So, when I first started consulting on screenplays, I thought I had this revolutionary idea. I would create a real-time chart that would show the writer EXACTLY how interested I was at each point in their screenplay. Every 5 pages, I would mark on the chart, from 1-10, what my current interest level was.

The idea was that the writer could visually pinpoint the exact moments in the story that needed work. This is how I imagined a typical screenplay might look…

But I very quickly learned that that’s not how consultation scripts charted. The large majority of them would start out at around 6 or 7, sometimes 8. Then around page 15, we’d be down to 6. Page 20, down to 5. Page 30, we’re at 3. And then, the rest of the script would hover around 3 or 2. In other words, the majority of the consultation scripts I read looked like this…

I won’t even get into how demoralizing this was for a writer to receive feedback like this. Who’s going to be excited to jump into a rewrite with feedback that not only cognitively tells you your script is a disaster but VISUALLY throws it in your face as well!

So I dropped the visual consultation method.

But important lessons were learned. Two actually. 1) Most scripts go downhill quickly. 2) When a script falters, it rarely recovers.

If you know these things – which you now do! – you can work to make sure they don’t happen to you. You see, what these disastrous chart results kept reinforcing to me was how important the first act was. The first act is the foundation of your entire story. The more solid that foundation, the more likely you’re going to be scoring 8s and 9s the rest of the script as opposed to 2s and 3s.

So we have to then ask: What does a strong foundation look like?

In the world of screenwriting, it comes down to nailing five key things.

1. Create a goal that propels the story through the second act.
2. Create a character who we want to root for.
3. Create a character who’s battling something internal that they must overcome by the end of the story.
4. Establish stakes that feel important.
5. Have a real plan for your story.

Let’s look at these five things individually.

Create a goal that propels the story through the second act.

A lot of writers don’t set their story up to succeed because they head into their second acts with barely any steam. A good goal THRUSTS us into the second act. The more robust the goal is, the longer it’s going to carry us through that act. Goals are usually born out of problems. Take the most recent box office king, Alien: Romulus. The main character, Rain, is desperate to get to a planet with a sun. But she’s stuck here due to her work contract. That’s the PROBLEM. When her friends offer her a chance at a cryo bay to help her get there, she joins them to go and retrieve it (GOAL).

Create a character who we want to root for

If we don’t want to root for your heroes, it doesn’t matter what else you do. Your script will almost immediately plummet to 2s and 3s the whole way through EVEN IF your plot is decent. The best ways to make us root for someone are by making them likable or sympathetic. And you can supercharge characters by making them likable AND sympathetic. A recent movie that showed us how effective this is is Deadpool and Wolverine. Deadpool is both likable (he’s funny) and sympathetic (he’s lost his purpose in the world and needs to get it back). Wolverine maybe isn’t the most likable guy. But he’s definitely sympathetic (he’s responsible for destroying his entire team back in his world).

Create a character who’s battling something internal that they must overcome by the end of the story

This is pivotal once you get to the second act. Because if you only give us a likable character and a goal in your movie, you get an Adam Sandler flick. Adam Sandler movies are fine. But there’s a reason they feel like empty calories. There’s no depth to them. This rule gives you that depth. Either give your hero a conflict they’re dealing with internally (maybe the death of a loved one that they haven’t properly gotten over) or a flaw (selfishness, stubbornness, arrogance). You do this because, throughout the second act, you need to be putting your hero into scenarios that challenge these things that they’re internally battling. For example, the hero might come face to face with the person who’s responsible for the death of the family member they’re mourning. By having these internal battles, the scenes will have more depth to them.

Establish stakes that feel important

Have you ever been watching a movie where you’re about 45 minutes into it and you think to yourself, “I do not care about ANYTHING that’s going on right now.” This often means the stakes that were set up in the story are too low. I read this consultation script once where a 20-something guy came back to his hometown for a weekend and went around and talked to a bunch of old friends. I got into a spirited discussion with the writer about how low the stakes were. There was one storyline in particular that drove me crazy. The main girl in the story… he didn’t even like her. She was the ONLY thing the story could’ve built stakes around – if he had always loved this girl and this was his only chance to get her, at least you have SOMETHING going on. But the writer was adamant about making the script feel “real” and I was trying to explain to him that true reality is boring. Movies are about the bigger moments in our lives. Movies, ideally, are covering the single most important moment in your hero’s life up until this point. That requires high stakes. So whether you’re writing a big Hollywood movie or an indie flick, make the stakes as high as you can relative to the situation.

