Type 1 On-the-nose
On-the-nose dialogue comes in two flavors. Type 1 is where characters say exactly what they’re thinking. The reason it reads false is because, in real life, people hold back on what they’re thinking. They talk around things instead of about them. If you want to see the truest form of this dialogue, watch an episode of The Bachelor. Notice that the contestants say things like, “I have really deep feelings for you.” “I have really deep feelings for you, too.” “Are you ready for marriage though?” “I want to be. It’s tough though. With my mom’s death last year I’ve been in a bad place.” The reason these conversations are so on-the-nose is because the producers have spent 200 grand on the date. They need the characters to talk about real shit for that kind of money. So before the characters sit down, they tell them, “Make sure to talk about how much you like her.” Or, “Remember, we really want people to understand how difficult your mom’s death has been for you.” The Bachelor wouldn’t work if the two characters sat around all night and talked about their pets. To defeat the evil known as on-the-nose dialogue, have your characters talk around things instead of about them. If Mark cheated on Lucy, don’t have Lucy ask, “Why did you cheat on me?” the next time they meet. Have her ask, “How was your day?” This way, the real conversation happens underneath the dialogue (what’s referred to as “subtext,”) which is way more interesting. It should be noted that on-the-nose dialogue is okay in some scenes. Characters have to confront each other and say what’s on their mind at some point. But those moments should be few and far between.

Type 2 On-the-nose
Type 2 is where characters say exactly what the movie needs them to say in that moment.
This can best be summarized by the mother’s line in A Quiet Place when she says to the dad late in the story, “Who are we if we can’t protect our children?” Then, in the very next scene, the dad runs off to protect his children! Clearly, the only reason for that line was to motivate the father to go save the children. Had they approached this moment more naturally, they wouldn’t have had to resort to on-the-nose dialogue. “Where are the kids?” “I don’t know. I thought they were with you.” “I haven’t seen them.” Then they work through the options of where the kids might be and off they go. This mistake is made when writers throw out the truth of a situation to talk directly to the audience. And it’s almost always because there’s something wrong with your story. So you have to pause it to remind the audience why you’re doing what you’re doing. To avoid this mistake, stay away from any situation where characters are only saying something for the benefit of the audience. As hard as it sounds, you have to “hide” all motivations within the natural conversations that occur between your characters.

Exposition
Exposition is when your characters set up the plot or explain things. One of the most blatant examples of exposition occurs in Inception when Joseph-Gordon Levitt’s character explains to Ellen Page’s character how the inception process works. It’s question after question. Answer after answer. And it goes on forever. No matter how cool your concept is, audiences can only take so much of characters explaining things. They want conflict. They want drama. They want sexual tension. They want characters trying to figure things out. Not explain stuff. With that said, explaining things is a necessary evil in movies. And the more elaborate your story (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings) the more exposition is going to be required. The trick with tackling exposition is two-fold. First, cut all exposition down to its bare bones. There shouldn’t be a single extra word. We didn’t need Neo and the Manager discussing how the machines work in Zion for 5 minutes. You could’ve cut out every word there and nothing about the movie would’ve suffered. And second, be clever or fun or dramatic in how you convey exposition. For example, in Back to the Future (the best movie ever at handling exposition), before Marty goes back in time, we have to explain the fate of the Clock Tower. A bad writer would’ve had Marty sitting in his bedroom and his mom walk in and say, “Hey, I was downtown today and they’re still trying to resurrect that old Clock Tower. It’s been 30 years since that thing went kaput. I can’t believe it. I still remember when the bolt of lightning hit that thing and put it out of commission.” Instead, we have Marty trying to steal a kiss from his girlfriend downtown and then a crazed woman shoves a jar in front of him and screams, “Save the clock tower!” Because she’s crazy, we can’t help but laugh as she goes into her spiel about how the Clock Tower was destroyed. Just remember that there’s usually a more clever way to dish out exposition than two people talking in a room.

