The last logline post got too big so instead of doing Amateur Offerings, I’m going to start a new one. Now a lot of you are probably freaking out. The average score I’ve been giving the loglines I’ve received is a 4. Why? I’ll get more into that with Thursday’s article, but basically, many of these loglines are too ambitious (A man goes to 7 galaxies to procure DNA from seven different alien species to save his wife), too vague, too bland (A mobster kills his victim and must dispose of the body within 24 hours), don’t contain a movie-level hook (Two best friends join a dating service but then fall in love with each other), have zero irony, elements are too disconnected (A flower shop owner learns he’s going to die in six hours so he decides to run a marathon for the first time in his life), go on forever (way too many wordy loglines that go on and on and on – be quick and succinct), or a series of other things.

If you’re freaking out about your low scores, share the loglines here and ask others what’s up. And in the rare case that the readers tell you I’m nuts and the idea is good, discount my opinion. Majority always rules. I’ve seen some writers freak out about wording their loglines just right when the logline isn’t the problem. It’s the idea. You can’t polish a turd. We’re going to have to do another post on what makes a good idea, but hopefully I can cover some of that this Thursday. And if I haven’t gotten to your loglines yet, be patient. There are a lot of them!

p.s. a piece of advice. since there will be tons of people asking for logline advice, only ask for opinions on the loglines you truly care about. throwing up all five will probably get you less of a response.

Today’s pilot comes from one of the most successful spec writers of the decade and stars the biggest TV action star in the universe!

Genre: TV Pilot Thriller/Drama
Premise: When the president of the United States and his immediate chain of command are killed in a terrorist attack, the Secretary of State, a man ill-suited for the job, is thrust into the position.
About: David Guggenheim burst onto the scene when his spec, Safe House, went nuclear, garnering the rare “fast track” green light from the studio and nabbing Denzel Washington in the process. The success of the sale as well as the film allowed Guggenheim to follow up with several high-profile spec sales, and I’m sure untold lucrative writing assignments. Guggenheim has turned his focus to TV now, and Designated Survivor was probably the highest profile sale of the season, opening up a huge bidding war, no doubt helped by the addition of Keifer Sutherland in the lead role
Writer: David Guggenheim
Details: 69 pages (undated – no title page so I’m not sure what draft this is)

I swore it would never happen again. I was so disappointed with the straight-down-the-middle product that the Big 4 networks were churning out that I refused to ever read a Big 4 pilot again. Allow me to paddle down the stream of a Netflix adventure. Allow me to Hulu-hoop my way through a Hulu original. But one more of these cringe-worthy by-the-book eye-closers on a Big 4? I’d rather wrap my face inside of a Brisket Burrito (inside Twitter joke).

So let me tell you why I lifted my moratorium on these shows today. One, because I’m too tired to read a feature. Two, this is a very feature-like premise. Three, it’s written by one of the most successful spec writers of the last five years. And four, because it sparked a major bidding war. Now does any of this mean the pilot will actually be good? Probably not. But we can hope!

Man, can Tim Kirkman catch a break? The 41 year-old Secretary of State is seen by just about everyone as a governmental liability. His main issue? He isn’t strong enough. When the going gets tough, the tough may get going, but Tim Kirkman gets going in the other direction.

So it isn’t much of a surprise when the President of the United States calls him in and asks him to demote himself to a Canadian Advisory position. Kirkman tells the prez he needs a night to think about it (translation: I’ll do what you ask but pretend to think about it overnight to save face). And that’s when shit go cray-cray.

While giving a speech, someone blows the president and several other high-ranking government officers up, leaving guess-who as the successor to the presidential throne? None other than the guy who just got fired earlier in the day.

Kirkman is sworn in and, with the country on a high state of alert, immediately faces a whirlwind of problems. Is this just the first of many attacks? What’s coming next? What do they do? All eyes are on Kirkman, and not a single person in the White House believes in him.

Shit gets real when an oil tanker heading into an East Coast port won’t respond to a ‘stand down’ order. The tanker is just 60 seconds away from being capable of blowing up an entire East Coast City if, indeed, it’s being operated by terrorists. Everyone turns to Kirkman. Can they blow it up? Give the word. Their missiles are waiting. At the last second, the tanker stops, apologizing for a radio malfunction. Whoa, Kirkman thinks. A couple more seconds and he would’ve killed 250 innocent people. This job is hard!

