Sci-Fi Showdown is just a month away and that means you should be carving your script into shape!
What: Sci-fi Showdown
When: Entries due by Thursday, September 16th, 11:59 PM Pacific Time
How: Include title, genre, logline, Why We Should Read, and a PDF of your script
Where: carsonreeves3@gmail.com
The most important thing when it comes to writing a science fiction screenplay is having a good concept. Since we’re well past the conceptual stage, I’m going to assume you’ve taken care of that part. This article is going to focus on everything else you can do to make your script great. So let’s jump into it!
I Need A Hero
Make sure we love your hero. This is applicable to all genres, of course. But when you look at the great sci-fi films of our time, they all have characters we love. From Neo to The Terminator to Ripley to Mad Max. All of these protagonists are iconic. A specific theme running through most great sci-fi characters is that they’re underdogs. Neo is a nerdy loner hacker. The Terminator gets his ass handed to him by the newer slicker T-1000. Ripley is just some lowly consultant in a ship full of marines. Mad Max is the ultimate loner, a man without a single friend. Robocop is relentlessly riddled with bullets until there’s barely anything left of him. The character in Upgrade becomes a paraplegic.
Giving the audience an easy reason to root for your hero can do wonders. If your protagonist isn’t an underdog, find other ways to make them sympathetic. When we meet Peter Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy, for example, he loses his mother to cancer. Sympathy is a screenwriting superpower when done right.
Don’t Settle For Average
One of the big things I’m going to be looking at is set pieces. ENTIRE MOVIES have been made because someone loved a single set piece in a script.
I recently read a solid action script for a consultation. But the writer seemed surprised that I didn’t like his set pieces more. What I explained to him was that I read set pieces ALL WEEK LONG every single week, and they’re all basically the same.
There’s a lot of running. There’s a lot of shooting. There’s a lot of fighting. There’s a lot of car-chasing.
What screenwriters don’t understand is that it’s virtually impossible to make those four elements exciting on the page. Think about it from the reader’s side. Let’s say you’re writing a shootout in the streets. How can you possibly write a shootout that isn’t going to have those same repetitive beats that we’ve read a million times?
So what I’m looking for when it comes to set-pieces is CLEVERNESS or UNIQUENESS. I’m looking for a setup that I haven’t quite seen before. That’s the kind of thing that gets me excited as a reader.
Inception is a good example. A situation where the environment is rotating and time is expanding. John Wick 3 – a fight in a library where books are being used as deadly weapons. Playing a deadly game of hide and seek with velociraptors in a kitchen. Navigating the collapse of a space elevator 100,000 feet above the earth’s surface (Ad Astra). These are the types of scenes I’m going to respond to.
Nuts and bolts action scenes like motorcycle chases through cities can work on screen. BUT THEY ARE OFTEN BORING ON THE PAGE. This is why spec screenwriters have to approach their set pieces differently. Their scripts are not getting automatically greenlit. So they must come up with set pieces that don’t just work on screen, BUT ON THE PAGE. Sci-fi is the perfect genre for achieving this because you have more elements at your disposal than just guns, fists, and cars.
World Build Your Ass Off
One of the unique things about science fiction is the mythology. Because you’re creating something that doesn’t actually exist, you are responsible for constructing all of that world’s backstory and rules. If you don’t do a thorough deep dive into your world’s backstory or effectively convey your mythology’s rules, you will lose the reader.
What do I mean by ‘thorough deep dive?’ Let’s take District 9 as an example. The movie starts with a ship hovering over a city. The beginner screenwriter says, “That’s all I need to know.” The seasoned screenwriter asks, where did that ship come from? How long did it take to get here? Why did it leave its planet? What kind of planet was it? What was the environment like? Was it a cold planet? A hot one? How did that affect the aliens? Why did they decide to come to earth specifically? What do they want? Are they intelligent?
