As the Scriptshadow 250 Contest looms, contenders wisely sharpen their screenplays with feedback from the community. Help them make their scripts as good as they can possibly be. And to those writing in solitude, best of luck. Can’t wait to see what you’re cooking up!

TITLE: Dating Jennifer
GENRE: Romantic Comedy
LOGLINE: Working as an elementary school teacher can be very hard for Greg, a single parent of one, but when his friends enter him into a contest to date Jennifer Aniston, he gets more than he bargained for.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: I am an aspiring writer, looking to make a splash. I have been teaching 3rd grade students Reading/Language Arts for 11 years, teaching the basics of story, plot, theme, etc. and that has always been a passion of mine. I started getting into writing screenplays in college, but never really got into it until four years ago, completing a script I started back in 1997. But in my case, my first is my worst – it has a good story, but the characters are weak. My second script, I continue to retool. My third script, “Dating Jennifer” is finished and was just named a semifinalist in the Nashville Film Festival (finalists chosen next Friday 3/13 – hope I’m not jinxing myself). Anyway, I’ve also entered it in the usual big competitions, Scriptapalooza, Page, Pipeline. However, I just read an article about your site and would love a review – kind of wish I found out about it before submitting it to some of those competitions. Going forward, I’d love to have some real criticism on it.

TITLE: Monsters Under the Bed
GENRE: Thriller/Drama
LOGLINE: A salt-of-the-earth father, trying to leave a checkered past behind him, is put through the ultimate test when his estranged son gets in deep with a human devil in the Appalachian woods.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: My 6th spec, feeling like it’s all coming together now. Taking an honest look at my writing prior, it would be easy to say I was trying to write “the next great American story” (large, sweeping political storylines, obtuse, lush descriptions, “profound” dialogue) and this time, I’m just trying to write a movie. I hit a lot of things this site discusses: race against the clock, continually mounting problems, clear stakes and goals, a memorable villain and short action descriptions which I think makes for a fun and quick read. Recent films like BLUE RUIN, THE ROVER, and A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES have rejuvenated my passion for writing gritty thrillers.

TITLE: The Shittiest People In The World
GENRE: It’s a fucking comedy.
LOGLINE: An ex-con and his hipster nephew kidnap an obnoxious housewife on the orders of a crooked judge, but when her shady financier husband refuses to pay the ransom it sets a dirty cop and the worst hitman on the planet hot on their tails.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: I’m an asshole and so is my co-writer. They said “write what you know” so we wrote a script about a bunch of assholes. Why should you read my script? Because you’re probably an asshole, too, and would enjoy it.

TITLE: Scare Fair
GENRE: A Coming of Age Horror Romantic Comedy
LOGLINE: A high school senior tries to win the heart of the girl he loves while avoiding various killers at a local horror fair on Halloween Night.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: Sam and I are best friends. We have known each other since we have been kids and have always appreciated films of just about every genre and especially enjoy films which subvert expectations. We know this script will surprise you and impress you while you enjoy the twists and turns it provides. Scare Fair is fun and scary (with some depth)–the perfect components to a horror film.

TITLE: Echoes
GENRE: Supernatural Thriller
LOGLINE: On the run from two ominous stalkers, a woman’s bizarre visions of a pair of 1930s murders lead her and her mysterious new friend to danger and answers in the Mississippi Delta.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: I’m a prolific writer (20 features) addicted to screenwriting and I placed in the 2014 Nicholl Semifinals with a different screenplay. I believe I have a problem in that I finish a first draft and then follow up with a minor rewrite or two before I move on to the next idea – leaving that newborn script unfed, crying, and wallowing in a shitty diaper. I’m looking for some feedback on this one – which is somewhat of a “structural experiment” for me as it’s told in two stories, with the first one playing forward and the second one playing backwards, meeting in the middle at the end. Help me change this script’s diaper and stick a wet nurse’s breast in its mouth.

