Congrats to Adam and his mysterious co-writer for winning the First 10 Pages Challenge with their script, “Personal Hell” (aka “Girl Who Disturbed The Rat”)!!! He wins a feature consultation from me! Yaaay!! For those of you who weren’t around in January, I set forth a challenge to write 10 pages that were impossible to put down. There were over a thousand entries. My one rule was, “As soon as I’m bored, I’m out.” The eleven finalists were announced last Thursday. And you, the readers of the site, voted for the winner. It was a close race but Rat took home the top prize. Adam e-mailed to let me know he and his writing partner are going to put this script together over the next few months. He pitched it as, “American Beauty meets Evil Dead.” Is there a better crossover pitch in history? He even sent me a synopsis.

Gary Klein is on the cusp of absolutely nothing. As an Assistant Manager of California’s 12th largest used car dealership, he has resigned himself to a life of complete and utter normalcy. He and his wife, Beth, were high school sweethearts and have been married for 20 years. She’s the only person that he’s ever slept with and Gary and Beth’s marriage now sits on a foundation of resentment and mistrust as result of an affair that Beth had last year. The two are in therapy and Gary remains committed to the relationship, despite his increasing obsession with the fact that she has now, “been with two and I’ve only been with one. It doesn’t seem fair!” In an effort to quell the issue, Beth offers Gary a ‘hall pass’: he is free to sleep with another woman, if he can seal the deal. Amazingly, Gary is able to seal the deal with a sexy and mysterious woman who picks him up at a bar, but she turns out to be a soul sucking Succubus straight from hell! Gary barely escapes with his life and only half of his soul. Now, he and his horror fanatic son, Zack, must quite literally descend into the depths of hell to reclaim the rest of Gary’s soul and, just maybe, a little bit of his pride.

You can read the first ten pages yourself here. In the meantime, I’m going to explain why these pages won me over and why I believe you voted them the number one entry. Let’s get started.

First lines are important. They not only begin your story, but they’re a major clue as to whether the writer can write or not. If the line is sloppy, it’s a bad sign. If it’s overwritten, it’s a bad sign. If it has grammar errors, it’s a really bad sign. A good first line is confident, but not overtly so.

A rat scuttles across a telephone line, its greasy fur gleaming in rain-streaked moonlight.

I like the verb “scuttles.” It’s a small thing. But it’s more descriptive than “runs.” However, the prize word in this sentence is “greasy.” Saying “rat” conjures up a generic image. And generic images are death in writing. Film is a visual medium so the challenge is to create the image the viewer will see onscreen. You can do that by choosing words that bring images to life. A “greasy rat” is so much more visual than a “rat.” This might sound like over-analysis, but I knew after this line I was in good hands.

…the rat stops and cocks its head. It’s almost cute… but no, no, it’s gross.

This is another good sign. The writer is having fun. He’s not trying to ace a grammar test. It’s “almost cute,” but “no, no, it’s gross.” With so many scripts, I can feel the consternation in the writing, like the writer’s terrified that if even one word isn’t perfect, he’ll be laughed out of screenwriting. This writer is relaxed and cool, and that makes me feel cool.

With a bone-shattering CRUNCH, the body of a beautiful WOMAN smashes through the windshield of a beige Mitsubishi Mirage, on sale for just $5,499.

This is the moment I knew I’d be reading all ten pages. A lesser writer would’ve started this scene on the woman. By starting on the rat, then having the woman explode out of nowhere, it displays a sense of surprise that indicates a creative mind. And the level of detail at the end of the line is genius. She doesn’t just fall into a “used car.” She smashes through the windshield of “a beige Mitsubishi Mirage, on sale for just $5,499.”

Bloodied and broken, this woman is in far worse shape than the car, which just depreciated rapidly.

Again, look at how much fun the writer is having. And not in that annoying “LOOK AT ME” way that lots of amateur writers resort to. What is “look at me” writing? Something like: “She just crashed into the kind of car you lost your virginity in at your senior prom.” The humor in this line is just bold enough to grab our attention, but no so bold that it kills the suspension of disbelief.

The woman sits up with a motion akin to a marionette at the start of the world’s most horrific puppet show. She brings the squirming rat to her face, their noses inches apart.

