Genre: Horror
Premise: When a park ranger ventures into the wilderness to find a missing hiker before a storm, she finds herself lured into the woods by a dangerous, unearthly predator mimicking her dead daughter.
About: Today’s screenwriter, Nick Tassoni, graduated with an MFA (’21) in screewriting at the prestigious University of Southern California. His script, Lure, finished on this past year’s Black List.
Writer: Nick Tassoni
Details: 87 pages

Let’s get Rose Byrne in this movie.

Micro-script alert!

What’s a micro-script? It’s any script under 90 pages.

Micro-scripts were hot seven years ago. Are they making a comeback?

40 year old Evelyn Yang is a national park forest ranger (“sad skin hanging off her bones”). She’s teamed up with 22 year old newbie, Colby Roth, and the old veteran of the group, Jen Parker. We hear little whispers during conversations about how the only rangers who get stuck out here are the ones running away from something.

Evelyn is definitely in that camp. She was a working single mother who went camping with her 10 year old daughter, Angelica, a few years ago and Angelica disappeared. Now she pours vodka in her coffee every morning and does her best to make it through the day.

Well, today is a little harder than most. A huge storm rolls in and they get word that a flash flood is coming. This means that Evelyn has to run around the forest and tell campers to get the heck out. This is exactly what she does but there’s a complication when a camper claims that his brother went out for a hike this morning and never came back.

Evelyn heads deeper into the woods to find this guy but, due to all the rain, she injures herself, cracking a bone in her leg. She tries to radio for help but coverage is spotty. While she considers her options, the brother hiker appears at a distance and asks for help. Although he’s too far away to see clearly, Evelyn notes that something is wrong with his face. It doesn’t look like everything is in the right place.

The guy eventually disappears and Evelyn sees someone new in his place. Angelica. She’s alive. And she’s asking why Evelyn stopped looking for her. Evelyn knows something is off but the sight of her daughter blinds her and she begins to follow her into the forest. Eventually, she heads into an old mine shaft and that’s where, deep within the shaft, she finds a pit, and in that pit, a terrifying monster known as the Angler.

The Angler nearly lures her into his lair but Colby appears out of nowhere and pulls her back just in time. We soon learn that Colby escaped out here because his father was dying of cancer and he couldn’t handle it. So, naturally, Colby starts seeing his father, who wants him to come back to the lair. Both of these two must figure out a way to not only detach themselves from the Angler’s spell, but destroy the thing so it can never do this to anyone again.

A little love thrown to Nick Tassoni. Having his script reviewed a day after the screenplay of the year is like being a first-time stand-up comic following a Bill Burr set. How can you possibly measure up?

Let’s start by discussing…

Repetition.

It is the scariest word in all of screenwriting.

Well, that’s an exaggeration. But to repeat anything over and over in a script is dangerous because good scripts EVOLVE. They provide us with a series of new locations, new plotlines, new conversations, new characters, new relationships, new dynamics within those relationships, new twists, new turns, new information – all things that keep us on our toes and make us want to turn to the next page.

It was one of many reasons that yesterday’s screenplay excelled. New developments were constantly happening that would change our hero’s situation.

But when you write a script like Lure, one where someone’s stuck in the woods, one where there are very few story variables to work with (the forest, our hero, her daughter’s death, two other rangers), you are at risk of boring the reader to pieces. Cause it’s hard to keep that scenario fresh and different.

At this point, I’d guess I’ve read 300 screenplays about people stuck in a forest. It’s a very common setup. So if you’re going to play in that sandbox, you better be ready to bust out the best toys. Otherwise, why would we bother playing with you?

Lure is built on that old horror conceit of being stuck in a place where your dead family member keeps showing up to test you in some way. I’m never thrilled with this setup. Yes, it does allow you a good way to explore grief and healing within your hero.

But you lose so much due to how forced the setup feels. I don’t think it’s worth it. It’s obvious that the writer is artificially creating a “monster” to achieve the character transformation they want to achieve. It never feels as natural as you want it to.

That doesn’t mean the script still can’t work. But in order to achieve that, you need BOLD CREATIVE CHOICES. If you can surprise me and bring me to cool unexpected places, the script still has a shot.

The closest Lure gets to that is the Angler. I’ve never seen this type of monster in this type of movie before. So that part did feel fresh. The problem is that, by the way it’s described, it seems very close to the Sarlac Pitt in Return of the Jedi.