Get Your Script Reviewed On Scriptshadow!: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, along with the title, genre, logline, and finally, something interesting about yourself and/or your script that you’d like us to post along with the script if reviewed. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Remember that your script will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effects of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Western
Premise (from writer): A grizzled alcoholic travels by hook or crook across the Old West to bury his brother but is hunted by those he’s wronged all the way.
Why You Should Read (from writer): Last time I was here, I was dominated by the Benny Pickles script “Of Glass and Golden Clockwork” and deservedly so. Despite not winning the coveted Friday slot, I was still given a TON of awesome advice on how to better my script (Monty), and was subsequently a Top 10% in the Nicholl Fellowship. Not huge accolades, but for my first screenplay? It felt good! — This is now my third script and I feel like I’ve gotten better since I submitted last. But this is a Western, damn it, and nobody wants them anymore. It truly needs to be the absolute best it can be to get any sort of traction. I really hope that the ScriptShadow community can help me again whether I move beyond AOW or not.
Writer: Benjamin Hickey
Details: 97 pages

Can we bring Paul Newman back for this one?

Are you a writer who loves Westerns?

Are you frustrated by Hollywood’s disdain for the genre?

I’m going to help you out. Find a fresh angle. Mix a Western up with another genre. Something it’s never been paired with. Take an idea that would normally have nothing to do with Westerns and infuse it into a Western. This is the only way you’re going to make a Western spec stand out.

That’s not to say you can’t write a Western the traditional way. True Grit did well a few years ago. Jane Got a Gun is coming out later this year. But the best way to get Hollywood’s attention is to explore a genre in a way that it hasn’t been explored before. Westworld is a perfect example. Once as a film and now as a show coming to HBO. Surprise us with your Western take.

Where does Oakwood fall on the Surprise Scale? Well, I’ll give the script this. It’s different. Not different in the way I was just explaining. More like different in the way going backwards on a roller coaster is different. Confused? I’ll do my best to clarify.

It’s the old West. An alcoholic drifter named Hearse, so named because he wheels a casket around wherever he goes, is in the market for a horse so he can travel to another town and bury whoever it is who’s in this coffin. But when a local rancher won’t give him a good deal on a horse, he shoots the rancher and takes the stallion.

What Hearse doesn’t know is that the rancher’s wife, Emma, who’s fucking the stable boy when all of this goes down, is one vengeful little lady. She grabs her stable boy, the slow-witted Wally, and tracks Hearse to the next town.

Now Emma never actually saw Hearse, so her plan is to wait by her horse, which has been parked outside the bar, and shoot whoever comes to claim it. Problem is, Hearse figures this out and sends the town drunk to the horse instead. Emma and Wally mistakenly shoot that man, think they’ve avenged her husband’s killer, and go home.

I hope you’re following so far cause this is where things get crazy. It turns out that the man Emma erroneously killed was a member of the notorious Winchester 7. This nasty gang is led by Jackson, a deputy who kills first and asks questions…well, never. And Jackson, like Emma, isn’t the kind of person who just lets murderers go. Hence, he and the gang go off to kill Emma.

The thing is, Emma’s able to kill the first Winchester who gets to her. This helps her realize that she originally killed the wrong man. So she and Wally go BACK to the town AGAIN to kill Hearse, who she now knows to be the true murderer. In the meantime, Hearse kills a Winchester 7 as well (for a badass gang, their guys sure do die easy), meaning he’s now a target too.

This means that Emma and Hearse will have to team up to defeat the rest of the 7, with an agreement that once they’re all taken care of, it’s a showdown between the two of them, where only one will come out alive.

Phew!

You guys get all that?

Okay, a couple of initial thoughts here. I love that Oakwood is a lean 97 pages. I’m a big advocate of WASO (Writers Against Script Obesity) and I’ve noticed that a lot of Western writers over-share when it comes to words. Oakwood’s lean writing style helps move the story along quickly.

Hickey was also very aggressive with his plotting. It seemed like the script changed direction dozens of times, leading to an impossible-to-predict storyline. I have to give it to Hickey. I rarely knew what was going to happen next.

But this is also where I began to take exception to Oakwood. Something about its unpredictability made it hard to engage in.

Before we even get to that, though, I’d ask Hickey, who’s the hero here? Is it Hearse or is it Emma? Hearse is introduced first but he’s such an unlikable person (he gets shitfaced drunk all the time – steals a man’s horse then kills him) that you’re convinced the hero has to be someone else.