Have a real plan for your story

This is the most important tip of them all. You need to go into your script with a plan. Not just a plan for how to get through the first ten pages. Or the first act. But a plan to get through the ENTIRE SCREENPLAY. The main reason scripts fall apart in the second act is because the writer never had a plan. They knew how it was going to start and they *hoped* they would figure things out along the way. That is a deadly strategy if you’re a screenwriter and almost surely will lead to failure unless you’re committed to writing 20 drafts, giving you ample time to clean up the weak foundation you built your story on. If you don’t know how to plan, go to Amazon and order a copy of The Sequence Method. It’s the best screenwriting book for how to plan out an entire screenplay.

One screenwriting tip I’ve heard a ton over the years is that the key to a great third act is a great first act. But the truth is, the key to a great second act AND third act is a great first act. That first act REALLY has to be solid in setting those key things up. And it goes without saying that you come into your screenplay with a good concept. Cause if your concept is weak, these five tips won’t help you much!

I consult on first acts. So if you want me to check out your first act and tell you if it’s working, I can do that for $150. And if you want a full-on script consultation, I can give you a $100 discount (I’m offering 3 of these). Just mention the “Real-Time” article in your e-mail. caronsreeves1@gmail.com

Genre: Thriller/Mystery
Premise: Psychologist Dr. Martin Park specializes in working with clients trying to curtail extreme violent urges. However, when a series of brutally murdered bodies are discovered in his small New England hometown, it’s up to Martin to figure out which of his patients is responsible.
About: This script finished in the bottom third of last year’s Black List. The writer has a previous credit, a small movie called, Twelve Days of Christmas.  He seems to like numbers in his titles.
Writer: Michael Boyle
Details: 109 pages

We gotta cast John Cho in this, right?

Did somebody say….. MURRRRRDERRRR?

Ooh, that sounds like a delicious appetizer.

The entree? A little something called SERIAL KILLING.

One of the most reliable spec script subject matters in the biz. Yes, I said ‘biz’ instead of business. Deal with it.

You know what I’ve been noticing? A lot of writers are writing to rounded-off page counts. So, they write 90 pages. Or 100 pages. Or, in today’s case, 110 pages. But, what they actually do is they write one page less (89, 99, 109) so that, with the title page, the PDF doc rounds it out to 90, 100, 110.

I actually think this is a good strategy. It feels more purposeful, like you have discipline. As opposed to if you have some sloppy page count like “114.” Who writes a 114 page script?? Dare I say that person is a psychopath?

Oh, look at that! A perfect segue into today’s script. :)

We’re in a small beautiful town called Raven Lake. Dr. Marvin Park (Korean-American), who’s come here with his gorgeous wife Jessica, is a world-famous psychiatrist who’s known for his best-selling book on how to spot serial killers. Marvin has parlayed that success into becoming the GO-TO guy who treats people with murderous tendencies.

Unfortunately for Raven Lake, that means a bunch of psychopaths have moved into town so they can be treated by him. Marvin’s little practice is going great until his secretary, Zoe, is dismembered and her body pieces spread out all around the office (her arm is even used as a fifth fan blade).

This brings suicidal FBI agent Helaine Ross into the mix. Ross, who’s only doing this job to stave off a shot to the head for a while, immediately starts blaming Martin for this problem. He brought these serial killers to town and now one of them is finally wreaking havoc.

The potential killers include Fred Vasquez, who loves to mix sex and violence. There’s Terry Tomlinson, a closeted black gay man who wants to kill men. There’s Kyle Egan who’s obsessed with his mailman and has lots of dreams about killing him. There’s Dustin Kelly who feels an inherent need to kill any woman who dares to dress provocatively. And there are a couple more suspects.

Once a second victim is killed by burning him alive then roasting marshmallows above his burning body, Martin realizes that this is a lot worse than he thought. You see, Martin’s flaw is that he believes he’s a miracle worker. He believes his work keeps these people from acting out their urges. In order for Martin to help Ross, he’s going to have to come to terms with his worst fear: That there’s someone he wasn’t able to help.

Today’s script suffers from a type of problem that’s hard to explain. The best word I can use to describe it is: inelegance. We’re dealing with intense subject matter – killing – that’s being balanced out through comedy. That requires a deft touch as a writer. If you get even a little sloppy, the ruse is up. We can see behind the curtain. That’s where the inelegance comes in.

