Genre: Thriller
Premise: A newly separated mother finds herself attracted to the 17 year old boy who moves in next door. But when she abruptly ends the romance, he’s not ready to give up on her.
About: The Boy Next Door was featured on this year’s Blood List. Barbara Curry is known for another highly acclaimed script titled “Talk Of The Town,” which was featured in UCLA’s prestigious Screenwriters Showcase Event. And there’s another thing about Barbara. She’s HOT! If you don’t believe me, go check out her interview here.  I am officially starting the Barbara Curry fan club. Who wants to join?
Writer: Barbara Curry
Details: 105 pages – undated (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

First thing I noticed about The Boy Next Door was how tight the spacing was. Hmmmmm. Barbara? Are you trying to pull one over on us here? It looks like someone got a little scrunchy with their First Draft settings. On any other day, I’d hold it against the writer. But today I’m smitten. So I’ll let it go.

High school teacher Claire Peterson is having a rough go of it lately. She’s recently split up with her hubby and is taking care of her teenage son, Kevin, all by herself. At home things are fine but she’s got a front row seat to Kevin getting bullied at school every day. She desperately wants to do something about it but knows that butting in will probably just make it worse.

Claire’s got her own issues as well. She’s suuuuuper uptight. Her best friend Vicky, a fellow teacher, is begging her to go out and have some crazy wild animal sex so she can loosen up. But Claire’s not ready for that yet. She may have kicked her hubby to the curb, but that doesn’t mean she’s not conflicted about it.

And then everything changes. A new family moves in next door, starring model-esque 17 year old Noah Sandborn. Noah looks more like a man than a boy, and he immediately befriends Kevin, making it nearly impossible for Claire to ignore him. Pretty soon he’s chatting her up and she finds herself taken by the muscle bound youngster.

Claire is a different person around Noah. She feels sexy, desired, lustful. One thing Claire isn’t feeling though is lawful. Cause one night when she’s drunk, she takes a spin on the Noah-mobile. Noah is thrilled with this development but when Claire wakes up the next morning, she’s in damage control mode. What the HELL did she just do??? She tells Noah that she’s sorry. This was all just a mistake, and does the dart-of-shame.

Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be a problem. But Noah lives right next to Claire. Noah’s best friends with her son. Noah sits front and center in one of her classes. In other words, wherever Claire goes, Noah is waiting. And he *really* wants to get back together.

Claire tries desperately to get her son to stop hanging out with Noah. But the guy’s become Kevin’s own personal bully-buster. That and there’s no perfect way to say, “Hey son. You know your best friend? I kind of had sex with him the other night. So could you ignore his texts?” I mean you thought the “birds and the bees” conversation was tough.

There’s probably a lesson to take out of all of this. Oh yeah: DON’T HAVE SEX WITH ONE OF YOUR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. But hindsight is 20/20, and Claire’s going to need more than a lesson plan to get out of this one.

The Boy Next Door is pretty good. I don’t think it’s going to knock anybody’s welcome mat off, but for what it’s trying to be – Fatal Attraction with a twist – it does a good job.

I will say this about the script. It’s PERFECT for studying dramatic irony. Once Noah and Claire have sex, virtually every scene contains some aspect of dramatic irony. In the classroom, Noah will press Claire on a question. Since nobody in the class knows what happened between them, their exchange is dripping with dramatic tension. At home, whenever Noah, Claire, and Kevin are together, Kevin is unaware of their secret, which means that each exchanged word is laced with subtext.

In fact, this script is further proof of how effective the “add a third person to the scene” rule is. Lots of scenes become more interesting once you add a third person (or people). I mean imagine Noah and Claire having that same conversation OUTSIDE of the classroom, without the rest of the class listening. There’s no more subtext. Imagine Claire and Noah having conversations without Kevin around. Those same electric scenes become dry and boring.

And I’m going to stay on my “unresolved relationships in your second act” kick here. Notice that there are TWO unresolved relationships in the movie. The first one is obvious. Claire and Noah. But we also have one between Claire and her husband, Gary. Claire needs to come to terms with what Gary did to her and decide whether she’s going to take him back or not. Barbara could’ve added a third unresolved relationship if she wanted – that between Claire and her son, Kevin. But she chose to keep that relationship fine.

