Genre: Thriller
Premise: A newly separated mother finds herself attracted to the 17 year old boy who moves in next door. But when she abruptly ends the romance, he’s not ready to give up on her.
About: The Boy Next Door was featured on this year’s Blood List. Barbara Curry is known for another highly acclaimed script titled “Talk Of The Town,” which was featured in UCLA’s prestigious Screenwriters Showcase Event. And there’s another thing about Barbara. She’s HOT! If you don’t believe me, go check out her interview here.  I am officially starting the Barbara Curry fan club. Who wants to join?
Writer: Barbara Curry
Details: 105 pages – undated (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

First thing I noticed about The Boy Next Door was how tight the spacing was. Hmmmmm. Barbara? Are you trying to pull one over on us here? It looks like someone got a little scrunchy with their First Draft settings. On any other day, I’d hold it against the writer. But today I’m smitten. So I’ll let it go.

High school teacher Claire Peterson is having a rough go of it lately. She’s recently split up with her hubby and is taking care of her teenage son, Kevin, all by herself. At home things are fine but she’s got a front row seat to Kevin getting bullied at school every day. She desperately wants to do something about it but knows that butting in will probably just make it worse.

Claire’s got her own issues as well. She’s suuuuuper uptight. Her best friend Vicky, a fellow teacher, is begging her to go out and have some crazy wild animal sex so she can loosen up. But Claire’s not ready for that yet. She may have kicked her hubby to the curb, but that doesn’t mean she’s not conflicted about it.

And then everything changes. A new family moves in next door, starring model-esque 17 year old Noah Sandborn. Noah looks more like a man than a boy, and he immediately befriends Kevin, making it nearly impossible for Claire to ignore him. Pretty soon he’s chatting her up and she finds herself taken by the muscle bound youngster.

Claire is a different person around Noah. She feels sexy, desired, lustful. One thing Claire isn’t feeling though is lawful. Cause one night when she’s drunk, she takes a spin on the Noah-mobile. Noah is thrilled with this development but when Claire wakes up the next morning, she’s in damage control mode. What the HELL did she just do??? She tells Noah that she’s sorry. This was all just a mistake, and does the dart-of-shame.

Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be a problem. But Noah lives right next to Claire. Noah’s best friends with her son. Noah sits front and center in one of her classes. In other words, wherever Claire goes, Noah is waiting. And he *really* wants to get back together.

Claire tries desperately to get her son to stop hanging out with Noah. But the guy’s become Kevin’s own personal bully-buster. That and there’s no perfect way to say, “Hey son. You know your best friend? I kind of had sex with him the other night. So could you ignore his texts?” I mean you thought the “birds and the bees” conversation was tough.

There’s probably a lesson to take out of all of this. Oh yeah: DON’T HAVE SEX WITH ONE OF YOUR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. But hindsight is 20/20, and Claire’s going to need more than a lesson plan to get out of this one.

The Boy Next Door is pretty good. I don’t think it’s going to knock anybody’s welcome mat off, but for what it’s trying to be – Fatal Attraction with a twist – it does a good job.

I will say this about the script. It’s PERFECT for studying dramatic irony. Once Noah and Claire have sex, virtually every scene contains some aspect of dramatic irony. In the classroom, Noah will press Claire on a question. Since nobody in the class knows what happened between them, their exchange is dripping with dramatic tension. At home, whenever Noah, Claire, and Kevin are together, Kevin is unaware of their secret, which means that each exchanged word is laced with subtext.

In fact, this script is further proof of how effective the “add a third person to the scene” rule is. Lots of scenes become more interesting once you add a third person (or people). I mean imagine Noah and Claire having that same conversation OUTSIDE of the classroom, without the rest of the class listening. There’s no more subtext. Imagine Claire and Noah having conversations without Kevin around. Those same electric scenes become dry and boring.

