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If only we could all be Cormac McCarthy

One of the least talked about components of screenwriting is READABILITY – or “How easy is your screenplay to read?” That’s because when compared to character, dialogue, structure, and theme, readability doesn’t seem that important. And that’s true to a certain extent. But think of it this way. While eggs and flour and sugar are all essential to make a great cake, you can’t serve the cake unless you have a plate to carry it on. “Readability” is a screenplay’s plate.

This is one that’s always vexed me. I’ll be sludging through a screenplay where every sentence feels like I’m on the 405 freeway during rush hour. Start-stop-start-stop-start-stop. Then, when I read a good screenplay, the sentences run together like melted butter. Everything seems so natural. So easy. I never think about the writing once.

But it’s not always clear why some scripts read uglier than others. I’ll go back through the bad-reads to figure out what went wrong and find that “technically” the writing was “correct.” What clouds the analysis is story quality. When you’re in the middle of a good story, the sentences always read quicker. When you’re reading a bad story, each sentence seems to go on forever.

Is readability just relative? Are sentences only as bad or good as the story they’re a part of?

I don’t think so. There’s clearly a way to combine sentences together in a pleasing easy-to-read manner. Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be any books or online tutorials about how to achieve this. You’re taught all the rules of writing in school and from then on it’s up to you to “write good.”

That’s why I’m writing today’s article. If nobody else is going to do it, I might as well give it a shot. To do so, I’ll be comparing four sentences/paragraphs from professional and amateur screenplays. My hope is, by utilizing this direct comparison technique, we’ll find some answers. Let’s give it a shot.

Example Number 1

From – “Joy” by Annie Mumolo
“They both glance over to a table where Joy’s father RUDY sits like a KING with his arm around a ROBUST woman in an ill- fitting MARILYN MONROE DRESS.”

From – Amateur Screenplay
“Danny patters to the front doors. Angelina awaits him there. The two join hands, partaking in a private moment.”

At first glance, the amateur submission isn’t that bad. But I don’t think it’s as good as the professional one. I found Joy to be EXTREMELY readable. While I wouldn’t nominate it for “most technically proficient screenplay of the year,” I don’t remember a single moment where I had to reread a sentence to understand what was going on.

That’s one of my biggest takeaways from this experiment. Professionals know they’re not trying to win over English professors with their scripts. They’re trying to tell a story. And the easier they can get that story across to the reader – whether it’s technically correct or not – the better.

A lot of times, amateurs overthink their prose and make it more complicated than it needs to be. If you look at the sentence from “Joy,” it’s not trying to be more than it is. There isn’t a single word in the sentence that you don’t understand. But reading the amateur sentence, we get the word “patters” immediately. That’s not a common word in this context and causes a pause, if however slight. Whenever a reader stops, if even for a split-second, that means you’ve failed as a writer. Reading is supposed to be seamless. When it isn’t, the reader is taken out of the story.

There are two other issues with the amateur example. The word “partaking” is another odd unpleasant word in this context, which causes another pause. Also, notice how the paragraph is broken up into very abrupt sentences, making for a robotic presentation. I wouldn’t say that this is unpleasant. We’ll see in a moment that it’s possible to do this well. But in conjunction with the other mistakes, it hurts the read.

That’s another thing I’ve learned through this experiment. Bad writing is a lot like bad piloting. If you make one mistake as a pilot, it usually goes unnoticed. But when the mistakes pile up, that’s when the plane crashes. Let’s move on to the next example.

Example Number 2

From – “February” by Osgood Perkins
“Kat comes out from behind the closet door, wearing her oversized hooded Bramford sweatshirt and a pair of printed pajama pants.”

From – Amateur Screenplay
“Cinnamon unbuttons shirt cuffs, rolls up sleeves, pulls on thin black leather gloves from a rear hip pocket. He draws the backside .22 and holds it aloft by the silencer.”

Here we have a lot of detail. But in one case, the sentence is easy to read through, and in the other, it made my head hurt. Notice how in “February,” we have three words in a row that end with the letter “d” and then nearly four words in a row that start with “p.” This alliteration helps the sentence move along quicker in the mind.

With the amateur entry, it feels like information overload. I remember reading this script and there were a lot of sentences, like this one, where I had to read them 2-3 times to take in everything that was going on. While technically fine, it seems like the paragraph could’ve been simplified. Also note that while in “February,” we have a full sentence, in the amateur submission, words are missing in favor of the staccato style. I’ve added where those words would be:

“Cinnamon unbuttons [her] shirt cuffs, rolls up [her] sleeves, [then] pulls on [some] thin black leather gloves from…”

I’m not going to say to never use staccato style. This is something a lot of writers have used successfully. But when you use in it conjunction with too much information or overwritten sentences, it can easily start to feel like work to read through. Case in point, here’s a paragraph from who many feel to be the king of this kind of writing, Shane Black, in his first screenplay, “Lethal Weapon.”

