A reminder that the deadline for the OFFICIAL SCRIPTSHADOW SHORT SCRIPT CONTEST, where the winner gets their script produced, is coming up soon! March 12th.

So keep working on your short scripts and get them in by then!

In the meantime, we’ll continue to practice with these mini-contests. Working off of yesterday’s dialogue article, this weekend’s Shorts Mini-Contest will tackle dialogue.

Your short script must contain three things.

1) At least one dialogue-worthy character.
2) A dialogue-worthy scene.
3) You not settling for average words, sentences, phrases.

Post your short in the comments (you can write the scene inside the comment itself or include a PDF link). Page count is open but I recommend staying under 7 pages. The winner will be determined by how many UPVOTES they get (Disqus allows you to upvote a comment – so please UPVOTE any short you really enjoy).

Contest ends Sunday at 10pm, around Oscar time.

Good luck to all. Now let’s see who’s the best dialogue writer on Scriptshadow!

I’m currently working with a writer on an understated psychological thriller. One of the issues in the script is that the dialogue is flat. Characters speak to move the plot along, offer information, reveal backstory, and occasionally tell us how they’re feeling. While this keeps the story moving, there’s a lifeless quality to the interactions that leaves too many scenes feeling empty.

I’ve poured over the script a number of times trying to figure out ways to spice up the dialogue before having an epiphany: Great dialogue cannot happen on its own. It requires great characters. Need proof? I want you to think of all the great dialogue you’ve heard in your life. Has there ever been an instance where a bland or uninspired character spouts great dialogue? Never, right?

This made me realize that the problem ran deeper than the interactions themselves. If the dialogue was going to get better, the characters would need to get better as well. But this brought up a secondary problem. Our psychological thriller was understated. Like the movie, “Room,” it wasn’t built for flash. Can you still write good dialogue within that environment? Or can good dialogue only exist inside flashier films?

DIALOGUE WORTHY CHARACTERS

A quick look through some of my favorite understated films confirmed my belief that good dialogue can exist anywhere. What I found is that, in all good understated films, the writer adds at least one “dialogue-worthy” character. “Dialogue-worthy” characters are characters who were born to spout dialogue. They’re the chatter-boxes, the brash, the “full of themselves,” the kooky, the flashy, the self-destructive, the bipolar, the hustlers, the preachy, the jokesters, the opinionated. Any personality type that lends itself to a lot of talking, or an interesting way of talking, is dialogue-worthy.

So if you look at the understated Hell or High Water, that movie has the crazy brother. He’s responsible for all the fun dialogue. If you look at the understated Room, you have the son. He’s the imaginative one who makes all the interesting observations. If you look at the understated Ex Machina, you have Nathan, the pompous opinionated CEO whose every word seems to be calculated to get a reaction.

So you can’t give yourself the excuse of, “Well, my movie is understated so I can’t have any flashy dialogue.” Not true. You can always fit a dialogue-worthy character into your setting. And that’s good news. Because while multiple dialogue-worthy characters are ideal (Rocky has five of them), all you need is one to make it work. That character’s dialogue will work as a line to fish good dialogue out of everyone else.

However, if you have no dialogue-worthy characters, if you have no one to introduce the spicy charged words that bring a scene to life, it’s like trying to make a fire without flint. You can fuck around with it as long as you want, rewrite the scene a million times over searching for that spark, but it won’t come because none of the characters were built to burn.

DIALOGUE WORTHY SCENES

Moving on, there’s another key component to good dialogue: DIALOGUE-WORTHY SCENES. A dialogue-worthy scene is a scene built to milk great dialogue out of the characters. The essential ingredient to these scenes is… say it with me now… CONFLICT.

There are two main types of dialogue-worthy conflict. There’s on-the-surface conflict and underneath-the-surface conflict. I’ll give you an example of both using a movie I just saw, The Edge of Seventeen, about a teenage girl who’s struggling to find friends and acceptance in high school.

In one scenario, Nadine’s best friend chooses to date her brother over being friends with her. Whenever Nadine confronts this friend, the conflict plays out on the surface, of the “I can’t believe you’d do that” variety.

Nadine also lost her father five years ago and her mom refuses to talk about it. So while she and her mom get into a bunch of disagreements about school and life, the real conflict is playing out under the surface, with Nadine upset that her mom never talks about her dad anymore.

