Welcome to another week of Scriptshadow. This weekend my faith in movies was reinstated with the addition of the best movie I’ve seen all year, Toy Story 3. I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again: Every studio should follow the development process of Pixar. They know how to get their scripts in shape. Even when I don’t like their movies, the scripts themselves are solid. I mean the last 30 minutes of that movie – wow! So great. Anyway, tomorrow I’ll be reviewing a flick hitting theaters in July. It’s a bit of a touchy feely story so prepare yourselves. Wednesday and Thursday I’ll be looking at some much talked about recent specs. Then Friday, as promised, I’ll be reviewing an amateur script. For those not around for that post, I’ve vowed to review a reader script on the last Friday of every month. If you want to submit a script of yours, send the script, your logline, and your pitch (give me your sob stories, give me your frustration!) to Carsonreeves3@gmail. Just know that I will post your script and I will be honest in the review. So if you can’t take criticism, do not submit. You can check out Amateur Week so you know what to expect here. Now, let’s hand it over to Roger for his review of…Pandora.

Genre: Drama, Crime, Thriller
Premise: The residents of a small Texas town are shocked when 7 local residents are killed in a bank robbery gone wrong. Although the culprits are immediately captured, they are kidnapped from the local jail and held for ransom –- the town now has to buy back their killers –- and this is when things really start to go awry.
About: “Pandora” was on the 2007 Black List with 2 votes (Seriously, guys, that’s all? Seriously?) Gajdusek was the Story Editor for the awesome Dead Like Me and wrote Trespass, which Joel Schumacher is directing with Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman attached to star. A seasoned playwright, he’s also a member of New York’s New Dramatists.
Writer: Karl Gajdusek

Why the fuck is this not a movie?

Seriously. Is there someone to blame for this? Because it seems like a tragedy to me that this doesn’t have a home. If I’m wrong, and it does, then good. But, why is taking so long?

Watch Scriptshadow on Sundays for book reviews by contributors Michael Stark and Matt Bird. We try to find books that haven’t been purchased or developed yet that producers might be interested in. We won’t be able to get one up every Sunday, but hopefully most Sundays. Here’s Michael Stark with his review of “Shout, Sister Shout.”

Genre: Music Bio
About: Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the unsung, trailblazing, line-crossing woman musician who might’ve just possibly invented Rock ‘n’ Roll back in the 40’s.
Writer: Gayle F. Wald, an English teacher at George Washington University.
Status: I believe it’s available. But, you better snap the rights up quick!

“Say man, there’s a woman who can sing some rock and roll.” I mean, she’s singing religious music, but she is singing rock and roll. She’s … shakin’ man … She jumps it. She’s hitting that guitar, playing that guitar, and she is singing. I said, “Whoooo. Sister Rosetta Tharpe.” —Jerry Lee Lewis

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends — Scriptshadow’s Sunday review of books, where we mush, gush and geek out about the books we soooo desperately wanna see turned into movies.

One of the few of my favorite things is a good rock ‘n’ roll flick. Maybe I’m the bastard love child of Lester Bangs and Pauline Kael, cause there’s nothing I love more then watching movies and listening to records. You put those two great things that taste great together and I’m in Nirvana, baby.

I was weaned watching A Hard Day’s Night, The Buddy Holly Story and La Bamba. Picked up the bass after catching Cotton Candy, Ron Howard’s cheesy, battle of the bands drama on the tube. Hell, Rock ‘n’ Roll High School is up there on my top ten list of all-time favorite movies!

(Damn, Clint Howard is in two of the flicks on my list!!! How the hell did Clint Howard usurp John Cazale? Is he a great, unsung hero too?)

Now, I know music bios don’t always do boffo at the box-office. The Runaways was exactly no Ray. But, I doubt, even with Hollywood’s recent penny pinching, they’ll never completely stop making ‘em.

