I get a couple of e-mails every week asking for which screenwriting books I recommend and this post was always popular, so I’m bringing it back and in classic Hollywood fashion, I’m reimagining the article. That’s the way you do it these days. You don’t make sequels. You “reimagine.” We’ll start with the best book and work our way down. 

I love this book. “The Sequence Approach” sounds overly complicated and I remember initially rating it as “advanced,” but the more I think about it, the more I realize just how simple the methods they teach are. The idea is that you break your script into 8 easily manageable chunks as opposed to three huge acts. As a result, you’re never lost and always focused. It dissects popular scripts like Toy Story and The Fellowship Of The Ring, giving you real-life examples of how the method works. It’s also the method they teach at USC. Now just like any approach, I don’t think you should follow it to a “T.” But for any writer who gets lost in that second act, this book teaches you how to control your screenplay instead of letting it control you. 

I remember first reading this book. It felt like I had stumbled upon a goldmine. Basically, Breakfast With Sharks prepares you for the actual inner workings of Hollywood – what happens when you have that first call or first meeting with a producer who likes your work. What’s your next step? What’s the protocol? How do you turn these meetings into opportunities? For example, the book points out why a producer or manager is meeting with you and what their motivations may be. It teaches you that, before you leave, you should ask what kind of projects the company is developing and if you can have a crack at one. That simple question could lead to your first professional assignment. It preps you for what to bring to the meetings as well so you’re fully prepared (3 screenplay pitches outside of the one you’re meeting about for starters).  Shane Carruth of Primer fame openly admits blowing it after the success of his film.  He didn’t know he was supposed to pitch ideas in meetings, and subsequently sat through all of them smiling, satisfied just to be there.  Meetings are OPPORTUNITIES for business.  This book teaches you this and many other tips. 

Save the Cat! is the most popular screenwriting book ever written. And there’s a reason for that. Snyder writes in a fun non-technical way that makes screenwriting accessible. And for the most part, he does it well. If you’re near the beginning of your screenwriting career and are writing a high concept comedy, an action piece, a family film, or any sort of summer blockbuster, you absolutely have to read this book. Dramas, horror, and anything weird or different (i.e. Pulp Fiction), aren’t really Snyder’s thing, so if that’s your forte, you probably want to let this cat die.

Writing Screenplays That Sell has so much great advice in it. The downside is that it reads more like a text book than, say, the fun breezy Save The Cat!. But this book taught me more about character than any screenwriting book I’ve ever read. This is for intermediate screenwriters with strong attention spans and plenty of patience. If that’s you, pick this up. 

500 Ways To Beat The Hollywood Script Reader has been around forever and the reason for that is, it’s a great book. If you like my “What I Learned” sections, you’re going to eat this up, as all it is is a series of 500 tips on how to write a better screenplay, and almost every one of them is true. Not only is this a great read, but it’s a fast one.

I hate Robert McKee’s Story. I mean I really hate it. I’ve tried to read it twice now and both times I wasn’t able to make it through. If “Writing Screenplays That Sell” is a text book, this is a text mountain translated into Chinese and back again, run through the Matrix, shipped to Bosnia, then faxed back on smudgy paper and re-translated in html. There’s a reason they made fun of McGee in Adaptation.  Despite this, there are people who SWEAR BY THIS BOOK and think it’s the screenwriting bible.  I have no idea why but it definitely has its fans.

 

 

 

 Well, I guess the big news today is that Scriptshadow script favorite, “The Social Network,” is opening.  The movie, based in part on the book, The Accidental Billionaires, is a total mystery when it comes to its box office potential.  The guys over at Slash Film were saying that all their normal non-movie friends had absolutely zero interest in seeing this film, which makes me wonder if anyone outside the Hollywood community has any interest in it.  For that reason, I predict a box office take of anywhere between 10-25 million.  It’s that wide open.

One of my favorite screenwriters, Michael R. Perry, who wrote Scriptshadow Top 25 and Blacklist Buster, “The Voices,” is also the screenwriter of the Paranormal Activity sequel, aptly titled Paranormal Activity 2.  I don’t know if it was his choice or not, but I love that they’re setting it in the same house with new occupants.  Sure this is a cash grab (all horror sequels are) but I like that there’s some connection to the last one. And hey, this trailer is pretty spooky.