So, to be clear, if you do not have both of these things working for you in a scene, it will be very hard to write good dialogue. You can try. But it will always feel like you’re forcing it. The characters won’t sound like themselves because they’re not acting like themselves. They’re desperately trying to sound like people who say interesting things because the person writing them wants to write “good dialogue.”

FLASHY DIALOGUE

Now that we’ve got that down, let’s talk about the final step. The words themselves. How to be Sorkin. How to be Tarantino, Hughes, Allen, Mamet. This, my friends, is where the rubber meets the road. Crisp flashy dialogue that pops off the page is the single most talent-dependent skill there is in screenwriting. Some writers just have a better feel for how people speak than others. Some writers are funnier than others, more clever than others, have a bigger vocabulary than others. These writers have an advantage over the rest of us. But fear not. I’ve just given you two HUGE tips in writing great dialogue that 99% of writers out there are clueless to. So you have the foundation to your dream home. Now let’s talk about furnishing it.

The first rule of writing flashier in-scene dialogue is to stop accepting average. If you accept average words, average phrases, answers, sentences, etc, you will never write exciting dialogue. It’s your job, as a writer, to dress things up a bit. To think beyond the obvious. Sure, anything a character says must remain in character. A by-the-book nun isn’t going to dish out lines like, “Shit motherfucker. And here I thought you were turnt.” But as we’ve discussed, you should’ve designed as many of your characters as possible ahead of time to deliver interesting dialogue.

Let’s try this out. Say your hero, BOB, a barista, is serving a girl he sees come in every day that he likes, JANE. Here’s their exchange…

BOB: Hey, how are you today?
JANE: I’m feeling okay. How bout you?
BOB: Just trying to make it to my next 10 minute break.
JANE: When is that?
BOB: In 30 minutes.
JANE: Well, good luck.
BOB: Thanks.

How boring is that fucking dialogue? Ugh. I want to throw up just looking at it. Let’s make a few changes here based on what we’ve learned. For starters, we’re going to make Bob dialogue-worthy. He’s a chatterbox. Doesn’t know when to shut up. Also, to add the necessary conflict, Jane doesn’t like Bob. She thinks he’s weird. On top of this, we’re not going to settle for average dialogue. Let’s see what that does to our scene.

BOB: Hey, how’s it going, you look nice today, wow, new phone? I love new phones. I got a new phone last year. I should probably get another one. The screen just cracked on mine and I can barely see anything on it. First world problems, amirite?
JANE: (stares at Bob, weirded out) Uh, can I get a coffee?
BOB: I sure hope so, (leans in and whispers, conspiring tone) Seeing as we’re in a coffee shop. By the way, just got a new roast in. Ethiopian. Supposed to be amazing. I haven’t tried it yet but Jerry says it’s killer.
JANE: I don’t know “Jerry.” Can I just get my coffee? Black.
BOB: Ooh, old school. I like that. (holds up hand for a high-five. she ignores it) I’ve been telling Jerry for months that we need to get rid of all these frappes and lappes. Keep it pure. Like the Ethiopians.
JANE: Right. So… can I pay now?

You may not be totally onboard with my weird sense of humor but I think we can all agree that the second iteration of this dialogue is a lot better than the first. And all I did was a) add a dialogue-worthy character, b) add a dialogue-worthy scene, and c) I didn’t settle for average. Following those three rules alone is going to lead to MUCH better dialogue overall.

The final final thing I want to talk about is distinction – creating the specific manner in which a character speaks. This specificity is what’s going to set him or her apart from every other person on the planet. Have you ever met somebody in real life and thought, “That guy’s a character.” That’s what we’re going for. We’re trying to create CHARACTERS. And that means doing a little prep work. Below are the six main variables that will bring out the best dialogue that character is capable of expounding.

Region – What region is your character from? If they’re from the South, they might speak in a slow friendly drawl. If they’re from New York, they might speak fast and loud. If they’re from a farm in flyover country, they might speak softly. Of course, you can flip all these on their head (a Southern man who speaks fast and loud) but use region as a starting point.

Socio-Economic Background – Someone who’s grown up in a rich suburb and had the highest form of education imaginable will speak differently from someone who grew up on the streets.

