So last week we talked about adding conflict to scenes. Today, we’re gonna take that one step further and talk about specific ways to improve your scenes. Now the majority of what makes a scene great comes from what you’ve done beforehand. The structure of your story. The development of your characters. How you craft your relationships. You have to set all that stuff up in order to pay it off later. For example, the Jack Rabbit Slims scene in Pulp Fiction doesn’t work if it’s the first scene in the movie. It works because of what’s been set up beforehand. That said, every writer should carry around a bag of tricks for when their scenes aren’t working. Don’t have a bag of tricks? Not to worry. I’m about to give you one. Here are 10 tricks you can use to make your scenes kick ass.

ADD A GOAL TO THE SCENE
Well surprise surprise. Here we have another article and Carson’s harping on about that “goal” thing again. Well hold onto your seat sister, because this might be the most important advice I give you all day. In short, a goal gives a scene focus. Just like a goal gives a movie focus. Say you have two characters at a bar. You need to get in some exposition about how one of them is having troubles at work. Problem is, random conversation gets boring fast. However, if you switch the scene around so that your hero needs a solution (goal) for this work problem before tomorrow morning, now all of a sudden your scene has purpose. Both characters are working towards a common goal. You can still throw in a bunch of funny banter, along with necessary exposition, but since you’ve established that there’s a purpose (a goal) to the scene, we’ll be more interested in what they’re talking about. Adding goals to scenes is one of the easiest ways to make them more interesting.

TURN THE SCENE INTO A SITUATION
I got this one from the billionaire screenwriters over at Wordplayer. Remember, every single scene should be entertaining on some level – even exposition scenes. That means instead of just pushing your plot along, push it along in as entertaining a way as possible. Let’s look at Back To The Future. There’s a scene early on where Marty stumbles into town and must find out where 1950s Doc lives. So he goes into the diner, looks him up in the phone book, and finds the address. Technically, that’s all you need to get Marty to the next scene. So the scene’s over. Right? Well, no. Because it’s boring. There’s no situation there. It’s just a character moving from point A to point B. So Zemeckis and Gale throw on their creative caps and get to work. Marty runs into his father, who’s being bullied by Biff. We get a fun scene where they meet each other for the first time and then Marty has his first confrontation with the movie’s villain. You’ve taken a simple plot-point scene and you’ve turned it into a situation. Now this might seem obvious in retrospect. Of course Marty runs into his dad and Biff. The story can’t work without it. But when you’re staring at a blank page, you don’t see all that stuff yet. You have to find it. So if your scene feels thin or boring, turning it into a situation is definitely going to spice it up. And who knows, you might just find an exciting new plot direction along with it.

ADD A THIRD CHARACTER
This is an old but effective trick. A quick way to make a scene between two people more interesting is to add a third person. A great example of this is in Notting Hill. It’s the scene where William goes to talk to Anna (Julia Roberts) but her press junket is running late. Will is ushered into her room under the assumption that he’s a journalist. Now if you would’ve played this scene with just two characters, the dialogue would’ve been on the nose and boring. “Thanks for coming.” “You’re welcome. What are you up to?” “Nothing. How about you?” Borrrrrrrring. So instead, they keep sending Anna’s handler into the room to check up on them, forcing William to keep up the façade that he’s a journalist. He has to come up with questions. He has to pretend like he’s seen the movie. It adds a ton of flavor to what otherwise would’ve been an average scene. The trick is, you want the third person to agitate matters. They have to complicate things somehow. That’s where you get your entertainment.

UP THE STAKES IN THE SCENE
Hey, this may sound familiar. What are the stakes of your scene? Because if nobody in the scene has anything on the line, there’s a good chance you’ve just sent your characters to Boringsville. How do you know if the stakes are high? Ask yourself: Does my character lose anything significant if he doesn’t get what he wants? Also: Does my character gain anything significant if he gets what he wants? Look at the famous scene in The Princess Bride where the Man In Black swordfights Enigo Montaya. Both characters have an incredible amount at stake. If the Man In Black loses, he won’t be able to save the life of his true love. If Enigo Montaya loses, he’ll never be able to avenge his father’s death. That’s why that swordfight is so exciting. Contrast that with any of the hundreds of swordfights in the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise where we feel nothing, because either we don’t know what’s at stake or what’s at stake is so murky that we don’t care. Not every scene will have astronomical stakes, but you can always make a scene better by upping the stakes.