I’m still wishing and hoping for The Chet Baker Story to eventually hit the big screen. If not with DiCaprio, I’d settle for Josh Hartnett. And, of course there has to one day be an adaptation of Nick Tosche’s Unsung Heroes Of Rock ‘n‘ Roll. And, please, can someone please film Legs McNeil’s Please Kill me: The uncensored Oral History of Punk? I’d pay good money to see Elijah Wood as Iggy, damn it!

Okay, let’s dig out the real scratchy vinyl and get obsessively more obscure.

One of the greatest untold stories of rock is Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a gospel star who dared to crossover to what some considered a mighty ungodly road. I believe she’s the one that invented rock ‘n’ roll.

Never heard of her??? Stop reading right now and watch this link. If her guitar solo doesn’t send shivers down your spine, I suggest you get an adjustment from your chiropractor pronto.

It’s a sin that she’s been so forgotten. Without Sister Tharpe, there would be no Elvis, no Little Richard, no Jerry Lee Lewis, no Johnny Cash, no Etta James and no Bonny Raitt. Their way was graciously paved — more like bulldozed and steamrolled — by the good Sister.

Gayle Wald’s biography, Shout, Sister, Shout, pretty much provides the perfect blueprint for a great music biopic. What makes Tharpe’s story so compelling is that there wasn’t a barrier this woman didn’t have to cross. Her life boldly transcended the not-so-invisible lines of race, class, gender and religion.

Tharpe captivated both black and white audiences, spiritual and secular, in the North and in the South, in the US and abroad. Her trailblazing music crossed all boundaries. She graced many radically different stages, including The Grand Ole Opry, The Cotton Club, the integrated Café Society, Carnegie Hall and the Newport Folk Festival (in a definitely unfolky mink coat).

If Dylan shocked the Folk Festival in 1965 by going “electric”, one must wonder how the small town, southern churches reacted when Rosetta did the same thing thirty years prior. She not only breached standards of holiness and respectability by singing blues and jazz in Sunday services (accompanying herself on a very loud, rocking Gibson) but also proudly shared her faith, singing hymns and spirituals in nightclubs and dance halls.

Sister Tharpe was ambitious, flamboyant and something of a diva. She lived just as loud and shocking as she played. She staged her third wedding as a stadium concert with 20,000 fans in attendance. It was one of the greatest publicity stunts ever staged as Rosetta signed the venue’s contract before even looking for a husband!

She was born dirt poor in Cotton Plant, Arkansas to an evangelizing Pentecostal (and perhaps never quite legally married) mother. Rosetta began performing at the age of four, billed as the “Singing and Guitar Playing Miracle”. Her mom used her little blessing to quickly move out of the tiny town and head for Chicago. The missionary opportunities would be far greater for her there. Just think how many sinners the big city had to offer!

Like most musicians raised in the church, it wasn’t an easy choice for Rosetta to pursue a worldly, musical path. It meant rejection from the very spiritual communities that nurtured her.

Everything about Tharpe was ahead of her time. Not just her music (how many women guitar players were there back then?), but in her personal life too. She spent most of her life on the road, made and lost fortunes, withstood failed marriages, wore pants before they were the norm, swore like a sailor and experimented in a little bisexuality from time to time.

She lived like a rock star years before the term even got coined!

If the characteristics of a good story are characters, goals, conflicts and obstacles, then come prepared, cause her career had a long laundry list of hurdles to overcome.

Her first marriage was to a preacher who ministered a little too intimately to the female members of his flock. His deceit would disintegrate her faith a bit, perhaps preparing her for a more secular career.

Her first hit, “Strange Things Happen Every Day” poked fun at church hypocrisy with a hip shaking, boogie woogie beat. It would go on to make the Billboard Top Ten. Many critics agree that “Strange Things” was the first rock ‘n’ roll recording, beating Roy brown’s “Good Rockin’ Tonight” by three years. Both Elvis and Jerry lee Lewis were huge fans.

When the famed Cotton Club offered her five hundred dollars a week to perform, she couldn’t resist the temptation to divorce the cheating preacher and take a bite out of the Big Apple. The club’s notorious segregated door policy, however, infuriated her. A necessary evil in launching her career.