Slang – Slang is one of the key attributes to creating good dialogue. Whether it’s Rocky with his “Yose,” Vince Vaungh in Swingers with his “beautiful babys” or a teenage girl referring to everything in hashtags and acronyms. Slang can be your best dialogue friend.

Vocabulary – This is a subset of socio-economic background, but it’s important to know if your character has a huge vocabulary or a tiny one. A lot of the best dialogue comes from an extensive vocabulary or a colorful vocabulary. So vocabulary-rich characters are good. Also, know that you can go against type. Will Hunting was a street kid who had a bigger vocabulary than half the Harvard students he interacted with.

Speech pattern – Does a character speak a million miles a minute or does he take his time?

Speech frequency – Does a character carefully pick and choose when he speaks or does he burst into the conversation all the time?

Disposition – Is your character arrogant, like Steve Jobs? Is he bumbling, like Jack Sparrow? Is he cocky, like Han Solo? Charming, like Rocky? Philosophical, like Obi-Wan Kenobi? Is he cruel, like Scrooge? Is he idealistic, like Jerry Maguire? Disposition will have a big influence on what your character says and how he says it.

And there you have it. You want your dialogue-worthy character. You want your dialogue-worthy scene. You want to push yourself to write dialogue that’s more exciting than the basic words people usually say. And, finally, you want to use specific minutia to elevate the individual words, phrases, and sentences into something flashy.

I hope you enjoyed today’s article because this weekend, you’ll be writing short scripts that focus on dialogue. More on that tomorrow. See you then!

Congratulations to Dean B for the big win this weekend with his short script, ASS LOLS (rhymes with “Assholes”), about an Adam Sandler pitch gone bad. Or good! He wins a free First 10 pages Consultation with me. Stay tuned as I’m anticipating this upcoming weekend’s Miniature Short Script Contest to be the best yet!

Genre: Science Fiction
Premise: An aging American working as a United Nations worker in Bucharest learns that his building is a front to hide a porthole that leads to another world, identical to our own.
About: Today’s pilot script comes from Justin Marks (The Jungle Book), a writer who’s built his brand on big ideas, allowing him to move into those high-paying mainstream screenwriting jobs that buy houses up in hills. Marks introduces the Starz network (Power, The Girlfriend Experience, American Gods) to their first science-fiction show. The project was flashy enough to nab Oscar winning actor, JK Simmons, for the lead.
Writer: Justin Marks
Details: 53 pages (2015 draft)

Every time they do the Oscar thing here in Hollywood, they close down all the streets that are anywhere near the Oscars. Which would be fine by me… IF ONE OF THOSE STREETS WASN’T THE STREET THAT IN ’N OUT WAS ON!!! By closing down In ’N Out street, the Oscars closes down a porthole to happiness. And that isn’t acceptable. So if you see someone holding up a sign outside the red carpet this weekend that reads, “#OscarshatesInNOut, you’ll have a good idea who it is.

Meanwhile, we’re in pilot frenzy mode, with fresh pilots flying off screenwriters’s laptops every couple of minutes. As writers have accepted the reality that unless they write a biopic, Hollywood doesn’t give a shit about their stupid feature spec, they’ve come over to the side of the business that actually makes people money. Unless you’re Justin Marks of course, who, after this pilot airs, will be pulling down money from both sides.

Counterpart takes place in modern-day Romania and follows Howard Silk, a 50-something American who works at the Office of Interchange, which I believe is some sort of United Nations outlet. Doesn’t matter really. Howard’s job is as boring as it sounds. He walks into a government building every day, meets with a few people, writes a few things down, goes home, wash, rinse, repeat.

It’s gotten so fucking depressing that Howard begs his bosses for a promotion. But Howard is seen as a weakling, a nobody with zero people skills. As his boss puts it, “It’s been sixteen years, man. If it were going to happen? It would have happened.”

If that sounds bad, Howard’s personal life isn’t going much better. The love of his life, Emily, has been in a coma for six months after getting whacked by a motorcycle while crossing the street. Emily’s dickhead brother keeps flying to Bucharest to convince Howard to let the family have Emily back so they can pull the plug on her. And Howard is about to concede.

That’s when everything changes.

Howard comes to work one day to find that his normally dismissive boss needs him immediately. Howard’s placed in a room until another man enters. That man… is Howard. But this Howard seems bigger, stronger, more confident. One might say he’s everything Howard wishes he could be.