Personally, I think three unresolved relationships is the perfect amount for your second act. There are 50-60 pages in your second act which gives you about 20 pages for each – the perfect amount of time. But it all depends on HOW much is going on in each of those relationships. If you have two REALLY POWERFUL relationships that have ups and downs and breakups and reconciliations, you may not need that third relationship. It’s up to you.

Another interesting thing to note about this script is that there’s no real goal. I’ve found that in these types of thrillers (The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, Single White Female) the train-wreck nature of the relationship is enough to drive the story. So there’s nothing big that Claire has to achieve here until late in the script, when she must scramble to fix what she’s broken. This is a little confusing, I know. But that’s how these movies work.

On the downside, I wasn’t a big fan of how easily Claire fell into Noah’s clutches. I mean he had her drooling from the very first conversation. Within like two scenes he’s asking her about her failed marriage and she’s chatting away like she’s at lunch with the girls. This is a 17 YEAR OLD BOY SHE’S TALKING TO! You’d think she’d show a little more restraint. At least initially.

I also thought people bumped into each other too easily in the story. It seemed like every other scene, one of our characters would magically BUMP into another one randomly. This is a little talked about area of screenwriting but an important one. You can’t just have characters bump into each other because you, the writer, need to have a scene between them. It has to be natural. You have to come up with seamless ways for them to meet. This is usually annoying work. It’s not creative and not very fun. But it pays off because it keeps your story seamless. If we become aware that the writer is manipulating the characters, the story spell is broken.

But overall, The Boy Next Door was fun and silly. A guilty pleasure of sorts. I had a good time with it and therefore recommend the read!

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

What I learned: In most movie romances, you want the pursuer to have to EARN the romance. This is a MOVIE. It’s no fun when anything lands in a character’s lap. You need conflict. Doubt. That’s what makes the romance (the pursuit) interesting. Here, Claire is ready to fuck Noah from the first moment they meet. That’s not very interesting. She probably should’ve resisted him more. Noah should have had to EARN the romance. Look at Titanic. Jack doesn’t just slide up to Rose and say, “Hey girl, nice hat,” and they’re banging in the boiler room 10 minutes later. He has to STOP HER FROM COMMITTING SUICIDE. I’d say that’s earning the romance.

A couple of weeks ago Sean O’Keefe sold his pitch, Riders On The Storm, to Fox for half a million dollars. The script is about a heist crew that pulls off sophisticated robberies during severe storms. I realized we don’t talk about pitching very much on the site, even though it’s a huge part of the business. Oftentimes, after you meet someone about your script, you’ll pitch them other projects you’re working on.  So I thought Sean would be the perfect person to ask, “What’s this pitching thing all about?”  Sean is also currently writing a film adaptation of “Apaches” for producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney Pictures about the NYPD along with writing partner Will Staples.  Enjoy the interview.

SS: Can you tell us how you got started in screenwriting? What was your background leading up to it? Did you do anything else film-related?

SO: I grew up between two isolated worlds – a cabin in Alaska with no running water and a draconian boarding school in England. As a result movies for me were always a way of feeling connected with the outside world. My final semester in college, I decided to write a spec based on Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and some family friends hooked me up with a meeting with veteran screenwriter Jay Cocks who had worked with Scorsese on “The Age of Innocence.” Jay told me I was crazy – Hollywood would never make it – so I let the idea go. Now, of course, Alex Proyas is making a film based on the material. It’s the same lessen I’ve learned a hundred times: follow your gut no matter what because it’s all you have.

After paralegalling in New York my first year out of school and writing two painfully bad scripts on my lunch breaks, I moved out to LA and worked in development first for Neal Moritz at Original Film then Michael Ovitz at APG, the film production arm of AMG. I then co-founded a film and video game production company called Union Entertainment with Rich Leibowitz.

Around that time, my father passed away and I spent a week in ICU waiting for the inevitable to happen. It turned out to be a period of reckoning for me. I realized you only have so much time to do what you want in life, so I made the choice to return to screenwriting.

SS: When was the first time you got paid to write? How many scripts had you written before you got that first paycheck?

SO: The first time I got paid was in 2003 with my former writing partner, Will Staples. We had gone out with a Mayan period piece spec (my fifth script at that point) that didn’t sell but was well received for the writing and two weeks later Sony called up and asked if we wanted to write King Tut for Roland Emmerich. We came up with a take, Roland and the studio liked it, and the rest is ancient history…

SS: I’ll be murdered if I don’t ask this question. But how did you get your agent?