Wait a minute. The woman is still alive?? Okay now I just went from interested to involved. — As we move into page 2, with the woman getting hit by a truck, you begin to see why this script won the challenge. SOMETHING IS HAPPENING. But not just “anything” something. Something rare. A lot of you sent me scripts where things were happening, but they were common scenarios. Like robbing a bank or a car chase. Note how something is happening here, but it’s also unique. Who is this woman? Why is she falling into cars and getting hit by trucks and is still alive? Those kinds of questions are what’s keeping me reading.

This is why I’m not putting the script down. There’s a sophistication to the writing that nobody else brought to the table. Look at the unique way the writer chose to reveal something as simple as a finger scratching. Note the breezy confidence within the sentence structure itself. You read this sequence and you feel like you’re reading a writer who has command. Contrast that with the below clip from another entry. There’s nothing wrong with the clip. But note how stiff the presentation is compared to Personal Hell.

Moving on…

GARY KLEIN sits nude, in all his forty-five year old glory, on the edge of the formica counter top in his ‘master’ bathroom.

Look at how great this character introduction is. The character intros I usually read go something like this: “Gary (40s) looks much older than his age.” How much more awesome is meeting Gary nude, “in all his forty-five year old glory.” And doing so amongst such a specific visual image. Again, guys. Note the SPECIFICITY in the writing. He’s not sitting at a sink. He’s sitting “on the edge of the formica counter top in his ‘master’ bathroom.” That kind of writing is what creates an image in the reader’s head.

GARY: “Have you seen my dropper thing?”

A seemingly innocuous line of dialogue. But this line says everything about the level of talent on display here. Most writers would write this line literally. Instead we get this fun, but more importantly, REALISTIC, line of dialogue: “Have you seen my dropper thing?” That’s how people really speak, which adds to the authenticity of the script. — And that fun dialogue continues as he and his spaced out wife chat. Why wouldn’t I want to keep reading this script? I’m having a blast.

The introduction of Gary’s son Zach is fun. But it wasn’t that that I was impressed with. I love how the end of this scene pays off Gary’s earlier intro. He’s looking for his “dropper thing” and it turns out his weird son is using it for his weird experiment. Setups and payoffs display a level of planning that indicate the writer has actually thought through their script. This may seem like a small thing but half the screenplays I read, I can tell the writer is figuring things out as they go along.

He’s immediately broken from his trance and quickly turns the station to some alt. country bullshit.

I mean, come on. If I stop reading, I’m going to miss out on more lines like this. No chance. I have to keep going. Next up we have an exchange with a cop after Gary was rear-ended. I love how Gary was the one who was rear-ended but he’s still getting a ticket (for expired insurance).

This is a classic scene reversal at the end, a tool all of you should have in your toolbox. The scene is going in one direction: Wow, you’re that famous guy. It ends in the opposite direction. “I hate that commercial.”

And the pages end with another payoff. Gary shows up at his place of work, which happens to be Ground Zero for what happened in our opening scene. At the risk of repeating myself, this displays a writer with a plan. When you combine that with a unique opening scenario, writing sophistication, and a sense of humor, you get a script which conveys that elusive “voice” that Hollywood agents and producers are clamoring for. Did I have any issues with the pages? Not really. Maybe we could’ve given Zack a more interesting introduction. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense that he’s looking at himself in the mirror first thing in the morning practicing his pretend cutting. But it did give me a nice feel for the character. Adam was spectacular in that department. I got a good feel for everybody.

The question now becomes, can Adam and his writing partner turn this into a killer feature screenplay? I will keep you updated on that. He says he needs a few months to write the script. After I consult on it, I’ll ask him if I can review it on the site.

Congrats to Adam and his co-writer!

What did you guys think??

Today I teach you how to avoid the thing that did me in as a screenwriter.

