And I tell you the screenwriting secret that got the writer the job.

This past week, I stumbled upon an interview between Star Wars Theory and Stuart Beattie, the original screenwriter of the Obi-Wan movie. Beattie is best known for penning the Michael Mann Tom Cruise collaboration, Collateral. He was also involved in several of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Beattie came on to Theory’s popular Youtube channel to discuss his original vision for an Obi-Wan movie before the feature was canceled (and later resuscitated to become a TV show).

Let me take you back to a time when The Force Awakens came out and made 2 billion dollars. When Rogue One, which was just some random Star Wars special effects’ dude’s idea, made another billion dollars. Anything that Star Wars touched turned into an Erewhon Hailey Bieber smoothie – pricey but oh so sugary good. Things were so optimistic inside the company at the time, they were knee-deep into development on a Jabba The Hutt movie. Guillermo Del Toro even wrote the thing! As Jabba would say: “Tu babba gu janna.”

So of course – OF COURSE – back in 2017 they were going to make an Obi-Wan movie. Obi-Wan was the most popular thing to come out of the prequels and fans wanted more. But then the one-two punch of Last Jedi and Solo hit and, in the time it takes for Joker 2 to move from theaters to streaming, hope crumbled. Unicorns turned into rancors.

But then, a lifeline! The Mandalorian premiered on Disney Plus and everything was delicious once more. Baby Yoda was the juiciest lifeline in the Mouse House and we all got to drink from his backwards yodeling cup.

Star Wars had always been thought of as a big-screen franchise but now the company could see all these new avenues appearing on the small screen. Which meant that Obi-Wan was CPR’d back to life. But, with new mediums come new writers. So, Beattie was cast aside and most of what he wrote was tossed in the Death Star trash compactor. Instead, we got Leia. As a baby. And a chase scene that brought back memories of the Star Wars Christmas Special.

Now, due to this interview with Beattie, we finally know what that Obi-Wan movie was going to look like. Presumably, it would’ve been light years better than the uneven low-budget TV show that came and went faster than a pod race practice lap.

To make a long story short, the bulk of Beattie’s movie focuses on two things. One, Obi-Wan has lost his connection to the Force and must find it again. And two, an excursion to a transport station – a sort of “airport” in the middle of the galaxy – where aliens from all walks of life switch spaceships before they head off to their final destination. Obi-Wan meets some Force-Adjacent aliens there and they help him reconnect with the Force so he can take on Vader in the third act, who is getting close to finding his young son, Luke Skywalker.

Now, I don’t know about you. But that doesn’t sound very exciting to me. I mean, props to Beattie for coming up with a place that nobody else in Star Wars has come up with before in this transport station. But it’s not exactly… The Death Star. It’s a place of annoyance. Frustration. Waiting. Are those words I associate with Star Wars? Well, these days I guess they are. But you know what I mean. Annoyance isn’t able to compete with… A TERRIFYING SPACE STATION THAT CAN DESTROY ENTIRE PLANETS! On the fear factor hierarchy that’s a bit above, “Oops, I missed my space flight. I’ll have to rebook it for the 9pm.”

Why am I bringing all this up?

Because when you become a professional screenwriter, your primary job will be pitching your take on stories that other people own. You may not ever get a chance to pitch a Star Wars movie. But you could have to pitch a Voltron movie, a Gremlins reboot, an It Ends with Us sequel that no longer has the male lead since the two main stars don’t get along anymore, a more accessible version of the trippy “Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” by literary genius, Haruki Murakami.

The better you are at finding fresh exciting story angles, the more jobs you’ll get.

But, every once in a while, you’ll be tasked with an impossible pitch – something that doesn’t have any viable stories left. Let’s be real here.  NOTHING HAPPENED during Obi-Wan’s time on Tatooine between Episodes 3 and 4. He didn’t go on any more adventures. And even if he did, how could those adventures possibly be as interesting as what happened in A New Hope, or what happened back in the prequels?