SO: I was lucky in that in my capacity as a producer and exec I had dealt directly with a number of agents and managers around town. My agent, Nicole Clemens at ICM, and my manager, Brian Lutz, were both reps who were excellent at representing their clients when I was on the other side of the table. When it came time for me to devote myself to writing again, they were the first people I reached out to.

SS: In your opinion, what’s the most difficult thing about screenwriting, and what’s the best way to tackle that difficulty?

SO: Knowing that I am writing for an audience is the hardest aspect of the process for me. The moment I look up from the page and see the faces in the proverbial crowd – studio execs, agents, managers, other writers – I feel stage fright setting in. I start to second guess myself. I wonder if I have the right character for my story or the wrong story for my character. I fall into the trap of perfectionism. The trick is to write as if you are writing purely for yourself, but it’s easier said than done. Oddly, Donald Rumsfeld had some wisdom in this arena: “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want.” Eventually, you have to stop second guessing yourself and charge into battle.

SS: You’ve obviously been out there, talked to producers, have a beat on their needs. What do producers want these days? Are there some common genres they’re asking for? Do they want the “Next Twilight?” The “Next found footage” script? What are you hearing?

SO: Everybody thinks they want the thing that just performed at the box office but the truth is that they want the next great idea that walks through the door. Your job is to bring them that next great idea. I’ve never been very good at forecasting what the market wants and then tailoring my output accordingly. I run with the movie I most want to write and hope that others feel as excited about it as I do…

Disappointment, however, lurks around every corner in this process. That is why I have a personal rule of thumb, which is my ‘one in ten’ rule. That is for every ten swings at bat you connect with one ball. For every ten meetings or reads, someone connects with what you are trying to do. It’s fuzzy math, but it helps to keep your expectations in check. Not everyone is going to resonate with what you’re doing. But that’s okay – you only need one in ten to actually make real progress. Every studio passed on our Mayan epic, but one liked the writing enough to call us back in. That one call gave birth to our career.

SS: We were having this debate the other day on the site. Should an unknown writer try to break in with something heartfelt and personal to them – something that will bring out their best writing? Or should they write something high concept and marketable, even though they won’t be as emotionally attached to the writing?

SO: Stick with the cliché of writing what’s in your heart. It’s a cliché for a reason. But if it’s a big summer action movie that’s in your heart, then consider yourself lucky.

SS: If you could go back in time and give your younger screenwriter self some advice on how to get to the professional level faster, what would you tell him?

SO: Four things…

Write as much as you can. It’s all about clocking the hours and getting words on the page. In the Gladwellian sense you need to get in your 10,000 hours, so the sooner the better.

Write, rewrite, then move on. Don’t get stuck trying to overly perfect a script in the beginning. You will learn more from cracking a new story than you will from debating where to place your commas.

Avoid the Freshman Writer Trap. The problem is that in the beginning many new writers think they’re the next Robert Towne – and perhaps they will turn out to be – but it will likely take years to know. Don’t assume that you shit gold from the get-go. The likelihood is that your first few scripts will be abominations in hindsight (at least mine were). Humility will keep you open to constructive criticism and ensure that you are learning and progressing.

Run your writing career like a producer. Have a slate of projects – one or two that you are focused on at any point in time and the others that you continue to inch forward as the opportunity arises. Never have just one baby. This is Hollywood. There is no safety net. You need to have a Third World family of projects because sadly not all of them are going to survive.

SS: What is a pitch meeting and how does one go about getting one? Does an agent read your latest script and ask you to come in? Is it something your agent works to set up? Is it you having a previous relationship with the producers and saying, “Hey, I got this new idea I want to come in and pitch you?” How does a writer get one of these things!?

A pitch is a meeting where you make a verbal presentation of a story that you want to sell so that you can be paid in advance to write it as a script.

The three essential ingredients to a pitch are having a sample script that people already like, a story to pitch, and an agent to set the meetings.

Pitches can arise in two basic ways. First, you tell your agent you have a pitch you want to take out to the town and they set meetings with producers who then take it into studios where they have their strongest relationships. Second, a producer brings you an idea and you take it out to the town exclusively with them attached.