The thing is, Emma’s not that likable either. She’s introduced banging the stable boy while her husband is outside getting murdered. This leads to a baffling development where Emma recruits the man she just cheated on her murdered husband with to avenge her husband’s death.

How am I supposed to root for either of these people?

We spend the rest of the screenplay jumping back and forth between Hearse and Emma’s point of view, all the while trying to figure out whose story it is.

And look, I’m not saying you HAVE to have a single protagonist in every script. But if you do have two, your story will be twice as difficult to tell. And furthermore, if you make both of those protagonists unlikable, you’ve made your story four times as difficult to tell. This is the predicament Oakwood finds itself in.

What’s funny about this script, though, is that it never completely falls off the rails. Every time you’re ready to dismiss it, it reels you back in. It’s a little like Jason from Friday the 13th in that sense. You can’t kill him!

Take Jackson, for instance, – the most evil Deputy in Western history. He enters the script around the midpoint and he’s so nasty (he shoots his boss dead in cold blood) that we won’t be satisfied until we see him go down.

This rejuvenates our deadbeat protagonists, whose unlikableness we’re ready to forgive for as long as it takes to turn Jackson into tumbleweed stew.

And then there’s the dialogue, which is pretty darn good. Emma’s admission to Wally after realizing she shot the wrong man results in this great line: “I think we need to be a bit more careful who we put bullets in.” Or when a fellow Winchester 7 seems frustrated that Deputy Jackson would consider this “little girl” (Emma) dangerous, his response is perfect: “I know that little girl is a human being. What I know about human beings is you put them in certain situations and they’re all dangerous.”

There’s no question that there’s something here and that Hickey is an interesting writer. But three things are holding this script back.

1) It’s not clear who the protagonist is.
2) Neither of our dual protagonists is likable.
3) The plot jumps all over the place.

You can get away with one of these in a screenplay. If you’re a skilled writer, you may even be able to get away with two. But I don’t think you can get away with all three. And that’s where Oakwood’s problem lies.

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

What I learned: Hickey makes an interesting choice here to reveal his protagonists’ sympathetic qualities late in the script. This is a risky move because readers tend to form definitive opinions on characters early. So if you introduce a character being an asshole, we’re going to dislike him. By the time you reveal that there are legitimate sympathetic reasons for him being an asshole on page 75, it may be too late to change our minds. To combat this, you have to give us at least SOME positive qualities in the meantime. Give us SOME reason to root for this person as the plot unfolds.

ATTENTION: THE SCRIPTSHADOW NEWSLETTER HAS BEEN SENT – Check your Spam and Promotions Folders if you did not receive.  Hope you enjoy it! 

Genre: Cray-Cray
Premise: When humanity discovers a human on Mars, they bring him home, where he learns all about the peculiarities of earth.
About: This adaptation of the classic sci-fi novel was written in 1995 specifically as a vehicle for Tom Hanks (this would’ve been right after Forrest Gump). The script was written by Dan Waters, who became a screenwriting sensation after the cult film everyone in Hollywood loved, Heathers. Waters wrote Batman Returns and Demolition Man in 1992, but has had trouble finding credits since (his most recent film is Vampire Academy). Paramount, who commandeered the project, seems set on bringing these old sci-fi novels to life, as they just bought the rights to The Stars My Destination last week (another Heinlein novel). Robert Heinlein is a legend in the sci-fi community, penning tons of books, including the sci-fi classic, Starship Troopers. Don’t tell Paul Verhoeven (who directed the film version of Troopers) that though. The director is said to have never read the book: “I stopped after two chapters because it was so boring,” he said. “It is really quite a bad book.” He later asked a friend to just explain it to him.
Writer: Dan Waters
Details: 156 pages! – 5/22/95 draft

Before you read this review I need you to go to Amsterdam, locate the nearest Mushroom store, and buy as many mushrooms as you can afford. Eat them. Then, and only then, will you have a chance at understanding this screenplay and my review of it.