“Sergeant Martin Riggs is driving. He looks like he hasn’t slept. He certainly hasn’t shaved. The DISPATCH RADIO SQUAWKS. He turns down the MUSIC from the car radio and hears:”

We have short quick sentences here, like the amateur example. But they’re all grammatically correct, making them easier to read. Let’s move on to the next example, staying with our friend, Shane.

Example Number 3

From – “Lethal Weapon” by Shane Black
“A section of the parking lot is cordoned off by yellow streamers which read: POLICE LINE – DO NOT CROSS, and as we watch, a black and white patrol car pulls up, admitting two beat COPS and a young hooker. Her name is DIXIE, and she is not happy.”

From – Amateur Screenplay
“Hadley settles in. The Maitre d’ snaps at a server, pointing to the table and holding up one finger addressing Hadley who has just joined the group.”

At first glance, Shane Black’s sentence seems odd. While he probably should’ve ended his first sentence after “DO NOT CROSS,” he chooses to make it one continuous sentence. Some may say this is “wrong,” yet it all feels so relaxed and natural, I’m tempted to say it’s fine. I don’t have to put in any effort to figure out what he means or reread anything, which tells me the sentence is a success.

Now let’s look at the amateur example. Everything seems to be going well until we reach the Maitre d’ holding up one finger. When we get to “and” in this example, “holding up one finger” seems to be more of an afterthought, as opposed to a natural extension of the sentence. This is fine in everyday conversation when we remember things at the last second all the time, but when you’re describing something in a screenplay, it has to feel planned, or else it reads like you’re making your story up as you go along.

This assumption is solidified when the last part of the sentence arrives: “…addressing Hadley who has just joined the group.” This tacked on piece of information is lazy. Notice how everything in Shane’s example is in the ACTIVE VOICE. What’s happening is happening RIGHT NOW. In contrast, “…who has just joined the group” is PASSIVE. It already happened, making it feel tacked on. The lesson here is clear. Keep everything in the active voice if possible. And don’t tack things onto the ends of sentences. It shouldn’t be, “Carson writes an article after he opens a coke.” It’s, “Carson pops open a coke and writes his article.”

Example Number 4

“500 Days of Summer” by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber
“And that question hangs in the air. Tom, panicked, decides to cut the silence. All the pent up uncertainty and confusion, coupled with the challenge to his manhood in front of the woman he loves, all manifests in one single, solid, almost automatic RIGHT CROSS TO THE GOOD LOOKING DOUCHEBAG’S FACE.”

From – Amateur Screenplay
“Joseph drives too fast through woody shrubs on a steep, gravelly hillside. He slams on the brakes before heading off a bluff. Gets out and looks across the vast desert sands.”

Our 500 Days friends go big here with a really long sentence. They even make a mistake. “All” is used twice when it should’ve been used once. And yet it works. The long sentence is fine because it’s a pivotal moment in the film. It’s okay to write bigger when the moment is bigger. The sentence also takes place completely in the active voice, making it easy to read. And everything flows. Every word/fragment/idea is a logical progression from the word/fragment/idea before it.

Now let’s look at the second example. Everything here is fine until we get to “before.” “Before heading” takes us out of the active voice into a semi-passive voice. But it’s the next sentence that derails the paragraph. Driving the car and getting out to look at the desert are two different actions and should’ve been split up into different paragraphs. Together, they feel jarring, causing the reader to hesitate as he realizes we’ve moved out of the car into a different area. There’s also an inconsistency to focusing on such specific moments within the paragraph (“woody shrubs, a steep gravelly hillside, slams on the breaks”) to then end on one so general (looking across a desert).

CONCLUSIONS

This exercise has taught me a few things about the elusive quality of readability. First off, “technically correct” doesn’t always mean “readable.” Just as “technically incorrect” doesn’t always mean “unreadable.” You can go against what they taught you in school and still write a very easy-to-read sentence. Look at our first example from Annie Mumolo. Some people might call that a run-on-sentence. But it’s fast and smooth and easy-to-read so it works.

Another big breakthrough for me – the closest I got to an “ah-ha” moment – was Osgood Perkins’ use of alliteration, which added a pleasing repetition to the words on the page. It’s this “pleasing” quality that I’m after. But I don’t think it’s possible to ALWAYS use alliteration. It’d just be too hard (and might even get annoying after awhile). I almost wonder if there’s a less structured/defined way to achieve the same effect using a middle-ground technique (not quite normal sentence and not all-the-way alliteration). Has anyone heard of such a technique?