For example, the first person who gets killed is Zoe, Martin’s secretary. Not only is she killed, she’s dismembered in horrifying fashion, her body parts spread throughout the waiting room. A day after this happens, Martin asks his wife, Jessica, to fill in for her until he finds somebody permanent.

I know that, at first, Martin is insistent that one of his patients is not the killer. But even so, your job as a husband, first and foremost, is to protect your wife. To place her in the very same situation that led to the brutal killing of his previous secretary doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

The writer might argue that to do this is funny. Because it’s so ridiculous. Of course you would never place your wife in such a dangerous position. But I’m not buying that. When the writer uses humor as an excuse to do illogical things, they’ve lost me. You do not get to lean on the comedy-card to get away with weak story developments.

And then you had stuff like Agent Ross, who we see putting a gun to her head to kill herself just before she gets the phone call to join this case. Tonally, that’s too dark. Way too dark. You’re using humor when it’s convenient (hey wifey, I need you to take the position that just ended in another attractive woman being hideously murdered) and darkness when it’s convenient (Ross’s suicidal tendencies feel like they were pulled from a deleted scene in Requiem for a Dream).

This is what I mean by inelegance. If you’re aiming for a complex tone, you can’t miss. You can’t run a restaurant that serves Olive Garden bread rolls, grade-A prime rib steak, and cinnamon sticks for dessert. It’s gotta be all one thing or all another.

Despite these choices, I was hanging on to this script with the tips of my fingernails because I wanted it to work so badly. Every once in a while, the script would have a moment that pulled me back in, such as some funny dialogue.

But then the script would revert back to another dream sequence. Dream sequences are one of the BIGGEST indicators of weak screenwriting. Unless they’re baked into the story (Nightmare on Elm Street), out of 10,000 scripts I’ve read, there have been maybe 3 that have used dream sequences effectively. There’s something inherently sloppy about them. And if you have any doubts about that analysis, ask yourself if any of your current favorite films use dream sequences. They don’t. They’re the screenwriting equivalent of nuclear waste.

So what about who the killer was? Good reveal?

Unfortunately not. The writer telegraphs who the killer is almost from the very first moment they enter the story. Granted, it’s hard to surprise an audience these days with a killer reveal. We just talked about that on The Best and The Brightest. But it’s possible. It just takes work. You have to push yourself beyond the obvious choices.

This script needed more of a deft touch to handle the tone it was going for. In yesterday’s script, the writer knew EXACTLY what he was going for. As a result, his script felt confident the whole way through. Here, the writer doesn’t know what kind of movie he’s writing so the story feels a lot less sure of itself. What do I mean by less sure of itself? I’ll give you an easy comp: Amsterdam. The tone of that movie was all-over-the-place. It was often unclear where the comedy stopped and the drama began. I felt the same thing here.

I’m not saying you can’t make these scripts work. I thought The Voices (the script more than the movie), captured this tricky tone well. But because the tone can feel like a moving target, if you don’t have an ASSURED PLAN for the execution, it will unravel on you quickly.

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

What I learned: The reason I hate dream sequences so much is that you only have 50 scenes in a script. Each scene, then, is precious. You should want to put the best possible scene forward in each of those 50 slots. If you add a dream sequence – a sequence that doesn’t push the story forward and only operates as a flashy momentary distraction – you are wasting one of those precious 50 slots.

Genre: Action/Thriller
Premise: Two young women are kidnapped, brought deep into the woods, given a head start, and then hunted down by their sadistic captor all for the pleasure of the online fans of “The Nowhere Game.”
About: This script finished with 9 votes on last year’s Black List, by far the writer’s, Alex Pototsky, biggest achievement. Pototsky commutes between Dublin, Ireland and Los Angeles, California. He’s been at this for over a decade. In 2013, at 19, he wrote a musical about Steve Jobs.
Writer: Alex Pototsky
Details: 89 pages

It is a spec script conundrum we all face. Give the reader the fastest read possible but still create enough depth and plot that we care about what’s going on. Can today’s script achieve that? I want to believe!

Note: This is one of those scripts you probably want to read before you read my review because in order to speak about pivotal parts of the script, I have to reveal major spoilers (someone will probably have the script in the comments).

Allie and Carin, both 20, on their way to explore the great white north together, end up getting kidnapped by a man we will only know as The Hunter. The Hunter drives them waaaaaaaay further up than either of them planned on going into the northernmost part of the United States, presumably Alaska (although we’re never told exactly where they are).