That’s when Howard’s hit with shocking news. This government faction he works for is a front to hide a porthole that connects our world with another one. This other world is similar to ours in almost every way, with tweaks here and there. For example, Howard is a lower level management nobody in our world, but a top level superstar agent in the other.

Howard 2 informs us that there’s an agent who’s crossed over to our side and is assassinating people. In order to capture this agent, Howard 2 will need to start operating in our world. As a byproduct of this, Howard 1 will need to be upgraded into a top-level agent in order to provide a believable cover for Howard 2’s involvement. This means that Howard will finally get that promotion he’s so desperately wanted.

But what does this mean for a man who’s spent his entire life being overlooked? Will he be able to convincingly portray this new persona? Or will it be a case of, be careful what you wish for?

Counterpart embraces some good old Scriptshadow principles, primarily that if you want to get actors interested, give them dual roles to play, with each role being the polar opposite of the other (JK Simmons gets to play a meek weakling and a badass boss, all in the same show!). This was smart move numero uno by Justin Marks.

Also, Marks is very aware that this is a television show and not a movie. For that reason, despite its flashy sci-fi core, Counterpart is about character. The pilot is more focused on the flaws in Howard’s character (he’s a weakling who doesn’t stick up for himself) than some expensive sci-fi plot with hover-bikes chasing aliens.

You always have to keep that in mind with television. It’s why they could make a big sci-fi idea like “V” twenty years ago. The producers knew that the “aliens” would be in human form 90% of the time, which meant no big-budget effects.

Think about it. Whenever you try and stretch science fiction or fantasy and you don’t have an HBO budget? It looks cheesy. Go watch any episode of Fox’s Minority Report or APB to see what I mean. So stuffing these high-concept sci-fi ideas inside of these low-budget delivery capsules is the secret sauce for coming up with a sci-fi show. Or, at least, one that has a chance of getting on the air and not embarrassing itself.

That’s not to say there’s no plot in Counterpart, however, or that there aren’t things happening. The things that are happening are just doable. So here, we have an assassin running around killing people. This is a best-of-both-worlds scenario because it’s a legitimate problem that provides a compelling plot. Yet, again, it costs nothing to implement.

On top of all of this, Counterpart is the rare science fiction idea that feels unique. No time travel. No robots. While the concept’s core is somewhat familiar (a parallel world), I’ve never seen it explored in this way before – a “Cold War” like conflict that occurs within a government agency. That’s what you’re always looking to do, guys. Take that familiar element and explore it in an unfamiliar way.

The only issue I had with the pilot was the third act, which was built around Howard 2 getting to see his wife again, even if just in coma form. In his world, his wife died four years ago from cancer. So this is a profound moment for him. But all I kept thinking was, “I don’t know Howard 2. Wouldn’t this work better if Howard 1’s wife had died of cancer four years ago and he got to cross over into Howard 2’s world and see her again, alive?” It would’ve been a lot more emotional since we know Howard. Who cares if Stud Howard gets some time to see his wife again? His life fucking rocks regardless.

But I suppose it’s a minor nitpick. Also, there’s a twist at the very end that changes some of that. All in all, this was both a smart idea and a smart way to circumvent the low-budget requirements of television. I still don’t know if anyone watches Starz. But maybe they will once Counterpart airs.

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

What I learned: If you’re interested in high concept material, make sure you consider your idea’s “delivery capsule” before you start writing. A delivery capsule is everything the audience will see onscreen. If you have period piece settings and monsters and swords and sandals and tons of characters and locations, a la Game of Thrones, you only have a couple of places to pitch to (HBO and Netflix). But if your delivery capsule is modern day Bucharest with zero special effects, you can pitch that to any network on television, which increases your chance for a sale.

Congrats to Mini-Shorts Contest winner, Nick Morris, for his short script, “DO NOT OPEN” It’s a fun little exercise in suspense. Nick wins a First Ten Pages consultation from me. I enjoyed doing this so much, we’re going to do another one next weekend. Stay tuned!

Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: (from Black List) When futuristic technology renders the Federal Witness Protection Program obsolete, the U.S. Government begins using Time Travel to hide high-profile witnesses in the past. When a security breach occurs, a U.S. Marshal and her witness struggle to find their way back to the Present Day while evading assassins.
About: Writer Mark Townend has been writing and directing shorts for over 15 years. He recently had his biggest break yet, adapting Anthony Bordain’s novel, “Bone In The Throat.” That got him some attention, which allowed this spec to get in front of a lot more eyes, which helped it make the Black List, with 8 votes.
Writer: Mark Townend
Details: 106 pages

Milla for Katherine?

Grrr…

An unexpectedly busy weekend has kept me from baring witness to 200 blood-splattering murders.

I’m speaking, of course, about my inability to get over to Arclight and watch me some John Wick 2! I wanted to see dogs being kidnapped, John Wick getting angry, perfectly choreographed kills, and a Keanu Reeves and Lawrence Fishburne reunion dammit!!

Instead I was stuck staring at a computer screen all weekend.

So to say that I’m angry is a goose-down-filled-pillow of an understatement, muchacho. I knew, under such circumstances, that any script I reviewed had little chance with me. So I needed to tilt the odds in the script’s favor.

That meant NO BIOPICS!

It meant NO TRUE STORIES!

You guys know by now that when I want to be entertained, I need a good old fashioned high concept science-fiction script, like the kind they used to send out five times a week in this town!

Why am I using so many exclamation points!

I don’t know!

On to the plot summary!

It’s the year 2033. Manhattan. Katherine Teller is a US Marshall and a member of one of the most cutting edge projects of the time – Operation Bygone.

You see, in the future, it’s impossible to hide. Every step you take, every whisper you make, is recorded somewhere, logged to something, GPS’d to somewhere, and anybody with half-a-brain can download a hack-pack and find you.

This means that protecting criminals waiting to testify against high-profile gangstas is impossible. Well, it was impossible. Operation Bygone allows us to time travel into the past. A U.S. Marshall escorts the testifier into the past somewhere, where they hang out until the trial, then jump back to the present when it’s time.

Nick Prentis is a medium-level white collar criminal. When he’s caught for pulling a Jordan Belforte, the government tells him they don’t want him. They want the guy he reports to, top dog Leon Vasseur.

Nick reluctantly agrees to testify against Vasseur and is sent back to the year 1972 with Katherine. While at first everything seems fine, a mysterious tough guy named Corbin finds out where Nick and Katherine are staying and attacks.

This sends Nick and Katherine on the run, where they realize there must be a mole in the system. They ditch their trackers and enact the contingency protocol, a secondary system that only Katherine knows the location of. If they can get to it, they can get back to the future. If they can’t, they’ll be stuck here. With Corbin. And Corbin doesn’t like company.

One of the reasons they don’t make these movies anymore is because we no longer live in a high-concept driven marketplace. Audiences have moved on to SPECTACLE as the driving force behind their ticket-buying choices.

We can get plenty of high-concept stuff at home. Like the show I’m watching now, Utopia, about an unreleased comic book that has the potential to dismantle society. Very high concept, but devoid of spectacle.

Does this mean that high concept is dead? Of course not. High concept is still better than low or no concept, as it will create curiosity, which in turn gets people to theaters. The difference is that these movies can’t be bad anymore. They have to have the execution that backs up the concept. And most writers either don’t know how to do that, or don’t want to put in the work to do it. They figure, “My concept’s good, so I don’t need to nail the execution.”

In other words, the market doesn’t allow movies like Face/Off to do well anymore.

Anything that isn’t spectacle-driven needs to be really good. Because word-of-mouth is the only thing that’s going to give these movies legs. A perfect example is Hidden Figures. That movie should not have done well by any box office metric standards, and yet it’s made over 100 million dollars.

So where does this leave Contingency Protocol? The script is pretty good. I don’t know if it crosses into “very good” territory though, which is where you need to be to have a successful film in this genre.

My whole question whenever I read a script like this is, “Does it exploit its concept?” Is it building its characters, its scenes, and its plot around the uniqueness of the idea?

For example, you have several chase scenes here through 1972 New York. Okay. But you could have a chase scene through New York in 2033. How are you taking advantage of your concept by writing that scene? It just being a different time period isn’t enough.