One of the most frustrating things about all this is the reality that there’s nobody out there who actually teaches you how to WRITE. Sure, there are teachers who teach you nouns and verbs – all the technical stuff. But once you have that down, where is the instructor who teaches you how to place words together in a pleasing way? I haven’t found him yet. And I want to. How bout you guys? Do you know of any books or tips that help one achieve this? I’ve been looking for material on this forever.

In the meantime, here are some tips to avoid the mistakes today’s amateurs made.

1) Keep your writing simple.

2) Keep your writing in the active voice if possible.

3) Never write to impress. This is what most beginners do and they end up writing a bunch of unnecessary prose in the process.

4) Don’t use vocabulary to show off. If you’re using a thesaurus to include a word you’ve never personally used before, you probably shouldn’t use that word.

5) Staccato-style writing (“Jump down.” instead of “They jump down.”) can be draining to read over a long period of time. There are some writers who do this well. But usually, it requires the brain to think differently in order to process the words, which is taxing. Proceed with caution.

6) In screenwriting, “fewer words” is usually better than “more words.” While this would seem to contradict what I just wrote, what I mean is, even with traditional sentences, there’s always a way to say something with fewer words. “John grabs his grimy baseball hat as well as his gun while wiping the ever-thickening sweat off his brow,” can easily be turned into, “John grabs his cap and gun and flicks the sweat off his brow.”

7) Complex sentences are dangerous. Indeed, it’s after a conjunction where a few of our amateurs fell apart. A single conjunction (and, but, or) is standard. But when you start using more than one in your sentence, it may be time to start a new sentence.

8) Write to your level – If you’re only capable of doing a double-axel, you’re going to be exposed every time you try a triple-axel. Sure, we’d all like to be Cormac McCarthy, but one of the biggest mistakes I see writers make is writing above their level. And it’s VERRRRRY painful to read. Screenwriting is one of the more forgiving forms of writing when it comes to prose. You don’t have to knock our socks off. Take advantage of that.

And with that, I’m going to leave you with two final UNLABELED examples, one pro and one amateur. Tell me which you think is pro, which is amateur, and why in the comments. I’ll reveal which is which (in the comments) after sundown.

MYSTERY EXAMPLE #1

“Casper, wearing only tighty-whiteys, sits on the floor of his bedroom amid t-ball trophies, race car bed sheets and a pin-up of Farrah Fawcett; the conflicting decorations of a boy who went through a quick growth spurt.

He thumbs through last year’s yearbook looking for the mystery girl. He gives up, lays down and lights a joint.”

MYSTERY EXAMPLE #2

“Surrounded, Black begins a coughing fit. His hands come up to cover the cough – the paperclip he stole from Moreau slips into his hand.

Stumbles into the Elevator panel – hitting the EMERGENCY button. The Elevator STOPS – sending everyone flailing.

Black uses the paperclip to release the cuffs. Nickels sees what’s going down – but isn’t quick enough to stop –

– Black unloads a barrage of strikes, taking down each Agent. Quickly undoes his shackles.”

Get Your Script Reviewed On Scriptshadow!: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, along with the title, genre, logline, and finally, something interesting about yourself and/or your script that you’d like us to post along with the script if reviewed. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Remember that your script will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effects of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Biopic
Premise (from writer): In 1964, writer Gene Roddenberry struggles to get his vision on television – a show called “Star Trek”.
Why You Should Read (from writer): Three reasons. One – unlike other biopics which give you the whole Wikipedia routine, my script focuses on a year-long period in a man’s life, during which he has a clear goal. Two, it could generate a discussion on the act of using licensed properties you do not own in a spec written as a sample. (Like “Wonka”, which I am certain will not be made unless Roald Dahl’s zombie corpse approaches a production office, gobstopper in hand, and signs off on it while offering casting notes: “Two words: Get Gosling.”). And, three, my script comes from the heart. My father passed on in ’91, when I was kid, and one of the things he instilled in me was a love of science fiction, particularly “Star Trek”.
Writer: Jack McAuley (based on the books, “Inside Star Trek” by Herbert F. Solow and Robert H. Justman, “Star Trek Creator” by David Alexander, and “Star Trek Memories” by William Shatner with Chris Kreski
Details: 106 pages

Man, there were some HARSH reactions to last week’s batch of amateur scripts. Let’s remember that we’re trying to be critical but supportive. The idea here is to help writers improve.

Because no single script won out in AO, I’ll be reviewing the most talked about entry, “To Boldly Go.”

I’ll start off by saying the Black List LOVES these scripts. In fact, if the Devil came to me and said, “If you don’t write a screenplay that makes the Black List this year, you’re coming down to hell with me,” the type of script I’d choose to write wouldn’t even be a contest. I’d write about a famous author’s early life and the influences it had on his greatest work. It’s like Black List crack that set-up.