In the late 40s, Rosetta would take on a little sister singing partner, Marie Knight, and tour the gospel circuit to sell out crowds. The superstar partnership, even under the watchful eye of Tharpe’s critical mother, would eventually turn romantic. It was a dirty, little secret that would have ended their careers right then and there.

Tharpe’s life story included a lot of fascinating co-stars: Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, Dorothy Dandridge, John Hammond and Muddy Waters. I love that Savoy Records, the leading label in the gospel field, was run by a nice Jewish fella from Newark, New Jersey.

Someone needs to finally pay respect to this musical pioneer and make this into movie! Queen Latfiah, do you have a production company???

What I learned: Hitchcock once said “What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out.” When writing a biopic, one can’t focus on the subject’s entire damned lifespan. What are the defining moments? Which boring bits need to be left out? I’m always amazed by the masters of the biopic, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. They usually focus on one incredible incident to frame their stories. Luckily, with Sister Rosetta Tharpe, there are many incredible moments to choose from and a shocking deficiency of boring bits.

Read more from Michael Stark at his blog: http://www.michaelbstark.blogspot.com/

Genre: Indy Coming-Of-AgePremise: (from IMDB) – A bookstore clerk living in Manhattan discovers a museum run by a strange old man that exists solely for the purpose of studying his life.
About: Written by the Fonz’s son, ayyyyye, Max Winkler, and his writing partner, Matt Spicer, this script landed on the 2007 Black List and also sits as #13 on my Top 25 list. Winkler is currently directing his first feature, Ceremony, about a young man who crashes the wedding of a woman he’s in love with. Spicer and Winkler also wrote one of last year’s biggest spec sales, the million dollar “Adventurer’s Handbook,” with Jonah Hill. The duo of Spicer and Winkler met in a screenwriting class at USC.
Writer: Matt Spicer & Max Winkler
Details: 121 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time of the film’s release. 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 Wes, you wouldn’t mind directing this movie, would you?

Been meaning to get around to this forever. As you can see, it’s number 13 over there on my Top 25 list. I’m not going to get too into it, but basically this is smack dab in the middle of my happiness zone. I like coming-of-age stories when they’re done well. I love when a slight mystical element is added (Field of Dreams anyone?). I love when a weird idea is fully explored (the writers don’t back down). I love when the comedy complements instead of dominates the story. Before I even opened this script, it had a good shot with me. And even with that advantage, it exceeded my expectations.

Henry Munn is a 33 year old New Yorker who works in a used book store that’s located in the same building as his apartment. He stumbles out of bed every day, heads into the tiny store, listens to his boss drone on about his newest sci-fi manuscript, waits for the clock to tick away, then goes back to his apartment, goes to bed, and starts the whole cycle over again the next morning. What a life!

But today is different. It’s Henry’s birthday. And he’s looking forward to a rare dinner with his older and much more successful brother, Paul (who happens to be a publisher). But when Paul calls and cancels because he has more pressing work issues to deal with, Henry finds himself alone again.

Just when things are looking their worst, Edith Finch shows up. Henry doesn’t know what to make of her at first. She’s got a weird accent, huge glasses, and “appears to have raided her dead grandmother’s wardrobe for her outfit.” Edith is desperately looking for a rare book about birds and this is the last used bookstore in town. Intrigued by the woman and therefore a little out of sorts, Henry does some searching on the laptop and finds the only one left collecting dust in the London equivalent of his own store. He puts a rush on it and eagerly accepts Edith’s number so he can call her when it gets in.

The day gets even stranger though, when a sparrow (speaking of birds) flies through the window with a purple envelope attached to its back addressed to Henry. Henry opens the envelope to find an invitation – an invitation to the grand opening of something called The Museum Of The Ornate Anatomy of Living Things. Totally weirded out, Henry brushes it off. But after a few ill-fated attempts to forget it, he can’t deny that he’s a little curious.

So he heads to the address on the envelope and ducks inside a deceptively large building. The first thing he notices is that George Clooney is narrating the museum’s history over the speaker system. Henry catches a few sound bites about a traveling museum that’s been in existence since the 1800s which shows rare exhibits, such as never-before-categorized insects and “the tiniest airplane ever built” (which requires a microscope to see). In short, the place is Weird Central.