DRAMATIC IRONY
This is hands down one of the best ways to juice up a scene. Give the audience knowledge that someone in your scene – or group of people in your scene – don’t know. This is the often referred to “bomb under the table” scenario. If two people are talking at a table, it’s boring. But if two people are talking at a table and we know there’s a bomb underneath about to go off, it’s interesting. Just remember, the bomb can be anything. Let’s say you’re writing a horror movie and your beautiful 20-year-old heroine is coming home after a night out. She comes into her apartment, puts her things away, washes her face, gets ready for bed, and as she opens her closet to throw her clothes in, a man leaps out and tackles her. Hmmm, that’s pretty boring. Let’s go back and do that same scene over again, except this time, before she walks in, show us that the man is inside the house, waiting for her ahead of time. Ohhhhhhh. Okay. Now we have dramatic irony. We know she’s in trouble but she doesn’t. Even the most mundane act – washing her face – becomes interesting. Dramatic irony people. It’s a writer’s best friend.

ADD A TICKING TIME BOMB
Any time you add urgency to a scene, everything about the scene becomes more exciting. That’s because urgency creates pressure. And dialogue and action will always be more interesting under pressure. For example, let’s say you wanted to write a scene where your married couple was discussing their problems. The obvious way to do this would be to throw them at the dinner table and let them go at it. Hmmm. You can obviously make this work. But consider how much more entertaining that conversation might be if you place it during breakfast with one of the characters (or both) late for work. Now they’re rushing around, trying to get ready, while having this intense conversation. Because we know the conversation has to end soon, it’s elevated to a new level. We feel all that emotion and tension at a higher decibel level.

PLACE YOUR CHARACTER SOMEWHERE HE OR SHE DOESN’T WANT TO BE
Remember, if there are too many scenes in your movie where your character is comfortable, there’s a good chance your movie is getting BORRRRRRRRRING. An easy way to add tension to a scene is to put your character in a situation they don’t want to be in. The Deli Scene from The Wrestler that I highlighted the other week is a good example. The last place The RAM wants to be is at that deli. You can see this in a lot of scenes. The Cantina scene in Star Wars. They don’t want to be there. It’s dangerous. Lester Burnham being dragged to his wife’s real estate convention. He doesn’t want to be there. You obviously have to mix in scenes where characters are happy in order to set up those moments, but just remember, you have to keep making your characters uncomfortable or else the situations they’re in become boring.

WANT
Make sure you know what each character wants in your scene. The stronger you can make that want, and the more that “want” conflicts with the other character’s “want,” the more entertaining a scene you’re going to write. So let’s say your main character wants to ask the Starbucks cashier out on a date. That’s his want. So the character gets up to the cashier, and his side of the conversation is very strong, but for some reason, the cashier’s side is boring and lifeless. Why is this? It’s likely because you don’t know what she wants. Maybe she’s at the end of a double shift and all she can think about is getting home. Immediately your scene becomes more interesting. Your hero has been prepping for this moment all week, and she won’t even look at him because she keeps glancing at her watch and that clock up on the wall. Even when she is looking at him, she doesn’t care because her “want” is so strong. Any time you have two strong conflicting wants in a scene, chances are you have an interesting scene.

ELIMINATE THE DIALOGUE
Forcing yourself to come up with a visual solution instead of a spoken solution can do wonders for a scene. How do you accomplish this? Start off by asking yourself, what’s the point of this scene? Then, instead of trying to convey the answer through dialogue, do it visually, through action. Show us. Don’t tell us. For example, say you want to convey that a girl is frustrated with her father. The obvious way to do this would be to have her dad ask her why she’s been quiet lately. She tells him he wasn’t around last week when she needed him most. Things get heated. She eventually storms off saying something to the effect of, “You’re such an asshole.” Instead, why not write a scene where she’s in her bedroom and hears her dad coming. She quickly grabs her headphones, throws them on, and pretends to do homework. He peeks in, sees she’s busy, and leaves. If you really wanted to drive it home, maybe she gives him the finger after he leaves. Now the truth is, in this day and age, you’re not going to have many scenes without dialogue. But you’d be surprised at how much better your scene becomes when you approach it from a “show don’t tell” perspective. You’ll probably end up adding dialogue back in, but the scene will have a more visual flair and therefore be better.