Genre: Crime/Murder
Premise: A jaded detective teams up with a young cocky LA county detective to solve a string of murders in Los Angeles.
About: This project just got announced the other day. John Lee Hancock has convinced Denzel Washington to sign on to his long gestating project, which he originally wrote in 1997, back when these murder detective stories were all the rage (“Seven” came out in 1995). Can the duo revitalize the sub-genre?
Writer: John Lee Hancock
Details: 145 pages!!! (1997 draft)

This week is “Hollywood Reality Week,” as it’s a reminder of just how long it takes to get movies made. Monday, we had a big budget movie that took 10 years to see the light of day and needed the help of distributor who wasn’t even around when the script was written. Yesterday, we saw how a small budget project took 10 years and an industry about-face regarding equal opportunity to get made. And for today, you have to add both those projects together to equal the number of years it’s taken for The Little Things to land a green light. Maybe the most under-appreciated quality in a writer isn’t talent, or voice, or skill. But patience. Which is ironic, because you’re gonna need a lot of patience to get through this script.

Joe Deacon, or “Deke,” as he’s known to friends, is a veteran LA cop who’s been assigned to solve a recent string of murders. He’s paired up with the active detective on the case, Baxter, a movie-star looks hotshot who doesn’t like the fact that he’s been assigned a professional looker-over-shoulderer.

Of the four girls who have been murdered, there are a few similarities. The girls all have bite marks on their faces. And, strangely, while all the food in their apartment has long since rotted, there are a few items – like milk – that are fresh. How could that be? Or maybe the bigger question should be, why would any writer think that was interesting?

Things heat up when a fifth woman, Ronda Rathman, disappears, forcing Deke to go rogue, following his gut on a scumbag named Sparma. He starts following Sparma around town, waiting for him to slip up, but it turns out Sparma is a crime nerd, and makes Deke easily. He even volunteers to come in and answer any questions the cops have, cockily pointing out there’s no way he can be the murderer.

This bravado throws Deke, who thought he could take this case to the bank. He must re-collaborate with Baxter, who’s increasingly annoyed by Deke’s low-key investigation methods (Deke’s convinced that every murder is about the little things, never the big ones). But the two are going to have to learn to work together to stop this guy because, otherwise, more women are going to get bitten. And then murdered.

Chris Evans for Baxter?

Today I want to tackle a screenwriting question I think about all the time. Because, if I’m being honest, it’s the reason I believe I failed as a screenwriter myself. And that’s this practice of vanilla screenwriting. John Lee Hancock is one of, if not the most, vanilla working screenwriter in the business. The Blind Side doesn’t have a single risky beat in it. The Founder is almost painful in its plainness. He even took a great screenplay in Saving Mr. Banks and watered it down so much, that what was once prime rib, became a Happy Meal.

What is “vanilla screenwriting?” How do you avoid it? Should you even avoid it?

Vanilla screenwriting is a combination of cliches, safe choices, familiar plot beats, and characters without extremes. The vanilla screenwriter knows what works. So his scripts are never bad. But the vanilla screenwriter can never rise above average. Vanilla screenwriting is the equivalent of the “nice guy.” The nice guy is always going to listen to your problems. He’s going to cheer you up with a dad joke. He’s going to be there if your car breaks down on the side of the road. But the nice guy never excites you.

That slot is reserved for the dangerous guy. The dangerous guy is not going to listen to you. He’s going to cancel your coffee date at the last second without explaining why. He prefers offensive jokes over dad jokes. And he doesn’t care if you think they’re funny or not. In fact, he seems only mildly interested in your reaction to anything he does. You should hate this guy. And yet all you can do is think about him.

Maybe the best way to explain vanilla screenwriting is to compare this script to the movie it was inspired by, Seven, a film that had come out 2 years before Hancock wrote The Little Things. “Seven” has victims who have been forced to eat until their insides exploded. “The Little Things” has victims with bite marks on their faces. Which of these two choices is vanilla?

So why are there people like John Hancock who have careers? Or Ron Howard? Or Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman? The answer is simple. It’s because some people like vanilla. What a lot of industry folks forget is that the average person only goes to the movies a few times a year. So they don’t need big sexy plots. A less assuming – yet still well told – story will do the job.

But the problem with vanilla screenwriting is that it’s an impossible style to break in with. I don’t know how John Lee Hancock got into this business. But I would bet my left hand that if he were an unknown screenwriter trying to break in today he wouldn’t be able to. His scripts are soooooooo bland. Soooooo middle-of-the-road. You forget them almost seconds after you read them. You have no idea how hard writing that plot summary was. Even fifteen minutes after finishing the script, I was trying to remember what happened.