When they wake up, they’re in a cabin. The Hunter casually explains to them that they’re about to start a game and that the game will be streamed on the black net. The good news is, he’ll give them 6 hours to get as far away as possible. The bad news is, they’re in the middle of nowhere. So, chances are high that it’s only a matter of time before he hunts them down.

Of the two, Carin is the tough one. She’s the hiker outdoorsy type. Allie is the one who likes to stay in, screw around on the internet, and do nothing. So, naturally, Carin is the leader. And her first order is KEEP MOVING. They quickly get to a maze-like area where there are six directions to go and each is marked with a roman numeral. In other words, this is a very thought-out game.

They hurry off in the direction that seems most promising and soon start coming across notes from some girl named Becca, one of the previous contestants. Becca left these notes in hidden places to help other girls. So they use Becca as their guide. This ultimately takes them to a river but The Hunter catches up to them and is able to shoot and kill Carin. Allie is able to jump in the river before she’s killed, and that river gets her very far away from The Hunter.

But she knows The Hunter is coming. So she has to prepare. She eventually comes upon the corpse of Becca who, it turns out, escaped The Hunter. But she died out here of starvation. The fact that Becca didn’t get murdered infuses Allie with a newfound confidence. She then gets a crazy idea. She’s going to team up with Becca to take The Hunter down for good.

This script surprised me! The logline was so simplistic that I didn’t think it had legs.

But the script does all the basics well (Goal, stakes, urgency, conflict, likable protagonists, hated villain) and it has a few tricks up its sleeve that elevate it to a double worth the read.

But let’s start with the choice to go with two girls instead of one. That’s a big creative choice you’re making right there. Because, if you go with one girl, which I’ve seen plenty of writers do in the past, you don’t have any dialogue. That’s a dangerous direction to go in because readers need dialogue. If they don’t have it, they don’t have any “breathers” in the script – where they can cover 2 pages in 20 seconds. Readers like those breathers.

On the flip side, two people makes the reader feel safer than one.  So you lose a little bit of the fear you would’ve gotten by placing a girl out here alone.  Personally, I think the writer made the right choice.

I also liked the way he explored it. He starts with Carin as the tough one and Allie as the weak one. And then, late in the second act, Carin’s killed and Allie must become tougher to win. So we get this really nice character transformation.  Every reader (and audience member) loves a good protagonist transformation.

I also noted something interesting about Carin’s death and how it affected the story. Once Carin dies, Allie instantly becomes a much deeper character. Why? Because she’s experienced the death of her best friend. These are the kinds of things that a lot of writers are forced to do via backstory.

For example, in a lesser version of this screenplay, Allie would’ve been kidnapped alone and then we would’ve found out, throughout the story, that she recently lost her best friend. The writer would’ve tried to add depth to Allie’s character through that backstory.

But when we get to see that death with our own eyes, it hits a thousand times harder. And now we’re REALLY rooting for Allie because we feel her past. I know it’s weird to think of it this way but, essentially, if you started this story with Allie waking up after her best friend was killed out here in the forest, Carin’s death is technically backstory.

But what really elevated this script for me was Becca. I’m always looking for ways to create unique characters. Cause how many different ways can you portray a person? Not that many. That’s why it’s so hard to create fresh characters that pop off the page. But clever writers can do it. And this one did it by making a dead character the third biggest character in the movie.

Because all Becca is doing is leaving notes. Leaving trails to follow. Leaving hope. And we even see her, at the end – her body at least. I don’t know if this is going to become a trend but Dead Becca plays a huge role in the climax (we just saw a dead character play a major part in a battle in Deadpool and Wolverine). She’s almost as big of a character as Carin is. That’s really something. To create somebody so memorable who’s not technically in the story.

That triple combo: Losing Carin, Allie’s character transformation, and teaming up with Dead Becca to take down The Hunter, were what elevated this script above your average action-thriller spec.

Something else I liked about this script is that the writer deftly avoided some of the yuckiness that could’ve been attributed to it. You read this logline and it reads like a 2004 logline, 12 years before the #metoo movement where hunting girls in scripts was commonplace. So I was wondering if that would make it feel dated.