ADD AN OBSTACLE
Something we’re all guilty of in our scenes is having tunnel vision. We know what we want out of the scene, so we write a straightforward version of it. For example, if we’re writing a breakup scene, we simply write our character break up with the other character. The scene does what it’s supposed to do so we’re happy. But in the end, the scene feels flat. A breakup is supposed to be an entertaining moment. Why is ours so boring? It’s likely because the scene is too predictable – too straightforward. You need to add an obstacle, a twist, something unexpected. For example, in Say Anything, Diane is going to break up with Lloyd. But as she’s preparing to do it, Lloyd goes into this big thing about how much he likes her and how they’re going to do all these things together and he tells her about the letter he wrote her. All of a sudden, breaking up isn’t so easy. And it’s all because we added a little obstacle – an unexpected roadblock. I think whenever a scene is too easy, you should be looking to add some sort of obstacle to throw the scene out of balance.

I guarantee that these tools will improve your scenes. It has to be the right fit for the right scene, but the solution to one of your yucky scenes is probably listed above. The only thing left is to figure out tip number 11. I’m gonna leave that one up to you guys. What tricks or methods do you use to improve your scenes? Maybe we can come up with the ultimate list and sell all of our screenplays to Fox by the weekend. Suggestions in the comments section please. :-)

Genre: Comedy
Premise: In 1986, the year Halloween lost its innocence, three junior high best friends try to salvage their last shot at the holiday.
About: There’s not a whole lot of info on this screenplay but it looks to have been commissioned from National Lampoon’s for Robbie Chavitz to write. Robbie has been working for a long time in the business as a writer, director, and actor, though he hasn’t had any huge breakout success yet.
Writer: Robbie Chafitz
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).

I like to find the diamonds in the rough just like any other reader. And since Halloween is coming up, and the premise for this one sounded fun, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to go diamond hunting. Unfortunately, the diamond I found turned out to be a sharp rusty nail, hidden in a mini Snickers bar, which turned the inside of my mouth into a bloody stew of flesh.

I didn’t think you could write a Halloween script that was as average in its execution as Fun Size but The Last Night Of October managed to do so. This one was just devoid of everything. It doesn’t have a single element that sticks out.

October follows three 13-year-olds, Matt, Wayne, and Frankie. As you would expect, all three characters are kind of nerdy, and all the major character tropes are covered. Matt is super average, but un-nerdy enough to be our hero. Wayne is the skinny dork. And Frankie is the sloppy fat kid.

The movie starts off with a school demonstration about how dangerous Halloween has become. An officer warns the kids that there are a lot of bad people out there who are looking to kidnap children and/or stuff their candy with razor blades and anything else that could maim or kill them.

But our un-heroic trio could care less. As 13-year-olds, this is probably their last ever night of trick or treating, so they have to make sure it’s the best trick-or-treat night ever. Wayne has even gone so far as to map out the “Golden” route, where he’s used years of experience to only cover the houses with the best candy.

Oh but wait. Obstacles start happening immediately (if by “immediately” you mean after 30 pages of nothing happening). Fatso Frankie gets grounded by his parents because… well, he’s too fat. Then there’s Matt, whose father so much wants to be the “cool” dad, that he follows his son around like a lost puppy. I think something happens to Wayne as well but it was so inconsequential that I don’t remember it.

After 10,418 pages, the group actually starts their trick-or-treat route, and hijinks ensue. For example, one of them gets stuck inside a Jesus freak’s house who keeps telling him about the importance of God. And then another one – I’m not kidding you – gets stuck in an old woman’s house who wraps him up in yarn. Still another one of the group gets caught with a really nervous man with no treats. I’m sorry but there were moments where I thought the script’s goal was to not be funny.

Eventually the kids find their way inside a high school party with a lot of drinking and the story picks up a bit as they gargle some booze and get a little wasted. I admit that for a brief five pages, when they meet some girls, I believed there was a chance the script would rally.

But alas, all we get is something about all of them going to a haunted house where the family who used to live there is supposedly dead, only to get there, start partying, and find out that the family is still very much alive and back from a night out.

Let’s see. How do I categorize this one? Well I should probably say this. Any screenplay that I read right after The Imitation Game has a tough act to follow. When you read a lot of screenplays, you always encounter stretches of mediocre material. After a while, you begin to think that’s all that’s out there. Then you read a script that’s actually good and you go, “Oh yeah, this is what real writing looks like.”