Melodrama
Melodrama is when you take emotional beats – positive or negative – and dial them up to inauthentic levels. One of the more famous examples of this is the Anakin and Padme dialogue in Attack of the Clones. “I love you.” “No, not as much as I love you.” “But I love you more.” Notice that there’s some crossover here with on-the-nose dialogue. But the point is, the writer goes overboard in trying to convey the emotions of the characters, which, ironically, achieves the opposite effect. But where melodrama really gets writers in trouble is on the negative side. Characters exist in an alternate universe where every moment of their lives has been miserable. “My dad was never around much. After he beat my mom for 20 years, he decided to turn the old Winchester on himself.” “I’m sorry.” “That wasn’t even the worst part. He left a letter for me with his lawyer. The letter said, ‘I never considered you my son. In fact, I wished you were never born.’ “That’s terrible.” “So if you want to know why I think of suicide every day, now you know.” And the whole scene takes place while the two are doing meth, of course. Again, there’s some crossover with on-the-nose dialogue here. But the main point is that the character is hitting us with numerous over-the-top dramatic beats. And because they’re so extreme, we don’t believe them for a second. Now there will be a couple of moments in your script where extreme emotion is required. But treat it like a newborn kitten. Only let it out of the box for a few minutes during the day. Otherwise, it should stay out of sight. And here’s one last tip to avoid melodrama. Never have your character openly offer intense emotional details about their life. Always build the scene around someone pulling it out of them. It takes Sean the whole movie of pulling and pulling and pulling to get Will Hunting to finally break down about his abusive father. Imagine how awful that movie would’ve been if Will had come in the first day and said, “The abuse started when I was five years old and here’s what happened for the next 20 years…” Reluctant admission is a nuclear weapon to combat melodrama.

Cheesy
Cheesiness is a tough one because every reader has a different tolerance for cheese. Keeping that in mind, cheesy dialogue is a result of two things. It’s a tonal miscalculation and it’s a genre miscalculation. I have this writer I give notes to who writes serious thrillers, like Sicario. However, every time he writes a scene between a man and a woman, he switches into romantic comedy mode. What was once serious morphs into exchanges like, “What are you doing here?” “I could’ve asked you the same thing.” “Truth?” “I expect nothing less.” “Cinnamon.” “Cinnamon?” “When I saw you last, you smelled like cinnamon. And I remembered this bakery because they’re famous for their cinnamon buns.” “Ah, so you’re obsessing over my buns now?” “I don’t know about obsessing. Intrigued maybe.” “So what’s next?” “I add some sugar to that cinnamon.” Now granted, this is cheesy no matter what movie it’s in. But it’s much more comfortable in a movie like The Wedding Planner than it is Sicario. Cheesiness is the result of overly cute dialogue packaged inside a genre meant for more serious exchanges. So if you understand the tone of the genre you’re writing in, you should know what constitutes as “too cheesy” for that tone.

Bland/Lifeless
This is the worst kind of dialogue you can write. And it’s unfortunately the most common. Characters speak, but it’s the dialogue equivalent of a gray room with gray furniture and gray fixtures. It’s functional. But it’s so lifeless that even if your plot and characters are strong, you risk boring the reader to death. As bad as my above example of cheesy dialogue is, it at least had personality. Let’s examine how that dialogue changes if we apply the bland filter to it. “Oh, hey. What are you doing here?” “I eat breakfast here every morning.” “I wouldn’t have guessed.” “Yeah, I only started a few weeks ago. What about you? Are you here for breakfast?” “No, just picking up pastries for the office.” “It’s a good choice. I love this place.” “Are you going to be around this week?” “I’m busy working but if you want to talk you can call me.” “Okay, that would be fun. Do you still have the same number?” “I do.” Bland dialogue stems from two places. Boring characters and a lack of creativity. If characters say boring things a lot, chances are you’re constructed a boring character. Every character needs an element of personality. Their dominant personality trait, then, will dictate what they say. I’ve been watching Silicon Valley lately. One character is overtly nervous and anxious. So he speaks in a bumbling nervous manner. Another character believes he’s better than everybody else. So he speaks in a pompous cocky manner. Another character is consumed by negativity and frustration, so he makes a lot of snarky negative comments. Granted this is a comedy where character personalities are more exaggerated. But even if you’re writing a drama, look to define every character’s main personality trait to figure out how they’re going to speak. In Three Billboards, Deputy Dixon never grew up. So he speaks like an 8th grader. As for creativity, that should be self-explanatory. Dress up your dialogue a little bit. You have a choice between, “How are you?” and “Wussup, kemosabe?” You have a choice between, “I like your tie” and “Killer threads.” You have a choice between, “I’m hungry” and “I could devour a herd of buffalo right now.” As long as it’s organic to what that character would say, you should be dressing up the majority of your dialogue.

And finally, remember, the starting point for good dialogue in any scene is a character who wants something, and some sort of tension or conflict that’s present. Whether that be from another character or external forces (weather, a time crunch), find the conflict and you’ll find your characters saying much more interesting things.