When you steal things from other movies, this *is* the way you want to do it. You bring the item over from a completely different genre. That kinda tricks the audience into not making the connection. But it gets tricky when you take something from an iconic movie. Cause everyone knows iconic movies. Which means, now, everyone’s at least acknowledging that this monster is based on something they know.

I’m also looking for good fresh scares in these scripts. I don’t know if I got any. But there was one scare I liked. When Evelyn is injured and sitting at the fire early in her journey, she sees this man in a raincoat at the edge of the trees. He’s standing there saying, “Help me.”

The reason it’s scary is that he seems totally fine. If he needs help, why not just walk to the fire? It’s that confusion, that contrast between what he says he needs and his lack of need, that freaked me out.

It’s actually a good lesson for horror writers. The imagery rarely scares us on the page. Every horror image has been done a hundred times over anyway. It’s the things that seem out-of-place, the things that are being done or said that don’t make sense – that’s what scares us. Why is there a clown in the gutter in It? That doesn’t make sense. That’s why Pennywise is so terrifying in that moment.

One last point I want to make here is to introduce a concept called “Assumed Execution.” I tell you guys all the time not to write plot beats that the reader expects. And, to your credit, a lot of you listen. The problem I’ve found, however, is that when you do make these unexpected plot choices, it doesn’t change the story enough that the reader still isn’t ahead of you.

In other words, even if I don’t know EXACTLY what’s going to happen in your story, if I generally know where everything is going, that’s still bad. The second I get a good read on how your script is going to be executed, you’re toast. I’m ahead of you. Maybe I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen but I know enough that I’m bored.

Look at one of the breakthrough horror movies from a couple of years ago, Barbarian. I had no idea where that movie was going.

That’s why, even though this script had a few nice parts, I always knew where the story was headed. I knew the daughter was fake. I knew we were going to get some voice over or flashback showing that Evelyn wasn’t paying attention while her daughter wandered away. I knew we were going to get all these fake people or imagery trying to lure Evelyn to the monster. I knew the framework of what would be happening on page 80 by the time I was on page 10. You have to work harder to stay ahead of the reader. That’s one of the things that separates today’s writer from yesterday’s writer.

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

What I learned: I’m not going to beat this dead horse about “be more unexpected.” I’ve said that way too much on this site. But I will say that when it comes to your big “this is what happened” backstory reveal, for the love of all that is holy, please make THAT DIFFERENT. Cause you’ve been talking about it all movie so our expectations are high. But when we find out what happened to Angelica, IT’S EXACTLY WHAT WE EXPECTED. Please. That ONE PART OF YOUR SCRIPT: BE ORIGINAL! Just like I know that if I see ants on my table at McDonald’s, then it’s obscenely dirty back in the kitchen, I know that if you’re not being original during your FEATURED SCRIPT MOMENTS, you’re not putting effort towards being original everywhere else.

People are saying this is the best script through the first half of 2024. Are they right?

Genre: Adult Thriller
Premise: A Yale professor up for tenure must navigate a rape accusation from her most cherished student against another professor, who happens to be her best friend at the school.
About: Challengers director, Luca Guadagnino, is directing this. He’s got Julia Roberts starring in the lead and Andrew Garfield playing the disgraced professor. This script has been bouncing around town lately and the word on the street is that it’s amazing.
Writer: Nora Garrett
Details: 106 pages

I love the smell of a supposedly great script in the morning.

I’m too eager to build up some exciting intro so I’m just going to jump into it!

40-something Swedish-American, Alma Olsson, has been working every second of her life in the US to get to the point where she’s at now: she’s about to be the youngest tenured professor in Yale history.

She only has one contender, which is her good friend, Henrik, a man she has much admiration for as he seems to have everything going for him: looks and intelligence.

We meet the two during a dinner at Alma’s house, along with her husband, the nearly invisible Frederik, and a group of her most prized students. The standout student is a young mouse-like girl named Maggie. Maggie is OBSESSED with Alma. She lives to impress her and all the other students hate the teacher’s pet relationship they have but there’s nothing they can do about it.

The rumor is that Maggie’s put together the best dissertation of the last 20 years at Yale. She’s only days away from showing it to Alma and the electricity in the air is palpable. That night, as everyone’s heading home, Alma is concerned that Maggie is walking home alone but Maggie assures her that Henrik will walk her.