And the further Henry goes into the museum, the weirder it gets. He begins to see Halloween costumes on exhibit and familiar looking black and white pictures. This is when Henry formally meets Clifford Ashby, an older but charming British chap who claims to be the owner of the museum. He hits Henry with a bombshell. Ashby reveals that this place is a museum dedicated exclusively to Henry’s life! And he built it! Those Halloween costumes were the ones he wore as a kid. There are viles filled with germs taken from when Henry had chicken pox. There’s even a full-size replica of his childhood bedroom!

Naturally, Henry is freaked out and gets the hell out of there. And that should be the last of it, except when Henry starts courting Edith, she makes it clear that he’s probably the most uninteresting person she’s ever met. If he can’t give her something interesting to latch onto, there’s no way they can be together. Taking a shot in the dark, Henry reveals that he has a museum dedicated to his life, and Edith is instantly fascinated by it – so much so that she actually starts falling for Henry, which of course forces him to go back and face the museum. The question is, what’s the real reason Clifford built this place? And is it the key to Henry finally finding happiness?

The reason I loved this script so much is because I haven’t read anything quite like it. I mean, who makes their main love interest a South African woman who dresses like a grandma and reads bird books? In fact, I loved all the character work here. The eccentric but always optimistic Clifford Ashby was hilarious. The selfish and heartless older brother, Paul, added emotional depth to the story. Even Henry as the straight man detached from life, a role that’s hard to make interesting, had an affable charm about him, brought about by his choice to steal Edith’s bird book and read it himself before giving it up (passages from the book play in voice over throughout the story).

I’ve heard some knocks on the script, calling it “Kaufman-lite,” and I’m not exactly going to argue against that. The script doesn’t hit the dark areas as ruthlessly as Kaufman but that’s what I liked about it. Kaufman always went a little too far out for my tastes, and I always wished he’d dialed it down. I mean, the seventh and a half floor frserves om Being John Malkovich was kinda cool, but in the end what the hell was the point of it? Winkler and Spicer dial down the darkness here and focus more on the humor, and I think that the story well.

The page Nazis are going to have their day with me though because this is 120 pages, a full 10 pages higher than my ideal 110 page script. It’s hard to tell if cutting those pages would’ve helped or not. It’s such a strange layered world Winkler and Spicer have created that if they took out some of the more eccentric stuff (the voice over reading of the bird book for instance) I’m afraid the story would have lost some of its mood. So in the end, I’m okay with the length.

I know Wes Anderson only directs his own material (cept for that fox movie), but if there was ever a perfect marriage between director and script, this is it. And I think Anderson needs something like this, where he’s not so attached to the writing and he can approach his vision with a more objective/ruthless eye. I mean, he would go effing crazy in that Museum. The giant organ exhibit alone would be like a dream set for him. So if you work for Wes, please pass him this script. I promise he’ll like it.

This is one of my faves. Unique, weird and fun.

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

What I learned: Sometimes you have to make your characters do things that they wouldn’t do. The most obvious example is in scary movies when it would make SO much more sense if the character RAN THE FUCK OUT OF THE HOUSE as opposed to searching through 8 killer-infested dark rooms one by one. While it’s tempting to have your characters do irrational things, readers hate it because it illicits that timeless reaction: “That’s so fake. He’d never do that!” With a little bit of effort, you can address this issue. Take Henry for instance. When he realizes the museum is about him, he freaks out and wants to leave. However, the writers still need to show us other parts of the museum which help set up the story. So they need a way for Henry to stay. They do this by having Clifford Ashby (the old man) explain to Henry that he’ll show him out, but that the fastest way out of the museum is forward. This allows Henry to continue through the museum, see what the writers need him/us to see, and there’s still a level of believability to it. It really irks me when characters do things they’d never do, so try to avoid that in your own script!

