Every day writers give up on their dreams. What can The Imperfectionist teach us about minimizing that possibility?
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Premise: (my best interpretation of it) A loser husband lies to his adoring mother, telling her he sold a manuscript. When the lie spreads beyond the family, he plays along, not realizing the devastating effects it will have on himself and his daughter.
About: This script finished with 5 votes on the 2006 Black List. The writer, Craig Hoetger, was never able to parlay the achievement into anything bigger, and has since moved on to another profession.
Writer: Craig Hoetger
Details: 120 pages
Seth Rogen for Dan?
So there I was, trying to do a good thing – trying to dig into these spec scripts of the past and find another forgotten gem. I didn’t know anything about this one other than that it was on the 2006 Black List, ranked fairly low (implying not many people had read it), and so it sounded like the perfect script to take a chance on.
And then I started reading it. And 30 pages in, I started regretting my decision. Why? Well, for starters, nothing was happening! And the things that WERE happening weren’t making a lot of sense. But I dutifully read on. Where others would’ve given up, I kept going, determined to make it to the end. And the script actually did start to develop a plot, but it was too late. By that point, I’d already given up.
However, it wasn’t until I started doing research on the writer that I perked up and realized there was a lesson to be learned in all of this. It turned out that our scribe, Craig Hoetger, had given up on his screenwriting career, moved back east, and become a lawyer. He’d spent 10 years pursuing his dream before quitting. And all I could think was, if he’d had the right education, he could’ve made it. And how there are thousands of writers just like him. Talented, but for one reason or another, not getting the proper instruction on how to write a screenplay. These writers were quitting every day. Believing they didn’t have the goods and moving on. I want to talk about that in a moment, but first a quick breakdown on the imperfect Imperfectionist…
Daniel Merton was a childhood genius. He could spell his name with alphabet soup letters when he was two. His older brother, Kyle, was the opposite. A baboon in human skin, he’d be lucky to spell his name after graduating high school. As a result, Dan was tabbed the golden child by their mom, Cookie, who saw to it that he always got the best education, the best opportunities in life. He eventually graduated law school, living up to his promise.
Except that was ten years ago. Dan is now married to the monstrous nagging wicked bitch of the west, Cat. His only achievement in life is his adorable little eight year old daughter, Sophie. These days, Dan is anything but a prodigy. He loses every job he gets within a year. He doesn’t have any drive. He can’t even succeed at the simplest of tasks – like re-organizing his books (books he never finished reading, by the way). In short, Dan has turned into a loser.
And when he gets canned from his latest job, his wife has had enough. She leaves him and Sophie. Dan is so broke that he can’t pay the bills anymore, so having no other options, he takes his daughter and heads back to his mother’s house in Michigan. Cookie is more than happy to see the prodigal son return, but Kyle, his brother, isn’t. Kyle, of course, is still living at home.
Fearful that his mother will find out he’s a failure, Dan comes up with a story that he’s sold a manuscript for a cool $100,000. His mother is so psyched, she starts telling all her friends, who in turn tell their friends. While at a local town rally the next day, Dan’s achievement is announced to the entire crowd, and Dan finds himself being shuttled up to the microphone. He sees so many expectant eyes that he expands on his lie, telling everyone that not only did he sell the novel, but it’s going to be the next book on Oprah’s Book Club!
While this helps him achieve momentary celebrity status, Dan must explain to his confused daughter why it is he’s lying to everyone. She knows the truth, that Dan has written a total of 2 chapters of his “novel” in 4 years. Whatever the case, it doesn’t take long for the town to catch up with him and his lie to be exposed. Which leaves Dan at his lowest point of all. Will he find a way out? Will he resolve his issues with his wife, brother, and daughter? He’ll have to if he has any chance of salvaging what’s become one pitiful life.
The Imperfectionist has a lot of problems. Starting with the most obvious. It takes WAY TOO FREAKING LONG TO GET TO THE PLOT. A common beginner mistake. Now I’m assuming this script is about a guy who tells his town that he sold a book and then dealing with the aftermath of the lie. Here’s the thing though – we don’t get to that lie until AFTER PAGE 60! That means the plot of this movie isn’t introduced until half-way through the script!
Before that, I had no idea what The Imperfectionist was about (I didn’t have the benefit of a logline). The first act contained another common beginner error – the constant repeating of information we already knew. Dan gets fired. Dan’s wife tells him he’s a loser. We’re told Dan’s lost other jobs. Dan doesn’t pay his bills. Dan chooses porn over paying his bills. In other words, Dan is a LOSER. But we didn’t need 12 scenes to tell us that. We understood it after the first scene. No wonder we don’t get to the plot until the midpoint – we’ve spent the entire first act telling us over and over again that Dan is a loser!
There are a lot of other problems here (How Dan went from a super-genius to a super-loser is never clearly explained, leaving us baffled and confused for most of the story) but that’s not the point. The point is, Hoetger is like a lot of screenwriters. Guys come to Hollywood every day hoping to become screenwriters. Some spend a year or two here while others spend an entire decade (or more!). A lot of them don’t make it. And a huge reason for that is that they’re never told how to write a fucking screenplay!
I mean, these are basic problems in this script. You don’t need 12 scenes to tell us who your freaking protagonist is. A good writer needs 1. You don’t introduce your plot on page 60. You do it as soon as possible. Dan should’ve been fired by his boss by page 5, headed back to his hometown by page 10, and lied to his mom about the book by page 25. This is basic screenwriting 101 here. Get to your story as soon as possible! For whatever reason, tons of wannabe screenwriters don’t seek out the widely available number of books (or websites, or professional screenplays, or teachers) that explain how to do this stuff.
And in Craig’s situation, it was even worse! The Imperfectionist made the Black List (for what I’m assuming were a few clever moments sprinkled throughout) which told Craig that that was the proper way to write a script. You don’t need to move your story along quickly. You don’t need to get to the point quickly. So he continued writing screenplays for another five years believing that that was the correct way to write. No wonder he never found success. Had he gotten professional feedback or read a hundred scripts or a half-dozen screenwriting books, he would’ve realized that these were major mistakes that needed to be corrected, regardless of what his cheerleading agents were telling him.
I say this because I can tell, under the right guidance, Craig could have forged a career in this business. The writing here is pretty good. It’s just that there are some giant structural issues and inconsistencies in the way the characters were portrayed. Those things could’ve been fixed with the right feedback. It just terrifies me that there are all these aspiring writers out there like Craig who don’t know to study the craft and who are subsequently making basic correctable mistakes over and over again in all their screenplays, and who will therefore have to abort their dreams at some point. Study, people. Learn. Get feedback. Read scripts. Take classes. Know how to tell a story. By doing so, you give yourself the best chance at success in this business.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: This is the third script I read this week where the writer kept repeating the same information over and over again about his main character in the first act. If you do it right, all you need is one scene to establish your hero, then you get on with your story.
