Genre: Rom-Com
Premise: (from me – based on limited information) A young man finds his relationship threatened when the former love of his life, now a famous singer, makes an unexpected visit.
About: A couple of interesting points to make. One, this is Illi’s first screenplay. And two, it was a finalist in two New York screenwriting contests (the New York Screenplay Contest and the Screenplay Festival).
The setup: John has been dating a girl, Lucia, who has no idea that he used to date the famous singer, Verena, who’s currently in town. John actually bought the ring to propose to Verena a long time ago but never did. Lucia finds the ring and believes John is proposing to her. John tells her the truth in an inadvertently asshole-ish way, and she dumps him. So John goes to the supermarket where she works to apologize and get her back with a big surprise.
Writer: Illi Ferreira
Details: 7 pages
Aaron Paul for John? Why not!
As I went through scene submissions, one of the most interesting things I found was which scenes people picked to send. I quickly realized that WHAT a person sent was a quick indication of where they were as a screenwriter. Some scenes were literally two pages long, bridge scenes, that had our characters moving from one place to another, discussing immediate plot points, probably the most un-dramatic moments in the entire script.
Others thought huge action scenes were the way to go. I know that’s what I reviewed yesterday, but that’s because the scene was constructed soundly and well-written. Typically, big action scenes aren’t what a script is about. A script is about the characters and what’s going on between them, whether those problems be familial, relationship-based, or work based. A good scene to pick, I think, would be something revolving around one of those relationships, that showed a clever set up, intriguing conflict, a surprise or two, wrapped in a slightly unexpected package. That’s what I was looking for. Scenes that made you think a little.
Instead I got a lot of obvious straight-forward scenes where characters were saying exactly what was on their minds (no subtext). A lot of shooting. A lot of yelling. A lot of plot-reciting. At least with today’s scene, the writer put some thought into his characters and came about their interaction in a slightly different way.
For those too tired to download the scene, it has John, our main character, show up at Lucia’s work (she’s a cashier at a grocery store) to apologize for being mean the other day. Of course, because she’s working, he has to buy something – each item a sort of “time credit” for him to continue his apology. She’s not hearing any of it though, and is trying to speed him through the line. Customers appear behind him, putting pressure on him to hurry up. Can he get her to accept his apology in time? Or will he fail and lose Lucia forever?
You remember the term “scene agitator” from my book, right? This is when you add an element to the scene that agitates your characters, that makes it more difficult for them to do… whatever it is they’re doing. Here, we see that agitator in the form of a checkout line. John cannot speak freely with Lucia because she’s at work. In order to talk to her, he must buy something like everyone else. Then, when he gets in line, he only has until the end of the sale before he has to leave.
I thought this scene would be fun to discuss because it presents the writer with a choice. That’s the thing with writing. It’s never one simple route. Often, you’re going to have tough choices, with each choice having its own pros and its cons.
So here, John gets in line and starts pleading his case to Lucia. The idea is to make things tough on John, right? We want time to be running out for his apology. So traditionally, you’d put someone behind John – preferably someone very impatient. And that’s what Illi does here. He puts an old woman behind him.
But Illi decides to go another route and pull some laughs out of the situation. In order for John to continue to talk to Lucia, he needs to keep buying things. So he keeps grabbing a new bag of chips off the rack every five seconds or so. After awhile, seeing what he’s trying to do, the woman behind him starts grabbing chips for him. She starts helping him, which is kind of funny.
In other words, there was a choice. We could go with the option that provided the most drama for the scene. Or we could add some humor. Illi opted for humor. Which is fine. But the scene did lose a little bit of that urgency as a result. If we would’ve seen an impatient businessman behind John, and every 30 seconds another impatient shopper got into line, now we’re REALLY going to feel some dramatic tension.
When you’re writing any sort of character interaction, I think you’re trying to put your characters in less-than-ideal situations to have that conversation.
Have you ever set up a plan to tell someone you liked them? And you have it all worked out perfectly how you’re going to do it? You’re going to go to their work, wait for them outside, greet them with a surprised ‘hello,’ offer up a few carefully practiced jokes, then casually ask them out to a movie? But it never goes like that does it? You wait for them outside their work. They end up being late. So it gets dark. Now you look like a stalker. A night time guard approaches you, suspicious. He asks you what you’re doing out here. You nervously tell him you’re just waiting for a friend. He doesn’t believe you, so he stands nearby and watches you. The girl finally comes out. You’re freaked out about the guard so you look nervous and jittery. She picks up on that and now she’s creeped out. Right before you get to your first joke, some guy comes out, puts his arm around the girl. “Hey, you ready?” he asks. She looks at you. “Yeah, just a second. (to you) What were you about to ask me, Joe? Something about a movie?”
Whenever you want to talk to anyone about something important, it NEVER goes how you plan for it too. And that’s really how good dialogue scenes work. Whatever was planned goes out the window because all these unexpected things should be popping up. Sure, the perfect “nothing goes wrong” scenario is wonderful for real life. But it’s boring as hell for the movies.
I liked how Illi created that imperfect scenario, which is why I liked his scene. That doesn’t mean there weren’t problems. I couldn’t put my finger on it but the scene itself felt a little clunky. There were too many action lines between the dialogue, making it difficult to just read and enjoy the scene. I thought the dialogue was okay, but not exceptional. And in rom-com spec sales, the dialogue is always really strong. So Illi still has a ways to go. But this was a solid effort for sure.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Dialogue scenes benefit immensely from a time limit. Create some reason why your characters have to get their conversation over quickly, and you’ll find that your scene instantly feels snappier, more energetic.