A movie should always represent the most important moment in the protagonist’s life. Even if you could convince yourself that Obi-Wan still had adventures during his time on Tatooine, what are we talking here? The 7th most interesting adventure he’s been on? The 8th? Heck, I’d even watch a movie where Obi-Wan and Anakin got trapped in that nest of Gundarks we heard about in Episode 2 over missing a series of flights on a transport station.

But then what do you do as a screenwriter? Do you just not show up to the pitch meeting? Do you call Kathleen Kennedy and say, “Hey Kathleen, I’ve loved Star Wars my whole life and it’s been a dream of mine to write a Star Wars movie but, you know what? There aren’t any Obi-Wan stories left to tell here. My advice is you scrap the project.”

Of course not. You give it the old college try.

And Beattie did the number one thing I believe writers should do in a pitch meeting like this. Don’t focus on the plot. I mean, DO focus on the plot. But not as the heart of the pitch. Instead: Figure out the CHARACTER ANGLE and pitch that first! Because, beyond this world where you’re trying to get a movie made, there’s a more immediate goal, which is to WIN THE WRITING JOB. I have no doubt that Beattie won the job because he came in there and pitched CHARACTER over STORY.

He said: “What if Obi-Wan has lost his connection to the Force? And the movie is about getting it back.”

NO QUESTION IN MY MIND that that’s what won him the job. Cause everyone else who came in probably pitched some iteration of Obi-Wan and Vader having some secret battle. They probably pitched many expensive Star Wars set-pieces. But that stuff gets boring in a pitch. You want to connect with the person in front of you on an emotional level. If you can do that, they’ll then see all these other things (fight with Vader, cool set pieces) through that lens. And that’s a way more powerful lens.

Cause the truth is, this movie wouldn’t have been any better than the TV show. You cannot build a story out of a character’s 8th most important adventure in their life. You just can’t. So it’s a losing proposition before you even get started.

BUT!

As far as winning the job? That can certainly be achieved with this character-driven approach.

By the way, you can prepare yourself for this future of pitching production companies by practicing pitching your own properties right now. Get good at that. Tell people about your ideas and, if you’re not getting the responses you want, make changes to your pitch and try other things until you can see them responding positively to you.  Move things around.  Focus more on character.  Get rid of the parts that people looked bored during.

But for crying out loud – pick ideas that highlight the most important adventure that your character has ever been on. Otherwise, it’s always going to feel like we’re watching something second-rate.

If you’re looking for notes on your latest screenplay or pilot, I will give the first THREE writers who contact me 40% off my full rate.  So that would be $299 for a consultation.  I will take another $50 Halloween discount off if it’s a horror script!  E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com right now to sign up!

Title: ”Based on a True Story”
Genre: Comedy Feature
Logline: A struggling screenwriter recruits his writer friends to help him turn his fictional heist script into a True Story in the hopes it’ll make it more marketable.
Scene Setup: Our protagonist, Andrew, is trying to convince his writer friends to help him act out the events of his screenplay so he can claim it’s a true story, thereby making it much more marketable. He wants to use the money to save the bar he works at (and lives in).

For starters, let’s give it up to Dan Martin. Not just for winning. But for winning with a COMEDY ENTRY. How often does that happen here on the site? This guy’s breaking all the rules! So, let’s take a look at the scene in full then I can tell you why I chose it for the competition and why, I believe, it won.

This is a more clever setup than I originally gave it credit for. The main reason I picked it was the combination of the funny dialogue and the relevant-to-screenwriting subject matter. But the concept’s fun too. You have a movie idea. But you know selling it will be much easier if it’s based on a true story. So you then create the true story to base the screenplay on. That’s funny!

As for the scene itself, there are several things to celebrate. Let’s start with the structure because it isn’t apparent at first glance. When you first read this scene, you’re focused on the funny interaction. But, actually, the interaction has a purpose. Andrew’s GOAL is to convince his friends to help him steal this art. Once you have a goal, you have structure, due to the pursuit of an objective that requires a resolution. Either he’s going to convince them or not convince them. We keep reading to find out which one.