And I’m going to stay on my “unresolved relationships in your second act” kick here. Notice that there are TWO unresolved relationships in the movie. The first one is obvious. Claire and Noah. But we also have one between Claire and her husband, Gary. Claire needs to come to terms with what Gary did to her and decide whether she’s going to take him back or not. Barbara could’ve added a third unresolved relationship if she wanted – that between Claire and her son, Kevin. But she chose to keep that relationship fine.

Personally, I think three unresolved relationships is the perfect amount for your second act. There are 50-60 pages in your second act which gives you about 20 pages for each – the perfect amount of time. But it all depends on HOW much is going on in each of those relationships. If you have two REALLY POWERFUL relationships that have ups and downs and breakups and reconciliations, you may not need that third relationship. It’s up to you.

Another interesting thing to note about this script is that there’s no real goal. I’ve found that in these types of thrillers (The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, Single White Female) the train-wreck nature of the relationship is enough to drive the story. So there’s nothing big that Claire has to achieve here until late in the script, when she must scramble to fix what she’s broken. This is a little confusing, I know. But that’s how these movies work.

On the downside, I wasn’t a big fan of how easily Claire fell into Noah’s clutches. I mean he had her drooling from the very first conversation. Within like two scenes he’s asking her about her failed marriage and she’s chatting away like she’s at lunch with the girls. This is a 17 YEAR OLD BOY SHE’S TALKING TO! You’d think she’d show a little more restraint. At least initially.

I also thought people bumped into each other too easily in the story. It seemed like every other scene, one of our characters would magically BUMP into another one randomly. This is a little talked about area of screenwriting but an important one. You can’t just have characters bump into each other because you, the writer, need to have a scene between them. It has to be natural. You have to come up with seamless ways for them to meet. This is usually annoying work. It’s not creative and not very fun. But it pays off because it keeps your story seamless. If we become aware that the writer is manipulating the characters, the story spell is broken.

But overall, The Boy Next Door was fun and silly. A guilty pleasure of sorts. I had a good time with it and therefore recommend the read!

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

What I learned: In most movie romances, you want the pursuer to have to EARN the romance. This is a MOVIE. It’s no fun when anything lands in a character’s lap. You need conflict. Doubt. That’s what makes the romance (the pursuit) interesting. Here, Claire is ready to fuck Noah from the first moment they meet. That’s not very interesting. She probably should’ve resisted him more. Noah should have had to EARN the romance. Look at Titanic. Jack doesn’t just slide up to Rose and say, “Hey girl, nice hat,” and they’re banging in the boiler room 10 minutes later. He has to STOP HER FROM COMMITTING SUICIDE. I’d say that’s earning the romance.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: Two brothers raised to believe their father died find out their mom was lying to them and doesn’t know who their father is (due to a healthy sexual appetite in the 70s). So the two set out to find him.
About: Bastards sold earlier this year to Paramount just 24 hours after being put on the market. This is Justin Malen’s second sale, the first being a script titled “Prick.” He is also working on a project titled “Trophy Husbands” for Mike Judge to direct.
Writer: Justin Malen
Details: 112 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).

Should I give up with comedies? Is every modern comedy script just an idea with comedic potential for Vince Vaughn to improvise in? Is there such thing as a comedy spec that’s just…I don’t know…GOOD?? It seems like even when a good spec is purchased, the studio finds a way to screw it up. Going The Distance was a hilarious comedy spec. Its biggest strength was its edgy dialogue. So what’s the first thing they did once they bought it? They REWROTE ALL THE DIALOGUE! I guess when a “soft” director and huggable cast is added, the studio has no choice but to make changes but man, there’s something wrong with that process that needs to be fixed.

Anybody still with me? Have I whined you away yet? I hope not. Because guess what? Today’s comedy is actually pretty good!

Peter and Kyle are twins but couldn’t be more different. Kyle’s a cross between Keanu Reeves and Brad Pitt, while Peter’s a cross between a can of peas and a cherry pit.