Genre: Horror
Premise: (from IMDB) A family is forced to live in silence while hiding from creatures that hunt by sound.
About: A Quiet Place has finished the weekend with a box office bang, pulling in 50 million dollars. That’s double what the original box office tracking numbers were saying it would pull. The film was sold as a spec (yay!) and rewritten by John Krasinski, who also took over the directing reins. I’m telling you guys, if you want to fast-trak your way up the Hollywood ladder, a clever horror script is the quickest way to do it.
Writers: Bryan Woods & Scott Beck (rewritten by John Krasinski)
Details: 90 minutes

This movie made me angry.

At the halfway point of A Quiet Place, I thought I was witnessing a classic, the kind of horror movie that was so good, it would be discussed 30 years from now. I’m talking Exorcist level. I’m talking Halloween. I’m talking Rosemary’s Baby.

But as A Quiet Place settles into its second half, its hopes for classic status become as quiet as the farm its characters live on. How did something so great go so wrong? Good old sloppy screenwriting, folks.

A Quiet Place follows a family of four (well, a family of 5 actually – I’ll get to that) living on a farm in a post-apocalyptic world that’s been ravaged by vicious alien monsters. These monsters can’t see you. But they can hear you. In fact, they can hear noises so faint, that if you speak above a whisper, they will arrive within seconds and tear you to pieces. So word to the wise: Shut up.

The family – dad, mom, teenaged daughter, and 11 year old son – live a completely silent existence. They communicate through a butchered version of sign language. For the most part, they spend their days prepping for the baby. That’s right, the mother is pregnant. And when she finally goes into labor, all hell breaks loose, which leads to a chain of events that draws all the nearby monsters to the farm, signing the family’s death warrant.

Okay, first let’s talk about the good. The best change Krasinski made to this script was the opening. The scene shows FIVE family members (a 4 year old boy included) in the nearby abandoned town, scavenging for stuff they need. The 4 year old sneaks out a toy shuttle that makes sounds. Halfway home, he unknowingly turns it on. It starts beeping wildly. And within seconds a monster scoops him up and shreds him to pieces.

This scene is great for a couple of reasons. First, it establishes the RULES. When the family silently invades the town, the focus is on how everything they do revolves around staying quiet. So right from the start, we know NOISE = BAD. More importantly, the STAKES are established when the son is killed. We now know how dangerous this world is. I mean, if cute 4 year old boys aren’t safe, who is?

The second big change Krasinski made was to the mother’s labor scene. The scene was already great in the script. But he decided to milk it for everything it was worth. And I encourage writers everywhere to do the same. If you have a kick-ass scene, milk every drop out of it. If I remember correctly, in the script, the scene is focused solely on the mom having the baby. In this version, the dad is trying to get to her to help. He also has to coordinate with his son to launch some pre-planned noisy fireworks to distract the monsters. Krasinski turns the scene into a giant production and it was great.

Also, something I didn’t pay attention to in the script but which was so effective in the movie was just how scary this setup is. This might be the scariest situation of any horror film ever. Because in any other horror film, you can hide. You can’t hide in this movie. You are never safe. No matter where you go. Realizing that freaked me the hell out for this family and it gave every scene a level of tension that I haven’t felt in a movie since I was a kid and I actually believed in monsters.

There were other things I liked too. I liked that when the younger son died, it wasn’t just a cheap gut punch to the audience. It became part of the story. This is something newer writers don’t get. They’ll kill a kid in a scene like this then it’s never mentioned again. When you include something this affecting, it has to become part of your story’s reality. And we see that in A Quiet Place. The daughter feels like she’s responsible for the death (she handed her brother the shuttle). There’s a scene where the mother sits in the boy’s old bedroom and just cries. The son’s loss is felt on every page.

Okay, Carson, so you like all these things. What were you crying about at the beginning of the review then?

Glad you asked.

After the labor scene, two things happen in A Quiet Place. The writer gets lazy. And the writer starts cheating.

Now some of these problems were apparent in the pre-Krasinski draft. But it was his job to fix them.

The biggest cheat of all is the baby. Baby’s cry. They cry a lot. And instead of coming up with a clever way to address this, they cheated. After being born, the baby doesn’t cry for hours! And when he does cry, it’s conveniently VERY QUIET. As in, the sound editor turned the crying volume down.

