it. These two oddballs get to know each other during their extensive practice time, and Tiffany starts to fall for Pat. With the eventual meeting of Pat’s wife looming, it remains to be seen whether Pat will reciprocate that love.

First thing’s first. Remember people, this is a writer-director draft. That’s why there’s all of this long text on the page. Why the description gets too specific in places. Why it feels overwritten here and there. Russell does not have to impress any readers. He just came off a box office hit and can make anything he wants. The thing is, despite this alienating style, the actual writing is simple and poignant, so the script reads well.

It’s funny though, the more I think about it, the more I realize Russell probably never had to deal with the spec market. He just wrote a script and directed it (Spanking The Monkey), which is probably why his style is so reader-unfriendly. If you don’t have to impress readers, you never have to learn what impresses readers. This is why Eric Roth (Forrest Gump) has a somewhat unique style as well (some may call him the King of Parentheticals). He too never had to write a spec script. He was hired to write projects right out of college.

Anyway, I thought this script was great. The big lesson that came out of it for me was “anticipation.” If you can make the audience anticipate something – if you can make them want to see something badly – the story will fly by, because we’ll be looking forward to “that” moment. That’s what the device of Nikki (Pat’s wife) does here. Pat is so obsessed with her, he so believes that they’re going to get back together (even though we know he’s got no shot), that we can’t wait for that meeting to come. And this is created through Russell’s detailing of Pat’s obsession. None of this works if Pat is only mildly interested in seeing his wife again. It works because he’s CONVINCED, beyond a reasonable doubt, that she’ll take him back once she sees him. As strange as it sounds, we can’t wait to see his reaction when that dream is crushed.

Another thing I wanted to point out was this running gag (no pun intended) of them jogging 10 paces away from one another. Whenever you write a romantic comedy or a love story or any relationship movie, one of the biggest challenges is coming up with interesting places to put your characters when they have conversations. If it’s just a bunch of talking in coffee shops and rooms, it’s boring. So you want to look for locations/situations that can make an average conversation dynamic in some capacity.

The jogging scenes here are a great example of that. First of all, you have conflict. He doesn’t want her jogging with him. And second you have the unique conversational component. She’s in back of him the whole time. They both have to yell in order to talk. It’s 1000 times more interesting than putting your characters across from one another at a table. That’s not to say you won’t have those scenes. There’s usually going to be one or two dates in a relationship movie where the characters are at a dinner table (and actually Pat and Tiffany’s first date is at a diner). But the idea is to minimize those locations as much as possible.

The thing that worried me the most about the script actually ended up being one of its best attributes. The introduction of this dance contest had the potential to be a really cheesy forced plot thread. I’m actually not sure how Russell and Quick pulled it off but somehow it became an organic extension of the story and quite sweet and moving. When the competition nears, and he hears his wife may be coming, you are on pins and needles waiting to see what will happen.

The presentation here was a little clumsy but the story was top notch. Just barely missed an impressive.

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

What I learned: Occasionally in your screenplay, you’ll need to highlight documents, usually for expositional purposes. The best way to handle these documents is not to go into detail about what they say, but only highlight the relevant words needed to sell the exposition. For example, when Pat’s mom picks him up from the mental hospital, the audience needs to know that the only reason he’s getting released is because he’s going into his mom’s care. Therefore, this is what Russell writes:

“ …she signs ‘Jean Peoples’ as we see phrases: ‘ASSUMES FULL RESPONSIBILITY’ and ‘HOSPITAL BEARS NO LIABILITY.’”

All you need to do is highlight the relevant phrases on the document and then move on. Don’t give us a word by word account of the entire paragraph. It takes up space and this other way is so much easier.