I mean you can see it in two of the most important elements of the screenplay – the title and the main character. The title is “The Little Things.” It’s actually telling you that it’s going to be a “little” story with “little” going on. And the main character’s name, “Joe Deacon,” sounds like an amalgam of every single protagonist name ever. I don’t know how you get more vanilla than that.

Unfortunately, all of this plays out in the script. The investigation in The Little Things is so standard I will guarantee that nobody who reads it will be able to locate a plot element or a character they haven’t seen in a prime time network procedural. It’s that dull. The one thing you have to do when writing in familiar waters is bring something new to the table. There’s nothing new here, guys. Not even a single line of dialogue I haven’t read before.

So why did Denzel sign onto this? I don’t know. It probably has something to do with the fact that once a director gets an actor an Oscar (Sandra Bullock won for The Blind Side), he’ll always be able to get movies made because actors will think he can do the same for them. That’s the only reason that makes sense to me because otherwise, I don’t see a single original component to this script. It’s so vanilla, you’re afraid it’s going to melt. Actually, “afraid” is the wrong word. Cause if it had melted, I wouldn’t have had to read it.

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

What I learned: To avoid vanilla writing, get messy. I wasn’t the biggest fan of True Detective, but the last thing that script was was vanilla. It had a brutal imaginative first murder scene. It jumped around in time. And it had a main character who was a f%$#ing mess. That’s how you stay away from vanilla.

Uhh… of course a T-Rex is one of our finalists.

This was a fun experiment. It took me back to the days when I read 8 scripts a day. When you’re looking at that much material within that short of an amount of time, it’s easier to identify what doesn’t work. And the biggest thing I discovered by reading so much material back to back is how generic most screenplays are. For example, I read 30+ opening scenes that dealt with cops arriving on a murder scene. 20+ opening scenes that dealt with a bank robbery. 15+ opening scene with characters starting their day. But it wasn’t just the generic nature of the setup. It was the generic nature of the execution. A bank robbery can be a compelling scene. But not if you follow the obvious beats (Get down on the floor. Give me your money. Run out and drive away). If anything, this exercise taught me that writers aren’t aware of just how much content they’re competing with and, therefore, how important it is to differentiate your work.

The next big issue I ran into was that a ton of these scripts started slow. Let me reiterate what this challenge was about. It was about hooking me from the VERY FIRST WORD and never letting go. I don’t know why anyone would think that a slow pan across a desert horizon was a good idea. Or the 40+ script openings that focused on how light was hitting something. Or plopping me down in a room with two characters chatting away. No doubt a sizable portion of these entries were writers sending their latest script in regardless of the exercise. But for those who understood the exercise and still started slow? Or even medium? Shame on you. You knew the rules. Hook me immediately. Not hook me on page 2 and a half.

Every once in awhile I felt bad because I wanted to give writers a fair shot. So I would read past the point where I got bored. But in every one of those cases, I was proven right. The script didn’t get better. It almost always got worse. And it’s frustrating because I feel like this is my fault. We talked about this for an entire month, with me going into detail about what works and what doesn’t and, still, writers are making basic mistakes. There were so many times where I would read the first half page, stop, stare at my computer, and wonder why anyone would think this would hook a reader.

To give you some stats. 80% of the scripts, I didn’t get past the first half-page. I’d say, of the 20% where I kept reading, 70% of those I didn’t get past the second page. The most common problems were…

1) The writer couldn’t construct a sentence.
2) The writing or the scenario was confusing.
3) The writer was more concerned with setting up characters than entertaining the reader.
4) The writer was more concerned with setting up their world (exposition) than entertaining the reader.
5) There was nothing original or unique about the writing or the situation.
6) The scene was straight up boring. Nothing was happening.

That last one bothered me the most because you’d think “Don’t be boring” would be obvious. And yet time after time we’d get these scenes that didn’t contain a single entertaining element within them. No drama, no conflict, no mystery, no comedy, no dramatic irony, no dialogue that popped off the page. I thought about this a lot and wondered why were writers violating something that was so obvious to me. I think the problem boils down to too many writers assuming you “owe them.” You owe them your focus. And when you’re writing with that mindset, you don’t care about keeping the reader’s attention. I can tell you right now, that’s a deadly mindset to have. If you want the reader to like your script, you HAVE TO GRAB THEM. And the only way to do that is to assume they’ll get bored unless you’re giving them your best.