Look, you’re the one who established that anything above a whisper gets you killed. You can’t change the rules when it comes to crying. You cheated. Point blank, you cheated. And it sucks because the baby’s birth establishes the whole second half of the story. So you’ve set a precedent for Half 2 that cheating is okay. Luckily for the film, it’d built up so much good will, that we were willing to overlook it. Unfortunately, A Quiet Place kept pressing its luck.

After the dad gets the mom and the baby and runs back to the main barn, they go down some stairs, slide a twin mattress over a hole, and all of a sudden, for the first time in the film… THEY CAN TALK NORMALLY??? “It works,” the dad says. You mean this whole time all you needed was a mattress??? These two years since the arrival of these aliens, and the solution was the discount section at Bed, Bath, and Beyond??

Grrr… now I was angry.

But things got sloppier. After the labor, the kids get split up from their parents. Now in the original script, the girl gets lost. I think she was running away or something. I loved that because how do you find someone in a world where you can’t yell out for them?

That was changed here. The kids weren’t lost. They were up on top of the mill at the north end of the farm. They knew exactly where they were. They could get home whenever they wanted. They just had to wait out the night and not make any noise. Instead, it’s decided that the dad “must save them.” Why? I’ll tell you why. Because in the original script, it was written that the dad had to save the daughter, and Krasinski kept that beat, but without the motivation. The hero had to save the day so the hero could save the day.

By this point, I’m checking out. It’s getting too sloppy.

And then there’s the whole: daughter turns her hearing aid up to send a high-pitched signal into the monster’s ears, which helps the family defeat them. This wasn’t the worst part of the movie. But it didn’t make sense. You’re telling me that a 13 year old girl figures out that high-pitched noises affect sound-sensitive aliens but none of the smartest scientists in the world thought of that? I suppose there’s a certain amount of “just go with it” that needs to happen at this point but that’s the thing. The script had gotten so sloppy that you’re only bringing more attention to that sloppiness with yet another lazy development.

What does all this mean?

What it means is that I don’t know how to rate this movie. It’s such a unique film-going experience. I mean the sound design alone is worth seeing the movie for. And the first half of the movie is so good. But I subscribe to the theory that it’s what you leave the audience with that counts most. And I left feeling like a huge opportunity had been missed.

I guess I’ll still recommend it. There’s a chance I’m being too harsh (the audience I was with really liked it – some were even clapping at the end). Just go see the thing and tell me if I’m being an overly analytical horror scrooge.

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

What I learned: I made a joke the other day that “A Quiet Place” was like “It Comes At Night” but with a plot. The thing is, I wasn’t joking. The difference between these two concepts is the difference between a script that a studio gets behind and one that has to scrap together funding from 10 different places and pray it gets purchased by an indie studio after a film festival. In one, you have a clever concept you can market (the “stay quiet” angle), as well as monsters. Monsters are HUGE when it comes to movie marketing. In the other, you have no monsters – just people talking in rooms and being scared. And while it’ll win Movie of the Year in your Film School Class (“Don’t you get it! The whole point is that nothing comes, man!”), it won’t win anything from the people who count most – the ones who spend money to see your movie. Those people aren’t interested in discussing films. They’re interested in being entertained. Never forget the difference.

What I learned 2: You have to follow the rules of the universe you’ve set up. You just have to. If you go against them, all trust in the storytelling is lost.

The weekend is here and I’m celebrating it by… shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… going to see A Quiet Place. Gonna see how it holds up to the script, which I loved. This film is like They Come At Night… but with a plot! I heard some crazy things happened during the making of this movie, including director Krasinski changing the entire look of the alien with less than a month til locking film.

Good for him. The film looks great. But now let’s switch to future films. As in YOUR future films. One of the reasons A Quiet Place rocketed up the Hollywood ladder and got into Krasinski’s hands in the first place was because it had a clever premise. Are there any premises today that fit that bill? That’s up to you to decide. The rules to Amateur Offerings are simple. Read as much as you can from each script and vote for your favorite in the comments section. The winner gets a review on the site next Friday.

If you believe you have a screenplay that will light the world on fire, submit it for a future Amateur Offerings! Send me a PDF of your script, along with the title, genre, logline, and why you think people should read it (your chance to pitch your story). All submissions should be sent to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com.

