Would you like to know the winner of last week’s grudge match?
Before I give the final tally, I have to say that this was CLOSE. I’m not sure what I was expecting. But I didn’t think the competition would come down to the wire. There were too many voters. You figured someone was going to run away with it.
I wanted to read both scripts this weekend but I didn’t have time so I read the first scene of each. And I have to say, I liked the opening of both scripts. Grendl’s opening is more of a sequence but I found it clever the way the separate plotlines collided in an interesting and shocking way.
And I thought Kagey’s scene was good as well. When the friend decides to go steal some extra fishing gear and the drug guys pull up, my stomach dropped. So, for all the pomp and circumstance – of which there was plenty in the comments section, believe you me – this ended up being a good old fashioned writing contest. Two very capable writers bringing it.
And with that, the winner of our first ever Grudge Match was…..
KAGEY!!!!!!
His script, For Good Men To Do Nothing, received 25 votes. Grendl’s script, Haddegon Tails, received 22 votes (23 if you count Brenkilco’s late vote).
Congratulations, Kagey. And good job Grendl for keeping it exciting. I was checking the vote count multiple times a day all week. So I was into it, man.
I want to thank everyone who voted, everyone who tried to read the scripts, and especially those of you who read both scripts all the way through. And also those of you who left notes. It sounds like Kagey got some really good ideas for his script. And while we all know Grendl is a little tougher to puncture on the suggestions front, I wouldn’t be surprised if he incorporated a few notes himself.
That’s what I like about our showdowns – it’s the only place in the world where you get a ton of people reading your script and giving you feedback. They don’t even get this in the pro ranks. A few people read each draft, and that’s it. So if you’re smart, you can really take the feedback and make your script awesome.
I have a final thought before we wrap this up.
One of the themes of this battle was LUCK. Kagey’s argument was that the best writers will rise to the top and get noticed no matter what. Grendl’s argument was that it all comes down to luck, being in the right place at the right time. That’s what the grudge in this Grudge Match centered on.
Kagey said, if your old script is good enough, Grendl, someone would’ve bought it. Grendl stands strong on his belief that the only reason the script hasn’t been purchased is because Hollywood is a sham and there’s no difference between pro and amateur other than nepotism and luck.
I disagree with both writers to an extent. I don’t believe that you either have it or you don’t and if you do, you’ll get noticed. Nor do I believe that there’s an endless number of terrible writers making a living strictly due to luck and connections. Sure, they’re out there. But I don’t think they make up a huge percentage of working writers.
May I present a third option: WORK YOUR BUTT OFF. Work your butt off learning as much about screenwriting as possible — writing as much as possible. And then work your butt off as a salesman. Hustle, market yourself, cold query everyone in town, get your scripts into all the major contests and on all the major screenwriting websites.
Most writers are only good at one of those two things. So if you can be good at both, there’s a good chance you will find success as long as you keep at it. But if you’re average at both, it’s not going to happen. And that’s what most writers are. They’re average when it comes to learning and improving and they’re average at hustling.
So Grendl is right. If you’re only good at the writing part and crappy at the marketing part, you will need luck. And Kagey is right. If you’re really good at the marketing part but crappy at the writing part, you will need to put effort into learning so that your ability improves to a point where you’re writing good screenplays.
If you’re struggling in either of these departments, come up with a plan. TONIGHT. Write down how you’re going to get better at writing or marketing, set realistic goals for yourself, and get to work. Cause I guarantee you, you know where you’re weak. And knowing is half the battle. Now do something about it. Yes, I just quoted G.I. Joe.
What’d you guys think? Pro vs. Amateur. Is the line as clear as they say it is?
Oh, and let’s not forget the obvious question.
Who’s next?
:)
Some really fun stuff in this newsletter. David Aaron Cohen gives us a behind-the-scenes look at what it was like dealing with Austin Powers himself, Mike Meyers. Let’s just say that his spidey-sense was screaming at him that this supposed amazing opportunity might not turn out so well. I also give you a review of another short story sale, this one with a unique action protagonist (to say the least!). We’ve got my thoughts on that impending huge book sale, “Drowning.” Also some thoughts on that Heat sequel. Will it be good?? Oh, and I can’t not comment on that Marvels trailer. I mean, come on, I’m only human.