So when you go back to the average writing, it sticks out like a sore thumb. I mean the opening 10 pages here killed this script. Absolutely nothing happened. We literally got a 10 page scene of a cop talking to a bunch of kids. 10 pages! Of a demonstration. And I’m not saying that you can’t make an opening 10 page scene work, BUT SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE HAPPENING IN THOSE TEN PAGES! If all you’re doing is setting up your characters and spouting out exposition, you’ve lost the battle before it began. I already know I’m in for a long boring ride because if it takes a writer ten pages to get across what should have been conveyed in three, who knows how boring and unfocused it’s going to get for the next 100 pages.

Indeed, this script takes forever to start. I don’t think they actually get on the trick-or-treat route until page 33. Up until that point, all that happens is kids talking to each other. They talk and talk and talk and talk. And I don’t even know what the hell they’re talking about. But boy did they keep talking. This is why I so madly obsess over goals. If you give your characters goals, your characters will be active. They’ll be doing things. They’ll be pushing the story forward. If you don’t, all you have is a bunch of characters in a bunch of rooms talking to each other. Borrrrring.

There’s no GSU here. There’s no conflict here. There’s no exploration of character flaws here. There’s no character development here. As far as I can tell, this is just about three kids who go out on Halloween and trick-or-treat. That could be funny if the obstacles they ran into were interesting or funny in some way. But all of the gags and all of the events were either obvious, predictable, or dumb. A kid who needs to call for help because an old woman has wrapped him up in yarn? I don’t know where to begin with that

The thing is, there was so much potential here. I was a little too young to remember Halloween in 1986, but I remember my parents talking about it. It was the year the holiday died. Up until that point, it was a safe fun exciting experience. I mean what’s better as a kid than walking around from house to house with people handing you candy? It’s like the greatest holiday ever.

But that year, everything changed. Kids were getting abducted. Bad people were stuffing razor blades in candy bars. You couldn’t trust the experience anymore. Parents became paralyzed with fear for their children. And the kids felt that. Even sixth-graders were being escorted around by their guardians.

The thing is, I don’t think I’ve ever read a script where something was discussed as much as this was, and yet I didn’t feel an ounce of it. There are probably two dozen moments in Last Night where people talk about the danger of Halloween, and not once did it resonate. Maybe it was because they were telling and not showing. I don’t know. But it never went beyond the page. Since I didn’t feel that fear, I didn’t care about the story.

And also, of course, the characters were boring as hell. So I didn’t care about them either. If you don’t care about the characters and you don’t care about the story, there isn’t much left in a screenplay to care about. Which is why this was such a disappointing read. This didn’t work for me at all.

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

What I learned: Do not start your movie off with an exposition scene. Don’t do it. Even if it’s funny. It’s too risky. If the reader feels right away like they’re being asked to remember important things and are not being entertained, they’re done with you. And if you ignore this advice – because I’m sure there’s a good movie or two that started out with exposition, for the love of God, make it short. Do not make it 10 pages long.

I guess we should’ve known Nicholl would never allow scripts as weird as Fig Hunt and A Many Splintered Thing to win.  That’s not their M.O.  They tend to highlight those types of scripts in their finalists category, then award the trophy to more serious fare. I haven’t read any of the winning scripts yet, but I’ve heard mixed things on Unicorn (a serial killer script).  Some have called it average, others amazing.  Anyway, here are your winners! Congratulations guys.  Being the top dogs out of 6700 entries ain’t easy!

Chris Bessounian & Tianna Langham, Los Angeles, Calif., “Guns and Saris – They’ve been oppressed and brutalized at the bottom of India’s caste system for 3000 years, but now the “untouchable” women of India have found an unlikely source of hope – and she’s armed.
Dion Cook, Altus, Okla., “Cutter” – After surviving the nightmare of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Patrice Gasana has made a new life in the United States.  A dedicated Miami trauma physician, Patrice lives the American dream with his loving fiancé and her daughter – until his past returns to imperil everything he holds dear.
John MacInnes, Los Angeles, Calif., “Outside the Wire” – An ex-Marine working in Iraq saves a young, single-mom in US Army from assassination by his powerful employers. Two Americans on the run in the most dangerous place on the planet with hostile insurgents, militiamen, and a private army hot on their tail, in a desperate bid to make it back home.
Matthew Murphy, Culver City, Calif., “Unicorn” – A by-the-book FBI profiler must track down a serial killer with the help of an illiterate 24-year-old psychic.
Abel Vang & Burlee Vang, Fresno, Calif., “The Tiger’s Child” – When his father is suddenly killed after being coerced into the CIA’s Secret Army, twelve-year-old Tou must decide whether or not to follow in the same footsteps in order to provide for Cheng, his five-year-old brother.