If you could construct a sentence, if you could convey action clearly, if you started with a scene that could conceivably grab the reader, you made it past page 1. But now it’s a matter of, “Are you giving me anything new?” Anything new at all. It could be a reversal (that Silence of the Lambs example I used in a previous post where we’re led to believe the person being restrained is the victim, when in actuality, they turn out to be the bad guy). It could be a strong sense of detail that pulls me into the world. It could be pure talent, like Diablo Cody’s Juno dialogue. ANYTHING. If you did that, you got past page 2. But from here, you had to prove that you could construct a compelling scenario. For example, a writer might’ve opened on a shocking murder scene. Okay, you have my interest. But if the scene doesn’t build and contain conflict and move towards a satisfying conclusion, then I immediately lost interest.

If you could set up a compelling scenario, you got me to read the whole thing. And there were about 15 entries that got me to read all 10 pages. Four of those didn’t leave me with a good enough taste in my mouth to celebrate them here. The remaining eleven were all good. So here’s what I thought we’d do. I’m going to post the eleven winners here today and we’re going to do an impromptu 10 Page Amateur Offerings (which will last through the weekend). You guys will read the eleven entries and vote on your favorite. The winner will get a review next Friday. If the writer has a full script, I’ll review that. If they only have the ten pages, I’ll do an in-depth review on the pages, focusing on things we don’t get to normally explore when covering an entire screenplay. The winner will also get a feature consultation package from me! So really think about who you’re giving your vote to.

And I want to say one more thing to those of you who don’t find your pages here. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer. It doesn’t mean you failed. But you do need to redefine what grabbing a reader means. Because I know a lot of you are talented. And in almost every case with you talented writers, you wrote something better than average. But you didn’t write something that grabbed me. You didn’t write like your life depended on it, I guess you could say. If there’s anything I’ve learned from this, it’s that busy people whose lives revolve around reading and hearing ideas all day don’t have any patience. And you have to write with that in mind. Like I said when all of this started, write 10 pages that are impossible to put down.

Okay, here are our 11 finalists! Good luck to everyone! Oh, and these are my titles for the scripts, not the writers.

Entry 1: Late For A Flight
Reaction: Biggest “Oh s&*%” moment.

Entry 2: The Leper Cave
Reaction: Creepiest entry?

Entry 3: The Woman Who Disturbed the Rat
Reaction: Most talented writer in the bunch?

Entry 4: Cop Stop
Reaction: First entry that I read all ten pages of!

Entry 5: Waking Up in a Pool
Reaction: Top amnesia entry.

Entry 6: Confused Soldiers
Reaction: You knew time travel had to make it into a Carson contest somehow!

Entry 7: The Art of Pick-Pocketing
Reaction: Script I was most surprised I liked.

Entry 8: Pterodactyl Bliss
Reaction: Writer best suited for the current Godzilla franchise.

Entry 9: Roman Plagues
Reaction: Script that best took me back to a different time and place.

Entry 10: Don’t Take the Phone
Reaction: Fastest pages in the whole challenge.

Entry 11: Cocaine Problems
Reaction: Darkest entry of the bunch.

I’ve been reading a lot of amateur scripts over the last few weeks and I continue to come across a troubling pattern. Boring scenes. I want to make something clear. You can be great with character. You can be great with dialogue. You can be great with structure. But if you don’t know what goes into writing an entertaining scene, none of that matters. After seeing this problem over and over again, I began to form a theory. I believe that one of the most well-known pieces of screenwriting advice – that you must move the story forward with every scene – has confused writers into believing that scenes are merely vehicles to get from point A to point B. Instead, you should be looking at scenes as their own individual movies. They must be entertaining in their own right. And as much as it can be done, they should have their own beginning, middle, and end.

The primary boring setup I encounter is the “talking heads in a room” scene. Whenever you have characters in a familiar generic room (living room, office, bedroom, kitchen, motel room) talking to one another, you should be worried. This is not an ideal setup for creating an entertaining scene. That doesn’t mean you can’t do it. Only that you are in danger of writing a boring scene. Why? Because you’re in a familiar setting and you’re depending on keeping the reader invested solely through your characters’ conversation. And if your storyline hasn’t pre-loaded this scene with drama, you’re stuck with two people droning on to each other.