I’ve read some fucked up stuff in my day. But this is the kind of script that makes David Lynch look like John Lee Hancock. I’m pretty sure I know why Tom Hanks passed on this. Because he couldn’t find a translator to make sense of it.

This is Birdman meets sci-fi meets Forrest Gump. Which may sound delightful to some of you. But I’m warning you. After you read this, there’s a 14% chance you may no longer understand the English language.

Stranger in a Strange Land starts when our first expedition to Mars ends in us finding a naked man running around the red planet with a bunch of rock monsters.

Mmm-hmmmm.

Okay.

The Marstronauts grab the human Martian, named “Mike,” and bring him back to earth. This new earth is very different from the earth we know now. While we no longer have war, the government’s been globalized, and radical religious leaders have become the most important figureheads on the planet.

A female reporter, Gillian, sneaks in to the hospital to get a story on Mike, then ends up stealing him and the two go on an adventure together. Where? To Jubal Harshaw’s house of course. Who’s that, you may ask? An ex ghost writer. And physician. And lawyer. Who now owns a hippy compound.

Sure. Why not?

What happens next? Well, by all measurable accounts , absolutely nothing for the next 40 pages. We just hang out at Jubal’s house where Mike, who speaks some gibberish form of English (“You happy me very,”) reads books and learns about humanity!

Eventually, a “sort-of” plot emerges where we learn that Mike’s parents, who owned a billion dollar corporation, died in a mysterious plane crash and the World Organization took over their company. With Mike being the son, he’s technically the heir to that fortune, which means the WO may have reason to turn him into rock food.

What happens next may or may not have something to do with group sex. And death. And people eating the dead. And speaking to people from the afterlife. I can neither confirm nor deny that there are three scenes that actually make sense in this script. Or that an ending that actually wraps things up exists. You will have to read the script yourself to find out. Please report back to me once you do. Insanity hurts.

I’m not going to lie. After finishing this, I wasn’t sure the writer had ever written a screenplay before. Or anything for that matter. If this was a menu, it would’ve started with the instructions for building a treehouse.  And it would’ve been in Chinese.

As an experiment, I read five pages of this script out of order and then five pages in order. The five pages out of order made slightly more sense than the consecutive ones. Which should tell you what you’re in for here. Since it’s hard to know who’s responsible for the incomprehensible nature of the story, because I’ve never read the novel, I’ll just assume that both of these guys are off their rockers. I mean, who the hell were the people celebrating this novel when it came out? CIA-obsessed transients who mumble the ingredients of ketchup to themselves at the Santa Monica McDonald’s?

While I could probably key in on 184 things that were wrong with this screenplay, I’ll start with an obvious one. If you’re going to center a story around a man who’s supposedly different from everybody else, you probably don’t want to make everybody around him just as crazy as he is. By doing so, the character doesn’t stick out at all.

Indeed, Mike is swallowed up by this screenplay. In the first 70 pages, he gets about 15% of the screen time. Instead, we focus on hippy-extraordinaire, Jubal Harshaw, a name that could only have been conceived with the influence of at least a dozen hallucinogens.

And then there’s the structure, or lack there of. Look, we all know that books go on for longer than screenplays. This is why they bring in screenwriters to adapt novels and not novelists. Because screenwriters specifically know how to cut stuff down and focus on the things that matter. They know how to EDIT.

Dan Waters never got that e-mail. This is 157 pages of Wanderosa, heavy on the random. Why in the world would you write a 40 page sequence at a man’s house without a single plot point pushing the story forward? I can find absolutely no excuse for this.

The core of every screenplay is the character goal. It’s giving your protagonist something they’re after and then pushing them towards that something. If you don’t do that, you’re going to end up with a screenplay that goes nowhere – that lasts 157 pages. Even in the most optimistic scenario, where this is an exploratory first draft, there was no attempt by the writer to rein in this story at all.

And it doomed them. If you’re Tom Hanks and you read this, you see your character featured 5 times in 70 pages and you don’t start putting together notes for the next draft. You say, “See ya later.” You have to at least put the illusion together that you tried. Any schmoe off the street can write a bunch of random thoughts for 157 pages. Skilled screenwriters are the ones who can find the core of a story and build a structure around it.