Edit: I was able to get my hands on the newest version of Fig Hunter and give it a read.  As a result, I’ve decided to add my thoughts on the new draft, which will appear after the original review.  So make sure to read til the end!

Genre: Comedy/Mockumentary
Premise: A couple of “fig hunters” (action figure hunters) go out in search of the rarest action figure in the world: Battle Armor Star Captain.
About: This is another one of the 2011 Nicholl Finalists. Again, the finalists are the top 10 screenplays in the competition. Only five of those will be chosen as winners.
Writer: Aaron Marshall
Details: Old version 122 pages – New version – 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).

Older Version Review:
I have to give it to any writer who takes on a Mockumentary. The thing about these hybrid beasts is that they don’t really work until they’re up on screen. The interview segments are so dependent on us buying the “reality” of the actors’ words, that it doesn’t feel right to see it all written out beforehand.

For that reason, I always advise writers to stay away from the Mocks unless they’re making the movie themselves. That being said, Fig Hunt does about as good of a job as you can of conveying a Mockumentary in script form.

Jason Udegaard is the 30-year-old version of Steve Carrel in The 40 Year Old Virgin. I guess you could call him the 30 year old virgin. His house is decorated with action figures and plenty of other nerdtastic touches. But whereas Carrel seemed at least capable of operating in the real world, Jason seems to be living in an alternate reality.

In this reality, the only thing that matters is finding rare action figures. And the crème de la crème of that world is Battle Armor Star Captain. The short of the story is that many years ago one of the big toy companies was getting ready to unveil a new series of action figures centered around Battle Star Captain. Unfortunately, before Battle Star could be shipped, one of the companion figures ended up in a poor little boy’s mouth and choked him to death. As a result, all Battle Star Captains were incinerated and thus never seen from again.

However, years later, a janitor discovers 19 Battle Star Captains that avoided their fiery death. The company, capitalizing on this screw-up, decides to ship the figures out to random stores across the country, mainly to juice up publicity for their other toys.

If only life were that simple. You see, there’s only one group of people out there who give a shit about a 20-year-old random action figure. Fig Hunters! This small but obsessed community spends every waking moment hunting down these forgotten plastic morsels. So when they hear that Battle Star Captains are going to be showing up across the country, it’s like a church congregation being told that Jesus is going to be hanging out at one of the local 7-11s.

Which brings us back to Jason. Jason is one of the last pure figure hunters. He doesn’t care about the money. He doesn’t care about the glory. He cares about the purity of collecting these rare works of art. And since Battle Star Captain is the Holy Grail of action figure collection, he absolutely must have him.

He’s joined by his best friend and fellow fig hunter, 31-year-old Marcus. Marcus is chubby, balding, and pathetic. Essential qualities to being a great fig hunter. The problem is, Marcus has actually found himself a female companion, a rarity in the fig hunter community, and she’s making him think twice about fig hunting as a full time job. Things are getting so bad, in fact, that Jason actually has to convince Marcus to help him find Battle Star Captain.

If finding an impossible action figure weren’t enough, they also have to battle…. Lord Werner. Werner is the worst kind of fig hunter. He’s a scalper. He finds rare action figures then sells them on eBay for a profit. He has a whole gang of fellow profit-seeking scalpers that give him a wide knowledge base that no other fig hunter can match. This means he’s always one step ahead of Jason and Marcus.

The hunt is chronicled online by a mysterious figure known only as “Rogue Fig Hunter,” who keeps tabs on when one of the 19 Battle Star Captains is found. We watch as the number continues to fall, until there are just two Battle Star Captains left. It’s looking like Jason will never get a hold of the greatest rare action figure in existence. The question is, if he does fail, will he ever be able to recover?

So what’s the verdict on Fig Hunter?