And the scripts don’t even have to be that good! From the ones I’ve read, I’d say at least half are boring. It seems that the idea alone carries enough weight to overshadow the execution. It’s this secret formula that’s only talked about in basements between successful writers (“Can you believe how rich we are now? All we had to do was write about an author’s early life!”)

To Boldly Go starts off introducing us to a young Gene Roddenberry and his father, a police officer. The two are strolling through the neighborhood when the father makes a racist remark after spotting a young black boy. This is followed by a montage that covers Roddenberry’s service in World War 2 as a pilot and his eventual transition into commercial piloting.

After Gene nearly dies in two plane mishaps (one a crash), he decides to move into a job less suicidal: screenwriting (clearly, Roddenberry has never written before). He moves to Los Angeles and finagles his way onto some TV shows, until he comes up with an idea for his own show, a science fiction series where a space ship crew travels the galaxy. This was in 1964, at a time where nobody had attempted something of this scope on television.

The remainder of the story chronicles the making of the show, everything from finding a director to casting the part of Spock. When the studio doesn’t like what Roddenberry comes up with, they give him a second chance for some reason, and he recasts everyone (save Spock) and turns the show into more of an action-adventure. Although the show was cancelled after three seasons, it would later inspire five spin-off series and twelve feature films and become one of the most recognized science-fiction brands ever. It is the original “Universe” approach that every studio in town has adapted today.

Gene Roddenberry

One of the things I still have a hard time grasping in screenwriting is theme. Sometimes it feels so clear and other times wholly elusive. But today’s screenplay helped me understand theme about as well as I’ve ever understood it. And that’s because there wasn’t any. And that’s what kept To Boldly Go from working.

Instead of there being a unified message to keep going back to in To Boldly Go, we got a hodge-podge of events that happened to Roddenberry over the course of his lifetime – mostly in relation to Star Trek. Everything from Roddenberry’s infidelity to escaping a plane crash to looking for an associate producer. Put frankly, the message was all over the place.

I went back to the comments for Amateur Offerings, and someone brought up how interesting it was that Roddenberry’s father was a racist, and how that was an inspiration for him to create a racially diverse cast on Star Trek.

Now THAT to me is a story. THAT to me is a theme you can hang a movie on. And yet, it’s BARELY covered at all here.

Instead, we get the technical details of how the show came together (the hiring of the costume guy, the production designer, the music guy). There’s no drama in that (or at least there wasn’t any here). Even William Shatner, who it’s well known is one of the most difficult people ever in show business, is rosy and happy and agreeable in this.

If you know, going in, what your theme is – say it’s a man hellbent on changing the white-washing of television shows because his father was a racist – then it’s easy to figure out what does and doesn’t belong in your script. Take Roddenberry’s infidelity. Can infidelity lead to drama? Sure. But since it has no bearing whatsoever on a man trying to break down racial barriers in television, there’s no reason to include it.

Personally, I think that’s a great storyline to focus on – the race stuff. Because nobody knows that. Everybody knows that Spock has weird ears. With a biopic, you have to give us the stuff we don’t know and a young boy who was so affected by his father’s racism that he wanted to change the world with a multi-ethnic show – that’s a fucking movie right there. I’d go see that. What I wouldn’t go see is a highlight reel of kooky things that happened on the Star Trek set. There’s no depth to that.

This leads to my second problem with the script which was the lack of conflict. For a show that was so cutting edge and unlike anything that came before it, where was all the resistance? Where was that one executive who hated the idea and was constantly trying to kill it? There was no drama on that side of the story. It was, again, technical historical bullet points combined with occasional goofy memories (having to stop filming because pigeons were on the set).

For example, when the show’s pilot goes bad, they’re just offered another pilot on the spot. The characters don’t have to do anything, don’t have to earn anything. They simply get a call that says, “We didn’t like that. Try again.” The last thing you want to do in any script is magically solve problems for your characters. You need your characters to encounter obstacles and then to overcome them themselves, regardless of if that’s not the way it happened in real life.

This scene, in particular, embodied the casual, “no problem’s really that bad” nature of the script. It comes after the network reads the three potential scripts for the new pilot.

As you can see, even when there are problems, they’re just solved instantly. All the characters have to do is listen.

There are some dialogue issues here as well. Mainly, the characters sound too stiff, technical, or robotic. Take this line from Roddenberry when he’s told he has to reshoot the pilot: “But they want me to get rid of Spock. I am therefore going to keep him, anyway.” I don’t know anybody who talks like that who isn’t sitting on a leather chair in front of a fireplace smoking a pipe. How bout, “They want me to lose Spock. They might as well tell me to lose space.” Relax the dialogue. Have a little more fun with it. Contractions, overlapping, less formal-speak. All those things will help.