Kyle doesn’t have a single identifiable skill. But an aspiring barbeque sauce maker spots him on the beach and asks him if he could use his silhouette for his sauce label. The sauce blows up, and Kyle becomes a millionaire off the royalties.

Peter, on the other hand, is a proctologist. He sticks his hand in assholes all day. But there’s actually a reason for that. You see, Peter and Kyle’s mother told them that their father died of colon cancer before they were born. Peter, then, is on a lifetime crusade to help others with the disease.

Well that’s about to change. In a twist only Meryl Streep with a bag of popcorn watching Mama Mia could’ve predicted, it turns out that their mother’s been lying to them this entire time! Dad didn’t die. She doesn’t even know who dad is! That’s because she was the world’s biggest slut back in the 70s. Their father could be one of a dozen men for all she knows.

The cool news, though, is that their mother was a REALLY GOOD SLUT. Like if they were ranking sluts, she would be at the top of the slut chain. She had sex with some really famous people, and right away the evidence points to their father being Hall of Fame quarterback Jack Tibbs! Kyle is besides himself. This is the coolest news ever! But Peter’s still thrown by the whole thing. He can’t get over the fact that his whole life has been a lie.

So they go and visit Jack, and even though they hit it off, Jack mentions just how much sex their mom had (a LOT!), and evidence points to there being more likely candidates than himself. So Kyle and Peter jetset all over the U.S., meeting their potential fathers, but can’t seem to locate “the one.” During that time, Peter finally unleashes the longstanding resentment he has for his brother, who’s lived this charmed life while he’s never had ANYTHING good happen to him. Looks like these two won’t just have to find a father. They’ll have to find each other (awwwwwww).

Let’s address the most important thing first. Bastards has a goal (find the dad) that a character DESPERATELY WANTS TO ACHIEVE (Peter wants nothing more than to find out who his father is and have a relationship with him). Since we sympathize with Peter’s earnestness and his frustration for always being second fiddle in his family, we root for him, and therefore want him to achieve his goal. All of this is set up in the first 25 pages. And when you do that well, your story writes itself. It has direction. It has purpose. The reader is never lost because he/she understands what the protagonist is trying to do. This is how to set up your story.

Bastards also nails the second act because remember what the second act is mainly about. It’s about exploring unresolved relationships between characters. And here we have a big one. Peter hates his brother’s perfect life. So that’s the relationship that needs to be fixed. But what I found unique, and really liked about Bastards, was Kyle’s role in all this. He was completely oblivious to Peter’s resentment. He loved his brother more than anything and would do anything for him. He was just clueless and naïve. So you didn’t have that cliché “both characters hate each other” thing that you see in a lot roadtrip movies. The dynamic was more subtle, and therefore unique.

Malen has also put story before comedy. I’ll be honest. I didn’t laugh a whole lot in Bastards. But I wanted to see if Peter was going to hash out his problems with Kyle and find his father. I can’t emphasize enough how important this is. It’s probably THE BIGGEST MISTAKE amateur writers make when writing comedies. They don’t care about the characters or the relationships those characters have. They rationalize to themselves, “Well it’s just a fun comedy! I don’t have to create deep characters.” And then they’re surprised when nobody’s into their screenplay. Readers say, “I didn’t really connect with the characters.” And the writer screams back, “But it’s just a light comedy! It’s not supposed to be about the characters. It’s supposed to make you laugh!” We don’t laugh unless we care. And caring typically comes from giving us characters we identify with and care about. I believe this is why a lot of people had a hard time with Mrs. Satan. It wasn’t that it didn’t have funny moments. We just never cared for or identified with the main character.

Comedy-wise, Kyle is the big star here. He’s pretty funny as the clueless guy with the perfect life. He not only has a Hawaiian model wife and three perfect children. But his wife is of the belief that men have strong sexual appetites that need to be satiated and if she’s not around, he should satisfy those urges. Because that will make him happy. And if he’s happy, his wife argues, then their marriage will be better. So the whole time Kyle is feeling bad because he doesn’t want to have sex with other women but has to, which just infuriates Peter to no end.