The next morning, at school, Maggie approaches Alma with a look on her face that tells Alma her life is about to change. When they’re away from others, Maggie says that when Henrik walked her home, he came in, they had another drink, and then he raped her. Maggie wants to report this IMMEDIATELY and is surprised when Alma isn’t supportive. She tells Maggie that she believes her but that proving these things is tricky and doing so may be more trouble than it’s worth.

The next day, Henrik comes to her with a different story. He says that he read Maggie’s dissertation and found it to be almost entirely plagiarised. When he brought this up to her, she freaked out, he went home, and the next morning he woke up to these false rape allegations.

Henrik brings up to Alma that things are about to get messy and, not to “worry,” because he “won’t tell anyone” about their affair. This puts Alma in an unwinnable position. The smart move is to privately and publicly support Maggie, who has started to tell people in positions of power about the rape. But she believes Henrik’s version of the story. Plus, if she goes against him, he could hurt her. So, what does she do?

Things escalate when Henrik gets fired but just when it looks like Alma is in the clear, articles begin popping up online where Maggie has named her as a professor who “wasn’t supportive” and “didn’t believe” her story. Alma will have to save her name as well as keep a long-held secret from her past from coming out, a secret she suspects Maggie may have dug up.

Since Luca’s last movie was about tennis, I’m going to use a tennis analogy to start off here.

When I competed, one of the biggest flexes you could attain was a double-bagel win. That’s when you win 6-0, 6-0. You’re so good, your opponent doesn’t even manage a game. And it looked so sweet up there on the draw. It showed your name “def” the other player, and below it 6-0, 6-0. It had the added benefit of your next opponent seeing that score and being intimidated. They knew that they were in for trouble.

Now, winning 6-0, 6-0 didn’t happen often. For that reason, in those matches where you were up 6-0, 4-0 or 6-0, 5-0, you started to get a little nervous.

You would get clumsy. You would miss easy shots. You would double-fault. The next thing you knew, your opponent had won a couple of games. You’d still end up winning. But the difference between 6-0, 6-0 and 6-0, 6-2 may as well have been the difference between winning the Olympic 40 yard dash and winning your local schoolyard race. It wasn’t the same.

That’s what happened today with After the Hunt. This is a really good script. In fact, I would agree with the town’s excitement and confirm that it’s the best script of 2024 so far. It will probably finish on top of the 2024 Black List.

But it was so close to being genius. It was so close to that double bagel, I could taste it! If not for those two sprayed backhands and that mishit second serve, we could be talking about an all-time classic.

The first thing that stood out to me was that every single character in this script had something interesting going on with them. It’s RARE that I encounter that. Alma is one of the most complex characters I’ve read in years. With her complicated marriage and infidelity and secret past and physical ailments and single-minded desire to get tenure, even if it meant allowing her sexually assaulted star pupil to suffer… there was SO MUCH GOING ON with this character. Roberts will be front and center in the Oscar race once again when this movie comes out.

Maggie comes off as this weak star-struck scaredy-cat but then, when her entire academic career is potentially put in question, she turns into a killer. You’ve got Henrik, who’s both smart and handsome and Alma’s rival and also lover and he also disputes Maggie’s story. Is he telling the truth?

Even Frederik, who exists mostly in the background, represents the ultimate “nice guy” who does everything right and it’s for those very reasons that his wife has lost respect for him. There’s this moment in the script that perfectly encapsulates their marriage. After she has a rough night drinking, she wakes up the next morning and we get this description: “She puts her phone down, sees that Frederik left her two Advil and a glass of water. Something about this nice gesture angers Alma. She leaves the Advil where they are.”

But the moment I knew this script was heads and tails above 99.9% of the scripts out there (that percentage is not hyperbole by the way), was the moment when Henrik comes to Alma to tell his side of the story and, in the process, reveals that he won’t bring up “their past” – in other words, that they used to sleep together.

This created a scenario that I advocate to every screenwriter who will listen, which is: Put your hero in the most difficult situation you can come up with for them.

What’s more difficult than being told by your star pupil that she’s been raped and that the rapist is your co-worker who you have an on-again off-again secret romance with? When you throw potential tenure in there, you realize just how complicated Alma’s situation is. She believes her friend (Henrik) more than the student. But it’s better optics if she supports her student over her friend. But if she supports the student, her friend may reveal their relationship, which would end her marriage and lose her tenure.

I’ll read another 500 scripts before I encounter another scenario this clever, this thoughtful, this compelling.