I do think there’s more leniency in the industry when it comes to these scripts. A lot of people are just keen to go down memory lane. I remember that’s exactly how that Black List Chewbacca script played out two years ago. But for me? I need more. And I think writers should demand more of themselves as well. Give us a unifying theme. Give us more conflict. More drama. Little highlights here and there are fun. But they shouldn’t be the centerpiece of your script.

I hope these notes were helpful for Jack because I do think there’s a story here somewhere and with the industry falling over itself for these kinds of scripts, I think it’s worth figuring out.

What did you guys think?

Script link: To Boldly Go

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

What I learned: Unless it’s a conceit that’s built into the premise, repeating things in screenplays very rarely works. I lost a lot of interest when we went through this whole pilot only to be told that we would now participate in the exact same process for a second pilot. I suppose if the second run-through is significantly different from the first, it might work, but this one wasn’t. It felt like the same general issues (casting, figuring out the script) that we’d already dealt with. In a movie like “Edge of Tomorrow,” the repeating structure is an essential component of the premise. Here, it just feels like we’re doing the same thing over again.

Genre: TV Pilot – 1 hr. Drama/Comedy
Premise: A look at the behind-the-scenes drama that occurs on a “Bachelor” like reality show.
About: Had you told me a month ago I’d be reviewing a Lifetime teleplay about reality television, I would’ve told you to bring me your torch. You’ve been voted off the island. But Lifetime is really high on this show and is giving it the full rollout treatment in anticipation of its June 1st premiere. Also, half-a-dozen people have e-mailed me on separate occasions to tell me how much they liked the script. And that doesn’t happen at all with TV pilots. The show was created by Marti Noxon, who adapted the YA novel, “I Am Number Four,” as well as the updated “Fright Night.” Marti’s also written a ton of TV, with her resume including Mad Men, Grey’s Anatomy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Glee. Co-creator Sarah Shapiro, is making her writing debut here.
Writer: Marti Noxon & Sarah Gertrude Shapiro
Details: 55 pages – 8/28/13 draft

I’m guessing the percentage of the Scriptshadow reader base that also watches reality television is equivalent to the percentage of Mormons who caught 50 Shades of Grey. You’re not alone. The industry has never liked reality television.

It’s the reason why nobody would even glance at a screenplay that dealt with reality shows. The unofficial official company line was: Never write a screenplay about reality TV.

But that’s the funky thing about Hollywood. Is that something’s a given until all of a sudden it isn’t. And the “isn’t” is, in most cases, a good script. If you write a good script, your friendly neighborhood rule book can be tossed out the window.

So I have an extra modicum of respect for anyone who breaks through the firmly locked gates of Hollywood’s ivory tower with something different. Typically, when Hollywood wants to keep someone out, they succeed.

29 year-old Rachel is a reality show producer. Reality show producers are the behind-the-scenes workers who prime the contestants on your favorite reality show that you tell everyone you don’t watch to say what the show wants them to say. The ones who say they think they’re “falling in love” with Douglas the Bachelor even though they just met him 20 minutes ago? Yeah, Rachel’s the one who makes sure that soundbite happens.

A producer is SUPPOSED to stay objective and let the talent dictate the course of the story. But come on. If that were the case, you wouldn’t get those level 17 meltdowns from the former prom queen who’s just realized that no man will ever consider her marriage material. It’s Rachel who plants that seed a few days earlier so that when the contestant’s voted off, it all comes spilling out in her exit interview.

The thing is, Rachel hates her job. She considers it to be more soul-sucking than doing porn and if there’s anywhere else she could be, even if it was cleaning sewers in Mumbai, she would do it. That is, if she wasn’t so damn good at her job. Rachel can convince anyone to do anything, a highly valued skill in the world of producing reality television.

In this first episode, those skills will be put to the test when our “Bachelor,” Adam Conway of Conway Hotels, decides to quit just minutes before the show’s to begin. Rachel uses some Darth Vader level Jedi mind tricks on Adam to get him to reconsider. But they end up backfiring. Adam agrees to come back but only if he gets to have Rachel around all the time.

Of course, that leads to the most obvious of questions. If Adam and Rachel are going to be around each other so much, what’s going to happen between them? And if something’s going to happen between them, what does that mean for the 18 women vying for Adam’s hand in marriage?

As demand for product keeps expanding in television, more and more of these blacklisted ideas (“Never write about reality TV!”) are going to get lifted. TV is in this really rare place in history where the demand for product is way bigger than the supply.

So if you’ve tossed an idea out just because you’ve heard Hollywood hates it, it might be time to dust that idea off and write it. Today’s show proves it’s possible.