I don’t know why but I kept imaging Keanu Reeves for the role of Kyle. He needs a good comedy role and since I’m a Keanu apologist, I’m secretly hoping that that’s the way they’ll go. Anything so this isn’t another Vince Vaughn comedy. All in all, this is one of those perfectly executed comedy specs. Malen really showed his command of the craft here. It wasn’t funny enough to get an impressive, but everything else was so sound that I’m strongly recommending it.

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

What I learned: A few weeks back I wrote an article about how to juice up your scenes. One of those tips was to add a THIRD PERSON to the scene. Bastards showed how to use this tool effectively. In these types of movies, you’re always going to have the scene where the characters finally blow up at each other. It’s the “You Wanna Know What Your Problem Is!” scene where each character tells the other what there big “fatal flaw” is. Because we’ve seen this scene so many times, it’s become cliché. But what Malen does here is he adds a third character – a hitchhiker they picked up – and it adds a different flavor to the fight that actually makes it funnier and a bit unique. The hitchhiker is the one that senses the tension between the brothers, instigates the fight, and then referees it. It’s a small thing but this is what screenwriting is about. Finding those little things that make scenes feel different!

Genre: Horror-Comedy
Premise: (from writer) The most reviled teen in town has 96 hours to find her soulmate or become Satan’s new bride.
About: 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.
Writer: Gary Rowlands
Details: 102 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).

Hey, what’s wrong with using the comments section to get me to review your script? That’s what Gary did with the help of longtime reader Poe. Of course that wasn’t the only reason I reviewed Mrs. Satan. As I’ve mentioned before, the amateur script is usually the last one I read during the week. Why? Well, because it’s usually the least goodest script I read all week. So I put it off til the last second.

I’m not the only person who does this. Most readers approach it this way. They have a stack of scripts to plow through and chances are they’re putting the amateur submissions at the bottom cause history tells them they’ll be the hardest to get through.

THIS is why industry people are constantly telling you: Low page count. Lean writing style. Thriller or a comedy. Go with things that make the read faster. You see there are “easy” reads (fun subject matter, easy to understand narrative) and there are “tough” reads (complicated period pieces, tons of characters, dramas without a clear narrative). You’re usually hitting your reader at his most tired, at his most impatient state. So you want to make the read as easy for him as possible. And all I had to do was look at the title (“Mrs. Satan”) and I knew Gary’s script would be an easy read.

True to form, there’s not that much explaining that needs to be done for Mrs. Satan’s plot. 18 year old goth-ish bully Angel (heh heh) is a great big meanie. She and her friends, Lizzie and Evelyn, spend the majority of their time playing pranks on people. In fact, the movie starts off with Angel dressed up as the Grim Reaper and walking through an old folks home, scaring the bejesus out of its inhabitants. I have to admit, it was pretty funny. My favorite part was starting on the Grim Reaper (who at this point we believe is the REAL Grim Reaper), who approaches the home dourly, reaches to grab a doorknob… and it FALLS OFF. He stares at it, pissed, and chucks it away. That’s when we realize it’s Angel.

But Angel does a lot worse than that. In fact, she fabricates an entire story about the local priest “touching” her inappropriately which sends him to jail! Which proves to be a lousy decision because the priest’s nephew, a fisherman who lives nearby, actually DIES, and his first mission as a ghost is to find the devil a bride. Doesn’t take long to decide who that’s going to be.

So the nephew starts haunting Angel, telling her that the devil’s going to make her his bride in a week. She thinks he’s joking but then sees his death reported on TV. Uh oh. This shit is for realz! After brainstorming how the hell (get it! “Hell?!”) she’s going to get out of this, she comes up with the plan of getting married. If she’s already married, Satan can’t marry her.