So why didn’t it get the genius status? I don’t want to spoil too much so I’ll speak in generalities. This is a classic example of sticking around after the party is over. There is no reason – and I mean NO REASON – for the last 10 pages of this script to exist. You wrote something so good and then you limp to the finish line. Why????

Frustrating.

But it’s a testament to how good this script is that, despite that, it’s still an “impressive,” and it still makes my Top 25. Wow!

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive (TOP 25!)
[ ] genius

What I learned: Don’t forget to pick up my dialogue book! Here’s a great dialogue tip from the script. Put a substantial amount of effort into making your characters speak differently from one another. It’s a great visual way to distinguish who’s who, purely through dialogue. Henrik is really smart. So, when he talks, he uses analogies, he quotes high-brow authors. Those are the unique things he does so that, even if we didn’t see that it’s Henrik speaking, we still know it’s him because those are things that only HE does.

Lean times at the box office!

Don’t worry. The good movies are coming.

But they sure are making us suffer in the meantime! A Planet of the Apes sequel? This is like making us eat at the school cafeteria when there’s an In and Out right across the street.

The latest entry in the Lame-O Summer 2024 Movie Olympics is Planet of the Apes Human Girl Says Hi or whatever it’s called. Even if I went to check the actual title of this film, I would forget it by the time I came back to this document. That’s how unoriginal these Apes sequels have become.  Literally 98.123% of the movie is shots of apes in a forest.  I don’t even know who this director is. When I heard “Wes Ball,” I said, “Wes Ball, the actor from American Beauty, is directing now?”

Because the studios are releasing these second banana movies, there’s nothing much to talk about. At least you used to be able to marvel at the motion-cap technology that brought these apes to life. Now the biggest talking point is that the Apes movies do sorta better overseas. Oooooh. Can’t wait to spend  three hours at poker night debating that nugget.

All joking aside, there’s a reason I liked the initial movie in this franchise and why none of the others have made sense to me. The initial movie was simple and I could buy into it. Every other sequel has tried to convince us that a planet which has less than half a million apes, has been able to take over 8 billion humans. It doesn’t make sense on any level.

My whole thing is: If the core concept doesn’t make sense, your script won’t work. It will work enough that if you pour 150 million into it and another 100 million into advertising, it will trick enough people to see it that you can claim a 50 million dollar opening. But nobody cares about this franchise and I honestly believe it’s because the core of the concept doesn’t make sense.

Speaking of animals, my current obsession is Baby Reindeer. Not just the show but the circus surrounding the show. Fiona Harvey, the woman who the stalker character of Martha is based on, was on Piers Morgan over the weekend! She claims she left creator Richard Gadd a total of four voicemails, three e-mails, and a couple of texts. There’s a bit of discrepancy there as Gadd says it was closer to hundreds of voicemails, tens of thousands of e-mails, and an uncountable number of texts.

I have to admit Harvey seemed quite reserved in the interview. So either Gadd did exaggerate this whole thing or she was on a whole lot of meds.

Either way, it does bring up the question of, “How personal can you get in your writing?” I’ve always advocated for truth from screenwriters.  It’s the #1 path to creating a strong original voice.

But there’s clearly a tax to being so truthful. Gadd, who was a nobody for a decade, experienced these events and built a story universe around them (first in his stand-up act, then in his play, now on a TV show). The latter has turned him into a mega-star overnight.

But you can tell when you watch interviews of Gadd how uncomfortable he is getting into the details of the real-life inspirations. He can feel Fiona breathing down his neck. She’s going to sue and who knows what’s going to come of that. But I can’t imagine it’s going to be enjoyable, even if everything he’s said is 100% accurate.

Moving onto lighter fare, Star Wars is about to sign Sigourney Weaver into its far far away galaxy. She’s going to play a substantial role in The Mandalorian and Grogu. Much like The Acolyte brought in Carrie-Anne Moss, it appears that Lucasfilm is all about stunt casting in an attempt to build as much goodwill back into its fractured fanbase as possible.

I know talking about Star Wars these days is the equivalent of kicking the nerd after he’s already been beaten up by the bully. The franchise doesn’t have any future shows or movies that the fanbase is excited about.

We can dog Marvel all we want. But Marvel still has Spider-Man. It still has Deadpool and Wolverine. It still has the new iteration of the X-Men to bring into the fold. There are things to get excited about with Marvel.