Next up is the most important presidential speech in the history of the country. Kirkman must work hand in hand with a young speech writer to convince not just the United States that he’s capable of leading them, but every single man and woman working underneath him here at the White House. Will he succeed? We’ll have to see.

Straight up truth? This was good. A lot better than I thought it would be. And was it straight-down-the-middle Big 4 generic TV? Kind of. But what Guggenheim brings from his feature spec roots is an ability to MOVE THE STORY FORWARD QUICKLY. This pilot had a ton of urgency, preventing even the tiniest slivers of boredom to creep in.

You can usually spot a good writer by what they do after the setup. Because the setup of these shows/movies is always easy. Who’s going to screw up the president of the United States getting killed? Or our next-in-line being ushered by the Secret Service to get sworn in at the White House? Those scenes write themselves.

But once Kirkman becomes the president, what now? And Guggenheim immediately moves into a problem – the oil tanker. Our protagonist is immediately being tested.

And once that problem is solved, a new one arrives. Iran takes advantage of the U.S.’s distraction to secure the Strait of Hormuz, effectively choking off our access to oil. Kirkman now has to figure that problem out as well.

And while these scenes seem obvious in retrospect, most writers don’t know to write them. They’d rather deal with the mundane directionless details of “What happens when a new person becomes president?” You have an entire series to explore that. Right now, you need to place your protagonist in DRAMATIC SITUATIONS that test him. You’re going to find urgency in these moments and you’re going to find drama. I’d much rather watch that than a scene where Kirkman meets with his staff and discusses the do’s and don’ts of being a president.

Another smart move was not telling us who killed the president. There’s a tendency from TV writers to cram all the plot into the pilot. But remember, you have to give us reasons to come back. And you do that through big unanswered questions. The fact that who killed the president is going to be an ongoing mystery is a reason for me to come back. Otherwise, I’ve just a TV sized feature.

One of the more amusing discoveries from the script was when Kirkman was sitting with his wife, at a low point, thinking he couldn’t do this, and his wife takes him by the hand and says, “Do you remember STORY ABOUT HIS EARLY DAYS OF POLITICS?” As in, literally, that’s what’s written. And I just found it funny that even the top screenwriters don’t always know what to write and will put up a placeholder to figure it out later.

It’s a small thing but I know a lot of writers will refuse to keep writing until they figure out that problem. And what happens is, because they can’t figure it out, they’re not writing anything. One day of not writing turns into two. Two into four. Four into a week. A week into a month. Sometimes it’s best to leave a problem alone for now and keep writing so you’re getting pages down. Often what will happen is the solution to your problem will come while you’re exploring some other part of the story.

Look, is Designated Survivor going to be able to do what House of Cards did? Probably not. I don’t see Kirkman and his wife having a three-way with their security detail. But it’s a nice West Wing slash 24 hybrid that should satiate the wind-down-from-work crowd. I’ll probably check out the pilot this fall.

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

What I learned: When in doubt, present your hero with a problem. The more elaborate the problem, the higher the stakes the problem, the better. I loved the oil tanker scene here. I loved the Iran scene here. And all Guggenheim did was present our protagonist with a problem. When you think about it, this is the lifeblood of television. You place problems in front of your protagonist. If you can make those problems unique, if you can make them DIFFICULT, chances are you’re going to keep the audience entertained.

Congrats to yesterday’s “worth the read” amateur script. Lawrence e-mailed me to let me know he’s slogging through a particularly rough time in his life and this review helped him remember what he was doing this for. Let’s give more writers that moment. Bring your best stuff, guys. And if you’re new to Amateur Offerings and want a shot at getting your script reviewed, e-mail carsonreeves3@gmail.com with your title, genre, logline, and why you think your script deserves a shot. Don’t forget to include a PDF of your script. Now on to today. Read as much as you can from each script and cast your vote in the comments section (leave a comment with your pick). Let’s find an IMPRESSIVE! :)