Deadline Hollywood is reporting that Ron Howard wants to direct Jodie Foster in an adaptation of the book, “My Stroke of Insight,” written by Jill Bolte Taylor.  The real-life tale is about a brain surgeon trying to rehabilitate herself after a stroke.  This sounds like big time Oscar bait, but just from a screenwriting perspective, I love the irony inherent in the logline (ironic loglines tend to work best!) Semi Chellas, who’s done some TV writing and a few tiny movies, is writing the script.

Slash Film is reporting that a new take on The Great Gatsby is a possibility with Baz Luhrman potentially directing Leonardo DiCaprio, Toby McGuire and Amanda Seigfried. DiCaprio, of course, would play Gatsby and McGuire would play Carraway.  I remember watching the last adaptation with Robert Redford and after starting out great, the movie kinda fizzles into period piece boringness.  However I reread the book a few years ago and it definitely holds up.  Luhrman is said to be deciding between this and a musical.  I think if DiCaprio was really that interested, Luhrman wouldn’t be “deciding” anything. 

Ryan Gosling continues to choose great scripts, as he’s tapped to star in Farragut North, a 2007 (I believe) Black List script I reviewed a while back.  The script is really good, but I thought it would be axed after Obama became president (I can’t remember why, but when I read it, I remember thinking, “They can’t do this anymore.”)  Hmm, maybe I’m wrong.  George Clooney is directing. 

Spider-Man director Sam Raimi is said to be developing a sci-fi flick called Earth Defense Force. I’m not sure I like where he’s going with the tone (he says it’s Top Gun mixed with Independence Day) but he’s working with District 9 producer Bill Block, so I’m definitely intrigued.  If you have this script, please send it my way! (As a side note, does anybody really believe this news that Will Smith has signed on for two Independence Day sequels?  I know the deal’s supposedly done but I just can’t fathom why he would go back to that universe)

Finally, I’m still looking for JJ Abrahms’ “Alcatraz” pilot.  I know it’s bouncing around out there somewhere.  So if you have it, send it my way!

On the last Friday of every month, I choose an amateur script submitted by you, the readers of the site, to review. If you’re interested in submitting for Amateur Fridays, send the genre, the title, the premise, and the reason I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Note that your script will be posted online and that you shouldn’t submit if you’re allergic to criticism. :) Here’s this month’s review, a sci-fi thriller by John Worsley!

Genre: Sci-Fi Thriller
Premise: (from writer) Five survivors of a deadly archeology dig uncover an ancient alien plot while investigating a friend’s suspicious death, and find themselves drawn into a war between the aliens.
About: Amateur Friday script!
Writer: John Worsley
Details: 107 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).

The Black Way follows a group of friends/archeologists as they explore the remote forests of Belize, presumably for remnants of ancient Mayan civilizations. While there, they’re attacked by a mysterious group of people who kill three members of their group.

Fast-forward five years and Merida Zamora, a member of the group who lost her sister on that fateful day, gets a call from the leader of the expedition, Kyle Woodson, a professor type. He has a job for her, and actually wants to include the whole gang . So everyone flies to the same airport where Kyle is scheduled to meet them.

But uh-oh, when Kyle shows up, he’s acting like a deranged emu, refusing to engage anyone in conversation. He quickly marches into the airport and when the others give chase, they watch in horror as Kyle charges outside, into the middle of the road, where he’s hit by a car and KILLED.

Well that definitely didn’t go as planned.  The group concludes that instead of heading back to their respective homes, they need to find out why Kyle was acting like a robot.

They’re given a lead after Kyle’s wake when they spot a strange female intruder at Kyle’s house. Sensing that the group is onto her strangeness, she runs, they chase her, and when they catch her she convulses and dies. I think this is the point in the script where I knew it wasn’t going to work. We start off with the slaughter of the three friends. A few scenes later we get the death of Mysterious Kyle. A few scenes later we get the death of this woman. And I should mention that the movie starts 2500 years ago where we see the death of a Mayan man. It just seemed like there was a lack of inventiveness or imagination here. Death after death after death after death?  Usually one death is the jumping off point for a story. So getting four consecutive instances of it was too much.