This post may stay up all of Monday. I’ve been overworked and I don’t know if I have the energy to put something together. But at least Tuesday, we’ll be able to discuss who the big winner is in the Kagey-Grendl smackdown.
If you want to get on my newsletter list, e-mail me. I’ll send this over to you immediately. carsonreeves1@gmail.com
Every second-to-last Friday of the month, I will post the five best loglines submitted to me. You, the readers of the site, will vote for your favorite in the comments section. I review the script of the logline that received the most votes the following Friday.
If you didn’t enter this month’s showdown, don’t worry! We do this every month. Just get me your logline submission by the second-to-last Thursday (May 18 is the next one) and you’re in the running! All I need is your title, genre, and logline. Send all submissions to carsonreeves3@gmail.com.
If you’re one of the many writers who feel helpless when it comes to loglines, I offer logline consultations. They’re cheap – just $25. E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com if you’re interested.
Are we ready? Voting ends Sunday night, 11:59pm Pacific Time!
Good luck to all!
Title: 1 v 1000
Genre: Action
Logline: During the Bali holiday of Nyepi, where it is illegal to be outside, an AI engineer, marked for death by the Yakuza, must flee a thousand pursuers across the empty countryside.
Title: Thump
Genre: Thriller/Comedy
Logline: Two teenage porch pirates become entangled in the deadly world of illegal drugs and organ trafficking after they unknowingly steal a package that contains a human heart.
Title: Unfrozen
Genre: Horror
Logline: As Disneyland prepares for its 50th Anniversary, an unfrozen Walt Disney starts a murderous rampage through the park and it’s up to Roy E. Disney, his timid 75y.o. nephew, and Michael Eisner, the brash CEO he’s trying to oust, to stop him.
Title: Every Other Day
Genre: 1 Hour Drama
Logline: An emotionally unavailable artist and an unhappily married ad exec, who have been involuntarily switching bodies every night for twenty years, find their delicate situation complicated when the exec’s mistress turns up dead.
Title: Nice Guy
Genre: Thriller
Logline: Over the course of one day, a resilient young woman is terrorized by a self-proclaimed “nice guy” who refuses to take no for an answer after asking her out.
Former winner: Blood Moon Trail
You’ve got one day left to send your loglines into April’s Logline Showdown. I want some stupendous loglines to choose from so don’t hesitate to submit. Here are the submission details…
******************************************************
What: Title, Genre, Logline
Rules: Your script must be written
When: Send submissions by April 20th, Thursday, by 10PM pacific time
Where: carsonreeves3@gmail.com
Winner: Gets a review on the site
******************************************************
Seeing as we have a big logline weekend ahead of us, let’s talk about the ten biggest logline mistakes and how we can avoid them. In order to provide everyone with some context for what constitutes a good logline, here are the three winning loglines from this year so far.
Blood Moon Trail
In 1867 Nebraska, a Pinkerton agent banished to a desolate post for an act of cowardice finds a chance at redemption when he decides to track down a brutal serial killer terrorizing the Western frontier.
Call of Judy
When a lonely kid gets lost in a next-gen VR gaming experience, the only person who can rescue him is his mom, who’s never played a videogame in her life.
Rosemary
A prolific serial killer struggles to suppress her desire to kill during a weekend-long engagement party hosted by her new fiance’s wealthy, obnoxious family.
Now that you understand what we’re aiming for, let’s discuss the TEN biggest logline mistakes.
NOT GIVING US THE MAIN CHARACTER RIGHT OFF THE BAT
The first thing a potential reader wants to know is, who’s leading me through this story? We are human beings so the first thing we connect with are other human beings. Therefore, unless there’s no other option, you should start off by introducing us to your main character. We see that in all three of the above winners, with a minor exception in Blood Moon Trail, which takes three words before we get to the main character. There are exceptions to this but, for the vast majority of loglines, you want to introduce your main character right away.
LITTLE-TO-NO SPECIFICITY
This is one I run into with Rom-Coms, Action-Thrillers, and Horror loglines, as these genres are the most susceptible to cliches. But it can happen with any genre. It boils down to the writer only using generic characters, adjectives, and locations, leaving the logline absent of anything that stands out. If you want to know what this looks like, here’s Blood Moon Trail’s logline, but rewritten without specificity: “Back in the Old West, a cowardly cop searches the frontier for an evil killer.” Notice the absence of all the specific words that made the logline pop: 1867, Nebraska, Pinkerton agent, brutal serial killer, Western frontier.