Title: Vampire United
Genre: Comedy Horror Action.
Logline: A shamed ex-soccer pro must rise up against the new owner of his local team when he discovers he’s an Eastern European vampire bent on destroying the beautiful game.
Why You Should Read: I’m an English screenwriter living in Berlin aspiring to have a career in LA and would love to have my script reviewed to know if the script is ready to present to the industry, or not. I’m aware the story and its execution have to be amazing and I’m submitting the script in the hope I get notes to help reach that goal. The script is in the vein of Shaun Of The Dead, and The World’s End but with the heart of The Full Monty and Billy Elliot. I spent months in Whitby researching/writing the script. And for that I deserve good things to happen! Whitby is a small seaside town in North Yorkshire where Bram Stoker wrote and set much of Dracula. A goal I have is to make the association between Whitby and Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel more known. Why? Because despite there being 300 + movies, TV series, etc. made from the novel none have ever mentioned the location of Whitby, which I find incredible. Whitby is the place where Dracula landed in the UK from Transylvania on the Russian Schooner ship the Demeter to curse the nation with vampirism. Vampire United is inspired by that set up. I have an MA in screenwriting and attended the UCLA professional Program in screenwriting some years back. My previous script was a top 13 finalist of 4000 entries in the Scriptapalooza competition and Vampire United recently received three high grades on the Black List. I see this script as a perfect fit for Ben Wheatley and plan to get it to him when it’s ready.

Title: My Druncle Kevin
Comedy: Family Comedy
Logline: When her Mother goes missing on Black Friday, a strong-willed Teen is forced to quest into the shopping chaos with the person whose company she enjoys least – her perpetually immature and inebriated Uncle.
Why You Should Read: Why should you read My Druncle Kevin? I can sit here and make bold, downright blasphemous claims about my script being “Hughes-ian” or in the vein of a “Family Style Hangover,” but no one wants to hear that. Instead, here are ten stone cold bullet points…

1. It’s a comedy with heart for days.
2. It’s a script set during a time of year that is oddly underrepresented in movies.
3. It centers on a refreshing “buddy coppy” duo not often seen in film.
4. It’s all about family at its core.
5. It features the best dopey small car action since “The Italian Job.”
6. It cracked the ScriptShadow 250!
7. Too much pressure, skip to #8.
8. It’ll make you appreciate your mother.
9. My friend Joe said it was “pretty good,” and he doesn’t even read scripts!
10. It will put you in the holiday spirit just in time for… Spring. I’m nothing if not topical.

Title: The Mars Exploit
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action
Logline: After telepathic extremists seize control of the Solar system, an elite programmer must sneak onto occupied Mars and subvert the enemy’s communications network, or say goodbye to freedom of thought forever.
Why You Should Read: When Alex told me this story, I don’t think he had any idea what it would do to me. How I’d be up until three in the morning writing down every word he’d said, because I was too excited about it to sleep. After he graciously gave me permission to turn it into a screenplay, I spent many more sleepless nights, first teaching myself screenplay format (which, as a novelist, I hadn’t touched since college), then working out each new plot twist and character – because I just couldn’t wait to share this amazing story with everyone else. I hope I’ve done it justice!

Title: Refugee
Genre: Action/Adventure
Logline: A dishonorably discharged Marine breaks a stalemate between the US military and the gangs that inhabit what’s left of a flooded New York City.
Why You Should Read: I’m a Sydney based writer with a mixed background. With an Iraqi father and an Algerian mother, I was born in Poland, grew up in Australia, lived in Italy and the Netherlands and traveled most of the world. I’ve been held up at gunpoint, jumped from 70 foot cliffs and out of aeroplanes. I don’t say it to boast, but to show how varied my experiences have been. Refugee was written with input from actual US Marines and I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on it. If it doesn’t get reviewed, I at least hope you enjoy the ride.

Title: Punks
Genre: Comedy
Logline: Four friends try to have a normal day, until everything starts going wrong.
Why You Should Read: My name is Ty Brantley. I am 15 years old and I am also an aspiring writer just trying to get his script read. I think you should read my script because of my age and this will most likely help get my name out there. Also, most people who have read it say it’s pretty good.

Today’s amateur script was beaten out in the last amateur showdown. But today’s review will point out how wrong those voters were.