But, oddly enough, The Hunter is barely in the story. He’s there at the beginning. He’s there at the end. Very briefly in the second act he shows up. But that’s it. The rest of the script focuses on the girls moving through the forest. We hear him sometimes in the distance. But we never jump back to him. Which had an interesting effect. I think I felt more fear from NOT seeing him. Because, like the girls, I often didn’t know how close he was. So all I cared about was getting further away. It added a ton of intensity to the story.

I’m really happy that I came across this script because it’s a wonderful reminder that if you can tell a simple story well, you’re a screenwriter.

Honestly, I almost gave this an “impressive.” The only reason I didn’t is because it wasn’t making a bigger statement about the world. It was more about survival. And I think the ceiling for that formula is a double worth the read. But it’s definitely worth checking out, especially if you’re studying how to write a kick ass spec-script.

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

What I learned: Learn how to tell a simple story well, like The Nowhere Game, and you’ve set the bedrock for your career as a screenwriter. Cause there’s nowhere to hide in a simple story. You have to be good with plotting and character. Once you’ve proven you can do that, you’ve graduated to being able to tackle more complex stories.

Adam Sandler was just on the Joe Rogan podcast and a big portion of the interview focused on stand-up. Before Adam Sandler became a movie star and even before he was on Saturday Night Live, he did stand-up.

Sandler talks about those early days when he would go up on stage and bomb. The crowd wouldn’t be laughing at ANYTHING. He said that every night he went back home after he bombed and was not phased at all. Cause he just KNEW he was going to make it.

Rogan said the same thing happened to him. He was stumbling around Hollywood not really connecting with anything. But he knew that he would make it. He called it the “value of being delusional.”

When he said this, I knew exactly what he meant. I had the exact same feeling when I first got to Los Angeles. I worked at an editing facility in the Valley and I would use it to edit stuff that I shot. I would put these shorts and videos together in the back editing bays and, occasionally, co-workers would come through and watch them and, most of the time, have very confused looks on their faces. They didn’t really understand what I was doing.

But it didn’t bother me at all. I’d think, “Clearly they have bad taste if they don’t realize this stuff is brilliant. Because it is.” I genuinely thought I was going to be some big director on the level of Quentin Tarantino. I’m not lying. I genuinely believed that.

Not only is it great to be delusional. It’s required. Because what you eventually learn is that you’re not competing against a dozen other people. You’re competing against hundreds of thousands of people. And the top 50,000 of those people will do anything to make it. If you’re not delusional in those early stages, you’ll give up.

That’s what delusion provides you. It provides you with confidence while you hone your craft and actually get good. That’s what happened with both Sandler and Rogan. Their early stuff sucked. But they were delusional long enough to get better until they both got their break (Sandler with SNL and Rogan with News Radio).

But that’s the rub, isn’t it? This only works if you find that first success before the delusion wears off. Once you understand what you’re up against, and how difficult it is to succeed in this town, you start playing scared. Your doubt starts to overwhelm you. Every page you write is the worst page ever. And every script you write that isn’t received well feels like one more nail in your screenwriting dream coffin.

This led me to today’s question: How does one succeed if they never experienced success before their delusion ran out?

Or, more pointedly: What replaces delusion as your main motivational force?

You have to change the way you perceive success. If success is only getting a movie you wrote into 2000 theaters, then of course you’re going to feel more and more like a failure with every failed script. And let me tell you something. I know writers who worked their asses off to finally achieve that feat and you know what almost all of them told me? They’re upset the movie didn’t do better. Or they’re upset that the producers changed things. Or they’re upset at all the b.s. they had to go through behind the scenes which took all the fun out of it.

In other words, even when you find success, you will move the goal post so that you can continue being frustrated.

Happiness, when it comes to screenwriting (or any art), must be internally motivated. It sounds cheesy but in order to succeed at screenwriting after the delusion wears off, you have to love what you write. As long as you sit down and write something and you love writing that story, you’re winning.

Because while you may not be receiving the financial benefits the professional writers are, I can almost guarantee that you’re having a better writing experience than they are. You’re writing something you love. They’re writing to make sure people aren’t disappointed in them.

Okay, that’s all well and good, Carson. Rah rah rah! Write for yourself. Stay poor your entire life. Never find success. The career we all dreamed of. Thanks for the help.

That’s not what I’m saying. I still want you to succeed and I still believe you will succeed. Here’s how that happens: Write the ideas you personally love so that you continue writing. As long as you continue to write, you will keep getting better. If you keep getting better, you have a shot at becoming a professional.