Trying to get excited about Star Wars these days is like trying to get excited about getting Amazon gift cards for Christmas.  Sure, there’s value to them.  But they’re not exactly… exciting.  The Acolyte, by all behind-the-scenes accounts, is supposed to be lousy. We have an upcoming Rey movie, which is a tough sell considering the character became less interesting with each sequel. There’s James Mangold’s “First Jedi,” movie, which has a teensy bit of promise but so little is known about it that it’s hard to form an opinion either way. And then, of course, there’s Mandalorian and Grogu.

The problem with our buddy Mandor and his adorable little green partner-in-crime is that they’re building a movie around the franchise on a downslope. You never want to build a movie on a franchise that’s slipping. You want to build it on a franchise that’s rising.

The perfect time to release this film would’ve been after the first season, when everybody loved The Mandalorian. But most Star Wars fans I talk to barely remember what happened in Season 3. So you’re building a movie in an attempt to SAVE the franchise which is an inherently negative motivation.

There’s got to be a good Star Wars movie idea out there, right?  There’s got to be something that would get people excited.  Any ideas? 

A couple other things that popped up over the weekend are, one, that JJ ABRAMS IS BACK! Nobody has seen the man since the premiere of Rise of Skywalker. As I mentioned before, I once had a contact inside Bad Robot (she no longer works there) and she told me that when Abrams went to the premiere, the movie had been changed since his final edit and nobody told him. So he was furious. I get the feeling that was the worst professional experience of Abrams’ life, which is probably why we haven’t heard from him. Still, 5 years is a long time to disappear for someone of Abrams’ stature.

He’s teaming up with my buddy Glen Powell. I say “buddy” because, of course, Powell was in the film, “Anything but You.” “Anything but You” also starred Sydney Sweeney. Sweeney and I are tight in that I was a fan of hers before everyone else. So, by association, Glen is my friend.

I have to say I like this team-up. Powell is making a movie, Twisters, that I thought couldn’t possibly work. But it looks cool. So maybe he is the next Tom Cruise like everybody is saying he’s going to be. We don’t know yet what the Abrams movie is about. But I’m just happy he’s back. He needs to work again!

Finally, they’ve announced more Lord of the Rings films, the new ones built around the character of Gollum. Good idea? Look, these studios are scared. And when they’re the most scared, they turn to the IP that made them the most money. They don’t care if it makes sense to add more films to the franchise. They just know it’s a better bet than going with something original. Cause original is the unknown. And the unknown is terrifying. That’s why IP is a blessing and a curse. With that said, I suspect these films will be better than the Amazon Rings series.

Oh, one more thing. Check out the interview Anna Halberg and Spenser Cohen did over on The Hollywood Reporter. Both these two have been huge supporters of Scriptshadow throughout the years. Anna was actually instrumental in getting Alex Felix’s Where Angels Die made (as “The Gateway”). They have a new horror movie out called, Tarot. :)

Have you been struggling with your dialogue? I have over (that’s right, OVER) 250 dialogue tips in my new book, “The Greatest Dialogue Book Ever Written.” You can head over to Amazon and buy the book, right now!

By the way, I still have one discounted script consultation available. 40% off. You want notes that are going to be a game-changer for your screenplay?! First person who e-mails me gets it! Carsonreeves1@gmail.com

Week 1 – Concept
Week 2 – Solidifying Your Concept
Week 3 – Building Your Characters
Week 4 – Outlining
Week 5 – The First 10 Pages
Week 6 – Inciting Incident
Week 7 – Turn Into 2nd Act
Week 8 – Fun and Games
Week 9 – Using Sequences to Tackle Your Second Act
Week 10 – The Midpoint
Week 11 – Chill Out or Ramp Up
Week 12 – Lead Up To the “Scene of Death”
Week 13 – Moment of Death
Week 14 – The Climax
Week 15 – The End!
Week 16 – Rewrite Prep 1

Writing is rewriting.

That’s what they tell us, anyway.

I think of writing more as problem-solving.

You write a script. You read it back. There are parts of it you don’t like. Now you gotta figure out how to fix those parts.

Usually, one of three things happens when you write a script.

The first is that you write something very close to what you imagined the script would be. This is the ideal situation and requires the least amount of rewriting.

The second is that the script becomes something different from what you imagined. You realize that this new direction is more interesting and your rewrites focus on detouring the script towards this new idea. The first draft of The Sixth Sense was about a kid who paints images from the future. It obviously became something much better than that.