Genre: Heist
Premise: An estranged group of musicians, of a once successful band, reunite in order to pull a series of robberies at major concert venues, all in one night, in an attempt to take back the millions they feel were stolen from them by their ex-manager, who now runs the venues they target. Their greatest hits, are robberies.
Why You Should Read: I love heist films. Primarily, grounded heist films. Shit that could happen. Shit that, if we put our minds to it, and had just the right opportunity, for just the right reason, we might be able to pull off and would risk doing so. Any heist situation is absolutely nuts to attempt, so it has to be about more than the money. There has to be something so wrong with the system, the person, the past or the present where it seems there is no other choice. Vultures N Doves is unique twist on the heist film, something I’ve never seen in a movie before, it’s amped up fun, there’s a couple of outrageous set pieces, and most importantly, a main character with a rockstar ego, who is struggling to keep his band, marriage, and life together.
Writer: Lawrence Lamovec
Details: 115 pages

As if there is any doubt who would play this role.

I’m not going to lie. I wasn’t thrilled with this premise. It’s the kind of thing you can see working as a real life story. A middle-of-the-road band spent the entirety of the 70s and 80s robbing the very venues they worked at. But once you turn this premise into a fictional story, it feels a bit absurd. I was wondering if I’d be able to suspend my disbelief.

On top of that, you have an endless logline, which almost always indicates a bad screenplay. Why? Because when writers can’t stop going on in their logline, it probably means they can’t stop going on in their script – that things are going to be uncomfortably unfocused and rambling. I’m not sure why this is such a problem for writers – eliminating extraneous words and phrases from their logline. It’s something that has to be done.

So for Lawrence’s logline here, I’d rewrite it as: A once successful band reunites to rob a series of music venues and take back the millions that were stolen from them by a corrupt concert promoter.

Now here’s the thing. We find out in the script that the “corrupt concert promoter” is actually their ex-manager, who happens to also promote these concerts. It’s a detail that can be explained properly over the course of an entire screenplay, but not so much in a brief logline. However, if you write, “…that were stolen from them by their ex-manager, who also happens to be a concert promoter,” it’s clunky as shit. Sometimes you have to sacrifice the small details of your story so that your logline reads cleanly.

While the logline itself may have been a bad experience, I was surprised to find that the script itself was not. In fact, Vultures ’N’ Doves surprised me on numerous levels. This was some damn fine writing, my friends.

35 year-old Cash used to be a rock star. His band, Vultures N Doves, played all the biggest venues in the world, and turned out numerous number hits along the way. The only problem is that they signed a shitty record deal when they were teenagers with a slimy Chicago manager named James Degrazia, leaving them broke and Degrazia a millionaire many times over.

If there were a face for “music industry corruption,” Degrazia would be it. Even worse, his father ran all the concert venues in the area, which Degrazia has since taken over. The borderline mobster basically owns the Chicago music scene.

When Cash and his band lose their final court battle to Degrazia to get the money they’re owed, Cash comes up with an idea. There’s nobody who knows how concerts work better than they do. What if they robbed two venues in town on the biggest night of the year?

His band, which consists of a British twerp named Legend, a scrawny sweetheart named Zero, and a tough-as nails Latino named Matador, think he’s crazy. But Cash is a brilliant pitch man. And as he points out, they’re not really robbing anyone of anything. They’re taking back the money that Degrazia owes them.

Complicating matters is the fact that Cash’s wife, Rosa, is secretly sleeping with Degrazia and thinking of running away with him. As much as she loves Cash, life with him has been one disappointment after another, and she needs someone who can take care of her, which Degrazia is more than happy to do.

The plan is to rob the United Center first where the Rolling Stones are playing, and then head up to Grant Park, where a younger crowd participates in Lollapalooza. The idea is, if they don’t hit up both venues on the same night, the robbery will result in bolstered security that will stave off any future heist attempts.

So in the course of 24 hours, Cash and crew are either going to get their revenge, or end up in jail. But it’s going to be a hell of a wild night either way.

One of the first things I realized with “Vultures” was how focused it was. We start off seeing Cash and company lose to Degrazia in court, then we’re right into “What now?” which results in Cash coming up with the heist scheme. As I’ve told you guys numerous times, you want to get into your story quickly. Show the reader that you’re not going to waste their time.

Another good sign was the dual-heist format. One of the things you get used to after writing a lot of screenplays is how long stuff is going to take. You know that a heist, for example, probably isn’t going to last more than 30 pages. That leaves you 80 pages left. Do you have enough story for those 80 pages? Are you going to give us 80 pages of the band preparing for the heist?

Of course not. Half of that will end up being filler. So to add another heist during the evening was smart. The heist just got twice as difficult (more uncertainty in the character’s goal is always good) and you’ve got 50 pages worth of heists (assuming each one moves a little faster) instead of 30.