Problem is, everyone kind of hates Angel. And even the ones who don’t hate her aren’t keen on some psycho chick wanting to get married at the end of the first date. I mean talk about clingy!

Complicating matters is that the devil’s put a spell on Angel that’s created a really bad rash on her face, making her super ugly. This forces her to, in a last ditch effort, try to marry a blind guy. But just like the other guys, he gives her the Hellsman. I mean the Heisman (I’m on fire here!).

During all this, Angel and Marlon (the dead nephew of the priest) start to like each other and now Marlon’s not so sure he wants to help the Devil. However, the Devil isn’t too keen on that plan, and makes it clear that it’s either his way, or the highway. TO HELL!

Mrs. Satan is, indeed, an easy read. It’s got all the screenwriting staples in place (the GSU is rockin’). The goal is to find a husband before the devil makes her his bride. The urgency is she only has a week to do it. Stakes are if she doesn’t succeed, she goes to hell. Definitely something worth avoiding.

However, that knowledge only gets you through the door as far as the reader is concerned. It shows that you’ve been at this long enough to understand basic story principles. Now you have to show that you understand the nuances of storytelling – the guts that make a screenplay pop.

I think the biggest problem with Mrs. Satan is Angel’s age. Having her still be in high school feels wrong for some reason. This seems like it should be a story about a 24 or 25 year old, not an 18 year old who still goes to math class every day. “Sophistication” may be my issue. Since nobody except those kids on MTV reality shows gets married (and pregnant) at 18, it just felt like Angel was dealing with an unrealistic issue for her age group.

Another roadblock Gary battles is getting us to root for an unlikable protagonist. This is a bad person. The scaring old people sequence was kind of funny. But accusing an innocent priest of raping you? I don’t know. And that’s the challenge here. You have to make your protagonist bad enough so that she’d go to hell, but “good” enough so that we’ll like her (or at least root for her). Angel was funny enough that I was usually on her side. But she did enough bad shit in the beginning that, to be honest, I didn’t care whether she ended up in hell or not. And that’s a problem, since those are the big stakes of the movie.

Gary wisely combats this with a “save the cat” moment early on, having Angel beat up the town bully who’s picking on her younger brother, but I’m not sure she earns enough points to make up for all the other shit.

It’s also said in this business that while audiences are forgiving of unlikable male protagonists, they are NEVER okay with unlikable female protagonists. I don’t know how true that is. Bad Teacher just made boatloads of cash. But I know it’s something producers are afraid of (and when you think about it, Cameron Diaz is kind of “man-ish”).

I also had some problems with Angel’s attempts to get married. You’re a hot 18 year old girl. I think you can find someone dumb enough to marry you. So I didn’t believe she’d have so much trouble in that department (I was also unconvinced that this would really stop the Devil – I mean he is the Devil. Is a fake marriage going to stop him?).

As for everything else, I’d like to see more heart and character exploration in the script. We do get Angel changing in the end, doing all these good things for others, but it seemed tacked on. Up until that point, it was hijinx galore. I would love to know WHY Angel became this way – why she got so much happiness out of hurting others. It’s implied that her mom dying had something to do with it, but it’s all rather loosely explained. I feel this script needs to be about a girl learning to respect others and help others, and while there’s some of that here, it wasn’t enough for me to become emotionally attached to the material.

Not a bad script at all, but not enough punch to get my juices flowing.

Script link: Mrs. Satan

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

What I learned: I don’t know why I keep referring back to Karl’s script this week, but there’s something we were talking about there that I think is an important lesson. You can’t get hung up on one script. You have to keep writing new stuff. New scripts bring up new problems, which improves you as a writer. If you’re tackling the same old issues over and over again, you’re not getting better. This script is a great example of that. Sooner or later, you’ll write a script with an “unlikable” main character. The trials and tribulations that come along with trying to get an audience to root for an unlikable protagonist is one of the most important lessons in your education as a screenwriter. But if you never encounter it, you’ll never know how to deal with it. I think Sean was saying this yesterday as well. Keep writing new stuff guys. And if that first script really means something to you? Don’t worry. It’s not going away. You can come back to it a year from now. And you’ll be a better writer when you do.