SS: With your recent pitch sale, were you going in to specifically pitch them this project – with both sides already knowing what you were going to pitch them? Or was it something that emerged during the course of the meeting?

SO: The pitch meetings were specific to this project, which is the way it typically goes down, but there are exceptions. For example, on “World’s Most Wanted,” a spy thriller we set up at Universal, the original pitch was about a Mexican drug cartel but the exec didn’t respond to the subject matter. He did, however, like the team-versus-team dynamic of the story and said if we could come with a new subject, he would be interested. So we did several weeks of research and found a real-life NATO team that hunts the world’s most wanted criminals. We went back in, employing a similar story with the new subject, and he bought it. It was proof that you can never tell which direction a project is going to break, but you’ll never know unless you try.

SS: Can you tell us how a pitch that leads to a sale works? Are they all different? Do they tell you right there in the room “yes, we’re buying this?” Or does it happen afterwards, once they’ve checked with their superiors?

SO: I dream of the ‘in room’ sale, and I know it has happened to others, but I haven’t been the recipient of that kind of spontaneous largesse yet. For me, selling a pitch has always entailed an agonizing wait – sometimes a few hours, sometimes a few days. Now that the studios have more leverage and they are more picky about what they buy than when I started in the business, they aren’t in the same real-time rush to respond that they used to be back in the glory days of the mid-90s spec market when high concept ideas with poor execution seemed to sell on almost a daily basis. Now execs seem more afraid of being left holding the bag on a project than they do being left out of a sale.

The truth is that very few people at the studio have the authority to buy a pitch without running it up someone else’s flagpole first. If you happen to be in the room with someone who can say ‘yes’ then you’re already doing something very right – in which case keep it up!

SS: People talk about different kinds of pitches. There’s the 5 minute pitch. The 10 minute pitch. And like the longer 20 minute pitch where you pitch the whole movie. I can’t imagine a busy producer able to concentrate for 20 minutes on any writer. Do you follow this formal time-specific pitch list or do you just do it your own way?

SO: I think it depends on where you are in your career as a writer and what the nature of the pitch is – i.e. are you pitching on a rewrite the studio has submitted to you, or are you pitching an original of your own. If it’s a rewrite, and your stock is high with the studio, you can get away with a more limited pitch – i.e. “Here are the three major problems with the existing script and here’s how I would address them.” Your presentation will then likely lead into a more informal conversation with the exec.

However, if it’s an original then your choice is more problematic and the decision to go long or brief depends on a number of factors… How established are you (i.e. how much does the studio already want to be in business with you)? If you are one of the lucky few hot scribes around town then you can probably get away with the ‘less is more’ approach. If not, you might want to incorporate more detail in your presentation. The risk is that you will lose the exec’s attention and give them more to pass on, but the upside is that if you do manage to hold their attention you want them to know that you have this story worked out in enough detail that you feel confident writing it.

Another factor to consider is what kind of story it is. If it’s a rom-com in a familiar setting like a wedding then you probably don’t need to sweat establishing the world in great detail. But if you’re pitching a sci-fi or action film that takes place in an original or arcane world, then you probably want to lead with an explanation of the setting of the story so the exec can better visualize what you are talking about and understand the consequences of your dramatic choices based on the rules of the universe you are drawing from.

However…if I had a gun to my head and had to give you an ideal pitch length, I would say 12 minutes. Beyond that any exec is bound to start wondering whether they’re going to have sashimi or the dragon roll for lunch.

SS: Can you give us any tips for nailing a pitch? It’s such a different art form from writing itself. What do you think the key is?

SO: You have to know your strengths and play to them, and by that same token know your weaknesses and try to avoid them or compensate for them. If you’re good with banter, then reduce the length of your pitch and put more weight on the Q&A with the exec where you respond to their questions and observations on the fly. If you feel more confident memorizing your pitch word for word and creating a more airtight presentation, then go for that. It’s a personal choice. No one size fits all.

In addition, try to get into the pitch itself as quickly as you can. Most execs are busy and under a lot of pressure. They’re only going to be able to listen to so much of you talk, no matter how enthralling you are. Dedicate as many words as you can in the meeting to your story, not how awesome your Cabo bachelor party was or that you just hit level 85 in World of Warcraft.