In Deja Vu, the highest selling spec script of all time, and a concept that also covers two time periods, they have a car chase where our hero, who’s in the PRESENT but wearing goggles that allow him to see into the PAST, is chasing a car from the past. There’s no car physically in front of him. He can only see it through the glasses. That’s a chase that takes advantage of its concept.

And that’s not to say that every scene needs to do that. But enough scenes need to do it so that it feels like you’re taking advantage of your concept. This is why Back to the Future is the gold standard in time travel high concept. There isn’t an element in the script that DOESN’T take advantage of its concept.

With that said, as Contingency Protocol goes on, we start to see more of a connection between the past and the present THROUGH THE CHARACTERS. There’s this whole plotline where Katherine’s future family is threatened by the fact that her husband’s grandfather is an ignorant cop who’s been assigned to stop them. If she hurts him, she completely alters her future.

There’s also the mystery of, “Who’s the mole?” I wanted to know who was selling these guys down the river. It’s funny how just one intriguing mystery can keep a reader turning the pages.

That kept me engaged enough to want to get to the end. Combined with the old school high concept premise, it placed Contingency in ‘worth the read’ territory. But I think if it’s going to be the kind of movie people recommend to others, it has to go deeper into its world and exploit its concept a lot more.

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

What I learned: Could the scenes you’re writing take place in any other movie? If your scene feels too interchangeable, then you’re either not exploiting the uniqueness of your concept or the uniqueness of your characters. The opening of La La Land is a good example. Anybody can write a scene where the main character is stuck in his car, bumper to bumper traffic, going to be late for work or just wants to get home. I’ve seen that scene a million times before. But I haven’t seen all the characters all of a sudden step out of their cars and start singing and dancing. That’s a scene that’s specific to the concept of La La Land.

You got this one right, Scriptshadow Nation. What a script!

Genre: Historical Biography
Premise: The incredible true story behind one of America’s founding myths. After being kidnapped from his lands as a child, the Patuxet Indian Squanto spends his life fighting impossible odds to return home, setting in motion a series of events that changes the course of history.
About: The horse that led the race from start to finish, “The Savage.” Number 1 seed in The Scriptshadow Tournament, and now the champion!
Writer: Chris Ryan Yeazel
Details: 116 pages

Oh yeah.

Within a couple of pages I knew. I just knew why this won.

Within ten pages, The Savage had placed itself so far above the competition, I’m surprised any other scripts got votes against it.

More importantly, halfway through this script, I wasn’t even thinking about how it was the winner of the Scriptshadow Tournament. I was just lost in the story. I mean this is crazy! I’m not sure how true-to-history Chris’s adaptation was. But I never knew the story of Squanto. I know this though. Somebody needs to make this movie.

13 year old Native American, Squanto, a member of the Patuxet people, only wants one thing. To be a warrior. But when he’s stolen away by an Englishman sailing up the coast, every goal he’s ever known changes.

Squanto is whisked off to England, where he’s placed in the care of the eccentric governor, Ferdinando Gorges, a nobleman who funds the occasional trip to the Americas.

9 years later, and now fluent in English, Squanto hooks up with John Smith, he of Pocahontas fame. John is heading back to the Americas where he plans to establish a colony or two. He’s going to need a translator to deal with the natives, though. And Squanto looks like just the guy.

His payment for helping, Smith promises, will be to go back home. Thrilled, Squanto signs up. But Smith’s second in charge, Thomas Hunt, never trusts him. After taking care of business, Smith makes the mistake of allowing Hunt to escort Squanto home. And instead of delivering Squanto, Hunt kidnaps dozens of his people, takes them to Spain, and sells them off as slaves.

Forced to work the mines, Squanto eventually escapes with the help of some nearby monks. He becomes a monk himself, before finally heading back to England, where he gets a second shot to sail back home. It is there where he’s met with a truth so shocking, it will test him to his very core. Squanto will be forced to decide what life is worth, and if he can still contribute something good to a world that has only ever shown him cruelty.

The first thing I noticed about this script was the sophistication in the writing. Here’s a sample character description: “A gregarious, pompous ox of a man, Gorges does not speak so much as pontificate with operatic abandon.” That line doesn’t come from somebody who started screenwriting yesterday.

Something I commonly run into during reads is when the subject matter is above the writer’s current writing ability. They’re basically a 12 year old girl wearing mommy’s dress. No matter how hard they try, they don’t look like a grown woman.