The third is that your script becomes something different from what you imagined but you DON’T like this new version. This can happen because a script is a living breathing thing. It wants to take you where it wants to take you. So it’s very easy to lose control of it. In this case, your rewrites work to get the script back on track.

Regardless of which of these issues you run into, your job is to troubleshoot what the main problems are and then write up a plan to fix them. I’m partial to creating an outline for rewrites. I like the guidance that they give me. You can rewrite off memory and feel but, in these early stages, when you’re on your first or second draft, there are so many issues with the script that it’s advantageous to give yourself as detailed a fix-it-up guide as possible.

After last week, you should have identified the major problems in your script. When it comes to script problems, there is a hierarchy of the worst problems you can have. These are problems that, if they are present in your script, it’s going to be a loooong rewrite process. In some cases, it may be a rewrite you don’t want to do. These top things are…

Conceptual problem – This is the hardest script problem to fix in the business. If your concept is weak or isn’t working, the only way to fix it is to come up with another concept and rewrite the entire script. A good example of this is Megalopolis, the upcoming Francis Ford Coppola movie which I did a script review on years ago. The concept is so confused and nebulous that the story never knows what it is. Which is why everyone who’s seen the movie has hated it.

A boring main character – This is the guide who’s taking the reader through your story. So if we don’t like him, or don’t care about him, or don’t find him compelling in some way, it doesn’t matter if you have a great concept and a great plot. We won’t care. And the thing with character problems is that they’re very hard to fix. Because characters are based on people and people are complex. So there is no perfect recipe to create a character people love. Believe me, Hollywood has tried. I’ve helped writers through rewrites where we’ve tried 10 different versions of a character that wasn’t working and none of them fixed the character. So this one is, indeed, a toughie.

Weak structure – The main thing that good structure provides is an ENGINE underneath every section of the story so that the story always has pace. The second your structure weakens, the reader will find it difficult to stay interested. They won’t feel like there’s a reason to keep reading. This happened with a script I consulted on not long ago where the story’s major question was resolved at the end of the second act. So then why do we need to keep reading the third act?

If you’re dealing with any of these things, it’s going to be a tough rewrite. But, as long as you know what the problem is, you can start putting effort towards solving it.

To give you an idea of some other problems you may encounter, here is a list of script problems from consultations I did this year…

1. A weak villain.
2. A major character who doesn’t tonally match the rest of the screenplay (all the other characters are operating in a drama while this character is operating in a thriller).
3. The writer makes the path way too easy for their main character, giving them no major obstacles to overcome. This results in very little drama.
4. Little-to-no setup. We’re thrust into the story before we know or care about any of the characters.
5. (Specific Example) Two characters know each other well. Years later, one of them is going to try and con the other. He gets plastic surgery so he doesn’t look like his former self. They then spend hours upon hours together for the con and, somehow, the mark never suspects that this is his old friend he used to know.
6. Script lacks detail and specificity in both the world and the characters, leaving the story feeling thin and surface-level.
7. Doesn’t exploit the uniqueness of the concept enough.
8. Major moments lack authenticity. They all feel artificially manufactured rather than something that would happen in real life.
9. Script covers way too many characters and subplots, leaving no time for the plot to move forward, resulting in a slow stale narrative.
10. Script follows only two characters on a repetitive journey, so we get restless quickly.

As you can see, there are tons of issues that can pop up in a screenplay. I can’t go over every major one and tell you how to fix it. That would make this a 250,000 word post. But I can take you through the big three.

Conceptual problem – You usually can’t fix this. Which is why I tell writers to get logline consultations from me BEFORE THEY WRITE THEIR SCRIPTS (Just $25 – e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com if you want one) so I can save them a lot of time. A conceptual problem is a page 1 rewrite so just make sure that if you *do* adjust your concept that, THIS TIME, you get confirmation from other people you trust that it’s a good movie idea. I’ve watched writers spend, literally half-a-decade trying to make a script work that will never work due to its weak concept.

Boring main character – The most common reasons for a boring main character are that they are PASSIVE and they have LITTLE-TO-NO PERSONALITY. So start by making them more active. And then give them some personality. Make them funnier, more intelligent, more eccentric, more polarizing, more conflicted, stranger. Too many writers overlook personality when it comes to their protagonists. Don’t be one of them.  But honestly?  Audiences LOVE active characters.  So just making your character more active can accomplish a LOT.