Or maybe… maybe Waters knew this was doomed from the get-go. There is something in production circles known as “suspension of disbelief.” If the audience can’t get past the artificial reality you’ve created, it doesn’t matter what you write. Is there any scenario under which a naked man running around on Mars with rock alien brothers is going to work? Probably not. So Waters just said, “Fuck it. If I’m going nuts, I’m going nuts all the way.”

It just goes to show that some properties aren’t meant to be turned into movies. Although maybe this is another opportunity to explore angles, like we did last Thursday. Might the Scriptshadow community have an angle for Stranger in a Strange Land that actually works? Share your thoughts in the comments section. In the meantime, I’m going to go research lobotomies.

Script link: Stranger in a Strange Land

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

What I learned: For you writers out there who don’t believe in outlining, READ THIS SCRIPT. This is what happens when you don’t outline.

Get Your Script Reviewed On Scriptshadow!: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, along with the title, genre, logline, and finally, something interesting about yourself and/or your script that you’d like us to post along with the script if reviewed. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Remember that your script will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effects of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Martial Arts/Asian Epic
Premise (from writer): A rebellious-minded woman in ancient China seeks the help of Shaolin to save her village from a love-obsessed General and his bloodthirsty Captain.
Why You Should Read (from writer): I’m a 44 year-old soccer mom who secretly loves kung fu. There are a lot of us out there – sneaking into Man of Tai Chi after the lights go down; snagging a $5 copy of Ip Man at 2nd & Charles so the Netflix queue stays “clean.” Every day we chauffeur, tend, cook, coordinate and cajole while desperately longing to settle things with a swift scorpion kick.

“Wars of Eternal Spring” took shape after the perfect storm of a “fu-binge,” Robert Downey, Jr. interview and spur-of-the-moment Google on “Wing Chun style.” Not long afterwards I read that Keanu Reeves was looking for his “next story” to direct. Filling needs is practically my raison d’etre these days, so the off-hand words of a man I’m never likely to meet were more than enough to fuel a feeble flame and get writing.

I gave myself a year. I even told my therapist. In between writing bouts I read screenplays and books on creative processes, story structure and character development. I searched high and low for a critique group. All the while I worked, re-worked and started to get a sense of how much time, realistically, writing anything worthwhile takes.

I believe that the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement. Your professional, experienced review would go a long way toward helping me do that. Thanks in advance for your consideration.
Writer: Elizabeth Barilleaux
Details: 100 pages

So when Wars of Eternal Spring won the Amateur Offerings, I’m not going to lie in being a little suspicious of the voters’ motives. A soccer mom who loves kung-fu may very well be every male screenwriter’s fantasy. I actually think it would be hilarious if Elizabeth was a guy and made this persona up just to stand out a bit more. And you know what? If that were the case, I’d say “well done.” In this business, you gotta use every little trick in your bag to get noticed.

But when the script hits Amateur Friday, it doesn’t matter if you’re a pimple-faced geek who plays the accordion or a European runway model. I’m judging the script on the content. I will say this though. It’s pretty cool to read a genre that’s never been reviewed before on Scriptshadow. Let’s see what happens!

Poor Wing Chun. She’s one of the few women in ancient China who’s been taught martial arts. And while that may make a woman hot stuff today, it made them the definition of unattractive back then. In fact, after taking down a thief for stealing apples from a fruit vendor, even the fruit vendor tells Wing Chun to screw off. You’re welcome very much!

Wing Chun’s life changes when an army from the Qing Dynasty moves into her village to sniff out possible Ming hiding nearby. The army is led by the handsome General Jin, who’s immediately taken by the unorthodox Wing Chun. His second in command, however, Ganbaatar, is a little less welcoming, and is convinced that Wing Chun’s fighting skills are a result of her working with the Ming.

Ganbaatar’s wrath becomes so intense that Wing Chun is forced to flee into the mountains, where she searches out the Shaolin Temple, a place where she’s wanted to train all her life – despite knowing they would never train a woman. When she gets there, however, she finds that the Shaolin Temple has been destroyed by the Qing.