Lastly, make it personal. You’re trying to convince your audience that you have this story inside of you – that you’re going to burst if you don’t get it out, and that you’re the one person who can tell it. You have to walk into the pitch believing that you’re entering with a briefcase full of diamonds and that they’d be crazy to let you walk out with it. Only never carry a briefcase into a pitch…

Genre: Drama
Premise: Two old friends who’ve chosen very different paths in life reunite for a cross-country trip, only to get marooned out in the middle of the desert.
About: Kyle Killen is the writer of the top ranking Black List script of 2009, The Beaver. Killen, who had been at this screenwriting thing for awhile, famously gave himself 9 months to sell a script after his wife told him she was pregnant. If he didn’t succeed, he’d have to get a “real job” to support his family. He sold The Beaver with days to spare. He has since written the TV show Lone Star (which got canceled) and an upcoming series for NBC titled “Awake” about a family man who keeps waking up in different versions of his life. Scenic Route looks like it’s getting made soon.
Writer: Kyle Killen
Details: 8-04-11 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

I will say this about Kyle Killen. He has fans. There are people who absolutely love this guy. In a medium where there aren’t many original voices, people see him as one of the few who speak to them. I didn’t overly heart The Beaver (the script – haven’t seen the movie). But I’ll be the first to admit the voice was original. I’d never seen somebody combine that level of darkness with that type of humor before. It probably would’ve made a lot more money if Mel Gibson hadn’t hit his “Cuckoo” time of year right before release.

Scenic Route follows two former college friends, now in their late 20s, who are driving cross-country to rekindle their friendship. Or I should say, Carter is trying to rekindle their friendship. Carter is a writer, which of course means he’s unshaven and a little overweight. Carter is the definition of an ‘artiste.’ He believes in suffering for your art. He believes in sticking it to the system. He believes in following your own path. Which is why Carter is broke and living out of his car.

Mitchell is the opposite. He once used to be like Carter. But that was back in college, when we were all like Carter (Oh man. I miss those days). Mitchell went and got married, got himself a respectable job, and now pulls down a 6 figure salary. Mitchell didn’t want to go on this trip, and all indicators point to him not wanting to hang out with Carter at all. If it were up to him, Carter would drift off into a faded memory, like everyone else from college.

Anyway, the two are driving along the “scenic route” of the Mojave desert when all of a sudden their car breaks down. Up until that point, they hadn’t been saying much, and that’s because Mitchell’s been sleeping. But now that crucial decisions need to be made, Mitchell has no choice but to talk to Carter. And that’s when the conversation begins.

Almost immediately, Carter starts attacking Mitchell’s life. He’s convinced Mitchell hates being married, hates his wife, and hates his boring 9-5 job. Mitchell shoots back that he’s being attacked for life choices by someone who lives out of his car.

And the two start arguing. And arguing. And arguing. And then talking. And then reminiscing. And then talking some more. And then arguing. And then a little more arguing. And that…my friends….is Scenic Route. It’s about two guy stuck on the side of the road arguing.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. Later on, some bad things happen and it looks like they’re going to be stranded out here forever. But really, this is a two-man show with a hell of a lot of dialogue. In other words, it’s the kind of script I tell you guys not to write. So why was Kyle able to sell it? Because his first script topped the Black List. And he got two TV shows made. And a lot of people think he’s the next great original voice. That’s why he was able to sell Scenic Route. But let’s pretend for a moment that he didn’t have those successes. In fact, let’s pretend this script is from an unknown. Was it any good?

If you’re going to write a dialogue heavy script, you better be good with dialogue. Kyle Killen is pretty darn good with dialogue. I mean he’s no Tarantino but the discussions here, the way these two interact, the rhythm, the sentence construction, the subject matter, the word choices – definitely better than most of the scripts you read. And just to pimp one of my articles from a few weeks ago, the main thing that’s fueling this dialogue – making it work – is the conflict between the two characters. Not only do these guys disagree on just about every possible way to live, but there was conflict even before they started talking.

At the heart of every movie needs to be one or several unresolved relationships – relationships that start off looking like there’s no possible chance they’ll ever be resolved – but then over the course of the movie, common ground is found. If you aren’t trying to fix relationships IN SOME WAY, there’s a good chance your second act is going to be borrrrrrrr-ing.