A goal also gives us our three-act structure within the scene. The setup – Introduce his plan. The conflict – pushback from the others about the plan, forcing Andrew to work harder to convince them. The resolution – They agree to help.

Contrast this against a scene where friends at a bar are just debating whether true story movies are real or not. We would’ve gotten some funny lines, just like this scene. But after a few pages, the reader would’ve started to get frustrated due to the lack of purpose in the scene.

This is a big difference between real life and storytelling. In real life, it’s fine to go to a bar and debate crap for 2 hours. Heck, I recently had an hour-long debate with a friend about whether Da Bears were any good this year. That’s great FOR REAL LIFE. But if you were to put that debate in a script, the reader would literally hate you for the rest of your life and beyond. There’s no structure to that. Which is where scene-writing comes in. You need to have that PURPOSE within the scene.

Moving on to the characters.

Often, when I read a script, I forget who’s who because the writer hasn’t done a good enough job differentiating the characters. A great place where you can differentiate characters is in their dialogue, which Dan does a nice job of here.

For starters, Dan establishes Andrew as the big talker. So whenever I see a lot of talking, I immediately know it’s Andrew. On the flip side of that, Bob barely says anything. Most of his responses are one line. Then you have Doug, who’s established as the guy who pushes back the most (“Don’t you f&cking dare!” “You’re going to hell.”). And I always remembered Julie because she’s the lone female in the group.

One of the more valuable skills a screenwriter can possess is the ability to write dialogue so specific to a character that we don’t need to look at the character’s name to know it’s them who’s talking. So, if you can pull that off, you are well ahead of the competition.

Another thing this scene does well is highlight something that people think but don’t often say. Larry David built his entire brand on this comedy concept. ‘Based on a true story’ is a bullsh%t notion. People will change dozens of things about the real story if it means improving the script. So to have a scene where characters humorously poke fun at this is a fun idea all by itself.

Of course, you still have to execute it. Aka you actually have to be a funny writer, which Dan is. My favorite part, by far, was when Andrew started bringing up Braveheart and Doug started having a meltdown. It’s funny because Braveheart is a sacred film to many. And, in comedy, you want to exaggerate these humorous anecdotes to get the biggest laughs out of them.

In other words, Doug doesn’t respond to Andrew’s first Braveheart dig with a casual, “Come on, Andrew, you know that’s not true.” You’re not going to get a laugh out of that. You have to go with something more extreme, such as, “Don’t you f*cking dare.” And when Andrew keeps going, Doug delivers my favorite line of the scene: “Blasphemous! That script is canon!”

It’s funny because, a) there was no talk of “canon” in the 90s. And b) there’s no such thing as real-life canon. The second that line was delivered, I knew the scene was going into the showdown.

Another thing I liked about the dialogue was the balance between structure and playfulness. You need both when you’re writing a comedy. But too much of either can kill the scene. For example, if you add too much structure, it can restrain the scene. Let’s say Andrew started with, “Okay, we only have 60 seconds before [our boss] comes back. We have to figure this out now.” Sure, you’re adding more structure to the scene via a time constraint. But you’re also not letting the dialogue breathe.

One of the fun things about this scene is that the dialogue has that element of real life where people talk a little too much. Did Andrew really need to add the point about how Mel Gibson tried to get a “true story” label for Passion of the Christ? That could be cut and the scene wouldn’t miss anything. But it comes out of the flow of the conversation so it works.

With that said, if the group decided to run down Mel Gibson’s best movies and Dan tries to get a bunch of jokes out of that, the reader likely would’ve said, “That’s too much.” In other words, there is a limit to “dialogue flow,” just like there’s a limit to structure. Good screenwriters understand that balance well.

I talk about this stuff and a lot of other dialogue intricacies in my dialogue book, “The Best Dialogue Book Ever Written.” Make sure to grab a copy if you haven’t already.