Title: 1500°F
Genre: Survival Drama
Logline: An estranged father takes his two children for a weekend retreat in the wilderness only to find their excursion turning into a frantic struggle for reconciliation and survival as the local area is consumed by a massive wildfire.
Why You Should Read: Well considering the horrendous fires that ripped through California recently, I thought I’d shoot you over my new micro-script, 1500°F. Word is that the Ventura Thomas fire was burning an acre a minute! To give you some perspective, the entirety of NYC’s Central Park would be consumed in fifteen minutes. This script moves just as fast. And more importantly gives the characters just as much focus as the spectacle. A film that inspired me was Norway’s official submission for the 88th Academy Awards, The Wave.

Title: Labyrinth 2: The Goblin Queen
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure
Logline: When the Goblin King abducts a nine-year-old troublemaker, her teenage brother is given 13 hours to find her or else both will be trapped forever inside an otherworldly labyrinth.
WhyShouldAnyoneReadIt: I know, I know. But hear me out. This is not a piece of fan-fiction and I’m not obsessed with the original movie (flawed but enjoyable as it may be). I’m just a writer who saw the potential it had and that’s what pushed me to write this. I knew I had to fix the tone, define the world’s mythology, remove the musical aspect, keep the beloved puppetry magic and continue the narrative from the first movie. And this challenge proved to be quite rewarding for me. Let’s hope anybody out there feels the same way as I do. Doesn’t anyone miss a good old-fashioned adventure? I know what you’re gonna say next, so just in case, here are my replies:

“This will never be made” – Never say never. We’re artists and we’re better than that word.

“David Bowie is dead” – Sadly, that is true. But Tilda Swinton isn’t.

“Nobody cares about Labyrinth” – I’d disagree. When it came out, it was a financial disappointment, but over the years, it has become a beloved cult-movie.

“This is not the kind of thing for Amateur Offerings” – Wasn’t there a Star Wars Episode IX script in the mix not too long ago?

Title: The Call of Cthulhu
Genre: Mystery/Drama
Logline: When a Boston archaeologist is appointed executor of his late uncle’s estate, he begins an investigation into a collection of strange manuscripts and weird art indicating Cthulhu, a mystical deity worshipped by an apocalyptic cult, has returned from the dead.
Why You Should Read: They say that Lovecraft is impossible to adapt. I went back and again read Del Toro’s version of his Lovecraft passion project, Mountains of Madness. There were many flaws in his attempt to adapt Lovecraft. I won’t list them all but his biggest flaw was that he picked the wrong Lovecraft to be tentpoled and brought into the mainstream. It’s a hard sell to the studio for a lot of reasons, but I believe by exploring the Cthulhu story-world first, it would then allow him to piggy-back its success to make his dream project. There is untapped potential into what I call a Lovecraft Cinematic Universe, but introducing him into the mainstream as a franchise takes a certain strategy. That strategy must begin with his watershed, quintessential story, the one that lays out the Lovecraft world that we are essentially selling to the public, the one that an entire franchise can be built off of–The Call of Cthulhu.

This is a true adaptation of the source material, which is in the public domain. Lovecraft already does all the work for us with his great stories, he just needs someone to be able to tell them through a visual medium by beefing up his protags and their journey. I believe I have done that with not only this story, but a few others as well. This script explores very real and important aspects of modern man. It asks questions about perception, reality, truth, value and many other cornerstone concepts that philosophers ponder.

I approached The Call of Cthulhu for what it truly is– an epic adventure disguised as a detective story. A Fincher-esque low-lit investigative thriller punctuated with shocking moments, some strong violence and of course, madness. In the end, that’s all it really is. And it definitely won’t need Del Toro’s Hard R rating or $150 million dollar budget.

Title: Stamps
Genre: Comedic Action
Logline: When his surprisingly valuable stamp collection is stolen, an autistic young man uses his unique abilities in a relentless, indefatigable pursuit to retrieve his stamps before morning, before they are stuffed into Fedex envelopes and shipped to private collectors around the world.
Why You Should Read: Reading this script is not going to change your life. It will not give you some esoteric insight into the godhead, improve your vocabulary, grammar or syntax, motivate you to get into politics or heal that grisly rash. You won’t read lines like “The lavender tinged tendrils streamed from the effervescence dawn into the still room like bells in search of angels.” not because I don’t mix my metaphors (I do), but because that shit’s for pussies. It is not the next Star Wars or Chinatown; it is more Adventures in Babysitting than it is Rainman, and it’s not even close. It was designed and written with one goal in mind: To make you LAUGH out LOUD. My promise to you, young reader-san, comes with this guarantee: Three solid lols or your download free.