Luckily, she meets an old hermit who used to be a Shaolin, and after some initial resistance, the hermit decides to train her. In the meantime, Ganbaatar is running roughshod all over the village, and the villagers, as well as Wing Chun’s family, find themselves in danger. Wing Chun and the hermit (who may not be who he appears to be) will need to come back to the village to save the day – a task as ridiculous as it is impossible.

Let me preface this by saying I’m not really into these kinds of movies. I like kung-fu when Neo’s doing it. But wire-fu in Ancient China ain’t my cup of tea. However, if you’ve been paying attention to Scriptshadow for awhile now, you know that the fighting and the chases and the action are just the icing on the cake. The CAKE is the characters. If you can make us fall in love with your characters, it doesn’t really matter what they’re doing. They could be washing windows, breakdancing, spelunking, or fighting in Ancient China. We’re going to care.

These characters – and really this entire script – is written with such skill, I’m shocked Elizabeth isn’t already represented. Our main character, Wing Chun, isn’t just a great character. She could be an iconic character if this movie is ever made. Elizabeth captures the travesty of being a unique woman at a time when individuality wasn’t accepted from that set of chromosomes. Wing Chun’s underdog story rivals that of William Wallace in Braveheart and Maximus in Gladiator. And hell, Neo too! You can’t help but root for the girl.

And all the characters here feel authentic. They all have fears and flaws and pasts, and in a way that doesn’t dominate the story. A lot of times I’ll see writers give their secondary characters big fat backstories, halting the script in the process, resulting in boredom. Elizabeth is able to paint every single character with depth, but never in a way that slows the story down. This script is only 100 pages, yet it feels like this vast epic. It’s really impressive.

Take General Jin for instance. He’s this lonely man who dreams of a softer life than the one the military provides. The occupation of this village for him has nothing to do with searching out the Ming. He uses it as an excuse to settle down – to live the peaceful life he’s always wanted. At the other extreme is Ganbaatar, who’s lived this reckless violent life, and who doesn’t trust a soul. It’s rare that a straightforward villain doesn’t feel “on-the-nose,” but Elizabeth manages to make Ganbaatar both evil and real – a rare feat.

I loved some of the twists and turns in the story as well (spoilers). The monk secretly being Ng Mui came out of nowhere – and it was one of those pleasant surprises that most writers tend to force. Because this script was so beautifully written though, it was like, “Of course she was pretending to be the hermit! It makes perfect sense!”

I loved how Elizabeth plucked little ideas out of the fairytale universe as well, such as the evil stepmother, who was great. And it was fun to see her use The Hero’s Journey in a way where you knew she was using it, yet it never forced itself upon the story. So many writers use a structure (basic 3 act structure, sequencing, Blake Snyder beat sheet, Hero’s Journey) and force it on the story. It takes a real pro to use a structure as a guide, but have that structure be invisible in the final product.

But I think the thing that most impressed me was the overall quality of the writing. Usually you have a writer who’s good at one or two things and then bad at a few others. Here we had someone who understood the history of this world, who understood the depths of this genre, who knew how to write powerful and memorable characters, who nailed the dialogue (not easy in a period piece), who nailed the structure.

And on top of all that, it was just a good story. I liked how, even though the first 50 pages were stuck in the village, Elizabeth kept the tension high with conflict. If you’re going to be in one location, you need to include a ton of conflict between the characters. So we have Ganbaatar who doesn’t trust Wing Chun. We have General Jin who falls for Wing Chun. We have the villagers who don’t want their village occupied anymore. There’s just a general discontent everywhere, so we’re not even aware that the story isn’t technically moving yet.

And then, Elizabeth wisely moves to a more traditional tale in the second half of the story, where we have a big goal – find the Shaolin Temple and train. And, of course, like we were just talking about a few days ago, Elizabeth throws a shitload of obstacles in the way. The Qing catch up to Wing Chun in the mountains. The Shaolin Temple has been burned down once she gets there. It was just a really compelling story led by a really compelling main character.

The only issues I had were minor ones. From what I understood, Young Li was Wing Chun’s real brother and Fan was her step-sister. So Young Li wanted to marry Fan? So he’s marrying his step-sister? Was that something that was legal or kosher back then? Cause it seemed a little incestuous to me. Also, there were a few scenes where it seemed like Young Li wanted to marry Wing Chun. You were just a little too vague and it led to confusion.