BUT! You still have to be your own agent. With every script you finish, you want to push it out there to as many people as possible. If you don’t know people, pay for contests. If you don’t have money, put your scripts up on message boards and trade feedback. You should be aiming to get AT LEAST 25 PEOPLE to read every script you finish. That’s the bottom required number for you to hit if you want any realistic chance of selling a script, or getting an agent, or getting hired for a job.

You’re going to get a lot of no’s no matter WHAT. Even if you have that ‘in’ at Lionsgate – the number 4 executive there who told you you can send him a script any time. Even if that guy likes it, it may not be the right fit for the company. So you can’t just send the script out to 3 or 4 people then move on. That’s one of the biggest mistakes screenwriters make. They never give their scripts a chance.

If you get your script to 25 people and they all read it and the feedback is underwhelming… MOVE ON TO THE NEXT ONE. If you get your script to 25 people and 5 of them say there’s something interesting there but it needs more development, consider writing more drafts to meet that potential. If you get your script to 25 people and the feedback is good, you may have something on your hands and you should start REALLY pushing that script. To 50 people. To 75 people.

Because you’re going to get a lot of no’s no matter what. Even people who really like your script are going to have to say ‘no’ for one reason or another. That’s why you give it to a lot of people. I think the Black List is suss sometimes but if you can afford 4 reviews, that’s 4 people you just got it to. And if one or two give you an 8, you’re onto something.

You can give it to me. I’m not cheap but you can ask me straight up, “Carson, is this script worth pursuing or should I move on to the next one.” I’ll give you my honest opinion.  What I recommend you do, though, is get multiple logline consultations from me BEFORE YOU WRITE THE SCRIPT so I can save you time on stuff that won’t get reads (e-mail me at Carsonreeves1@gmail.com).

And don’t tell me finding 25 people to read your script is hard. You want to know what’s hard? Finding 25 people to read your script before the internet. THAT WAS HARD. Finding 25 people to read your script when you’re connected to 8 billion people is a piece of cake. I’m sorry but you’re not getting my tears if you can’t figure that out.  Trust me. If you want it bad enough, you’ll find those 25 people.

The way you pursue screenwriting after the delusion wears off is to love the act of screenwriting. As long as you’re enjoying telling stories, you are winning and you are getting better. And as long as you’re getting those scripts out there once you’re finished, you’re giving yourself a shot at becoming a professional.  Never stop doing that and, eventually, your day will come.

Genre: Mystery
Premise: After the president of the United States is poisoned aboard Air Force One, a no-nonsense Secret Service agent reluctantly teams up with a hotshot White House staffer to investigate a flight of high-maintenance VIP suspects and solve the murder before the plane lands.
About: This script finished 4th in the Mega Showdown Screenwriting Contest. The Bronze, Silver, and Gold medals were all reviewed last week.
Writer: Michael Wightman
Details: 114 pages

Upon further reflection, it was mean of me to only review the top 3 scripts in the competition, when 4 made it to the finals. So, because I always make it right, here is the final Mega-Showdown review for, “The Best and the Brightest.”

We’re up on Air Force One. 29 year old Chief of Staff Carter Winford goes in to chat with President John “Jack” Hamblin, a 55 year old lady-slayer who loves his cheeseburgers rare. 30 seconds into their conversation, Hamblin starts choking. Carter calls for help. But, ten minutes later, Hamblin is dead.

Carter teams up with Secret Service member Sam Carpenter to determine what happened. They quickly learn that Hamblin was poisoned and that the poison was administered about 30 minutes ago. That leaves a lot of suspects and Carter and Sam round them up to start questioning them.

These include First Lady, Margaret Hamblin, Vice President Andrea Douglas, body man, Jeremy Thayer, Secretary of State, Tom Lillingouse, Secretary of Defense, Ross Simkins, and several other suspects. Either Carter or Sam approaches someone, ask what they’ve been up to during the flight, and then we cut into a flashback of the last time that character and the president spoke.

While I tried to figure out why the Vice President and President were on the same flight, since that’s not allowed, we basically interview a lot of people who are defiant that they weren’t the one who poisoned the president.

Eventually, though (spoilers), we learn that an army sergeant was having an affair with the president and that, also, the body man, Jeremey, was having an affair with the first lady. This presidential affair upset the guy who was going out with the army sergeant, so he is tagged as the one who killed the president. Except, right when they think that’s a wrap, we learn that someone very close to the investigation is the real killer.