A lot of people seem to want to talk about this so I thought I’d throw up a post and let you discuss.  We’ve reviewed the script twice on the site, once by Roger, who thought the script was genius, and then I reviewed it as well.  The script is also ranked as #1 by you guys, the readers of the site. It wasn’t quite my thing but I had to admit the writing was imaginative and detailed.  So what do I think of Tarsem directing the film?  Well, he has an interesting visual style that should gel well with the universe.  He hasn’t had a good script to direct yet though.  This would be the best one by far.  So maybe that’s all he needs to knock a film out of the park.  What do you guys think? 

A couple of weeks ago Sean O’Keefe sold his pitch, Riders On The Storm, to Fox for half a million dollars. The script is about a heist crew that pulls off sophisticated robberies during severe storms. I realized we don’t talk about pitching very much on the site, even though it’s a huge part of the business. Oftentimes, after you meet someone about your script, you’ll pitch them other projects you’re working on.  So I thought Sean would be the perfect person to ask, “What’s this pitching thing all about?”  Sean is also currently writing a film adaptation of “Apaches” for producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney Pictures about the NYPD along with writing partner Will Staples.  Enjoy the interview.

SS: Can you tell us how you got started in screenwriting? What was your background leading up to it? Did you do anything else film-related?

SO: I grew up between two isolated worlds – a cabin in Alaska with no running water and a draconian boarding school in England. As a result movies for me were always a way of feeling connected with the outside world. My final semester in college, I decided to write a spec based on Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and some family friends hooked me up with a meeting with veteran screenwriter Jay Cocks who had worked with Scorsese on “The Age of Innocence.” Jay told me I was crazy – Hollywood would never make it – so I let the idea go. Now, of course, Alex Proyas is making a film based on the material. It’s the same lessen I’ve learned a hundred times: follow your gut no matter what because it’s all you have.

After paralegalling in New York my first year out of school and writing two painfully bad scripts on my lunch breaks, I moved out to LA and worked in development first for Neal Moritz at Original Film then Michael Ovitz at APG, the film production arm of AMG. I then co-founded a film and video game production company called Union Entertainment with Rich Leibowitz.

Around that time, my father passed away and I spent a week in ICU waiting for the inevitable to happen. It turned out to be a period of reckoning for me. I realized you only have so much time to do what you want in life, so I made the choice to return to screenwriting.

SS: When was the first time you got paid to write? How many scripts had you written before you got that first paycheck?

SO: The first time I got paid was in 2003 with my former writing partner, Will Staples. We had gone out with a Mayan period piece spec (my fifth script at that point) that didn’t sell but was well received for the writing and two weeks later Sony called up and asked if we wanted to write King Tut for Roland Emmerich. We came up with a take, Roland and the studio liked it, and the rest is ancient history…

SS: I’ll be murdered if I don’t ask this question. But how did you get your agent?

SO: I was lucky in that in my capacity as a producer and exec I had dealt directly with a number of agents and managers around town. My agent, Nicole Clemens at ICM, and my manager, Brian Lutz, were both reps who were excellent at representing their clients when I was on the other side of the table. When it came time for me to devote myself to writing again, they were the first people I reached out to.

SS: In your opinion, what’s the most difficult thing about screenwriting, and what’s the best way to tackle that difficulty?

SO: Knowing that I am writing for an audience is the hardest aspect of the process for me. The moment I look up from the page and see the faces in the proverbial crowd – studio execs, agents, managers, other writers – I feel stage fright setting in. I start to second guess myself. I wonder if I have the right character for my story or the wrong story for my character. I fall into the trap of perfectionism. The trick is to write as if you are writing purely for yourself, but it’s easier said than done. Oddly, Donald Rumsfeld had some wisdom in this arena: “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want.” Eventually, you have to stop second guessing yourself and charge into battle.