Also, I was frustrated at first about all the sides. I didn’t understand who the Qing was, who the Ming was, and how the Shaolin fit into it all. So when, for instance, Ganbaatar would get angry at anyone who sided with the Shaolin, I didn’t know what that meant, since I thought the Shaolin were neutral. I know a quick title card explaining these things at the beginning of the screenplay might invade on the “purity” of the story. But it’s something that could help people not steeped in Chinese lore.

Finally, we just need to break up a few of these chunky paragraphs (anything over 4 lines), particularly in the last act, when the reader’s eyes should be moving more quickly down the page.

But yeah, this is high-class writing here. We don’t see this much on Amateur Friday. I have to give it to Elizabeth. She’s set a high bar for all future Amateur Offerings this year. Great job!

Script link: Wars of Eternal Spring

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

What I learned: Honestly, I think my biggest takeaway from this script is the power of writing about something you’re passionate and knowledgeable about. Nothing comes through more than when you love your subject matter. You’re always going to go that extra mile to get it right. Had someone who was only a casual fan of Ancient Martial Arts movies written this, there’s no way it would’ve come even close to Elizabeth’s script. So keep that in mind when you’re coming up with your next screenplay.

Genre: Dark Comedy
Premise: The discarded heir to a billion dollar fortune decides to kill all his family members to inherit the money.
About: Screenwriter Ford is a new kid on the block, but that didn’t stop him from landing at number FIVE on the 2014 Black List. He’s repped at UTA and managed by Black Box Management. He also had a short film play at Sundance in 2010 called Patrol.
Writer: John Patton Ford
Details: 126 pages

I’m thinking Ryan Gosling for this one.

Wow.

This is quite the screenplay. I can’t remember the last time I finished a script so… angry.

Not because the script is bad. Oh no, this is not Moonfall 2: Moon Tornadoes. Far from it. This script purposefully orchestrates your anger. To that end, it’s a success. But man, it’s not an easy success to embrace. Never has a villain seemed so casual yet ignited feelings of such rage in me.

Before you read it though (for those who have the Black List scripts, you have this), note that it’s not an easy script to get through. You’re not going to find me supporting its excessive 127 page girth. But I can promise you this. This parallel world version of Wolf of Wall Street is crafted well enough to leave you feeling rewarded when you finish. Even if that reward is a kick to the groin.

When we meet Becket Rothchild, he’s on Death Row. In fact, he only has hours to live. So he’s giving his “confession” to a priest, a confession that doubles as our narration of the story. Becket explains that 30 years ago, his mother, a teenager at the time and member of the Rothchild’s, one of the richest families in the world, got pregnant.

Her father told her that she could either abort the baby or leave the family and never come back. She decides to leave, which led to Becket’s birth, and the two hustled through life with no money at all until his mother died of cancer, a death that could have been prevented with some financial help from the family. But even then, her father turned his back on her.

This is what led to Becket’s hatred of his family, and kickstarted his desire to kill each and every one of them. Truth be told, revenge wasn’t the only reason Becket became a killer. Becket liked the idea of having all that money. As he tells us at the beginning of his narration, that old saying that money doesn’t buy happiness is bullshit.

There are nine Rothchilds to kill and they include frat douches, hipsters, reality star twins, and the big tuba himself, the man who kicked his mother out. Becket’s murder weapon of choice is a bow and arrow but the Rothchild killings come in all shapes and sizes, including poison, fire, even dynamite!

As Becket gets closer to his goal, his childhood crush and now bitter enemy, Julia, wises up to his plan. She blackmails him, telling him that if he doesn’t give her 3 million dollars, she’s turning him in. As we all know, a blackmailer never stops after they get your money. They always keep coming back for more. And Julia does come back for more right when Becket’s at his lowest point. (spoiler) It turns out she has something that can set him free. However, he’ll need to give her the entire fortune to get it. Whatever will Becket do?