Genre: Horror/Thriller
Premise: (from writers) It’s a brilliant bank robbery plan. But there’s one contingency no one could have planned for: One of the hostages turns into a werewolf, turning the bank they’ve locked down to keep out the police into a deathtrap. And turning a criminal into a hero.
About: One of the writers of today’s script, B.P.Kelsey, is an up-and-coming one-sheet artist. I’ve included one of his posters in the review below. — Every Friday, I review a script from the readers of the site. If you’re interested in submitting your script for an Amateur Review, send it in PDF form, along with your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted in the review (feel free to keep your identity and script title private by providing an alias and fake title). Also, it’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so that your submission stays near the top of the pile.
Writers: Joel Thomas & B.P.Kelsey
Details: 101 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).

Werewolf. Heist. Nuff said.

The Hostage centers around Liam Bardwell. Liam is in his 40s and is coughing up blood faster than a vampire with the flu. That’s because he’s got cancer, which is a big reason he’s leading this heist in the first place.

His second in command is a scary ass dude named Frankie Mitts. Even though Liam’s in charge of the show, Frankie believes he’s the star. When things start going to shit – and you know they will – it’s Frankie who will insist on directing.

Our other main character is Jamee, a single mother in her 20s who’s trying to manage a bank while dealing with a divorce. She’s just started dating again which isn’t making her cop husband happy. When he unexpectedly drops their daughter, Kristin, off, she’s furious, as it was supposed to be his turn to take her. She has a big date with a doctor that night (who’s there at the bank waiting), and now she doesn’t know what to do.

Well my dear, get ready for a bigger problem. Liam and his crew bust into the bank right after her husband leaves. The workers are marched down into the vault and the bad guys begin executing their plan. That is until they hear screaming downstairs. They head back to the vault and find nearly everybody ripped to shreds.

If you think you have bad luck picking men, try finding out your boyfriend is a werewolf! But the heist crew doesn’t know that yet. They think some crazy ass dog got in here and had a field day. Da Nile ain’t just a river in Egypt boys.

After a couple of more slaughters, it’s clear they’re dealing with something bigger. Problem is, they can’t leave the bank because there’s a billion police officers outside. They have to stick to the plan – dig a tunnel to an underground escape pipe – all with a hungry werewolf on their heels.

Eventually Liam hooks up with Jamee and Frankie gets a hold of her daughter, Kristin. So in addition to getting the money, digging the hole, and avoiding a werewolf, Liam and Jamee have to get her daughter back from Senor Psychopath.

The police are finally able to sneak inside, but they quickly become a bowl of pooch pastries as well. Will anybody make it out of this heist alive? Read The Hostage to find out.

The Hostage has a lot going for it. I love the premise. I love the situation. As far as the promise of the premise goes, the script delivers. It’s packed with tension. The structure is solid. We have a clear goal. We have clear stakes. We have clear urgency. Everybody’s motivations are strong. If I was running a production company and this showed up on my desk, I would look long and hard into purchasing it, even though horror isn’t my strong suit.

So why, then, was I not loving The Hostage? Could it be that I’m not into werewolves? No. I’m not into vampires but I loved Elevator Men.

I stripped away all my analytical instincts and asked a simple question: “What was it about this script that I didn’t like?”

When I asked that question, I realized there wasn’t a single character in the script I connected with. Now let me make something clear. The characters here are all better than the characters in Bryan Bertino’s Black. But there was still something missing.

Let’s start with Liam, who has cancer. The problem with this is, it still doesn’t tell me anything about his character. Just giving Liam cancer doesn’t make him “deep.” Yes, it adds a little bit of context, but I still don’t know anything about his life. Look at Breaking Bad. In that show, we see our hero manning a second job at a car wash, struggling to support his family. We see the manager force him to join the cleaners and help wipe down cars, a totally humiliating experience for a family man. We see one of his rich students (he’s also a chemistry teacher) drive up, see his teacher cleaning cars, and start laughing at him. In that moment, we get a perfect snapshot of this person’s life, his struggle. And we feel for him. We’re ready to root for this guy through anything.