Well, if I was to equate the value of this screenplay to a rare action figure, I would probably categorize it as Lando Calrissian. Definitely harder to find then Luke, Han, or Darth Vader, but certainly easier to find than Hammerhead. (I actually don’t know what I’m talking about – I have no idea what the order of difficulty is in finding action figures – but just go with me dammit).

The script is okay. The problem is that whenever it ramps up, it slows right back down again. The script is 122 pages and I just don’t see why. Why wouldn’t you compress your comedy so that there’s more laughs per minute instead of less?

As I’ve always tried to convey, the comedy genre NEEDS TO MOVE. The writing needs to be sparse. Needless tangents need to be eliminated. One of the things that bothers me is when we jump into a flashback only to be told something we already know. So here, Jason is a nerd. We then jump back in time to see him as a kid and what are we told? You guessed it. That Jason was a nerd back then too. What’s the point of giving us backstory if it doesn’t tell us anything new about the character? Take The Imitation Game for example. The backstory was about Alan’s relationship with Christopher, who ends up being the inspiration behind the machine that saves all those lives. That’s worth showing because it informs so much of the present day storyline. We could have easily lost 7-8 pages off this thing by getting rid of the flashbacks.

What I did like about the script was that it had strong GSU. We have a character who’s desperately trying to achieve his goal. The stakes are high because we’ve established how much it means to him. And time is running out because Battle Star Captains are being found left and right. In fact, this script is a reminder that if you can convince the audience that a character cares about something, it doesn’t matter if that thing is the machine that breaks the code that saves millions of lives, or if it’s an action figure that brings someone personal joy. As long as we feel his passion for it, we’ll want him to achieve the goal.

However in the end, I’m not sure I can recommend the script. It sort of runs out of ideas . I mean when they create this whole obstacle course between Jason and Werner to determine who gets the last Battle Star Captain, where they’re competing on things like monkey bars – that’s when I officially tuned out. Remember, you’re always one bad/uninspired choice away from losing your audience, and that was the choice that lost me.

So I guess this wasn’t for me. That being said, if somebody told me they were going to read it, I wouldn’t stop them. I’d probably say something like, “It’s a little silly, but kind of fun.” If that sounds like the mood you’re in, give it a read.

Edit: Here are my thoughts on the newest version of the script.  Enjoy!

Okay, so I just read the newest draft of Fig Hunter and this proves what a well thought-out rewrite can do for a script. There are several key improvements, starting with the focus. In the earlier draft, we had this wandering storyline where there were 19 random Battle Star Captains spread throughout the United States and our characters had to chase after them over the course of, I believe, a year. So even though there is urgency (the figures are disappearing one by one), it’s not as urgent as it could be. In this new version, the toy company sponsors a 45-day action figure hunt from the get-go, and the winners will square off in a competition for a single Battle Armor Star Captain.

One of the reasons I always talk about focus and making your character’s motivations clear, is that it’s easier for the audience to follow along. If either of those things are murky, or they go on for too long without being addressed, the script starts to feel like a fever dream. Screenplays need to be focused. The story needs to be clear. The characters need to be clear. We have to know what everybody wants and why they want it. The difference between the last draft and this one in the focus category is like night and day.

For example, as I mentioned, one of my big problems with the previous draft was that all of a sudden, in the end, we’re thrown into this bogus random contest run by a couple of local DJs. Because it came out of nowhere and because the event seemed so scattershot, we didn’t care. In this version, the Fanathlon is set up early on in the script, so we understand it’s coming from the beginning. This gives it a lot more weight than if it’s just thrown at us on a whim. Also, it’s being held by the toy manufacturer itself, as opposed to a couple of random dudes who have nothing better to do. So that also makes it bigger. In retrospect, it wasn’t really the events (the monkey bars) that bothered me, it was the fact that this event came out of nowhere and we were supposed to think it was important. So set up your plot points ahead of time people. Your script will be better for it.

The characters felt more reined in as well. It just seemed like the writer understood them and didn’t simply go off on whatever tangent popped into his head whenever he thought of something funny for one of them to say. They really stay within character. And while at first I didn’t like the decision to curb Jason’s edginess, I realized over the course of the draft that there was a purpose behind it. It allowed the character to grow into that crazy more reckless version of himself, instead of just being that character from the get-go. In other words, there was more of an arc to his character.