Here’s the thing. These scenes are almost always the result of a faulty plot. If you’ve come up with a movie idea that doesn’t have momentum? That doesn’t force your character to go out into the world and do things? If your plot is passive or inert? Then chances are your characters are going to be sitting around in a lot of boring rooms talking to each other. And because there’s no engine driving your story, everybody’s going to be relaxed and talking about boring things. Let me ask you a question. How many familiar generic rooms was Indiana Jones in in Raiders of the Lost Ark? One? Two maybe? That’s because HE WAS TOO FREAKING BUSY TRYING TO FIND THE ARK OF THE COVENANT!

Hmmm, I guess he’s sort of sitting in a room here.

Don’t worry, don’t worry. I’m not saying you can only write entertaining scenes if you write action adventure movies. I’m just using that as example to explain that when you come up with a story that has a strong engine, that pushes your character to do things, there will be less instances where they’re sitting around.

Now the truth is, there will be scenes where your characters need to talk to each other in a boring room. In fact, there are some great scenes in cinema history that take place with two characters in a room. But not unless you know what you’re doing. And for that reason, I want to introduce a concept that will help you avoid this problem. It’s called SCENE TENSION. Whenever you write a scene, you want to ask where the tension is coming from. If there’s no tension, or the tension is weak, there’s a good chance you’re writing a boring scene.

Let me give you a basic example. A guy and a girl are discussing plans for the weekend. I wouldn’t want to write this scene regardless but let’s pretend, for whatever reason, that it’s necessary for the plot. If you were to write this scene in a living room with the two characters sitting down, it would be boring. To fix this, ask yourself where you can introduce some scene tension. What if the guy is late for a flight? He doesn’t have time to talk about this. He’s running around, feeling his pockets for his keys, checking his phone for his ticket. Meanwhile, this conversation is important to the girl and she’s trying to sort it out, but he can’t focus. This creates a natural conflict, which, in turn, makes the scene entertaining. I’m not saying this a great scene. But it’s magnitudes better than the first version.

Let’s look at another example. A mom is cooking breakfast for her children. I’ve read this scene hundreds of times. You can certainly write the scene so that the mom asks her kids how they’re doing. The kids ask for help on their homework. In other words, not a very interesting scene. However, if you look to add scene tension, maybe the mom just got a call in the previous scene from work, where it was revealed that they’re going to make layoffs today. Now the exact same scene involves an anxious mom who’s not paying attention to her kids cause she’s wondering if she’s going to get fired. Meanwhile, the kids are getting upset that their mom isn’t paying attention to them, and, as a result, the dialogue becomes more charged, more interesting.

Jerry Maguire is a master class in scene tension but look at the famous scene where Jerry Maguire comes to Dorthy’s house and tries to get her back. A writer could’ve very easily written a scene with Jerry and Dorothy alone in a room. But Cameron Crowe adds this divorce woman’s group – the worst possible people in the world to have around when you’re trying to get your wife back. The ultimate scene tension.

Or here’s one I saw the other day. A character was trying to have a conversation with someone else. But he kept getting important texts from someone, creating all sorts of tension in the scene. “Should we talk about this another time?” “No! No no no. I’m paying attention.” I’m not saying you always need a gimmick for a scene. Don’t let that be your takeaway from this article. I’m just using bigger examples to get my point across.

Actually, the most common way to add scene tension is through the characters themselves. You have a million options of who your character is in any moment. The most dangerous option you can go with is “fine.” If two characters in a scene are fine – if there is nothing bothering them, nothing eating at them, nothing pressuring them, nothing causing any level of unrest or anxiety, you are at risk of a scene heart attack. Actually, no. Heart attack implies it would be exciting. You are at risk of a scene coma. Which is why it’s critical you identify at least one character in the scene who’s exhibiting some level of unrest. That, then, will be the tension that keeps your scene entertaining.