I can’t leave without pointing out the value of “writer comfort.”  Dan feels very comfortable in this setting. Whereas maybe another writer doesn’t feel as comfortable writing ensemble dialogue. They feel more comfortable writing an action set piece on a pirate ship. Find your comfort zone and write the best possible thing you can in that space. I’m all for challenging yourself and trying new things. But your best writing is usually going to take place in the genres you feel comfortable in.

Good job Dan! And if you have the entire script, I’m more than happy to review it on the site. In fact, I’m willing to review any script from the top three vote earners since all three of those entries finished so close together. Just send the script my way! :)

The Substance will become, to everyone who sees it, the most talked about film of the year.

Genre: Body Horror
Premise: A former Hollywood star signs up for a secret service that allows her to split in two, birthing a younger hotter version of herself.
About: I’ve waited five long years to see Fargeat’s follow-up to “Revenge.” Bringing Demi Moore back for a major role? Count me in. Inject some Margaret Qualley into that equation? DOUBLE count me in. The Substance didn’t have the marketing money to get the same awareness as a lot of these other Hollywood movies. But it did win Best Screenplay at Cannes.
Writer: Coralie Fargeat
Details: 2 hours and 20 minutes

Some context is necessary before I get into today’s review.

I knew NOTHING about this movie going into it.

I went because the director directed Revenge and I loved that movie. I couldn’t wait to see what she came up with in her first American film.

That information is key because had I known what I was getting into, I would’ve prepared myself better. It’s the funny thing about expectations. I prefer to know as little as possible about a script or a movie going in. And yet, there are certain types of movies that you need to be in a certain headspace for going in. This was one of those movies.

50 year old former Hollywood star, Elizabeth Sparkle, who’s barely scraping by doing a fitness show for women of a certain age, is mortified when she overhears her evil boss mention that he’s going to fire her and find a younger hotter replacement.

Distracted by that information on her drive home, she gets in a car accident. Luckily, she’s fine. At the doctor’s office, a young attractive man slips her something called “The Substance.” It’s a service that allows you to split into two, basically. This other version of yourself will be young and hot.

Elizabeth injects the substance and births Sue, who immediately auditions for the replacement position, which she gets easily. Good times, right? Ah, but there are rules with the substance. You can only be young for seven days at a time. Your old version then must be reactivated for 7 days to replenish the cells needed to stay young, while you are deactivated. You must keep this schedule or certain body modifications will start happening.

Sue begins loving young life so much that she gradually starts stretching out her seven days. A few hours at first. Then a few days. Elizabeth will wake up with an old finger. Or an old leg. She complains to customer support but they tell her, “You guys are the same. You have to figure it out yourselves.”

Sue then gets on such a hot streak at work that she simply stops switching altogether. When she’s finally out of animation juice, she has no choice but to reactivate Elizabeth, and ohhhhhh boy does Elizabeth look different. She is a beast. And she’s mad as hell at Sue for doing this to her. This can only lead to one thing – a battle to the death.

Let me start with the concept.

I was in.

I’m always telling screenwriters: Start with a big concept. If you start with a big concept, every stage of selling the script becomes a thousand times easier. Getting people to read your script is easier. Getting people to greenlight your movie is easier. And getting people to see your movie is easier.

This idea of being able to trade off with a younger version of yourself half the year via an injectable serum is about as high concept as it gets. Which surprised me. Fargeat’s first film had such a basic premise (a girl is left for dead by her evil boyfriend in the desert and she comes back and kills him and his friends) that I wasn’t expecting something this concept-y.

And I absolutely LOVE Fargeat’s direction. To the point where I’m obsessed with it. That opening sequence where we hold on a top down shot of a sidewalk as Elizabeth Sparkle’s Hollywood star is put in. We see her, top down still, accepting the honor. Then, top down still, we watch the years pass by, overhearing chatter from the people passing over the star. “Who is this?” “I don’t know. She used to be famous a long time ago.” Over more time still, the star starts to crack. Until finally we’re seeing people casually drop food on it. Homeless people wheeling their carts over it. It was such a brilliant way to tell her backstory.