Genre: Contained ThrillerPremise: A newly married couple find themselves stuck in an elevator with a strange man.
About: This script was optioned recently by Relativity Media. Russo has spent a lot of time perfecting his craft, writing 8 screenplays before this one was optioned. You can learn more about Greg in an interview he did over at Go Into The Story.
Writer: Greg Russo
Details: 96 pages – revised draft, Feb 29, 2010 (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time of the film’s release. 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 think it’s crossed all our minds at one point or another. What if the elevator stops? What if we get stuck here? It actually happened to me briefly when I was a kid on vacation in Mexico. Luckily, the building was only two stories tall, and as soon as we started yelling, the elevator started back up again. I remember someone who worked there saying afterwards, “Oh, that always happens.” Yeah, uh, okay. Thanks for the tip. I’ll be using the stairs from now on. My story pales in comparison to this guy though…

Talk about a nightmare. He was in some building that hadn’t officially opened yet, and was leaving right before the weekend when the elevator got stuck. There was literally no one in the building and he knew no one would be there for another 48 hours. But he lived! And I heard he got a nice little settlement out of it. So don’t feel too bad for him.

That brings us to today’s script, Down. We’re back in the ultra-competitive “contained thriller” market, and what’s more contained than an elevator?? Well, besides a coffin of course. The question with these scripts is always, can you make it interesting for 90 minutes? That’s the challenge. Because making it interesting for 30 minutes is easy. Every minute after that gets harder and harder. So did Russo do it? Well jump in and we’ll head down to the lobby together.

Kevin is a young unemployed filmmaker who’s about to elope with Kelsie, a cheerful bank teller with rich parents. These two are gaga in love. The kind of love that makes you roll your eyes. The kind of love where every five minutes you hear the words “Get a room.” The kind of love that makes The Bachelor look like Fear Factor.

The two don’t have time for all that ceremony nonsense. They just want to get married and go on their honeymoon. And that’s the plan. They’re going to grab their marriage license downtown, then hurry over to the airport and catch a flight to Tahiti. They’re giggly, they’re bubbly. Things are looking pretty damn good for Kevin and Kelsie. Well, so far that is. Heh heh.

After they get their license, they hurry towards the elevator lobby and just barely make it into the closing doors of one of the elevators. When they squeeze in, they see that there’s already a man inside, a pleasant looking Irish fellow we’ll soon know as Liam. The doors close, and away we go…

How long is a 15 floor elevator trip supposed to take? One minute? 90 seconds? Well, we’ll never find out because a few seconds after the elevator starts, it STOPS. It’s not a pleasant moment no matter who you are, but Kelsie gets panic attacks in ball rooms, and this is a lot smaller than one of those. So she understandably starts freaking the hell out.

In the meantime, Liam is as calm as a 20 year old tabby cat. He politely introduces himself and informs them that he actually works on elevators for a living. He claims that this kind of thing happens all the time. Not to worry.

This was one of my favorite choices in the script. As soon as we realize Liam is an elevator expert, we know something weird is afoot. And even though we’re ahead of the story, that’s what makes it fun. We know this guy is bad news for Kevin and Kelsie, and we can’t wait to see how.

The conversation that follows is that awkward “getting to meet you” conversation you have with people who you have nothing in common with. You latch onto the tiniest common interests like a piranha, and when those nuggets dry up, the awkward silence drives you to do stupid things, like talk about your personal lives. And that’s where the script gets interesting.

It turns out that Kevin is a struggling filmmaker who hasn’t worked in awhile, while Kelsie not only slaves away at a bank job she hates, but her parents are super rich. Liam finds this quite amusing, and while he doesn’t make any direct accusations, he does bring to Kelsie’s attention that a man without a penny to his name and no desire to work just married someone with an unlimited bank account.

Awwwwk-ward.

I think we all know where this is going. Liam isn’t in this elevator by accident. He knew Kelsie and Kevin were going to be here today. He possibly even planned being on this elevator, at this moment, leaving it open as they ran to it. And if Liam has been doing all these things, then Liam must have a really big beef with Kelsie and Kevin. And that beef is exactly what’s going to be Kevin and Kelsie’s “down” fall. heheh.