NO HOOK
This is more of a concept problem than a logline problem. To be clear, if you don’t have a good concept, it’s almost impossible to make your logline work. A hook just means a fresh and/or elevated component to your logline that feels bigger than the kinds of things that happen in everyday life. We don’t usually hear about cops chasing down serial killers in the Old West. That’s what makes Blood Moon Trail stand out. Call of Judy has a mom who’s never played video games have to save her son inside of a video game. To understand why that’s a hook, imagine the same idea but with a gamer friend trying to save our hero as opposed to the mom. All of a sudden it just becomes a flat boring idea. And then with Rosemary, we have a serial killer who’s trying *NOT* to kill. That’s a hook. A killer who’s doing the opposite of what’s expected of her.
IRRELEVANT DETAILS
The reason writers make this mistake is because they know their script so well that they’re unable to identify the things that might sound confusing inside a logline. Remember, some stuff needs the context of reading the whole script to understand. Whereas, if you included that stuff in the logline, it doesn’t organically fit with everything else you’ve told us. Here’s an example: “An aging ballet dancer with a keen interest in electronics is given the opportunity of a lifetime when she’s recruited by the prestigious Mariinsky Ballet Company.” What in the heck does having a keen interest in electronics have to do with this story?? Why would you include that in the logline? Maybe it *does* make sense in the context of the screenplay. But it doesn’t make sense in this abbreviated pitch of the story. Which is why you shouldn’t include it.
COMPETING ELEMENTS THAT DON’T ORGANICALLY CONNECT
I read a lot of loglines where the main elements don’t connect and, sometimes, even contrast with one another. Here’s an example: “A man with Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome, a rare condition wherein a person rapidly ages, learns that his father was a famous tomb raider and heads to Bolivia to seek out the treasure his dad died attempting to find.” What does the first half of the logline have to do with the second half? You’ve got two separate ideas here and you’re trying to cram them into the same movie. That RARELY works.
AN ENDING THAT SIMMERS OUT
This one always kills me. The writer will have this big catchy opening to his logline and pay zero attention to the logline’s climax, letting it die a slow quiet death. I’m talking about loglines like this: “A mountain climber who inadvertently disturbs a family of bloodthirsty sasquatches on Mount Kilimanjaro must rely on his smarts if he’s to escape the beasts and make it all the way down the mountain, a challenge that will test him both mentally and spiritually.” Notice how unevenly stacked this logline is. The first half is really exciting. The second half puts us to sleep. Always end the logline with a bang. All three of our winners did that.
THE OVERSTUFFED BURRITO LOGLINE
If you’ve ever been to Chipotle, you know what this one looks like. Those crazies try to cram everything into that burrito. Inexperienced writers do the same with their loglines. I understand their rationale. They want to make sure that all the relevant information is included so that reader knows absolutely EVERYTHING they’re going to get in the script. But that’s not how loglines work. Loglines only have space for the main character, the hook, and the central conflict. Generally speaking, try to stay under 30 words. 35 if you absolutely need those extra 5 words. Here’s what an overstuffed logline looks like: “A retired liberal political commentator must overcome her fear of the Bible Belt when she meets a conservative Alabama man online and moves in with him, but her fears are unfortunately realized when she must deal with his arrogant stepson, his weird paddle-ball obsessed neighbor, as well as overcome the church group who have declared her public enemy number 1 when she turns down their Sunday mass invitation.”
PROTAGONIST ADJECTIVE OVERLOAD
This is a small one but I see it a lot. It’s when writers go adjective crazy on their protagonist. They’ll include three, sometimes even four, adjectives to describe them. My advice when it comes to protagonist adjectives is to use one, two adjectives tops. And, keep in mind, a job title (accountant) or a label (serial killer) is an adjective. So instead of saying, “A young impressionable conflicted comedic actor,” you’d say, “A comedic actor.” I know it doesn’t tell the reader the whole story of who your protagonist is. But tough cookies. Loglines aren’t meant to tell the whole story. They’re the “poster” of your screenplay. They have to be succinct and to-the-point.