Since Thursday is Scene Showdown (enter here!), I want to highlight the scene-writing as well. My favorite scene occurred in the middle of the movie. Elizabeth decides she wants to go on a date with an old classmate. They set the date for that night. We then show Elizabeth getting ready in the bathroom. She looks at herself in the mirror. But she’s clearly not satisfied. She’s not satisfied because she’s now experienced life as Sue – being younger, tighter, more effortlessly beautiful. So she applies more makeup, trying to hide more of her wrinkles. Mask her imperfections.

But then she’s not happy with her cleavage. It doesn’t look as good as Sue’s. So she grabs a scarf and awkwardly covers herself. We see the clock ticking, getting closer and closer to the date time, but she’s less and less happy with herself, making more and more changes, desperately trying to look as young and pretty as possible, until finally she has a breakdown where she messes up her entire look, climaxing in her sitting, like a lump, on her living room floor, a series of text messages from her date coming in on her nearby phone: “Hello? Are you still coming?” “Are you here yet?” “Are you okay?”

What I liked about the scene is it had that beginning, middle, and end that I’m always advocating for in your scene-writing. And it did it WITHOUT A WORD OF DIALOGUE. That’s not easy to do! So I always rate writers who are able to pull that off.

Now, if the movie would’ve focused on scenes like that the whole time, I would’ve loved it.

But as I slowly began to realize, this was a body-horror movie. Maybe THE body-horror movie. The best of all time, I may proclaim? The problem is, I am NOT a body-horror fan. I don’t enjoy it. It creeps me out. I find it weird. And that was what doomed this movie for me in the final 45 minutes because the final 45 minutes are all body-horror.

Ironically, the things I loved about Coraline’s direction – the extreme close-ups, the unique angles, the unexpected ways she’d shoot a scene – became the things I hated. Cause she wouldn’t just show an eyeball growing on Elizabeth’s shoulder. She would get an extreme close-up of that eyeball, play the various squishy sounds that eyeballs make when they move around, show you pus coming out of the lip of the eye socket. She might keep you there with that eyeball for an entire 60 seconds. It was unsettling.

But for me, the thing that killed The Substance was the absurd amount of blood during the final scene. Have you ever watched a movie where a character gets their arm chopped off and for about 3 seconds, we see them holding their arm, screaming, with blood shooting out everywhere?

Well, I want you to imagine that happening for ten straight minutes. With deafening high-octane metal blasting. And a million close-ups of 200 different people getting sprayed with blood. And we don’t leave the 10,000 square foot room until every wall, every floor, every ceiling, is entirely covered with blood.

It was so bizarrely unnecessary to get the point across. We literally got the point 9 minutes and 30 seconds ago.

And while, at times, Deformed Elizabeth was fun, seeing every crevice of her pulsating decaying body in extreme close-up again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again… oh wait, there’s more… and again and again and again and again and again and again… nope, the movie’s not over yet… and again and again and again, became unbearable.

Unless you’re a body horror junkie, I can’t, in good conscience, recommend this movie. It’s so hard to look at at times, that I don’t know what the entertainment value is supposed to be. And to be honest, I didn’t think the script was very good either. Sue rarely talks. So I never felt like I understood her. The movie is supposed to be taking place in modern day but the New Year’s Finale production seemed to be set in 1950. Coraline played fast and loose with the rules of her story.

I’m bummed out. Cause I expected to love this movie. I thought for sure I’d have another entry for Top Movies of 2024. Twas not to be.

You can read the script here: The Substance

[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Learn to tell a scene with a beginning, middle, and end, with no dialogue. If you can write a good scene with that limitation, you should have no problem writing good scenes that contain dialogue.

Scene Showdown is THIS WEEK. Details on how to enter are inside today’s post!

I know the suspense is killing you.

You’re all wondering who won the weekend box office.