Title: Greenhorn
Genre: Horror
Logline: A PTSD-afflicted Marine must fight for his own survival when he finds himself held captive in the Alaskan wilds by a family with a horrifying secret.
Why You Should Read: This script has done well in some notable contests and I’d like to see how it fares in the AOW battlezone. Clocking in at a lean and mean ninety pages, Greenhorn is crammed with GSU, moves at a swift pace and has the kind of deeply flawed hero an audience wants to root for. Thanks in advance for the reads.

While watching the press tour for this weekend’s A Silent Place, I noticed that one of the scenes they’re highlighting is (spoiler) when Emily Blunt’s character is forced to have a baby in dead silence. It’s that movie’s “That Scene,” the scene that everybody will be talking about after the movie. The concept of having a “That Scene” is more important than screenwriters realize. One great scene can be the difference between people talking about your movie afterwards or not. And if they’re not talking about it, they aren’t encouraging anybody else to see it. I’m not saying you can have a terrible script with one great scene and you’re saved. But I will say that an average script with a great scene in it could tip the scales and get you a sale. That’s because when a producer reads one great scene and imagines how awesome that scene would be in a theater? They’re willing to work on the rest of the script’s problems JUST SO they can get that scene in a movie.

The late Blake Snyder famously chronicled how That Scene got him the biggest break of his life – selling a script that nabbed the biggest movie star in the world at the time, Sylvester Stallone. The script, “Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot,” is about a tough cop who’s frail mother comes to stay with him. Snyder tells the story of how the producer thought the script was okay. But when he read the scene where the mom is at the wheel during a car chase and won’t go over 20 miles per hour, he knew he had a movie. It was Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot’s That Scene.

Now when I talk about That Scene, I don’t mean your big payoff scene. The big payoff scene is the scene where everything that’s been set up beforehand climaxes in one giant super-scene. A good example of this is the “It’s not your fault” scene in Good Will Hunting. In that movie, Will Hunting’s inner battle is built around repressing the memories of his abusive father. That’s what Sean (Robin Williams) is trying to get to the heart of in their therapy sessions. When Sean tells Will that his dad abusing him isn’t his fault, Will finally breaks down. “It’s not your fault,” Sean keeps repeating, with Will finally letting it all out. “It’s not your fault.” It’s a great scene, but it’s not That Scene. That Scene in Good Will Hunting is the showdown with the preppy Harvard prick at the bar which culminates in, “How do ya like them apples?”

So how do write one of these scenes? I’ve been thinking about this a lot. “A Quiet Place” is a good place to start, since it has the clearest path towards finding its That Scene. So the first thing you want to do is you want to ask, “What can I do with my concept that NO OTHER MOVIE CAN DO?” The reason you want to ask this question is because you’ll be more likely to find an original scene. A Quiet Place has such a specific concept (if the family makes a noise, the monsters can locate and kill them) that finding an original scene to take place inside that concept isn’t as difficult as if you were writing, say, The Post.

The other question you want to ask when trying to write a great scene is, “What’s the worst thing I can do to my character here?” If you can combine those two things in a clever way, you can come with a That Scene. So with A Quiet Place, you’d ask, what’s the worst thing I can do to a character in a situation where they can’t make a sound? And the answer to that question would be… duh duh duhhhh, force them to give birth! Of course, that idea is great in hindsight but probably tougher to come up with in the writing stage. What if, for example, in an early draft, the mother wasn’t pregnant? It’d be hard to think of having a baby. You’d need to come up with the pregnancy idea first before that idea came to you. This is why writing is hard. Sometimes the answers are two ideas away instead of one. And you can’t always see two steps ahead.

But then we move over to “How Do You Like Them Apples” and the same rules don’t quite apply. With that said, the first rule is still in play. What’s a scene that we could ONLY write into this movie? We’ve got a tough-as-nails genius janitor. What if he had a run-in with a bully Harvard student at a bar? A student who tries to display how much smarter he is than this townie, but the townie schools him? That fits the bill as a scene that’s specific to this concept. So it works! It also shows us that we don’t always have to apply the “what’s the worst thing I can do to my character” rule to still get “That Scene.”