Werner was much better as well. One of my favorite additions is that instead of making it so there was one kid who choked on the Battle Star action figure as a kid, there were three. And in this version, two of them died but one of them survived. The survivor? Werner. That’s the kind of backstory and/or flashback that I wanted in that earlier version. Instead of just telling us something we already assumed, it’s information that makes that character a lot more interesting, a lot funnier, and plays into the story.

Lots of improvements here.  So much more focused.  This easily jumps into “worth the read” status, and is a textbook example of how to improve your script through a rewrite. 

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

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

What I learned: Set up your key plot points ahead of time.  If you’re going to have a big competition at the end of your script, the earlier you can tell the audience that it’s going to happen, the longer they’ll be anticipating it.  And the longer they’re anticipating it, the more important it becomes to them.  If you tell us in one scene that our character is entering some super big important race, and then in the very next scene show us the race, how is that race going to feel important to us?  We just heard about it a second ago.  So set up those big plot points and big moments early on in your script.

Genre: Biopic/Thriller
Premise: The story of how Alan Turing cracked the impossible “Enigma” code, which helped the Allies win World War 2.
About: If I were to gauge the buzz around all the spec screenplays this year, this one would probably be at the top of the list. In fact, I’m betting this script is going to end up as the number 1 Black List script for 2011. What makes it even more impressive is that it’s from a first-time screenwriter (however, he is a novelist). Strangely, the script sold literally 24 hours after I read it, for a million bucks, to Warner Brothers. Maybe I sent some good screenplay vibes out into the universe. Or maybe it was just that Leonardo DiCaprio attached himself.
Writer: Graham Moore (based on “Alan Turing: The Enigma” By Andrew Hodges)
Details: 126 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).

This script had been burning up the screenplay charts for the last few weeks. People had been talking about it as a surefire Oscar winner for 2012 or 2013. So then why didn’t I read it right away? Simple. Because it was a biopic. We all know how I feel about biopics. They don’t easily fit into the three act structure. They’re more about following a person than they are about a story. They have that wandering mushy feel that I’m not a fan of. Up until this point, I’d probably say my favorite biopic was The Muppet Man. And if you remember my review, I even had a bunch of problems with that one.

Well, a new biopic has taken over that title. And it’s The Imitation Game. Why? Because this script has rewritten the rules of biopics. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit. But I will say this. This script addressed the biggest problem I have with this genre. How? Read on my friends.

Imitation Game starts in 1951 with Alan Turing having been robbed. When the police come, they see all these chemicals and equations everywhere – a complete mess – along with Alan, who’s evasive and somewhat embarrassed about the break-in. In fact, he tries to convince the cops that it’s nothing. And although they eventually leave, they’re suspicious that Alan isn’t being entirely truthful with them.

We then cut to 1939, where Alan is being recruited to work on a top-secret project for the British, to try and break the code known as “Enigma,” which is what the Germans used to encrypt all of their orders during the war. It’s considered to be the single most impossible code to break in all of history, and this project is seen as a long shot at best. Even the other people working on Enigma are convinced that it’s a waste of time.

But Alan is a different kind of beast. Although it’s never said during the screenplay – it’s evident that Alan has some form of autism. He’s amazing with puzzles and numbers but has absolutely zero social graces. This makes him a huge burden to work with. And as soon as he pops into the group, he’s hated or ignored by everyone.

We also jump back to a third time period – 1927 – when Alan was 15. Obviously, because he was so strange, he often got bullied and beat up. There was one kid, however, who saw beyond what the other kids saw. His name was Christopher and he was tall and striking and cool and nice, the exact kind of person you’d expect to never give Alan the time of day. But the two struck up a close friendship, which would prove to be the most important friendship of Alan’s life.

Anyway, we continue to jump between these three timelines, with the bulk of the time being spent in the Enigma section. And that really is where the meat of the story resides. As one of his superiors points out to Alan, every 10 seconds, eight more people are dead because of this war. So there’s a lot of pressure to figure Enigma out.

Eventually, Alan realizes that the reason they’re unable to crack Enigma is because they’re humans, and Enigma is more like a machine. In order to figure out a machine, he surmises, you have to come up with your own machine. So he starts building this machine, to the doubts of others, and calls it Christopher (which gives you an idea of where that 1927 storyline is heading).