This was the opposite of that. Everything from the action to the dialogue was so strong, I wasn’t even thinking about it. It was just doing its job telling the story. I mean, here’s a sample dialogue exchange.

That last line alone is heads and tails above anything I read in this tournament. The easy line would’ve been something like: “You sound just like the man that owns you.” And believe me, I see that kind of line often. To rearrange the words into a clever insult, then tie that to a zinger paying off an earlier reference – that kind of thing doesn’t just happen. It demonstrates a writer who’s dedicated and on his game.

And there were a lot of clues here as to the high level of writing. For example, there’s an early slow scene where 12 year old Squanto is sharing a moment with the girl he loves, Hurit. It’s this beautiful little moment between them. Then, just as it’s coming to a close, we see warriors running through the forest. One. Then two more. Then two more. We realize a giant ship has arrived at sea and they’re all going to check it out.

The takeaway here is that Chris didn’t linger on this scene. He knows that readers are impatient. If you’re going to slow things down, you want to follow that up with something flashy. But not just that. You want to camoflauge the moment by using the end of the current scene to transition into the following scene. So we’re not just going from slow to fast. We’re doing it seamlessly.

Chris also exploits the use of dramatic undercurrents. An undercurrent is anything that’s occurring underneath the surface level of the story that creates a sense of interest, curiosity, or dread. It’s a trick to double or triple up the reader’s interest level.

An example would be Thomas Hunt, the evil second-in-command on John Smith’s voyage. Every moment that Squanto and Smith share, you see Hunt nearby, clenching his teeth. He hates this savage. And we know that he’s going to do something about it at some point. And that’s where the undercurrent is happening. Until this conflict is resolved, it’s in our heads, keeping us curious. Keeping us TURNING THE PAGES.

Here’s my only beef with the script, even though I understand why Chris did it. The script doesn’t build throughout its second half. There isn’t this big giant goal that Squanto has to take care of, like, say, the last gladiator event in Gladiator. Or the wife being taken in The Last of the Mohicans. Squanto is basically trying to stay alive. And while that’s compelling, it prevents the story from building up, which is how most people like their stories told.

For example, when Squanto finally gets back from the mines, he learns that Thomas Hunt was killed a long time ago in a random altercation at sea. It would’ve been so much better had Hunt gone back to the Americas and set up a colony where he was in charge, and when Squanto got back home, he learned of this colony, and went to enact revenge on him.

Or, a big chunk of the story goes to Massasoit, the leader of Squanto’s rival tribe. Massasoit captures a young Squanto in the opening after Squanto steals something from him. Massasoit is pissed, but he basically laughs it off and lets Squanto go.

Then, in the end, our ending revolves around Massasoit once more, as he doesn’t like that Sqaunto has become chummy with the new English neighbors. The reason why this sequence didn’t carry a lot of weight was because Massasoit was never that bad. He was nice enough to let Squanto go in the beginning.

If this man would’ve been responsible for the eradication of Squanto’s tribe, now we have the potential for a lights out ending. If this man would’ve been the embodiment of evil, now we have an impending showdown that we’re looking forward to.

But we don’t get anything like that, and it keep the last 30 pages from building.

With that said, after reading the final pages, I understood historically and thematically why Chris did what he did. However, I wonder if there’s a version of this out there that could have that bigger satisfying ending yet still keep the essence of what Chris was trying to do.

Either way, this was a hell of a read. I mean, what a life this man lived. It’s incredible. And thank God someone as talented as Chris was responsible for telling us his story. He really did it justice.

Script link: The Savage

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

What I learned: Going back to the Thomas Hunt undercurrent conversation… In general, anything that’s unresolved is something that is captivating your reader. That’s why you want multiple unresolved threads in your story at all times. You can get that through unresolved conflicts between characters. You can get it through multiple unresolved plot goals. There’s no limit on how many pieces of your story can be unresolved. So take advantage of that. A lot of beginner writers only see the final goal as their unresolved thread. So a newbie writer would’ve gone with: “Squanto tries to get home” and that’s it. But that’s not enough to keep our interest. You need to add extra unresolved storylines to keep us engaged. If you think about it, this is the essence of drama. If it’s resolved and cozy, there’s no reason for the reader to worry. And if we’re not worried about anything, we’re probably bored.