Anyway, the group snoops around town, running into more mysterious figures, eventually finding a SECOND KYLE! But how can that be?  Kyle is dead! Well, they follow this Kyle into an alley where some strange alien-men beat the hell out of him and take him away.

At a certain point they realize this is all related to the experience they had in Belize and seek out some ancient Mayan tablets, which inspire them to head back to that dreaded country to finally confront what happened to them that fateful day. 

What I liked about this script was John’s ability to build mystery. Building up questions that the audience wants answered is a surefire way to keep the story entertaining. I also thought the writing style and general flow were solid. But there’s a huge problem looming over this script, and it has to do with the structure. 

You don’t want to wait until the middle of the script to get to the heart of your story. When you come up with an idea, whatever the heart of that idea is, that’s where you should have your characters by page 25-30. If you’re writing Indiana Jones, you don’t have him teaching classes and stumbling around town searching for clues to the Ark of The Covenant until page 60. You send him on his adventure as soon as possible! If you’re writing The Matrix, you don’t have Neo stumbling around the city finding different secrets about the Matrix until page 60. You have him in the real world by page 30! As far as I can tell, the hook for this movie is the creepy Mayan mystery. For that reason, we need to be in Belize by page 30! Not stumbling around finding multiple Kyles and Mayan tablets and weird women and alien thugs. Or, if we are doing that, we should be doing it in Belize or the Mayan jungle, not a completely benign location. Get us to the heart of the story ASAP!

I also think the characters need to be beefed up here. I’m not sure I even know who the main character is in The Black Way. It appears to be Kyle, since he’s the leader of the Belize mission and the one who calls everyone together. But he goes AWOL so we’re forced to accept another main character, who I guess is Merida. But Merida doesn’t really act like a hero. She has no flaw, her personality is neutral, she doesn’t possess any heroic qualities. She’s more like a tour guide, reminding and encouraging everyone where they need to be, than an active driven heroic individual. I didn’t see any passion in her, any fight, anything that made her jump off the page.

In addition to this, none of these characters stand out. Everybody acts the same. Whenever you include a group of people in your script, your first job is to differentiate them. Look no further than Aliens to see the best example of this ever put to film. As soon as those characters are introduced, each one is distinct, each has their own character flaw, each has their own quirks, each has their own agenda. One of the archeologists in The Black Way is described as having an attitude, which, on paper, is great. But I never once saw her attitude in action. Remember, we have to SEE it to feel it.

I think a lot of this comes down to an unfocused story. Blake Snyder, for all the controversy his Save The Cat series inspires, said something that I didn’t initially agree with, but have since realized is so true. He said if you can’t figure out your logline, you’re not going to be able to figure out your story. And what he means by that is that your logline is a reminder of exactly what your story is about. If it’s mushy, if it’s unclear, if it’s weak, then your story is going to be mushy, unclear, and weak. To be honest, I’m still not sure what the central storyline is here. So if I were John, I’d focus this logline to represent a group of people going back to Belize to confront a terrible tragedy, only to uncover a deep secret once they got there.

I say all this, of course, with an encouraging smile and pat on the back. Despite my problems with the script, I see some promise for John as a writer. Just need to get that structure in shape and make those characters come alive. Good luck on the next draft!

Script link: The Black Way

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

What I learned: Today’s “what I learned” isn’t in regards to The Black Way, but rather query letters. I know Amateur Fridays is a learning experience and that you’re trying to present an honest portrait of your work when you write me, but it’s hard to get excited for a screenplay when I read, “I know my script needs work but…” or “I think my script is pretty good…” When someone has so many scripts to choose from, the tiniest lack of confidence eliminates you from the competition. I mean, I have scripts from people saying, “This is funnier than 99% of the scripts you’ve read. I guarantee it.” Now of course I know they’re wrong, but when someone says that, I have to admit I’m intrigued and want to take a look, if only to satisfy my assumption. Of course I’m not saying you should start every query letter with “THIS IS THE BEST SCRIPT EVER!” But just have an air of confidence about yourself. Sure you might have doubts about your work, but that doesn’t mean you should convey them to the person who’s going to read it.