PLATITUDE FEVER
Here’s the definition for platitude: “A remark, statement, or phrase, that has been used too often to be interesting or thoughtful.” These are death for a logline yet writers use them all the time. And they make your logline both boring and empty. Funny enough, I asked ChatGPT to write me a platitude filled logline. This is what it came up with: “In a world where dreams are meant to be chased, and the only thing standing between success and failure is the courage to try, a plucky young underdog sets out on a journey of self-discovery and redemption.” “In a world.” “Where dreams are meant to be chased.” “The only thing standing between success and failure.” These are platitude phrases and mean nothing. Sometimes, you can use a single platitude to bridge relevant parts of your logline. But I would avoid them if you can. They somehow make everything sound like nothing.
CLUNKY PHRASING
“Clunky” boils down to using too many words and phrasing them incorrectly. It’s something that can be fixed by simplifying. Here’s the Rosemary logline, but written by a writer with clunky phrasing: “Trying to suppress her desire to kill, for which she is obsessive, a prolific and eccentric serial killer attempts to suppress her usual desire for bloodletting while experiencing a weekend-long engagement party that is being held for the richest of the rich.”
NOW GET THOSE LOGLINES IN BY 10PM PACIFIC TIME TONIGHT! (THURSDAY)
Need logline help? I’m here for you! Logline consults are just $25 for basic (analysis, rating, and logline rewrite) and $50 for deluxe (same as basic plus you get unlimited e-mails until we get the logline perfect). E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line: LOGLINE CONSULT.
Is Hotel Cocaine the next Casablanca?
Genre: 1 Hour Drama
Premise: Pitched as “Casablanca in late 70s Miami,” Hotel Cocaine follows a hotel that acts as a neutral site where everyone on every side of the drug trade can co-exist… in theory at least.
About: Chris Brancato is a pretty big TV writer. He created Narcos, in addition to its Mexico spinoff. He wrote on Hannibal. He created Godfather of Harlem. But he’s got an uphill battle with this one. While the idea sounds cool, you may need a map from the 1970s to find it. That’s because it’ll stream on MGM+. I’m not sure I even know what that means, seeing as Amazon acquired MGM. I suppose we’ll find out when the show debuts. Or hear about it from the one person in our friend group who owns MGM+. The show will star Michael Chiklis.
Writer: Chris Brancato
Details: 56 pages
One of my favorite ever TV pilots was The Shield. I mean, can you beat that final scene? Michael Chiklis was huge after that show but the weird thing about Hollywood is that they only give you a couple of chances to capitalize on your buzz. And if you don’t pick the right projects, you become radioactive.
Chiklis followed the money and joined the one superhero franchise Hollywood can’t seem to figure out – Fantastic Four – and paid the price for it. His costume looked like something out of Sesame Street. And, all of a sudden, Chiklis wasn’t so hot anymore.
But Chiklis is getting another shot in the spotlight, in so much as MGM is able to afford the bulbs that power that spotlight. Will his new show be a banger?
It’s 1977 in Miami. Cocaine is becoming THE drug, to the point where people are building tiny submarines, basically coffins, that allow them to smuggle coke into Miami from South America.
We watch as one of these coffins pops up off the Miami coast and the two riders get out and wait for the boat that’s going to pick them up. Instead, a group of Haitian pirates show up and machine gun a bunch of holes into the smugglers.
Cut to The Mutiny Hotel, the Casablanca of Miami, where we hear our hotel manager, Cuban ex-pat, Roman Compte, explain the scene: “The year was 1977 and the cocaine wars of Miami stop at our entrance. We were Switzerland, neutral territory, where drug dealers sent drinks over to DEA agents and avoided killing each other because everyone was having too much fun.”
After dealing with a Hunter S. Thompson incident (yes, the author), Roman gets cornered by two DEA agents who explain that the aforementioned submarine massacre included one of their men working undercover. They want Roman to reconnect with his estranged brother, Nestor, who’s essentially this story’s version of Scarface. Nestor is the one who owned the sub.