SS: You’ve obviously been out there, talked to producers, have a beat on their needs. What do producers want these days? Are there some common genres they’re asking for? Do they want the “Next Twilight?” The “Next found footage” script? What are you hearing?

SO: Everybody thinks they want the thing that just performed at the box office but the truth is that they want the next great idea that walks through the door. Your job is to bring them that next great idea. I’ve never been very good at forecasting what the market wants and then tailoring my output accordingly. I run with the movie I most want to write and hope that others feel as excited about it as I do…

Disappointment, however, lurks around every corner in this process. That is why I have a personal rule of thumb, which is my ‘one in ten’ rule. That is for every ten swings at bat you connect with one ball. For every ten meetings or reads, someone connects with what you are trying to do. It’s fuzzy math, but it helps to keep your expectations in check. Not everyone is going to resonate with what you’re doing. But that’s okay – you only need one in ten to actually make real progress. Every studio passed on our Mayan epic, but one liked the writing enough to call us back in. That one call gave birth to our career.

SS: We were having this debate the other day on the site. Should an unknown writer try to break in with something heartfelt and personal to them – something that will bring out their best writing? Or should they write something high concept and marketable, even though they won’t be as emotionally attached to the writing?

SO: Stick with the cliché of writing what’s in your heart. It’s a cliché for a reason. But if it’s a big summer action movie that’s in your heart, then consider yourself lucky.

SS: If you could go back in time and give your younger screenwriter self some advice on how to get to the professional level faster, what would you tell him?

SO: Four things…

Write as much as you can. It’s all about clocking the hours and getting words on the page. In the Gladwellian sense you need to get in your 10,000 hours, so the sooner the better.

Write, rewrite, then move on. Don’t get stuck trying to overly perfect a script in the beginning. You will learn more from cracking a new story than you will from debating where to place your commas.

Avoid the Freshman Writer Trap. The problem is that in the beginning many new writers think they’re the next Robert Towne – and perhaps they will turn out to be – but it will likely take years to know. Don’t assume that you shit gold from the get-go. The likelihood is that your first few scripts will be abominations in hindsight (at least mine were). Humility will keep you open to constructive criticism and ensure that you are learning and progressing.

Run your writing career like a producer. Have a slate of projects – one or two that you are focused on at any point in time and the others that you continue to inch forward as the opportunity arises. Never have just one baby. This is Hollywood. There is no safety net. You need to have a Third World family of projects because sadly not all of them are going to survive.

SS: What is a pitch meeting and how does one go about getting one? Does an agent read your latest script and ask you to come in? Is it something your agent works to set up? Is it you having a previous relationship with the producers and saying, “Hey, I got this new idea I want to come in and pitch you?” How does a writer get one of these things!?

A pitch is a meeting where you make a verbal presentation of a story that you want to sell so that you can be paid in advance to write it as a script.

The three essential ingredients to a pitch are having a sample script that people already like, a story to pitch, and an agent to set the meetings.

Pitches can arise in two basic ways. First, you tell your agent you have a pitch you want to take out to the town and they set meetings with producers who then take it into studios where they have their strongest relationships. Second, a producer brings you an idea and you take it out to the town exclusively with them attached.

SS: With your recent pitch sale, were you going in to specifically pitch them this project – with both sides already knowing what you were going to pitch them? Or was it something that emerged during the course of the meeting?

SO: The pitch meetings were specific to this project, which is the way it typically goes down, but there are exceptions. For example, on “World’s Most Wanted,” a spy thriller we set up at Universal, the original pitch was about a Mexican drug cartel but the exec didn’t respond to the subject matter. He did, however, like the team-versus-team dynamic of the story and said if we could come with a new subject, he would be interested. So we did several weeks of research and found a real-life NATO team that hunts the world’s most wanted criminals. We went back in, employing a similar story with the new subject, and he bought it. It was proof that you can never tell which direction a project is going to break, but you’ll never know unless you try.