Another way to create That Scene is by setting it up. But a “That Scene” needs a bit more firepower, so one setup won’t do it. You’ll need multiple setups and a payoff that’s humongous! The best recent example of this occurs in Spider-Man: Homecoming, when Peter Parker shows up to pick up his prom date, only to find out that her father is… the Vulture. You can see that this also applies the “What’s the worst thing I can do to my hero” rule. What’s the worst thing you can do to someone picking up their first love? Make their father your super-hero nemesis! It’s also pretty specific to the concept. You can only do something like this in a super-hero film.

Sicario is another reminder, however, that simply asking what you can do with your concept that nobody else can do can lead to a That Scene. The scene that still stands out to me when I read that script was the border shootout. Think about it. You’re writing a movie about Mexican drug cartels bleeding over the border into the U.S. In retrospect, it seems obvious that you’d want a scene to occur right at the border. Screenwriter Sheridan then asks, “What’s the worst thing I can do to these characters?” Have them get stuck in that border traffic buildup, and surround them on all sides with Cartel members who want to kill them. I’d never read a scene like that before.

Maybe the best version of giving us a scene that ONLY that concept could provide was the opening scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. We see our archeologist hero do what he does best – secure treasure in a booby-trapped cave. What’s cool about this scene is that it’s one continuous series of “What’s the worst thing I can do to my hero?” moments. Every step of the way, something is trying to stop him from succeeding. Which is what makes the scene so exciting. The totality of Indy overcoming all these obstacles secures it in the That Scene pantheon.

To finish off, let’s look at the biggest That Scene of them all: the shower scene in Psycho. Here’s why I – at least partly – think that this scene is still talked about 60 years later. It takes the “What’s the worst thing I can do to my hero” rule further than it’s ever been taken before. They literally KILL the hero. The shock of that, combined with how brutal the murder itself is, is what made the shower scene a THAT SCENE.

So, to summarize, to find That Scene, you want to use one or both of these rules. 1) Give us a scene that could only happen inside your specific concept. 2) Ask, “What’s the worst thing I could do to my character at this moment?” Finally, you have to be creative. Sometimes the answer is right in front of you. But other times it’s two ideas ahead, like in A Quiet Place. So play around with some ideas, write a scene a few different ways, to find that magical moment that creates That Scene. Oh, and there’s no reason why you can’t have multiple That Scenes in your script. My favorite movie from last year, Good Time, has half-a-dozen That Scenes. But let’s start with one. Whatever script you’re working on now, spend a day trying to come up with a That Scene for it. Good luck!

Feel free to share your favorite That Scenes in the comments, along with why you think they became so iconic.

Genre: Drama
Premise: (from Black List) A passenger and her cab driver reminisce about their relationships on the way from the airport to her apartment in New York.
About: Today’s screenplay finished NUMBER THREE OVERALL on last year’s Black List. The writer, while a newbie to the screenwriting world, does have two stage plays under her belt. That’s not surprising, since this script feels very much like a play and very much “New York.” I wouldn’t be surprised if Daddio also started as a play and Hall decided to transform it into a screenplay mid-draft. The script already has its female star in Daisy Ridley, who you all know as Rey in the new Star Wars movies.
Writer: Christy Hall
Details: 114 pages

Everyone who’s read this script and reported back to me has been underwhelmed. And I think I know why. There is NOTHING like this script anywhere. The whole story takes place in a cab, focusing on a conversation between an attractive female passenger and an attractive male cab driver, yet it’s NOT a romantic comedy. (spoiler) In fact, there’s no romance whatsoever. Nobody gets together with each other in the end. It’s just two people talking.

It’s for that reason that I found this script fascinating. I’ve never read anything like it. A single location male-female two-hander without romance that’s a drama?? You know what’s funny? This is exactly how the original Pretty Woman script started out. As a drama about a businessman who hires a prostitute for a week. It was the studio who decided to turn it into a romantic comedy. Could the same thing happen here?

Girlie (whose age is never mentioned but she’s around 30) has just landed back in New York City. She’s got a tough New York exterior with a distant hint of Southern hospitality. And right now she needs to catch a cab into the city.

Her cab driver, Clark, is a man’s man. In his 40s, he’s got a tough blue collar handsomeness about him. And you can tell he’s one of those cab drivers who likes to talk. For the first ten minutes, however, he’s stuck glimpsing at a distracted Girlie in the mirror, looking for any opportunity to open up the Conversation Shop.

Girlie, meanwhile, keeps glancing at a text conversation. Someone named “L” misses her. Can’t wait to see her. It’s hard to read how Girlie feels about this. She texts him back, but each text is neutral, the kind you can’t quite read. After awhile, she sours on the activity and Clark strikes, asking her what her deal is.