That still leaves 60 pages though. So what are you going to fill that up with? Part of it will be preparation, yes, but I’m not sure we’ll be able to keep preparation alone interesting for 60 pages.

So from there, you go to subplots. Find the most interesting characters in your script and see if you can explore parallel storylines with them. One of the subplots Lawrence chooses is the Rosa-Cash love story. Making Rosa Degrazia’s secret lover made us hate him even more, and it made Rosa a lot more complex.

Lawrence also builds a subplot that involves some back-door corruption between the well-connected Degrazia and the Chicago Mayor. The duo have some shady dealings together that Lawrence cleverly links up with the money Cash is stealing from the venues. Degrazia realizes that he can’t just go to the police, as the dirty money is tied back to the mayor.

I think that’s the moment where the script truly came together for me. When writers can weave a subplot and a main plot together in an unexpected and satisfying way, it’s the sign that they know what they’re doing.

And Lawrence definitely knows his stuff. This premise still might be too weird for me, but I have to give Lawrence credit for executing the shit out of it. :)

Screenplay link: Vultures ’N’ Doves

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

What I learned: Try and plot out, to the best of your knowledge, how long each key event in your script is going to take to get an idea of how many pages will be left. So if your key events add up to 40 pages, that still leaves 70 pages to fill up. If you don’t have a solid plan for filling up 70 pages, you’re going to have a lot of filler. Either add another main event like Lawrence did here, or be prepared to include a wealth of subplots.

Genre: Period (Based on true events)
Premise: After a lifetime of failure, John Brown attacks the United States Armory at Harper’s Ferry in one last ditch effort to free the slaves.
Why You Should Read (from writer): In earlier forms, this script placed in the top ten in Final Draft’s Big Break, was a semifinalist in Page and received a “Consider” from Coverage Ink. I’ve worked hard on the notes I’ve received and I think I’ve made it better. I understand that it’s a period piece (but isn’t Catherine the Great?), however it’s a really cool moment in history that has been ignored on the big screen. I like to think of this story as the American version of Braveheart.
Writer: George Gier
Details: 110 pages

Little tip for those of you who want to be industry readers. Don’t watch a new Star Wars trailer 814 times and then try to read a slavery script. You kind of have to be in a certain headspace for slavery. And replaying Forest Whitaker saying, “If you continue to fight…” [wait, I forgot what he says next – an excuse to go watch the trailer again! – one second] oh yeah… “What will you… become?” When you get all warm and whitaker, it’s not easy to shift into slavery.

BUT I’M GOING TO TRY.

59 year-old Reverend Isaac Smith seems to be your average devoted man of God. His sermons are powerful and engorge local churchgoers with plenty of faith meals, important on the to-do list of most people living in 1859, especially since they didn’t have Uber Eats yet. But Smith has a secret. His real name is John Brown, an abolitionist on the lam, and he’s got a plan that’s going to change the United States forever.

Brown wants to invade a large armory in nearby Harper’s Ferry, steal all their guns, recruit local African-Americans to join him in his cause, then go from plantation to plantation to liberate those black men and women who are still being held by slave owners.

So Brown puts together a ragtag crew and heads to Harper’s Ferry. Here’s where things get dicey though. You see part of Brown’s plan is to simultaneously recruit local African-Americans while he’s taking over the armory. Without those men, he has nobody to carry out all those guns. So his plan is really two plans, and one will not work without the other.

Brown actually takes over the armory easily. But every local man his team tries to recruit tells them… well, they basically tell them to fuck off. In real life, the average person doesn’t want to join a revolution. They’d rather stick to what’s familiar, even if what’s familiar sucks. This recruiting delay allows a militia to sneak into town and challenge Brown, which, unfortunately, is something Brown’s not prepared for, and dictates the unfortunate series of events that follow.

You know, it’s funny. This setup is actually quite similar to Rogue One. A ragtag crew is thrown together to tackle an impossible mission. So maybe this wasn’t such a bad script to segue into after all. But there was a major difference. That was Star Wars. This was a period piece.

Today’s writer, George, seems well aware of the difficulties of writing period pieces, and I’ll get into one of the biggest challenges of tackling that genre in a second. But first I have to get this off my chest. When you write a script where race is a crucial component to the story, it is ESSENTIAL that you tell us the race of all the characters.