Was it 80s nostalgia film #1 or 80s nostalgia film #2?

Are you ready for it?

Sing it with me!

Transformers…

More than meets the eye…

Autobots raise the battle for control of the evil… Decepticons!

Those are the words, right?

Oh wait… this just in.

Transformers did NOT win the weekend. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice did. My fault.

Shucks.

That throws me for a loop. I had this stellar 5000 word dissertation all primed up about Bumblebee’s origin story.

Hmmm…

What do we talk about now!?

How bout SCENE SHOWDOWN! Yes, in case you forgot, Scene Showdown is this week. Your entries need to be in by Thursday night. Everyone here should be entering because, guess what? It takes no time at all to write a scene. Here’s what I need from you for Scene Showdown.

Title
Genre
Logline
Up to 50 words to prep the scene (up from 30)
A PDF of your scene (no minimum length, maximum is 5 pages long)
Send submission to carsonreeves3@gmail.com
Deadline 10pm Pacific Time, Thursday September 26th!

To get you primed for Scene Showdown, I’ll share with you a movie I just saw. It was a French movie called, “Last Summer.” It was about a woman who starts having an affair with her step-son (who happens to be a Timothee Chalamet clone). I know. Spicy!

Anyway, the movie starts on the aforementioned mother, who’s a lawyer, priming a 16 year old girl for her defense in court tomorrow. She asks the girl how many boyfriends she’s had in the last year. How many boys she’s slept with in the last year. Clearly uncomfortable, the girl fights through the answers. The lawyer is merciless. She says to her, “They are going to try to make you look like a slut. It is imperative you do not crack.” She then continues to test her until she’s satisfied.

This is a solid example of how to write a good scene.

Note how, right from the start, you’re placing us in an uncomfortable situation, a situation that has TENSION. Even if that’s all you did, you’re ahead of most of the people writing scenes because sustained tension keeps readers turning the page.

But, also – and this is something so few writers are doing these days – there’s a beginning, middle, and end to the scene. The beginning is setting up what she needs her to say. The middle is the conflict, the girl struggling with being able to do this, and the end is the resolution, the lawyer convinces her to man-up and get ready for battle.

To understand why this is a good scene, look at what the alternative could’ve been, an alternative I read just about every day in mediocre scripts. Start with a typical day, our lawyer at her work doing lawyerly things. We cut to the step-son suntanning in the back yard when she gets home. We cut to them all having dinner together later. We’re getting snippets of scenes, sure.  And we’re moving things forward, yes.  But we’re not being entertained by full-on scenarios along the way.

That’s my ultimate goal with Scene Showdown. I want to remind you writers that it isn’t just about stitching together pieces of a story. It’s about utilizing your scenes as stories in and unto themselves – creating them as a means to entertain all on their own.

Okay, now let’s get back to Transformers One because I can’t help myself.

This movie looked… awful.

Hey, kudos to whatever Paramount promotional team convinced everyone that this was the next Citizen Kane three months ago when the buzz for this film began. But those trailers were major buzz-kills. It honestly looked like something that wouldn’t make the grade if it were a free Saturday morning cartoon. Cheesy animation. Cheesier jokes. None of which were organic to the original spirit of the cartoon. I’m not sure what they were thinking to be honest. And no, I’m not bagging on sci-fi animation. I can’t wait to see The Wild Robot this weekend. I expect it to be nothing short of spectacular. But Transformers One? More like Transformers One-And-Done.

As for what’s coming next at the box office, I want every screenwriter here to pay attention to one film that’s being released. It’s a film I guarantee you’ve never heard of before. And yet knowing about this film may be the most important screenwriting lesson of your life.

The film is titled, “Lee.” It stars Kate Winslet and is about the real life story of a fashion model, Lee Miller, who would go on to become a war correspondent in World War 2. Why am I bringing this movie up? Partly because nobody’s going to see it. But mainly because Kate Winslet has been trying to make this movie for years. She’s been told ‘no’ again and again and again. Yet, finally, she’s done it.