But it wasn’t just the idea that got the pilot on the air. This is good writing. In fact, Unreal utilizes one of the most powerful tools available to writers to make it work. IRONY.

The Bachelor is the personification of a fairy tale. Every date is postcard perfect. Every conversation is filled with laughter. Every kiss is framed against a golden sunset. So what is Unreal about? It’s about the cheating that goes on behind those dates. It’s about the manipulation used to guide those conversations. It’s about the bullying that must be used to get that golden kiss. Unreal is about the slimy underbelly of reality television, and that’s what makes it so fun.

“Irony” is a tough word for some screenwriters to grasp. So let’s put it this way. One of your biggest weapons as a writer is CONTRAST. Whatever extreme you have in one aspect of your idea, try to contrast it with the opposite extreme in another.

So if you have a show about happiness, contrast it with a crew who hates their jobs more than anything. If your main character is a serial killing cannibal, contrast that by making him polite and inviting. If you’re writing a scene about a woman dumping her boyfriend, create contrast by setting it at his birthday party. Contrast, my fellow screenwriting enthusiasts, is a really easy way to look like a really good writer.

Also, when you’re writing a romance-based show (or a show where people hook up a lot), you want to make it as hard for those people to hook up as possible. The more difficult it is for people to hook up, the more drama you’re going to get. So you have this show here where contestants hooking up with crew can destroy the entire production. So there are real stakes to people getting together who shouldn’t be together.

The only thing wrong with this pilot is that the execution’s vanilla. Everything kind of went the way you expected it to, save for a Rachel breakdown in the final act. You can even sniff out where the main hook-ups of the season are going to be. That can be enjoyable to an extent. Waiting for two people we’re dying to see get together finally get together. But there still needs to be an element of surprise to a show. And Unreal hasn’t shown me it’s capable of doing that yet.

I will say, though, that if you want a dark humorous look at the behind-the-scenes shenanigans of a reality television show, Unreal does a pretty good job of delivering.

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

What I learned: Make it so your character must consistently go against their moral compass in order to push the story forward. Rachel hates manipulating these contestants. But she has to in order to get the big moment for the cameras. For example, when one of the girls is ready to give up, Rachel uses her knowledge of the girl’s previous boyfriend physically abusing her to promote Adam as the opposite of him. This dirty trick reenergizes the contestant and now she’s back pining for Adaman’s attention. Maybe a better way to convey this is this: Have your main character sell a little piece of their soul every time they have to do something important. This will ensure that your character is always fighting an inner battle, which audiences love to watch.

With indie sleeper “Ex Machina” kicking ass this weekend at the box office, I thought those who missed my script review might want to check it out. Enjoy! And now on to Black Mass…

Genre: Drama/Biopic
Premise: The real-life story of Whitey Bulger, a notorious Boston gangster who became an informant for the FBI to help take down the mafia.
About: If you’re a screenwriter and you haven’t explored writing a biopic, what’s wrong with you?? The genre is taking over the industry. And I think I know why. With the “star system” in Hollywood declining, biopics have become the one remaining area for movie stars to shine. Nobody goes to American Sniper if Ted Danson is playing Chris Kyle. Black Mass stars Johnny Depp and was to be directed by journeyman filmmaker Barry Levinson, but they decided to go with hot new shiny object Scott Cooper instead, who directed the gritty Christian Bale flick, “Out of the Furnace,” and the Jeff Bridges country music feast, “Crazy Heart.” Final screenplay credit was split between Mark Mallouk, who’s making his screenwriting debut here (he was previously a producer) and Jez Butterworth, who’s credited for such films as Edge of Tomorrow and Get on Up. Interestingly enough, this script notes that Johnny Depp has final say over the screenplay. I suppose this is more common than we know but it was a little surprising to see it in writing.
Writer: Mark Mallouk (this draft doesn’t yet include Butterworth) – based on the book “Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, The FBI and a Devil’s Deal” by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neil
Details: 115 pages – undated (looks to be a late 2012 draft)

After the recent trailer for Black Mass hit, I had to read the script. I love that they did something different with the trailer, focusing on a single scene instead of a bunch of them. And Johnny Depp. Whoa! The guy is practically unrecognizable as Whitey Bulger. And he’s acting again! I’m not sure you can say that about his previous five movies. Johnny Depp is the most kind, gentle, soft-spoken person in real life. But that man in the trailer? That was someone entirely different. That man was terrifying.

It’s 1974 and FBI Agent John Connolly has just moved back to Boston as the self-proclaimed “savior” of the city. The Irish and Italian gangs have turned the town into a hell-hole and he’s going to be the one to clean it up. His fellow Feds are skeptical, but Connolly’s got a secret weapon. He knows Whitey Bulger, the man running the Irish gangs.