I know I keep saying that the contained thriller cycle is near the end of its rope, but there’s one thing I keep forgetting. Contained thrillers are cheap to make. Really cheap. So if you come up with a concept that’s compelling enough and you do a good job executing it, I can see companies taking a chance on it because the financial burden is so minimal.

I think what also gives contained thrillers a distinct advantage is that they’re basically the perfect fit for the spec format. In specs you want everything to read fast, you want a low page count, you want a low character count, you don’t want to waste a lot of space describing everything. The very nature of contained thrillers help them meet all this criteria. It’s the peanut butter to the spec format’s jelly.

But even though you eliminate some problems, you add others, and those others can be extremely challenging. Since you don’t have the advantage of jumping from location to location, character to character – since the story is so contained, so minimal – you have no other choice but to litter your script with surprises and revelations. The surprises need to be character based, as the setting usually doesn’t allow many surprises on its own. And this can be challenging, because audiences have pretty much seen it all. Do it right though, and you can get rich. That little twist at the end of Saw where the dead guy gets up and walks away helped spawn five sequels!

I thought Down did a pretty good job in this department. I mean, we know that Liam is bad. So that wasn’t really a surprise. But Russo makes some pretty bold choices here and man are there some surprises I didn’t see coming. Further still, he takes the script into another genre in the last act, and while I may not exactly agree with the choice, I thought it was an interesting one, and it does what it needs to do to keep the contained thriller going. It changes the dynamics. It changes the story. It keeps everything fresh.

I know they’re still working on this so I’m not going to go into a lot of detail, but overall I thought it was pretty good. More importantly, I think it could be even better if they can focus that second half. It got a little wily at the end there. A strong premise, and a pretty good execution made this an interesting read.

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

What I learned: One thing that annoyed me in Down, and I’ve mentioned this issue before, is that the main characters’ names are too similar: Kevin and Kelsie. The problem with this for a reader is that a lot of times in a script, there’s a pause in the conversation, then the same character will start talking again. The reader doesn’t pick up on this right away because of the assumed “his turn then her turn” rhythm of the dialogue. So they end up reading the wrong dialogue for the wrong characters. If characters are named JAMES and OLIVIA, this is easy to spot. But if they’re Kevin and Kelsie, you may read a full page of dialogue before you realize you’ve mixed the two characters up. So it’s always good to make sure your main characters have easily distinguishable names. The only exception is if the sameness in their names plays into the story somehow.

This may sound like a shocking statement, but I believe anybody can be a screenwriter. Everybody in the world has at least one interesting story in them. Life is too crazy not to have an awesome story in the vault. But the reality is, it takes a shitload of time to learn how to *tell* that story in the bastardized format that is a “screenplay.” How long it takes generally depends on how talented you are. For some people it only takes a couple of years. For others, it may take two decades to figure out. So a lot of screenwriting comes down to perseverance and a willingness to learn.

I bring this up because every screenplay is kinda like a final exam. It’s a test of everything you’ve learned *up to that point.* So while you may ace that particular exam, it doesn’t mean you know everything about the subject. I guess an analogy would be, passing the bar proves you know a hell of a lot about the law, but it doesn’t mean you’re ready to try your case in the Supreme Court.

So what I thought I’d do is help you avoid some of the more common misguided screenplay attempts I see amateurs make. I wouldn’t say these scripts are easily avoidable because if they were, I’d see a lot less of them. But at least this way you can ask the question. “Am I about to write this script?” Or “Did I just write this script?” As long as you’re asking the question, you have a chance at salvaging the material. So below are five and a half types of bad amateur screenplays I keep running into. And I consider myself an expert. I’ve written each one of these at least once!