The biggest news of the week so far is that Robert “motion capture” Zemeckis is getting back into live action filmmaking!  Hurray!  Even better, he’s doing it with a time travel movie!  Back To The Future is easily in my Top 5 of all time so this is, like, thrilling news.  If you want to jump in the Scriptshadow time machine, you can take a look at the original Back To The Future 2 script, which I reviewed a few months ago. Warner Brothers has picked the project up for high six figures, I believe, as a pitch.  Mike Thompson (Dragonfly) is writing it.  Warner Brothers must have robbed a casino recently since, as you know, they bought two specs last week, a big sci-fi script and a spy thriller. I’m loving it.

Proving that connections are awesome, Collider is reporting that Chris Pine, who, let’s be honest, nailed the part of Captain Kirk in Star Trek, is running back into Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci’s arms, as he looks to have accepted the lead in “Welcome To People,” Kurtzman’s directing debut.  The script is not typical Kurtzman and Orci fare and looks to be more of a passion project.  It’s about a guy who comes home to his father’s funeral, only to learn that he has a sister he never knew existed.  I’m still looking for this script so if you have it, please send it my way!

Deadline Hollywood‘s reporting that the video game Myst and its sequels are finally being turned into movies.  On the one hand, I think Myst is one of the most cinematic video games ever and would probably make one of the best video-game adaptations in history.  Certainly a better choice than turning board games into movies.  But I seem to remember this being purchased for a film adaptation numerous times.  It’s one of the highest selling video games ever and I remember loving the first one back in 1993, but there’s obviously something preventing this from getting to the big screen.

Slash Film has brought up the title change to “I’m Mortal,” Andrew Niccol’s latest sci-fi escapade.  I reviewed his script “The Cross” a while back and must admit I didn’t like it.  Niccol is sort of plagued by creating such a brilliant first film in Gattaca, and is still looking to recapture that greatness in my opinion.  I do have this script but I haven’t mustered up enough excitement to read it because Niccol’s work is so uneven.  Have you guys read it?  If so, what did you think?  Apparently it’s about a future society where time is rationed, which sounds kinda neat if done right.  On the plus side, the film has some Mad Men love going for it, casting Vincent Kartheiser.

Finally, it’s sort of a bittersweet moment here at Scriptshadow.  My review of The Social Network script a year ago doubled Scriptshadow’s traffic in a single day, so it’s going to be sad having to take it down from The Top 25.  The film is opening tomorrow. I don’t know about you but I will be watching it this weekend AND reviewing it for you next week.  So go see it!  Also there’s good news for The Social Network as I’m hearing the soundtrack is number one over at Amazon.  Really hope this movie does well.

The folks over at Deadline Hollywood are reporting that Universal has just purchased a script titled “Snow White and the Huntsman” for 1.5 million dollars, obviously taking the famous deceased gal in a new, and I presume more sinister, direction.  Rupert Sanders, desired by everyone for their big budget projects (he’s said to be up for the All You Need Is Kill job) will be directing.

Another hot project that looks to be bought up soon is “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” based on the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith.  The script is said to have in it Abraham Lincoln.  And vampires.  Tim Burton is producing and Timur Bekmambetov is directing.  You may be asking the question, “How is it a spec script if it’s based on a novel and two entertainment heavies are attached to it?”  Well technically any script that you’re writing and not getting paid for is a spec.  The traditionalist in me sure would like a good ole fashioned original spec idea but hey, if it keeps the market alive, it’s a nice consolation.

James Franco, fresh off his 127 Days buzz, has purchased the Stephen Elliott novel, The Adderall Diaries, which he not only plans to direct and star in, but write as well!  More power to him.

Finally, the biggest purchase of the day was actually in the book world.  For 2.5 million dollars Sonny Mehta acquired The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai based on a four page proposal.  It looks like we’re in the wrong business!  Desai is a Booker Prize winner for her heady novel, The Inheritance of Loss.