Weak structure – Make sure your major beats are happening where they should. In a 120 page screenplay, the inciting incident happens on page 15. The first act break at 30. The midpoint at 60. The second act break on page 90. From there, make sure there is always a GOAL, PROBLEM, MYSTERY, or COMPELLING UNRESOLVED ISSUE driving each section of the screenplay. So, for example, if you’re bored reading your script on page 50, ask yourself, “Do my characters have a goal in this section? Or is there a mystery they want the answer for?” Or is there a problem that needs to be resolved? These are the things that create an engine underneath the story. If there are no goals, no mysteries, no problems, no unresolved issues… of course that section of your script is going to be boring.

So, your homework for this week is to write out your plan of attack for your rewrite. You can do this in a couple of ways. For those of you who hate outlining, just write up the 3-5 biggest problems in your script so that you can see those problems with your own eyes. If you want to write quick solutions to them, that’s fine as well. This “lazy man’s” outline approach can be confined to a single page.

For the rest of you, I would try to write up a detailed outline for how you’re going to fix this thing. You can divide this up however how you want. For example, you can say, “Pages 1-15” and then write out what you’re going to do inside those pages to address the problems. Or you can get really detailed and break it down by individual scene. Then write out what you need to do in that scene that will address the script issues that you have.

Here’s a snippet from an old novel outline I wrote up (a missing girl narrative). It’s not going to make sense but you can see how detailed I get.  The different color text is to visually keep track of a subplot.  When you write a novel, you’re dealing with 100,000 plus words so it’s infinitely harder to track everything.  You should be happy you only have to manage 20,000 words!

The more you have written down, the more ready you’re going to be for the rewrite. Cause next week, we start writing again. So this is your last chance to get all your thoughts together. And, by the way, the Mega Showdown where you’ll be able to enter this script is going to be on July 25th. So we’re going to be moving through this rewrite pretty quickly.

All right, get to work!  Oh, and please share your own tips and tricks for rewriting in the comments!

“Pop Quiz. You’re been told by two Hollywood stars exactly what they want to make next. You’re a screenwriter capable of writing an action thriller. What do you do? What. Do You. Do?”

Genre: Thriller
Premise: Confined to “the nest,” a Secret Service Sniper gets a strange call on the radio from a deranged mastermind who’s holding his family hostage in a box suite during America’s biggest game– The Super Bowl.
About: Despite the surface-level concept, this script finished very high on last year’s Black List, with 17 votes.
Writer: Aaron Benjamin
Details: 106 pages

We talk a lot about how to sell a script and get it made on this site.

The most consistent advice we give is: Write a great script.

And that’s true. If you write a great script, Hollywood is your oyster.

But what if you’re not a great writer and can’t write a great script? Well, in that case, you have to be more strategic.

A little-talked about way to sell a script and get a movie made is to GIVE A HOLLYWOOD PERSON THE EXACT SCRIPT THEY WANT.

You know that movie, No Hard Feelings, with Jennifer Lawrence? You know how that movie got made? The writer was friends with Jennifer and watched her fall down laughing when she read the real-life advertisement where parents were hiring someone to sleep with their virgin son.

That writer, Gene Stupnitsky, went home and, unbeknownst to Jennifer, wrote a script about that advertisement. And of course Lawrence agreed to star in the movie. She’d basically already told Gene that she loved the idea.

You see, the main reason why people in Hollywood are able to get movies made while you’re stuck in your apartment twiddling your thumbs to the beat of the latest Taylor Swift album, is that they HAVE INFORMATION.

They know what every bankable actor and director in Hollywood is looking for. So they can tailor the scripts they send to these people. Whereas, with you, you’re just shooting bullets in the dark. You may envision Tom Holland as the PERFECT star for your skydiving script. But you have no idea if Tom Holland likes skydiving. You’re literally throwing pages into the wind.

It’s so unfair. That they know what you don’t know. It gives them a gigantic advantage.

BUT! Every once in a while, Hollywood will tell you EXACTLY what it wants. And Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock just told y’all they want to work together again, particularly if they’re given a great Speed 3 script.

So there you have it! Go write Speed 3.

Today’s review is inspired by this Hollywood gift. Not because it could be Speed 3. But it’s very much in that 90s vein of fun thrillers with over-the-top villains. Let’s find out if the script is a Super Bowl winner… or a Super Bowl loooooooooser….