Look, Kate Winslet will likely be in the Oscar race for her performance in the film. She’s a great actress. I love me some Titanic. But too many screenwriters write scripts like “Lee” – these boring-sounding biopics – that have zero chance of ever getting made. There’s a reason everyone in Hollywood told her no. Because they know what I know, and what all of you know. Which is that nobody is going to see this movie.

The only reason it got made was that Winslet begged, borrowed, and stole until finally convincing a studio to allow her to make the movie. But they said only if you star in a more marketable movie of ours. Which was the deal she made.

You are not Kate Winslet. You do not have billions of dollars worth of proven box office in your browser cache. You are a faceless entity. And faceless entity screenwriters need to write scripts that have big ideas that sell themselves. You want to think big. You want to think flashy. Unless you have ten years to pitch how your movie is going to be good despite its boring premise, let your logline do the work for you!

That’s all I ask.

That, and write some grade-A scenes.

I’m being totally honest when I say if you possess these two skills, you are un-freaking-stoppable as a screenwriter. :)

A famous “sneaking on government base” scene.

I’m currently working with a writer who’s writing an elaborate spy/science-fiction script that involves infiltrating the US Government. The final 45 pages are the main character infiltrating a series of complex checkpoints and well-guarded areas on a giant base created by the most advanced military in the world.

When that first draft came in, the script completely fell apart in those final 45 pages. Often, what would happen, is there would be a checkpoint, and the hero would hide in the back of a car, allowing him to sneak through the checkpoint. Then he’d get to a building he’d have to breach. So he’d sneak around the back and override the passcode to open a door.

There were almost a dozen moments like this, which is why I said to the writer: The reason this ending falls apart is because every time your hero encounters a challenge, the challenge isn’t difficult. He hides in the car. The guard walks around the car. He pauses for a moment, creating a teensy bit of suspense. And then he tells the driver to go ahead.

In other words, THE WRITER IS THE HERO’S GUARDIAN ANGEL. The writer is a protector. He is on the hero’s side. Therefore, whenever a problem pops up, he’s going to make sure that the hero gets out of that problem just fine.

This is the WORST approach you can have to writing a script.

When you write a script, YOU WANT TO BE THE HERO’S WORST ENEMY.

You want to be the VILLAIN.

Even bigger than the actual villain in your story. Because the worse of a villain you are, the better your script is going to be.

Let me give you an example.

Go back to the scene where the main character is hiding in the car. We’ll say he’s hiding in a compartment in the trunk. The Guardian Angel Writer will never have anybody even open that trunk. The Guardian Angel Writer is a screenplay killer because no moments in his script have any tension at all.

The Good Buddy Writer *will* have the guard open up the trunk and look inside. But something will happen at the last second – another guard will call him away for a more ‘important’ matter – that keeps our hero protected. This Good Buddy Writer is definitely better than the Guardian Angel Writer because he’s created more suspense out of the scene. But he’s still helping our protagonist out when he needs it.

You know what the Villain Writer does? He has that guard open up the trunk. He has that guard dig around in that trunk. And you know what he has the guard do next? Think about it for a second. You’re the villain. You want to make things as bad for the hero as possible. So… YOU HAVE HIM DISCOVER YOUR HERO.

Because guess what? If he discovers the hero? You’ve got yourself a scene now! And not just an okay scene. A MEMORABLE scene. Because now we, the reader, are wondering how the heck the hero is going to get out of this. Which is the ideal place to have your reader in.

Why don’t writers do this more often?

Simple. Because they don’t have any clue how to get the hero out of that situation. So they’d rather avoid the situation than give themselves a difficult job to do. But let me make this clear. The more times you are the Villain Writer to your hero, the better the chances are that you are writing something great.

In one of the great sequels of all time, The Empire Strikes Back, a big chunk of that film’s finale is dedicated to the build-up of encasing Han Solo in carbonite. The Guardian Angel or the Good Buddy Writer would’ve found a way to save Han Solo from this fate. Luke or Leia would’ve gotten to him in time, shot or sliced up some stormtroopers, grabbed Han, and it’s off to the Millennium Falcon we go!