Girlie needs the distraction, and finds Clark funny. He’s one of those guys that when he starts talking, he doesn’t shut up. And the music of his endless monologues seems to calm Girlie. As Clark notices Girlie occasionally going back to that text conversation, he makes the correct assumption that the man texting Girlie is married.

What follows is a surprisingly honest discussion about how Girlie got into this relationship, and how all of her life choices up to this point probably led her here. Clark gets into the action too, admitting to a life that’s been less than fruitful – I mean, he’s driving a cab in his 40s for God’s sake. But he seems happy enough now. And part of him wants Girlie to be happy too at the end of this ride. Can it happen? Probably not. But he’s going to give it his best shot.

So a lot of you have told me that this script was lame, that it’s just two people talking. But as someone who reads more amateur scripts than anyone, I’m here to tell you that you could learn a thing or two from the dialogue in Daddio.

The first thing I noticed about the dialogue was how natural it was. Usually, in screenwriting, when scenes are 2-3 pages long, the dialogue needs to be laser focused. You have to get out any necessary exposition. Each character has to get to the point quickly so the scene doesn’t lag. It’s why so many screenplay conversations feel unnatural.

But Daddio is one long scene. This allows Hall to let the characters riff for longer than characters would normally do so, which, in turn, makes them sound more like real people. Because that’s how it is in real life. If you meet with someone at a coffee shop, you can chat each other up and the next thing you know, 30 minutes has gone by. Daddio found a conceptual loophole that allows it to get that same realism.

There’s some other things going on with the dialogue as well. The two characters have completely different speech patterns. Clark rambles on endlessly. Girlie chooses her words carefully. One of the best ways to write good dialogue is to create contrast in speech patterns between characters.

In addition to this, Clark swears a lot. Girlie never swears. Clark descends into slang a lot. Girlie speaks in proper English all the time. All of these things bring life to the interactions. To convey just how important this is, I was watching that Adam Devine Netflix Comedy that ripped off the Groundhog Day premise. In that movie, him and the girl sound like the exact same people. Their jokes are similar. Their speech patterns are similar. It makes their interactions less interesting.

On the structural end, whether Hall planned this or not, the film has a perfect ticking time bomb – the end of the ride. We know things are coming to an end when he drops her off. And even though there’s no true goal to the story (other than Clark trying to get Girlie to see that she shouldn’t be with this man), there’s a pervasive anxiety underneath the ride since we know it’s going to end soon. In other words, this movie doesn’t work if it’s set in a static location. The car ride is everything.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Daddio is a spec-friendly idea. It’s two characters, a car, and a destination. These are very easy to read scripts. Just like Beast (which I reviewed in the Newsletter). Just like this weekend’s The Quiet Place. Simple stories that don’t require a reader to keep notes. While I’ll still say to write the best idea you got, it improves your chances of getting more reads if the script is easy to read. Which Daddio is.

Finally, I applaud the writer for giving me an unexpected reading experience. Once I realized that I had no idea where this was going, I gained a lot of respect for the writer and allowed myself to be taken away. For example, our texter, “L,” is introduced as this scumbag who only cares about fucking Girlie. Naturally, then, Clark is going to be the good guy, right? The romantic? The guy Girlie SHOULD be with? NOPE! As the story progresses, it turns out Clark is even worse than the guy she’s texting! And that’s the rest of the script, too. Pretty much all the major beats you expect from a setup like this? The script goes in another direction.

And that leads me to my final FINAL thought. While I DID like the unexpected journey, I didn’t like where the journey ended. It made me feel like… not that I wasted 2 hours… but that more of a climax was needed. There’s a desire from some writers to stay as true to life as possible. And this is VERY true to life. But you gotta make us feel like we came all this way for something. And if that means tweaking the ending so it’s a little more “Hollywood,” I think you’ve got to do it. You never want anybody leaving the theater going, “That’s it?” And I’m afraid that’s what’s going to happen here.

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

What I learned: Beware the lure of “indie street cred” choices. These are choices that get you credit with industry folks. But that leave real moviegoers confused and frustrated. That frustration means bad word-of-mouth and a quick box office death. (spoiler) I’m not saying that Clark and Girlie had to end up together here. But the ending needed to be a lot bigger. For example, I thought Girlie was going to be dropped off at L’s house and we were going to have a 3-way final talk between these characters. Instead, Girlie is dropped off at her own house. And that’s it. That’s it??