I’ll give you a couple of examples. At work, a guy and a girl need to discuss relevant exposition that sets up important plot points later on. They go to the break room, maybe grab some chips from the vending machine, and chat away. Potential for a boring scene = high. IF, however, the guy has a secret crush on the girl, that “unrest” or “anxiety” adds tension to the scene. The exposition goes down a lot smoother because we’re focused on the subtext of the conversation.

And it can be even more subtle. Take Clarice’s first meeting with her boss, Jack Crawford, in Silence of the Lambs. That scene is a straight exposition scene, setting up Buffalo Bill, the serial killer. Now this isn’t the best example because a scene setting up a serial killer is kind of an interesting scenario. However, screenwriter Ted Tally still uses scene tension here. Clarice wants to impress her boss. She’s trying to prove that, even though she’s young and a woman, she’s worthy of this assignment. That “unrest” within Clarice creates the scene tension.

Let me now give you an example of a scene without scene tension. Guardians of the Galaxy 2. When Starlord meets Ego and Ego starts showing him around the planet, we get a very boring scene. The scene is exposition-driven but they forget to add any scene tension so the scene just drones on aimlessly as Ego explains tons of backstory and exposition to Starlord.

The reason writers screw this up so often is because they’re focused on getting the scene in their head down on the page, and as long as they’ve done that, they’re happy. For example, the plan might be to set up Character X in this scene. Or, like the Guardians example above, the plan might be to convey Relevant Exposition Y. They believe if they merely execute that plan, they’ve written a “successful” scene. And I can understand that. It is hard to write a scene where you get all the necessary exposition down in a way where it’s readable. But it’s only the beginning. You still have to entertain. Always. In every scene. Entertain. Never forget that.

And I want to finish off by reminding you that if you create plots with active heroes who go after things, you will encounter this problem way less. That’s because your hero is too busy to sit around in rooms chatting with people. He or she is out there trying to achieve their goal. But if you are writing a character piece, then you need to be an expert on scene tension. It’s gotta be in your writing DNA. Or else your script is DOA.

Genre: Thriller
Premise: (from Black List) When Grace and her husband Jay retreat to an empty vacation island to escape his grueling political campaign, Grace begins reliving traumatic experiences from her past, forcing her to question what is real.
About: Today’s writer came out of nowhere. Up to this point, he’d been writing and directing his own short films. But “Grace” got him onto last year’s Black List, where he finished 16th out of the 73 scripts. Marc Evans is producing the film over at Paramount.
Writer: Will Lowell
Details: 103 pages

Thandie Newton for Grace?

I’m going to say something controversial.

If your script ends with your main character in an insane asylum, implying that the series of events we just watched were all in the hero’s head, you’ve probably written a bad screenplay.

Insane asylum endings aren’t much lower on the cliche ending totem poll than your hero waking up and realizing it was all a dream.

I say this as someone who has read in the neighborhood of 100 screenplays where the main character isn’t sure if they’re crazy or not and then, ultimately, ends up in an insane asylum.

While I don’t believe it’s impossible to write a “Am I Going Crazy” script, I’ve found that most of the writers who tackle them have done less than 10 minutes of research on what being “crazy” actually means. There are dozens of different variations of mental illness, all of which have unique side effects. There’s no such thing as blanket “crazy,” although you’d think so after reading a script like this.

It’s hard to trust myself to a writer who hasn’t done their due diligence in accurately portraying the driving force behind their entire story.

Grace Byrnes watches his Senator father hang himself from their summer mansion when she’s 9 years old. Right before he jumps, he smiles at her. After this happens, Paul Sheridan, her father’s political fixer, makes Grace swear that she’ll never tell anybody what happened here. They want to frame the father’s death as a heart attack. Sure, Grace says. She’s 9 so she does what she’s told.

Cut to 23 years later and Grace is the wife of Jay Connors, an all-star Democratic Governor who’s on the fast track for becoming the president of the United States.

Everything is going well in Grace and Jay’s marriage except for the fact that Grace has inexplicable feinting spells. It’s getting to the point where the media has picked up on it, and Jay is afraid it might affect his political aspirations. So he decides to take a week off and bring Grace to a place that feels like home so she can heal – her old summer house!