This needs to be you!

Not the Villain Writer. The Villain Writer encases Han in carbonite. Cause that’s the story direction that’s going to get the biggest reaction out of the audience. They’re going to be confused. This is not supposed to happen. Why couldn’t he have gotten away!?

Getting back to the spy sci-fi script, let’s look at that final obstacle where the hero has to sneak into the building. The way it was written, the hero did an override on the code panel. My first question to the writer was, “Where are the cameras?” “Aren’t there cameras outside this building so they can monitor people who are trying to break in?”

The writer began rambling, “Well, it’s not that kind of facility. They don’t usually have people in this area so it wouldn’t be expected that someone would be trying to break in here…” I said to him, “Listen to yourself. Does that sound like the real world AT ALL??” OF COURSE they’re going to have cameras! These days, they’re going to have drones combing the facility as well. They’re going to have every single inch of this base secured.

The writer looked at me with a blank stare and I knew exactly what that blank stare meant. It was the writer thinking to himself, “Well if I put all that in there, I’m going to have to figure out a way for my hero to get past it.”

EXACTLY!

And when you start writing this way, THAT’S WHEN YOU START BECOMING A GREAT WRITER.

Let me make something clear cause screenwriters seem to forget this all the time. The more CERTAIN the reader is of what’s going to happen next in your script, the more bored they are. The more UNCERTAIN the reader is of what’s going to happen next, the more engaged they are.

When you are the Villain Writer, you are constantly creating UNCERTAIN SCENARIOS. I have no idea how the hero in this spy sci-fi script is going to get past drone security. WHICH IS WHY I WANT TO KEEP READING! So I can find out. In contrast, if you’ve written an entire script holding your hero’s hand through all the obstacles, I know that once we get to this base, the hero’s going to figure it out. I’m going to be CERTAIN of the hero’s success. Which means I’m BORED.

Likewise, when we get to that back door, don’t place a number code on it. Just have it be a steel door with no apparent way to get in. Hell, if you want to be a true villain, TAKE THE DOOR AWAY COMPLETELY. Actually, let’s go one step further. In the planning stages of infiltrating this base, this door was a key part of the plan. It was, according to their reconnaissance, the least guarded door on the base. So it’s essential to their plan.

What would a true Villain Writer do? When the hero gets there, THERE IS NO DOOR. It’s no longer there. NOW WHAT???

You should love that phrase as a screenwriter: NOW WHAT??

Place your hero in a bunch of situations where the next thought is, NOW WHAT?

Because what does “Now What” imply? It implies UNCERTAINTY.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Villain Writer moments, just to show you that you can be a Villain Writer in any genre. Not just action or spy movies. It occurs in the romantic comedy, Notting Hill.

Anna, the movie star, has invited William, the nobody local dude, on a first date. Now, the Guardian Angel Writer is going to have William show up to her hotel room. She’s going to open the door. There’s going to be some cutesy romantic comedy banter. And off they go on their date!

Instead, what happens?

William shows up, and when the door opens, it’s some random guy. The guy then walks William into the middle of a press junket. The Villain Writer makes sure that NOTHING is easy for their hero. William is forced to pretend he’s part of a magazine and must ask questions to all of the stars of Anna’s latest movie before finally getting a chance to see her.

Richard Curtis, the writer of Notting Hill, is actually really good at being a Villain Writer. Later in the movie, William comes over to Anna’s hotel for another date, only to find her a-hole ex-boyfriend (played awesomely by Alec Baldwin) in the room with her. She had no idea he was going to show up.

I am so convinced of the value of today’s lesson that I challenge you to go into your current screenplay and find one of the biggest scenes in it, and rewrite the scene being as big of a Villain Writer as you can possibly be to your hero. I GUARANTEE YOU that the scene will get better.

Go try it and report back!