Before we get into the meatier aspects of the screenplay, I want to point out a “show don’t tell” moment to remind all the screenwriters out there how important it is to look for these opportunities.

Early on, Becket’s mother becomes sick with cancer. After exhausting all their options, they make one last Hail Mary pass and return to Daddy Rothchild to ask him for money. Now, I want you to think about this scene as if you were about to write it. What would you write?

You could, of course, write a scene where Becket’s mom sits down with her father and pleads for his help. The high stakes of the situation would dictate, at the very least, a decent scene. But since the directive of the scene is so simple (she asks, he says no), it’s the perfect scene to look for a “show don’t tell” alternative.

And that’s what Ford gives us. He shows Becket wheel his mother up to the mansion in a wheelchair, Becket talks into the call box, and then the gates close on the both of them. In a matter of a few lines, you’ve given us a much more powerful version of the scene (and in 1/10 the space it would’ve taken to write a dialogue scene).

I don’t know what it is but there’s something about an ACTION that really does speak louder than words in screenwriting. A huge iron gate closing on this helpless soul packs so much more punch than a series of (likely) predictable lines between daughter and father. As writers, you should always have your “show don’t tell” goggles on when writing. Always look for those opportunities.

Now, as for the script, I’m not going to pretend this was a smooth ride from start to finish. Once I realized that Becket had to kill nine people, I was like, “I have to sit around and wait for this guy to kill NINE PEOPLE!?” It’s hard enough to make one killing interesting.  How is this guy going to keep our interest for nine?

Indeed, once we got into some of these middle-killings, I started getting restless. That 127 number staring at me from the top of the document wasn’t helping. But I’ll tell you when things changed for me. There’s a moment where Becket is about to kill the Televangelist Rothchild. He poisons his glass when he turns away. But when Rothchild turns back, he says, “So which poison did you use?” He then turns the tables on him and ties Becket up.

It was the first time I was legitimately surprised by what happened. Up until that point it was: Meet a Rothchild, spend a shit-ton of time with him, and FINALLY kill him. This one caught me off-guard. And it reminded me that one of the reasons you set up goals in screenplays, is to create expectations. You say to the reader, “Hey Reader – my character is going to go do this now.” The reader then relaxes and says, “Okay, let’s watch the character do this now.”

Once you lure them into that sense of security, you turn the expectation against them. That’s exactly what happened here. We figure, hey, he’s going to kill the televangelist just like he’s killed everyone else. But now the televangelist flips it around and the hunter becomes the hunted. Building expectation is a powerful tool. But it only works if you fuck with the expectation.

And yes, I get that to fuck with the expectation, you first have to lure the audience into a sense of security, which is why Ford would argue the previous Rothchild killings needed to go according to plan. But there were a few too many of them and each of them lasted a few scenes too long. We needed to get through that section quicker. I’d even argue that we don’t need 9 people. We could get away with 7.

Anyway, after that, the script was less predictable, and the increasing frequency of our serpentine villain, Julia, added another x-factor to the story. We were no longer on that predictable “get to know a Rothchild, then kill him” train. We were on busses, planes, sidewalks, bikes.  Shit, we were in an Uber at one point.  All of this made me less sure of where the story was going.  I was kind of surprised, being so apathetic at the midpoint, how into the ending I was. And when that big bombshell hits, it’s something else. As in, it kind of makes you want to kill yourself.

“Rothchild” left me with mixed feelings but they were feelings nonetheless. I’m still thinking about it. And that’s usually a good thing.

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

What I learned: We’ve discussed the page number thing to death. But if I can, I’d like to recap. It’s true that page length doesn’t “really” matter. A well-written 120 page script can read like it’s 90 pages and a terribly written 90 page script can read like it’s 140 pages. Here’s why keeping the page length down helps though. It forces you to make tough choices – to cut out stuff unless it’s absolutely necessary. A lot of writers are the equivalent of motor-mouths. They like to hear themselves type. Well, as you know, it doesn’t take long for somebody to eventually tell those people to shut up. Don’t be a screenwriting motor-mouth. Choose your words carefully.

What I learned 2: A serial killer main character gives your script a 20% better chance of getting on the Black List. I’m not kidding.