Let’s get something straight right off the bat. This is a really cool idea! I love it. A whodunnit where the president gets murdered on Air Force One? I mean has there been a higher concept on this site in the past year?

But here’s the trick with this idea. You have a couple of directions you can go and the direction you choose is the key to everything. Option number 1 is the comedic Knives Out route. This is where you have more fun with the idea. You have more fun with the dialogue.

Option number 2 is to turn this into a straight thriller. The tone is more serious.

Neither direction is wrong. Neither direction is right. But you have to pick the direction that’s RIGHT FOR YOU. As in, YOU THE WRITER. In other words, if you’re good with that quick-witted Aaron Sorkin-type dialogue, go with option number 1. If you’re not, you need to go the more serious route.

Personally? I would’ve responded better to the serious version of this idea. Because, to me, the appeal of this scenario is how big it is. The president is dead. That affects a lot of things. Those kinds of stakes fit better into the thriller version of this movie, in my opinion.

Now, you could’ve changed my mind if the dialogue in the comedic version was stellar. But I only thought it was solid. This is one of my stipulations for writing dialogue-centric scripts. Since so much emphasis is going to be placed on the dialogue, it can’t just be okay. It has to be awesome. And I didn’t think the dialogue was awesome.

That factored into my assessment of the script. Cause I think that if we went with option number 2, I would’ve really liked this.

Outside of the more casual execution of the idea, another thing I didn’t like was how predictable the rhythm got. Carter would meet a suspect, they would talk for a second, we would cut to a flashback where they interacted with the president. The conversation would involve a couple of jokes. The scene would end. We’d cut back to the present and less than a page later, Carter would find someone else and the routine would repeat. And it just happened over and over and over again.

I got bored.

When it comes to storytelling, the last thing you want to do is settle into a predictable rhythm. Cause once that reader gets ahead of you, you’re done. You may think that because they haven’t read the SPECIFIC version of your scene yet that they’ll want to keep reading to find out what happens. But all they need to know to lose interest is that the scene will play out approximately how they expect it to.

And almost every scene played out approximately how I expected it to. There was no pattern disruption.

And we weren’t getting any closer to the answer! Part of the fun of a mystery is that, with each new reveal, you get another piece of the puzzle. But none of the interactions gave us any reveals. The interactions seemed to be designed more to get you to chuckle a couple of times rather than push the mystery forward.

Scenes need to provide something the reader wants. We’re INVESTING our time in the scene. So we expect to be REWARDED for that investment. A couple of chuckles isn’t reward enough. I need clues that get me thinking and wondering and excited to see how they connect with future clues. I wasn’t getting enough of that.

It wasn’t until late in the script that answers started coming and those answers ended up being “soap opera-ish” for lack of a better term. Even though the final reveal was more serious, I’m not sure I understood the motivation behind it.

In my opinion, the better version of this movie is a serious thriller where some big impending international doom is directly linked to our detectives figuring out who killed the president before they land. It could be a war with Iran that, everyone knows, if the US starts, Russia will join Iran. And you would need to somehow tie the inability of our protagonists to solve the crime by the time they land to the start of the war. In other words, they need to solve the mystery to stop World War 3.

A less direct more nebulous version of that storyline is already covered in the script. But this is a thriller, man. You can’t kind of allude to a war. You have to make it certain.

So, unfortunately, this wasn’t for me. I’m curious to see, for those of you who like Aaron Sorkin and Knives Out, if you had a better experience with it. Let me know down in the comments.  Oh, and I want to give everyone here who voted props.  I think you got the order right.  This is how I would’ve voted the order of the final four scripts as well.  :)

Script Link: The Best and the Brightest

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

What I learned: I felt like there were more opportunities to stay on the plane and keep the plane scenes exciting. For example, there’s this moment in the script where the Vice President, now president, is trying to make decisions and Carter is telling her that her current protection detail is no longer her detail. As the president, she’s obligated to switch over to the president’s detail. What’s interesting about that? Well, what if someone on the president’s detail is the killer? And what if this was all part of their plan. Get the president out, be in charge of the Vice-President, and take her out as well? It would create a sense of danger and uncertainty, which the script definitely needed more of. Instead, the Vice President inheriting this new protection detail is never brought up again. I would much rather have seen stuff like that than gone back to all these boring flashbacks. The plane is where the action is. Half the flashbacks weren’t even on the plane! I would recommend ditching that strategy.