I know that’s a TV show and you have more time to explore characters in TV, but you have to pick at least one person in your movie and give us a reason to root for them. Tell us about who they are and why they’re in this situation. We get bits and pieces of that with Liam, but never enough to give a shit about him. The reason this is so important is because we have to want Liam to get that money. We have to care about him saving himself or his family. And since we know so little about him, we don’t. It’s only after all of this is over that I officially learn he’s trying to obtain money for his family anyway.

There’s a little more going on with Jamee. I liked that she had a daughter and how the daughter gets split up from her. But I don’t know. I never connected with her either. It was almost as if the relationship with her husband was thrown in at the beginning to give the appearance of depth, and then forgotten from that point on. I don’t even remember what happened to him. Why is it that we spend time with the feisty random Latino female police officer trying to get inside and not on one of our character’s husbands – who’s a COP!?

If you look at Ripley in Aliens, who’s in a similar scenario, she’s constantly battling this issue of trust. She doesn’t trust Bishop. She doesn’t trust Paul Riser’s lawyer character. On the flip side, she’s the only one on this crew that Newt trusts – who Newt knows will protect her. So there’s a theme and a struggle that the film is constantly hitting on, which gives everything a deeper meaning.

Once we get into the fray here, it’s just a bunch of people running around, trying to avoid a werewolf.

The stranger thing about The Hostage is that it occasionally wastes character development on random or meaningless characters. Outside of Random Feisty Latino Cop, we also get Marcus, the police commander, who takes up all of five pages in the screenplay. Yet he’s given this whole backstory about a wife who keeps trying to call him but he won’t answer. Why is it that I know more about a throwaway character than I do the two main characters?

Even little things about the characters didn’t make sense. For example, Liam is in his 40s and he’s a grandfather. I know that’s possible but it doesn’t sound right. Jamee is a 20-something bank manager? Isn’t that a little young to be managing a bank? She’s also divorced with an eight-year-old kid. When did she get married? When she was 16? Was she a child bride? Did she get married to one of the actors on Lost? It’s details like this that make me wonder if the characters were thought through at all.

Now there is some good here. The structure is solid. The script has a ton of energy. There are a lot of clever touches. I love that they weren’t after money, but rather an expensive coin collection. I loved that they later use those coins (because they’re silver) to shoot down the Wolf. Being forced to make a choice between keeping a $2 million coin or using it to kill a dangerous beast is a great movie moment. I loved the twist with those coins (I won’t spoil it but let’s say their initial plan to use them as bullets doesn’t work). I loved that the bank robbers wore sheep masks. And the plan for the heist was a good one – something I could see real live bank robbers using.

And you know what? This FEELS like a movie. I could see it being made. I could see renting it myself. It’s a cool idea. But if this is going to be more than a straight to VOD title. If it’s going to be something you remember and recommend to your friends, the characters are going to have to improve. Because right now, they’re what’s keeping a cool idea from becoming a great movie.

Script link: The Hostage

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

What I learned: Giving a character a disease doesn’t make them deep. Diseases are actually common in movies. People have cancer. People have AIDS. So if that’s all you tell us, it just feels cliché. It’s the circumstances you build around those diseases that flesh out the character and make them real. Breaking Bad is the perfect example. We don’t just see that our hero has cancer. We’re given the circumstances by which cancer will affect his life. Treatment will cripple his family’s bank account when he already has a disabled son and another baby on the way. Thomas and Kelsey try to hint at Liam’s family issues in an early phone call. Unfortunately, that doesn’t do anything for us. We don’t see the family. We don’t see the people he’s fighting for. It doesn’t affect us at all. I understand that this is a horror thriller and you want to move into the story as soon as possible, but you have to figure out a way to make us care about the characters first. When you think of Taken, you remember a lot of running around, a lot of action, and a lot of excitement. But remember, the first 30 minutes of that movie are about a father and his relationship with his daughter. It’s never easy balancing character development with urgency in movies, but it has to be done.