Because you know what? I didn’t know if John Brown was black or white! This in a story where it’s critical that I know the main character’s race. And it was a good 30 pages before I was able to guess.

This is a common problem, where the writer is so close to the material that they assume you know what they do. We don’t know. I mean, some people might know. But I didn’t. So I know other readers won’t either. And this kind of mistake isn’t forgivable. It’s a first class script-killer.

But back to period pieces. Here’s one of the reasons readers hate period pieces: They know they’re going to have to memorize 30 characters. And no one can memorize 30 characters. So one of two things happens. If the reader is considerate and has time, they’ll write down every character with a little description next to them so they can check back later if they forget who’s who.

Or they just keep reading and accept the fact that they’re not going to remember half the people they come across. This results in a strange pseudo-read, where the reader has a general idea of what’s going on, but all the subtleties and subplots are lost on them.

But even if the reader is taking notes, do you know how annoying it is when you don’t remember a character, and have to read back through a list of 30 people to figure out who they are? EVERY TIME you forget? Which is a lot? It takes the reader out of the script, which means instead of being fully immersed in your story, they’re playing “Who the hell is this guy again?” And that game’s only enjoyable when sex is involved.

This is one reason I encourage writers to read a lot of scripts. Once they’ve read a handful of huge-character-count scripts, they think twice every time they’re going to add a character to their own script. “Do I really need this character?” they ask. And often times they realize they don’t.

So what does this mean? Does this mean you can never write a script with a high character count? What if the story you’re telling naturally requires a bunch of characters? Yes, THERE ARE WAYS to make high character counts more palatable. I won’t go into all of them, but here are a couple. Develop a description hierarchy that you STAY CONSISTENT WITH. Big characters get longer extensive descriptions, medium characters get one sentence bare-bone descriptions, and small characters get one or two word descriptions. This is a nice subliminal way to indicate to the reader who they need to commit to memory and who’s okay to forget (if they must forget someone).

But the REAL key to making a big character count work is that when your characters are introduced, you need to introduce them with something MEMORABLE. If a character gets a distinctive memorable intro scene, I WILL REMEMBER THEM THE ENTIRE SCRIPT. If a character introduces himself with a nod, I will probably need to check who they are every time they reappear. And when I have to do that, I get really annoyed. And if I get annoyed a bunch of times, I take that anger out on the writer. I think to myself, “Why doesn’t this writer understand how to make characters memorable?”

Now you may say, Carson, I’ve seen plenty of movies where characters don’t have big memorable entrances. Shit, Neo is introduced in The Matrix sleeping in front of his computer. I’d say, first, a lot of those movies had smaller character counts. But second, you have to understand that THOSE WERE MOVIES. It’s a lot easier to remember a physical face. But we’re not seeing a physical face on the page. We’re seeing words. So you need to do other things to help us remember that face.

And that means, yes, you will approach your script differently than if you were writing an already-greenlit-movie. In fact, a lot of writers will write bigger memorable character intro scenes understanding that, once they film the script, they’ll likely get rid of that scene and bring the character in more naturally.

But getting back to John Brown’s Body as a story. I thought this had potential. You have a group of people with a clear goal and the stakes for that goal feel pretty high. But my big issue with John Brown’s Body was that John Brown’s plan kinda sucked. It didn’t seem well-thought-through at all. Other characters even tell him that. Which I guess is okay, but the thing is, it makes John look kinda dumb. If he doesn’t even know where he’s going to get his army by the time he takes over the armory, I’d say that most intelligent people wouldn’t go through with that plan.

This conceptual faux pas weaves its slimy tentacles throughout the rest of the plot. Because every thing that goes wrong reminds you just how ill-conceived this plan was in the first place.

So if I were Greg – and it seems like he’s open to criticism – that’s the first thing I’d fix. Give John Brown a stronger plan. The more solid the plan, the more delicious the drama when things start to go south. From there, I’d stop introducing so many darn people, especially since half of them never make appearances again. Place your focus on the key characters and make sure all those characters get the kind of memorable introduction a big character deserves. That’s going to help a lot of things here. I wish Greg luck. Many Bothans died to help this review get written.

Script link: John Brown’s Body

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

What I learned: Think of character introductions in terms of camera shots. If a character is important enough to get a close-up in the finished film, he/she’s important enough to get a proper description and memorable opening scene.