The last person Roman wants to deal with is his bloodthirsty crazy brother. But after the DEA threatens to send him back to Cuba, where he’ll be shot dead for betraying Castro, he doesn’t have a choice.
Nestor is not happy to see his sibling but Nestor also realizes the advantages of having an inside man at the most desirable hotel in town. Once Roman is in with Nestor, the DEA wants him to tell them when and where Nestor is going to deal with the Haitians who killed his submarine crew. They want to get there first and arrest Nestor. But when Nestor sniffs out his brother’s betrayal, he changes the meet-up location, and everything falls apart for both the DEA and Roman.
This was a really good pilot.
It gave me some Taylor Sheridan vibes. Paramount’s probably pissed they didn’t snatch this up.
When it comes to TV shows, you’re trying to find scenarios that create a never-ending series of problems that need to be solved by your protagonist. This is why cop shows are so reliable. A cop always has another problem to solve. As soon as one murder is over, another one happens in the next neighborhood.
Same thing here. The series takes place in a hotel. Even at a normal hotel, you’ve got a new problem every 30 minutes. But imagine if you took a normal hotel and turned it into one of the most high profile hotels in the world where criminals, cops, DEA, celebrities, FBI, all hung out.
Now, you’re going to have a new problem every minute. And these problems are going to be much higher grade than the ones at your average hotel. For example, you’ll have your fair share of dead bodies in rooms. That’s why this is such a good idea for a show. Roman is always going to have a problem to solve.
Contrast this with The Mandalorian, a show that’s starting to fall apart narratively. They don’t have built in problems for that show. This forces the writers to artificially come up with problems every week. That never works as well as when the problems are organic to the concept.
That’s why you got that weird episode a couple of weeks ago where the Mandalorian and Lady Mandalorian go to some planet run by Jack Black and Lizzo to solve a robot uprising. Was there a problem that needed to be solved? Yes. But the audience didn’t know about this planet until two minutes so they don’t care. That’s what happens when your problems don’t organically extend from the concept.
What’s great about Hotel Cocaine is that the writer, Chris Brancato, didn’t stop there. He turbocharged his idea by placing Roman in a very precarious position. Roman is being controlled both by the DEA, who want an inside man into Nestor’s operation, and Nestor, who wants an inside man into the DEA’s operation. This forces Roman to walk the thinnest tightrope in Miami.
This is how you write, guys. It’s not hard when you think about it.
a. Come up with a concept that generates problems.
b. Place the story somewhere where those problems feel big, so the stakes are high.
c. Make things as difficult as possible on your protagonist.
That simple formula is what makes this pilot work.
I do have a beef, though. There’s a big scene late in the pilot where Nestor needs to know if he can trust Roman. So he calls him over then takes him into some back room. Sitting in the back room is a guy who’s tied up. Nestor says this guy deceived him. And Nestor will work with Roman if Roman kills him right here and now. He gives Roman the gun and Roman is tasked with a difficult decision. Kill or don’t kill?
My beef?
I’ve seen this scene a million times before.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s a compelling scenario. And it usually works. But if you’re not going to do anything new with it, don’t write it. Cause once you give the audience something they’ve seen a ton of times before, you lose a little piece of them. Cause they’re like, ‘Oh, I’ve been to this house before. I’ve seen this room.’ You’ve lost a little bit of that magical storytelling hold you have on the reader (or viewer). And if you do that a few more times in your script, you lose the reader altogether.
I’ll tell you how to fix that scene in the What I Learned section. But that was the only real blip on the radar here. I suspect this is going to be a really good show. Assuming, of course, that Roman can solve the hotel’s biggest problem of all – how to relocate to a streamer that viewers have access to.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: All right, so let’s say you want to write a “Shoot this guy so I can trust you” scene. You’ve heard the Scriptshadow criticism ringing in your ear imploring you to find a unique way into the scene. Yet, no matter how hard you try, you can’t come up with a fresh angle. Here’s what you do, instead: Make the person he has to kill someone we’ve set up earlier in the script as a character he has a connection with. That way, your protagonist isn’t just shooting anyone. It’s personal. They know, and are maybe even close, to this person. That scenario works 99.9% of the time, even though we’ve seen it before. There’s something about seeing our protagonist tasked with killing someone they know that’s riveting and overrides any ‘cliche’ criticisms.