Connolly’s idea is this. The FBI really wants the Mafia (the Italians). He recognizes that getting them out of the way is good for the Irish. So why not use the Irish’s knowledge about the Italians – the kind of information the Feds don’t have access to – to take them down? So Connolly goes to Bulger and asks him if he wants to be an informant.

It takes some convincing on both sides but soon everyone’s in, and thus begins a working relationship between Connolly and Bulger. Bulger feeds Connolly info and the FBI looks the other way when Bulger does unsavory deeds.

The problem is, Whitey Bulger works on his own time frame, not the FBI’s. He wants to know he can trust Connolly before he just starts throwing information at him. So there’s this constant tug-of-war between Connolly and his bosses regarding time. He needs more. They give him less.

Eventually the plan starts paying off, with Bulger giving the FBI the mafia’s hideout. But it’s a double-edged sword. With each new thing they learn about the mafia comes a new tidbit about Bulger himself, who they’re learning is a MUCH bigger criminal than anyone knew. And thus the question is asked. Are they getting rid of a demon only to replace him with the Devil?

Joel Edgerton will play John Connolly.

Black Mass starts out with a great opening sequence. It’s 2011 and one of the FBI’s ten most wanted men, Whitey Bulger, has been spotted living in a small apartment in Santa Monica. The man who’s reported him to the Feds, the apartment manager, is tasked with tricking the notorious gangster to come outside his apartment so the FBI can scoop him up and arrest him.

Whitey is a man who used to have people like this manager sawed into pieces for even considering such a thing. But when the Feds tell you you have to do something, you do it. The scene is not only packed with suspense, but it brilliantly sets up our subject, conveying just how much of a badass Whitey Bulger is.

At the end of this scene, I scooched into my chair with a smile, ready for a long exciting adventure about the man who many feel was the most violent and dangerous in Boston’s history. You can color me disappointed, then, when that adventure never came.

Black Mass makes a shocking choice early on that ends up neutralizing its biggest asset. Instead of telling us the story through the eyes of the legendary Bulger, Black Mass focuses on the vanilla Jack Connolly to tell its tale.

This may have worked had we seen enough of Bulger’s antics to satisfy our morbid curiosity. But the script adds this storyline by which Connolly thinks Bulger is a harmless second-rate criminal. That’s how he was able to sell to the Feds going after the Mafia and not Bulger himself.

For that to work though, Connolly (and by association, us) can’t see Bulger do anything bad. As you’d suspect, this has a catastrophic effect on the level of drama in the film. Since Bulger can’t do anything bad, Bulger can’t do… well, anything at all! All of Bulger’s scenes are relegated to him nodding and doing whatever Connolly asks of him. I hate to put it this way, but 80% of this movie is Whitey Bulger being the FBI’s bitch.

I was shocked. Where was this terrifying legendary criminal I’d heard about? He wasn’t in this film. Which means Black Mass runs the risk of being the single biggest example of false advertising in biopic history. It would be like making a movie about Michael Jordan and never showing him play basketball.

As for that great scene in the trailer – it’s in this draft. But it’s an outlier. We don’t get any other scenes like it (save for 1-2 generic kill scenes) to show how terrifying Bulger is.

The plotting had issues as well. There’s a distinct lack of BUILD as the story goes on, and I think that’s because the script failed to establish the stakes of getting rid of the Mafia. I barely knew anyone in the Mafia here and it was never conveyed to me why getting rid of them was so important.

Lots of writers mistakenly believe that just saying so is enough. So if a character says, “Man, that Mafia is bad. They killed that woman last week,” then we’ll want the Mafia taken down. But that’s not how movies work. Movies work by SHOWING. Not TELLING. If you show the Mafia rip an innocent man to shreds because he looked at them the wrong way, NOW we’ll understand why the FBI needs to stop them. We’ve seen how dangerous they are with our own eyes.

But that’s a small part of a much bigger problem. Nobody really does anything bad in this movie. Not Whitey. Not the Mafia. It’s the PG version of the Boston crime story. Sure we hear about some bad things, but I don’t go to a movie to hear about something. I go to SEE it.

Of course, the nature of development is that you keep working on a script until it’s the best that it can be. And they did bring on another writer to do some drafts after this one. But something tells me the current approach of this script is unfixable. You can’t neuter and borify the most ruthless killer in Boston history. You have to let a character like that loose.

I went into this script thinking Whitey Bulger was a major badass. I left thinking he was just a regular guy who occasionally committed crimes.