SS: Can you tell us how a pitch that leads to a sale works? Are they all different? Do they tell you right there in the room “yes, we’re buying this?” Or does it happen afterwards, once they’ve checked with their superiors?

SO: I dream of the ‘in room’ sale, and I know it has happened to others, but I haven’t been the recipient of that kind of spontaneous largesse yet. For me, selling a pitch has always entailed an agonizing wait – sometimes a few hours, sometimes a few days. Now that the studios have more leverage and they are more picky about what they buy than when I started in the business, they aren’t in the same real-time rush to respond that they used to be back in the glory days of the mid-90s spec market when high concept ideas with poor execution seemed to sell on almost a daily basis. Now execs seem more afraid of being left holding the bag on a project than they do being left out of a sale.

The truth is that very few people at the studio have the authority to buy a pitch without running it up someone else’s flagpole first. If you happen to be in the room with someone who can say ‘yes’ then you’re already doing something very right – in which case keep it up!

SS: People talk about different kinds of pitches. There’s the 5 minute pitch. The 10 minute pitch. And like the longer 20 minute pitch where you pitch the whole movie. I can’t imagine a busy producer able to concentrate for 20 minutes on any writer. Do you follow this formal time-specific pitch list or do you just do it your own way?

SO: I think it depends on where you are in your career as a writer and what the nature of the pitch is – i.e. are you pitching on a rewrite the studio has submitted to you, or are you pitching an original of your own. If it’s a rewrite, and your stock is high with the studio, you can get away with a more limited pitch – i.e. “Here are the three major problems with the existing script and here’s how I would address them.” Your presentation will then likely lead into a more informal conversation with the exec.

However, if it’s an original then your choice is more problematic and the decision to go long or brief depends on a number of factors… How established are you (i.e. how much does the studio already want to be in business with you)? If you are one of the lucky few hot scribes around town then you can probably get away with the ‘less is more’ approach. If not, you might want to incorporate more detail in your presentation. The risk is that you will lose the exec’s attention and give them more to pass on, but the upside is that if you do manage to hold their attention you want them to know that you have this story worked out in enough detail that you feel confident writing it.

Another factor to consider is what kind of story it is. If it’s a rom-com in a familiar setting like a wedding then you probably don’t need to sweat establishing the world in great detail. But if you’re pitching a sci-fi or action film that takes place in an original or arcane world, then you probably want to lead with an explanation of the setting of the story so the exec can better visualize what you are talking about and understand the consequences of your dramatic choices based on the rules of the universe you are drawing from.

However…if I had a gun to my head and had to give you an ideal pitch length, I would say 12 minutes. Beyond that any exec is bound to start wondering whether they’re going to have sashimi or the dragon roll for lunch.

SS: Can you give us any tips for nailing a pitch? It’s such a different art form from writing itself. What do you think the key is?

SO: You have to know your strengths and play to them, and by that same token know your weaknesses and try to avoid them or compensate for them. If you’re good with banter, then reduce the length of your pitch and put more weight on the Q&A with the exec where you respond to their questions and observations on the fly. If you feel more confident memorizing your pitch word for word and creating a more airtight presentation, then go for that. It’s a personal choice. No one size fits all.

In addition, try to get into the pitch itself as quickly as you can. Most execs are busy and under a lot of pressure. They’re only going to be able to listen to so much of you talk, no matter how enthralling you are. Dedicate as many words as you can in the meeting to your story, not how awesome your Cabo bachelor party was or that you just hit level 85 in World of Warcraft.

Lastly, make it personal. You’re trying to convince your audience that you have this story inside of you – that you’re going to burst if you don’t get it out, and that you’re the one person who can tell it. You have to walk into the pitch believing that you’re entering with a briefcase full of diamonds and that they’d be crazy to let you walk out with it. Only never carry a briefcase into a pitch…