They show up at the house, which hasn’t been used in 23 years but is somehow still livable. And, almost immediately, Grace starts seeing things. Is that a man she saw behind a tree? Is that a man who walked behind her in the hallway? Is that a man in the upstairs window? Is that a man at the end of the bed? You could’ve just won the Fields Medal and not be able to keep up with how many times there’s a man just outside of Grace’s vision, who she then turns to, only for him to disappear.

Grace thinks she’s going crazy but refuses to check herself into a psychiatric ward because her mom rotted away in one. Eventually, Paul shows up at the house. Oh yeah, Paul is now Jay’s political fixer. One afternoon after they think Grace is asleep, Grace hears Paul and Jay discuss that this is all a setup to get Grace to agree to be admitted into the psyche ward so she’s not a liability on the campaign trail. Everything Grace has seen is a ruse! Now that Grace has uncovered Paul’s Scooby-Doo plan, she has to escape! But she’s going to have to outwit the craftiest political strategist on the East Coast to do so.

This was a bizarre read.

I get the feeling that this is a ten year old script that the writer dug up off of an ancient hard drive. The movie centers around a political figure yet there isn’t a single mention of the most influential tool in politics today – social media. There is never a tweet. Never a gram. Never a youtube video. So right from the start, something felt off.

What might have happened here – and I give the writer credit if it’s true – is that he determined the script could be marketed as part of the #metoo movement. If it takes 20,000 screenplay skill points to make the Black List, a #metoo angle gives you a free 10,000 points. So if the writer identified this and took advantage of it by digging up an old script, good on him. Screenwriting isn’t just about writing. It’s about market savvy. It’s about taking advantage of the system. He did that. So kudos.

But the script itself is too simple and too repetitive. And too repetitive. And too repetitive. After the 6,328th time that Grace saw a man out of the corner of her eye, I felt like I was the one going insane.

The ending is OKAY. And I say that because I thought Jay was going to be the killer. And it ended up being Paul. So I was surprised by that. But this is the most simplistic execution of an idea I’ve read all year. There’s nothing new or fresh here at all. And that sucks because I actually like these “couples out in the middle of nowhere one of them might be a killer” scripts. But this one didn’t do it for me.

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

What I learned: I find character descriptions fascinating. They’re a lot like loglines. Even if you’re good at screenwriting, you may be terrible at character descriptions. I think that’s because a) most screenwriters don’t read enough scripts to see how it’s done, and b) most screenwriters don’t make it a priority. But let me tell you why character descriptions are so important. One of the hardest things to do in screenwriting is write characters that leave an impact. And a character introduction is the starting point of that process. If it’s weak, it’s almost a guarantee the character himself will be weak. You want to start off on the right foot. Here are five character introductions from recent scripts I’ve reviewed (including today). Not all of them are good. I want you to see how impactful a good character intro is. And the best way to see that is to place it up against a bad one.

Dressed in paint-stained working clothes, caretaker BILL MCCABE (50s) has the unkempt appearance of a man who hasn’t had human contact in months.

ATTICUS ARCHER. 55. Silver hair. Oxford jacket. He methodically checks his watch, as he always does when a plan is unfolding. He has everything under control.

A curl of lights and camera crew surround a reporter, BINGBING (late 20s, the kind of woman who makes you think you’ve done something wrong with your life).

LIZ ROE, 40, sharp and self-possessed with an approachable beauty and ironic smile, contemplates her outfit in the mirror.

A WOMAN sits in the driver seat of an old beige HONDA, staring off into oblivion. This is ELIZABETH (29) – a listless shrinking violet, desperate to be known and undetectable at the same time. She looks PAINFULLY BORED.

Which one did you like best? For me, the winner is Liz Roe, which came from yesterday’s script, Our Condolences. Note how the description is both thoughtful (it uses specific words like “sharp” and “self-possessed”) yet to the point. Usually when I get a character description that’s thoughtful, it’s too long. Ideally, you want it to be descriptive but also succinct.

I also like Bill’s description (from today’s script). His outfit, “paint stained working clothes,” tells us a ton about him. But it’s that second half of the description that really paints a picture.

Note how when the writers try to get too writerly (“a listless shrinking violent”) or cute (“the kind of woman who makes you think you’ve done something wrong with your life”) you leave the intro unsure. Be clear. Be succinct. Use clean words that illicit an image. You do that and you’ll write a good character description.