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

What I learned: Use visual cues to convey time passing. There was a moment in Black Mass where the FBI director tells Connolly, “It’s been six months and Bulger hasn’t given us anything!” So poorly was the passage of time conveyed, that had that same character said it had been “2 weeks,” I wouldn’t have batted an eye. Improperly conveying time can make a script feel drifty and sloppy. So use visual cues to help the reader along. For example, you might make a key female character pregnant. A tiny bump one scene and a big bump another scene instantly conveys 6-7 months have passed. A family gets a puppy. A few scenes down the line, that dog is now full grown. Highlight seasons changing. It’s sunny and 85 out. Cut to next scene, it’s now snowing. These are the most obvious examples so I actually encourage you to be creative and come up with your own. But if we have no idea how much time is passing in your story, we can become confused. And confusion often leads to frustration.

What I learned Two: If you have a compelling character, you want to construct a storyline that allows that character to thrive. For example, if you’re writing a story about the greatest astronaut in history, you probably don’t want to set the entire movie down on earth.

While everyone clamors to perfect their Scriptshadow 250 entries, a bold group of screenwriting gummy bears choose to place their letter spaghetti in front of the interconnected computer sphere in hopes of rainbow transformation. May we wish them a transition to a higher state of being.

Title: To Boldly Go
Genre: Biopic
Logline: In 1964, writer Gene Roddenberry struggles to get his vision on television – a show called “Star Trek”.
Why you should read: Three reasons. One – unlike other biopics which give you the whole Wikipedia routine, my script focuses on a year-long period in a man’s life, during which he has a clear goal. Two, it could generate a discussion on the act of using licensed properties you do not own in a spec written as a sample. (Like “Wonka”, which I am certain will not be made unless Roald Dahl’s zombie corpse approaches a production office, gobstopper in hand, and signs off on it while offering casting notes: “Two words: Get Gosling.”). And, three, my script comes from the heart. My father passed on in ’91, when I was kid, and one of the things he instilled in me was a love of science fiction, particularly “Star Trek”.

Title: The Camelot Club
Genre: Comedy
Logline: A religious man and his sexually deviant cousin unexpectedly inherit a run down strip club and have two weeks to make fifty thousand dollars or be killed by a seven foot transsexual pimp.
Why You Should Read: What do you get when you add together a 6’3” ginger Pole and an average height, golden tan Croatian? The Camelot Club, a combination of tanned, god-like overconfidence and the inherit self-loathing that comes with being orange and pale. We came together to write this script so we could split the crushing despair that comes when someone inevitably tells you your scripts reads like German is your native tongue (an actual criticism I received on my very first script, which hurt even more considering the only language I know is English). In the end we are just a couple of struggling artists looking to be accepted into the soft, voluptuous bosom of the screenwriting community (an agent and management would be nice, too). After learning the English language more better, and getting the screenwriting turds out of our systems, we put our minds together and produced The Camelot Club. And now I would like to end on a testimonial from my bi-polar, alcoholic brother, “…this script was so good it made me wish I was tri-polar…”. Enjoy!

Title: The Stone Addendum
Genre: Action
Logline: An Israeli secret agent has less than two days to prevent a terrorist hostage exchange in the U.S., but he must rely on help from an innocent Muslim woman that he’s ordered to kill once the mission is complete.
Why you should read: This script appeared in AOW a ways back to pleasant but uneventful reviews. Since then, with the help of Carson’s notes, it’s gone through a major makeover, and registered a Page Quarterfinals, a BlueCat Top 5%, and most recently a Top 25 in the Tracking Board. The latter billed it as TAKEN meets THE HURT LOCKER, and “the perfect blend of brains and brawn.” I think I’m in the red zone on this one, but can’t seem to punch it into the end zone with producers. Feedback from the SS community would be more than helpful. Thanks in advance to anyone taking a look.

Title: Tammy
Genre: Comedy
Logline: A young man from a strict religious family awakens from a severe head injury with the personality of a vulgar, slutty party girl named Tammy.
Why you should read: (from Tammy) heyyyy. so like, i didnt write this er whatever. the movie. but its awesome. mainly cuz its about me. myy names Tammy… & yes, im way hotter then that slam pig melissa mccarthy who took my name and shat on it. i like to party & get schwasty, unlike my dumpy foster mom. but seriously. u hafta read this. normaly, id suck u off, but i cant do that thru email… so quit beatin ur ham & open this script. u wont be sorry & if u r… gimme ur address & ill make it up to u. im like UPS… i deliver my box to strangers ;)

Title: Tampa Bay
Genre: Buddy Action
Logline: An old, homophobic, U.S. Marshal must seek the assistance of a gay FBI agent to solve the murder of a neighbor’s daughter.
Why You Should Read: I think it’s about time we had an action hero who just happens to be gay. He should be a badass first, and gay second. So that’s exactly what I wrote.