In addition to being about cracking the uncrackable code, The Imitation Game is also about a man who’s unable to connect with others, who only thinks in terms of logic, and must fight endlessly for even the tiniest bits of emotion and connection. It is a battle he will wage war with for the rest of his life. And it will ultimately contribute to his undoing.

All right, it’s time to get into why this biopic is so much better than all the other biopics I read. Probably the most important thing I preach here on the site is the need for a strong narrative. In order for you to achieve that, you need two things. You need a character with a strong goal. And you need that character to desperately want to achieve that goal. You rarely get that in biopics. They’re usually more a collection of life highlights. But The Imitation Game follows a more traditional narrative path in that it gives its character a strong goal (crack Enigma) along with a desperate desire to achieve it (all Alan cares about is cracking Enigma – it’s the only thing he thinks about 24-7).

Why are these things so important? Because almost all good movies have active main characters – characters who drive the story forward by their own actions. And the best way to get that kind of character is to give him a goal and make it a goal he cares about more than anything. If you do that, your hero will always be fighting and pushing and scratching and clawing to achieve that goal. By that very definition, he’ll be active.

But that’s not all it does right. Whenever you write a biopic, the subject of your story has to be fascinating in some way. The best way to achieve this is to insert some sort of inner conflict inside of him that needs to be resolved. Here, Turing’s flaw is his inability to connect with others. He only seems capable of connecting with numbers and equations and codes and puzzles. Try as he might, he can’t connect with humans. And you feel that with every choice he makes.

In effect, he has to learn to work with others if he’s going to figure this out. This is something he’s unable to do – which gives every scene within the Enigma project a ton of conflict.

But I think where this script really elevates itself is when he starts building Christopher. Now I’m going to allude to spoilers here so tread carefully, but there’s something ironic and sad and powerful about a man who’s unable to connect with others, building a machine – the only thing he’s truly able to relate with – to solve his problems, when in effect what he’s really doing is rebuilding the one human being he cared about. That irony hangs over every scene in the second half of the screenplay and it’s really powerful stuff.

I also loved how we didn’t go down the traditional boring “daddy doesn’t approve of my life choices” path that so many of these biopics rely on. I loved that they found a different relationship to affect our main character.

On the downside, a director pointed out to me that this is not a cinematic script at all. And when I thought about it, I realized that almost the entire screenplay is people talking in rooms. Indeed, it’s difficult to make that cinematically exciting. However, the same thing can be said about The Social Network and The Imitation Game’s second cousin, A Beautiful Mind. Plus, we’re talking about World War 2 here so I’m sure they could add some cinematic scenes if they really wanted to. For example, there’s an intense scene later on where our characters have the opportunity to save a boat that’s under siege by the Germans. In the script, we don’t cut to that boat. But that could easily be written in.

I think my biggest problem with this script was the homosexual stuff. One of the secrets Alan keeps is that he’s gay. My issue is that it doesn’t play into the story at all. It just seems to be another quirky attribute of Alan’s. And because it’s unnecessary, it starts to feel like Oscar bait. There’s a precedent for these misunderstood mathematical genius roles to win Oscars. And if you make him a homosexual, well that just beefs up the chances.

The thing is, the one area where it really could’ve helped the story is where it wasn’t used. I’m talking about the relationship between Alan and Christopher. It’s alluded to briefly, but then that’s it. I would’ve loved if they’d explored that relationship more, and shown more of a connection between them, because it really is heartbreaking later when Alan is building the machine. And if I would’ve understood that relationship and that love better, I’m sure it would’ve taken it over the top. But yeah, the whole “present day” stuff about him hiding his homosexuality didn’t work for me. In fact, I would probably ditch all of the 1951 stuff and use that time to explore the 1927 storyline better. More Christopher please. I mean, he is the reason you’re able to read this blog right now (Alan Turing’s machine is what later spawned the computer).

That said, I really liked the screenplay. The strong goal and compelling inner conflict, coupled with the tragic backstory, really packed a punch. And the script was really well written. It’s easily one of the better scripts of the year.

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

What I learned: I’m telling you guys, if you write a biopic, I’m begging you to come up with some sort of clear objective/goal like The Imitation Game. That way, instead of just appealing to the biopic nuts, you’ll also be appealing to the masses, as you’ll be crafting a script with a strong storyline.