THE TECHNICALLY PERFECT BUT ULTIMATELY BORING SCRIPT
This is a toughie. Even professional writers make this mistake and that’s because the line between technical and natural isn’t always easy to identify. However, these scripts usually come from writers who take the screenwriting books a little too literally and who outline every single beat of their story down to the commas. The main character has a clear goal. The act breaks come at the right time. The character motivations are strong. Twists and turns happen at just the right moments. And yet…and yet there’s something extremely boring about it all. Even if we don’t know what’s going to happen, nothing that happens is ever surprising to us. There’s no heart, no soul, no life in the screenplay. “A+” from Robert McKee and Blake Snyder. “F” from the reader.

How to avoid it: There are two main reasons these kinds of scripts happen. First, like I mentioned above, it happens when writers follow the rulebook too literally. If the reader can feel the beats of the story, if they can see the first act turn coming a mile away, if the midpoint is accompanied by a billboard, you’re not doing your job. Great writers learn that in addition to following the rules, it’s their job to MASK the rules, to cover them up so it all flows naturally. This is usually achieved by rewriting – going back into your story and smoothing out all those obvious technical beats. Second, you still have to make interesting choices. Giving your protagonist a goal is one of the most basic elements of storytelling there is. But that doesn’t mean any goal will work. In fact, 100 writers might come up with 100 different character goals. Your job is to beat out the other 99 writers and come up with the most interesting one. Take a movie like Back To The Future for instance. Imagine if once Marty got back to 1955, he didn’t have to get his mom and dad back together, but instead had to win a rock and roll contest at the high school. That choice would’ve made the movie way worse, right? So don’t just make choices, make bold and interesting choices.

THE FAUX MASTERPIECE
I’m going to give credit for this one to Jim Mercurio. When he spoke of the “faux masterpiece,” he described it like this: “That’s when you try to tackle something huge like a critical piece of history – the Holocaust, slavery, World War II – or try to set an expensive politically-charged love story against that sort of backdrop. You might be a deep thinker and have an unparalleled understanding of the subject, but as a beginning writer, your craft is not going to be able to do the story justice.” I’d expand this definition to include huge Lord of The Rings like fantasy epics, or overlong sci-fi epics like Avatar. These “masterpieces” require so much skill it’s terrifying. They need to be historically accurate on everything from the dialect to the activities people do. It’s hard enough to build a couple of interesting characters into a script. These scripts require dozens of characters, all of whom are usually thin and boring. With these extra characters come extra subplots. Weaving these subplots in and out of the central plot requires a tremendous amount of know-how for even a 100 page screenplay. There may be 10 screenwriters on the planet who know how to do it for a script that’s 150 pages. These scripts also tend to require an inordinately massive goal to keep the story interesting for such a long period of time (i.e. William Wallace’s pursuit of freedom for an entire country in Braveheart; The Marines trying to destroy the Na’vi homeland in Avatar) which amateur writers almost never include. It’s basically everything that’s hard about screenwriting times a thousand. That’s why taking on an epic masterpiece is…well…an epic mistake.

How to avoid it: I honestly wouldn’t touch an epic unless you’ve written at least seven scripts or a few novels.

THE ACCIDENTAL HOMAGE SCRIPT
Oh man, every writer is guilty of this one. The Accidental Homage script is a script where a writer goes out and sees a movie they love, then writes a script on a similar subject matter which ends up being THE EXACT SAME MOVIE. Young writers are the most susceptible to this because they haven’t yet trained themselves to recognize when they’re inadvertently copying material. The ideas flow through their fingertips as naturally as the breeze and they bang out 50 pages in 3 days, citing divine inspiration. They don’t realize that the reason it was so easy was because they were essentially writing a movie they’d already seen. This can happen with your favorite movies as well, although writers tend to be a little more aware when they’re copying those. Here’s the thing: Inspiration – true inspiration – is the best thing a writer can experience. It’s writer crack. But you have to keep an eye on it. You have to be aware of when the inspiration is coming from inside of you, or coming from the euphoric influence of that great movie you just saw.

How to avoid it: My suggestion would be to not write anything that sounds similar to a recent movie you loved. So if you saw District 9, don’t go home and write an alien invasion movie. It’s just too hard to be objective about the subject matter and you’ll inevitably use too much from the film, destroying any chance of your story being original.