40-something Secret Service sniper, Jackson Hackett, is an American hero. He’s just shot a would-be assassin who tried to kill the president of the United States. And he’d be happy… if he didn’t just learn he’s got early-onset Parkinson’s!

One year later, Jackson has been hired for his farewell job – to occupy “The Nest” – a small room in the top level inside the Super Bowl stadium. He must shoot anyone who’s causing a deadly ruckus. What he’s about to find out is that HE will be the ruckus.

Oh, I forgot to tell you. Jackson’s ex-wife and deaf daughter are at the game. As is Jackson’s sniper partner and cousin, Bobby. But when Bobby heads off to the bathroom, he doesn’t come back. And that’s when Jackson gets a call on his headset from this dude named Gordon Webb.

Gordon has taken hostage one of the suites where he’s kidnapped Jackson’s ex-wife and kid. Gordon explains to Jackson that he’s working for him now. He’s going to be asked to kill someone and, if he doesn’t do it, he can say bye-bye to his immediate family.

Jackson tells his partner, Agent Kiera, what’s going on and the two begin a low-key investigation into who this Gordon Webb is and what he’s planning to do. After a while, we learn that Webb is here to kill a Saudi Prince. The Prince, who’s going to be down on the field during the halftime show, will be shot by Jackson in the most dramatic way possible so that the whole world can see it.

Jackson doesn’t want to kill anyone but Webb’s got him by the deflated balls. Not only has Bobby been killed by this point, but his partner, Kiera, is working with the baddies! The plan is that, after Jackson kills the Prince, he’ll be framed by the U.S. Intelligence to look like he did this on his own. Unless, that is, he can find a way to foil the plan!

Mine the things within your concept that can only happen in your movie. That’s what makes a script unique. That’s what makes a script clever. And that’s what Benjamin did here. He asked, “What’s the worst thing you can do to a sniper?” Well, something that would make his hands shake. So, Jackson is diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

That’s good, right? By creating an obstacle that directly disrupts our hero’s “power,” you’re doing something you can only do in your script.

HOWEVER.

You still have to assess the residual effects of each creative choice you make. Parkinson’s is a very traumatic sad disease. So, sure, you give your hero an obstacle unique to him, but you also place this sad umbrella over the story, since we know our hero can never recover from this.

As the screenwriter, you gotta ask, “Is that worth it?” Am I GETTING MORE from this creative choice than I’m LOSING from it? I think you’re losing more. And when you lose more than you gain, you have to abandon the choice.

Despite this misstep, I found the script to be better than I expected.

The moment I committed to the story – cause I was on the fence for a while – was when Webb told Jackson that Jackson would be killing people today. I’m a sucker for when good people are forced to do bad things. I just think it gets to the heart of compelling character conflict. Whenever the external action does not match the internal belief, you’re watching nuclear inner-conflict.

And it helped that Webb was a good villain. He wasn’t Dennis Hopper in Speed good. But I liked a lot of his dialogue. And he gets a lot of dialogue here.

Hey, isn’t there a screenwriting guy who can’t stop talking about the importance of dialogue-friendly characters in scripts? Who’s that guy again? OH YEAH IT’S ME! That’s what Benjamin did here. He created Webb, who can’t shut up. And, most of the time, we’re the beneficiaries of it.

The reason the script doesn’t finish higher than “worth the read” is because Webb’s plot wasn’t as interesting as it could’ve been. Who cares about some Saudi Prince? It felt like it came out of left field. We needed someone bigger in play here. Particularly because the opening scene in your script is the hero saving the president of the United States. A Saudi Prince is ten steps down from that in importance. You needed to come up with something bigger.

But look – this script is Randy Moss sprinting down the sidelines. It never stops to catch its breath. It’s very “spec-y” in that way and I found that energy to be enjoyable.

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

What I learned: The big downside to writing a script that could only be used in one scenario (you’re writing Scream 3 solely for Keanu and Sandra) is that if either Keanu or Sandra says no, your script is worthless. You can’t do anything else with it. Well, there’s a way around that. You write a script that’s CLEARLY Speed 3, but you title it something else (“Fast Release”), and change the character names. That way, if the script catches fire, people will send it to Paramount and tell Sandra and Keanu that they have the perfect script for Speed 3. But if those two pass, you still have a spec that could be made into another movie. You win both ways!