The more questions you ask, the more SPECIFICITY you build into the mythology, which allows your world to feel more genuine. Remember, GENERALITY breeds GENERICNESS. So, the more you know, the more specific, and therefore believable, your world will be. Let’s take just one of these questions to see how it can affect the story. “Why did the aliens decide to come to earth specifically?” Maybe the answer is, they didn’t. Maybe they were on their way to somewhere else, got an intergalactic flat tire, and were forced to stop at earth. That changes the mythology drastically compared to if they had come to earth to destroy mankind and take over the planet, which is how most screenwriters would’ve approached the story.
The reason you do a deep dive on the first part – the mythology – is so that you can effectively convey the second part – the rules. The more you know about the backstory, the easier it is to formulate the rules. Now, District 9 isn’t as rule-based a mythology as say, The Matrix, which requires lots of explanation. But it’s still got rules that you need to convey, such as the fact that all the alien tech is DNA encoded so that humans can’t use it.
I was developing a loop script recently and one of the questions that came up was, “Why did the loop start?” If a loop just decided to happen to, of all the people in the world, our hero, clearly something/someone made a choice to do that. Who was that someone/something? Why did they pick our protagonist? We actually never came up with a good answer. But, make no mistake, you need to ask those questions.
I can’t stress this enough. The more you know about your world, the more confident both your writing and your story will be. The opposite is also true. The less you know, the less it SEEMS LIKE YOU KNOW. And the second the reader senses that the writer is bullshitting them, they’re out. This happens ALL THE TIME WITH AMATEUR SCI-FI SCRIPTS. I know because I’ve read them all. Don’t let it happen to you.
A Sense of Urgency
Sci-Fi doesn’t tend to do well with slow narratives. It’s a genre that wants to move. Look no further than the trailer for Reminiscence. As I told you months ago, it looks slow and boring. What are all the critics saying now that they’ve watched the film? You guessed it. That it’s slow and boring. From Source Code to Terminator to Star Wars to Guardians to Fury Road to District 9 to Edge of Tomorrow… sci-fi works best with a sense of urgency. So I implore you to add a sense of urgency if you don’t already have it.
It’s true that not every story is set up to sprint. Ex Machina is a good example of that. But even Ex Machina operates within a contained timeframe – I believe that our main character is visiting the famous tech CEO’s compound for one weekend. So, even though the story takes its time, we, the audience, know the end of the journey is near. I know some of you loved Blade Runner 2049 but one of the reasons that movie only hit with sci-fi die hards and cinephiles is because there was zero sense of urgency. Don’t make the same mistake in your script. Especially if you want to do well in the Sci-Fi Showdown.
Before I let you go, let’s take a second to remember a few science-fiction movies over the last couple of decades, shall we?
Anon
The Island
Gamer
Equilibrium
After Earth
Mute
Battle Los Angeles
Space Between Us
Valerian
Life
The Darkest Hour
Ultraviolet
Jupiter Ascending
Johnny Mneumonic
Battlefield Earth
Elysium
In Time
I Am Number Four
What do all of these awful sci-fi movies have in common?
The hell if I know.
But if I had to bet, I would say that ‘writing laziness’ was a major contributor. This is a genre that if you don’t put in the hard work and make every aspect of the script as good as you can possibly make it, it will definitely fail. Assuming all the basics are in place (good concept, goal, stakes, urgency, conflict, obstacles, good dialogue, clean exposition, structure, character development) you must be creative. You must be imaginative. Know your world. Know your story. Give us scenarios we haven’t seen before. Give us someone to root for. If you do that, your script will have a chance with me and, hopefully, the rest of Hollywood.
Are you actually sending your screenplay out into the world without getting professional feedback first? That is dangerous, my friend. I can tell you exactly what script issues they’re going to criticize you for and help you fix them BEFORE you send it out. I do consultations on everything from loglines ($25) to treatments ($100) to pilots ($399) to features ($499). E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com if you’re interested. Chat soon!