THE COMEDY WITHOUT A STORY SCRIPT
Okay, I talk about this one a lot so pardon me if you’re tired of hearing it. This is the script I probably see the most of because the majority of people coming into the spec world start with comedies. It makes sense. Everyone thinks they’re funny. Everyone outside of Hollywood thinks they can write a better movie than the one they saw in the theater. You put those two together and you have a lot of writers crashing Hollywood with comedy specs. Roughly all of these attempts make the same mistake. There’s no story. OR, if there is a story, it’s so neutered as to be nonexistent. Instead, the writers come up with an idea that’s just use an excuse to string a bunch of funny scenes together. Little do they know that the second they decided to do that, any chance of writing a good script died. Why? Well, let’s say you have 10 good-to-great laughs in your script, which is a lot. That means we have to slog through 9 and a half minutes of pointless nothingness to get to that one laugh. Does that sound fun? That’s why I always say: Story first, comedy second. If you have a story, something where we’re actually interested, then those other 9 and a half pages are actually entertaining. They’re something to look forward to.

How to avoid it: When you’re writing your comedy, always put your story (and your characters) before the laughs. The irony is that the script will be funnier for it.

THE NEVER STUDIED STORYTELLING ON ANY LEVEL SCRIPT
Okay, this makes the “Comedy without a story” script look like Shakespeare. It invariably comes from a first timer and someone bold enough to believe they can write a good screenplay without any previous storytelling experience whatsoever. Signs of a NSSOALS? There is no overarching plot/character goal to speak of. The script reads as if the writer is making everything up as he/she goes along (because they are). The script often jumps back and forth between genres. Because the writer hasn’t learned how to build characters yet, the characters contradict themselves constantly (i.e. An introvert will try and get his friends to go out to a party). The writer often makes the mistake of infusing “real life” into the script, and is surprised when the randomness and lengthy dialogue scenes reminiscent of real life are categorized as boring by the reader. Instead of using screenplay real estate to develop already introduced characters, new characters are brought in as if they’re coming out of a clown car, even though they have no real connection to the story and we’ll never see them again. Seemingly important subplots will end lazily or disappear altogether. Characters tend to spend most of the story talking about their situations as opposed to being actively involved in situations. Since there’s no central goal for the main character, the writer rarely knows what to do with the ending (if there’s nothing being pursued, then there’s nothing to conclude). In short, the setup is confusing, the middle has no conflict, and the resolution is unsatisfying.

How to avoid it: Here’s the good news. These scripts are actually okay to write, as long as you don’t show them to anyone else! Your first few scripts should be for you and you only (or maybe a couple of close friends). I’m warning you, you don’t want to burn a potential great contact on one of your first three scripts. Make sure you know what you’re doing first. And hey, before you write anything, there’s nothing wrong with studying the basics of storytelling. There is an art to it that’s been around for hundreds of years. It wouldn’t hurt to study that art. Also read a ton of screenplays, both good and bad. The more you read, the more you’ll be able to spot all those negatives I listed above.

THE SURREALIST TRIBUTE SCRIPT
Finally, here’s a writer friend of mine who’s read twice as many scripts as I have. I told him what I was doing and asked if he wanted to submit any “script types to avoid.” His e-mail was cryptic and I’m still not entirely sure if he was sober, but this was his submission: The “oh-so-clever quasi-surrealist tribute to Bunuel and Fellini with a little Greenaway and a lot of Lynch thrown in amidst reams of dialogue that is nothing more than misquoted monologues taken from whatever novels the author happened to have on his bookshelf in order to impress female guests on Friday nights… and heaven forbid he should take the time to correct typos, grammatical blunders and unclear/incomplete visuals since all three are, of course, part of the ‘art’ of writing one of these brilliant opuses” script.

How to avoid it: I think I know what he’s talking about. These are those purposefully random scripts that are supposed to, like, have higher meaning ‘n stuff. Basically, the scripts are more about the writer proving how smart he is than they are about the story. These scripts invariably bring about a lot of eye-rolling. As always, ask yourself if you’re putting the story first. If not, stop writing.