Obviously, this entire movie is built on the unresolved relationship between Carter and Mitchell. These two drifted apart over the years and Carter isn’t happy about it. He wants to bring this friendship back together. And there, my friends, is the goal. Carter wants his friend back in his life. That’s what he’s trying to accomplish. But is it enough?

Usually, movies use a more dominant “plot goal” to form the bulk of the entertainment (40 Year Old Virgin is to get laid, Karate Kid is to defeat the bullies, Stand By Me is to find the dead body) and the relationship goal is secondary. So without that added security blanket, Scenic Route gambles that its unresolved relationship will be enough to entertain you.

Luckily, Kyle makes the wise decision to hit on a theme that resonates with a lot of people. “Take the safe route in life or follow your dream (the ‘scenic’ route)?” Pretty much everyone has a strong opinion on this and it’s something that resonates with creative people in particular, as we often struggle with our choice to give up the safe existence to follow a dream that has no guarantees, that’s dependent on a talent we may or may not have. For that reason, a lot of the conversation here (Is a six-figure salary worth a boring predictable life?) resonates.

But let’s not ignore the obvious. There are lots of “scenes of death” in this script. It’s the reason why a large majority of people, specifically mainstream audiences, will avoid this film like the plague. If they were to stumble into this theater by accident, they’d probably keep waiting for something to “happen,” and be baffled when nothing did. The art-house crowd is a little more forgiving in that department so they might go with it, but I’ve already received e-mails from people saying about Scenic Route: “It’s two fucking guys talking for two hours! Nothing happens! Most boring script ever!” And that’s a fair argument.

However, you’ll notice that the script picks up when something happens to one of the characters late in the screenplay. It’s the most exciting part of the story and the reason is, there’s finally a clear goal. Character A has to figure out what to do with Character B. This is why I preach goals so much. Whenever you add one – whenever there’s something a character DESPERATELY NEEDS TO ACHIEVE, the story almost always picks up.

I would never recommend writing a script like this. And I completely understand anyone who hates it. But there’s just enough energy and uncertainty to keep the average patient person turning the pages. Scenic Route has some sort of X-factor going for it – a unique trait I can’t quite put my finger on. I wanted to find out what happened next, which is why I found this worth the read.

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

What I learned: A simple way to build an entertaining unresolved relationship is to have one person want something in the relationship (usually to fix it) and the other person to resist. Now you have conflict. Now you have entertaining scenes whenever the two are together. Cal desperately trying to get Rose to love him in Titanic. Mickey Rourke desperately trying to earn his daughter’s trust again in The Wrestler. Ethan Hawke trying to get Denzel Washington to like him in Training Day. That’s the method used here in Scenic Route and it’s used well.

Genre: Drama/Thriller
Premise: A missionary moves his family into a third world town, only to find that the locals in charge don’t want him there.
About: This is our first ever REVISITING of an Amateur Friday script! — Every Friday, I review a script from the readers of the site. If you’re interested in submitting your script for an Amateur Review, send it in PDF form, along with your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted in the review (feel free to keep your identity and script title private by providing an alias and fake title). Also, it’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so that your submission stays near the top of the pile.
Writer: Karl Larsson
Details: 109 pages

As long time readers know, Karl is one of the best commenters on the site. I don’t know if there’s anyone better at suggesting creative fixes for the scripts I review. What’s surprising is that Karl has only written one script himself – this one – which I reviewed on a previous Amateur Friday. No doubt his University Of Scriptshadow degree has helped him break down screenplays intelligently, but it’s still impressive that someone with so little screenwriting experience is this story savvy.

The consensus on the previous draft was that the writing was good but the story wandered, jumping back and forth between different times and places for no discernable reason. So Karl took our comments to heart and went back for an almost Page 1 rewrite. I thought it would be fun to see how that rewrite went.

My prediction for the rewrite was this… I knew Karl would give us a better draft. But I also assumed there’d still be problems. Screenwriting is like flying a plane. You don’t know how to get out of a tough situation until you’ve experienced it firsthand. If you’ve only written one script, you can’t possibly know your way out of every problem. Couple that with non-commercial subject matter, and I knew it would be tough. So, with that in mind, off to the review.

In this new version of Blood and Fire, just like the last version, Shane Rider is a Captain in the Salvation Army. He’s just arrived with his family in Belize, where he plans to set up a church and spread the word of God to the locals. He encounters difficulty almost immediately when he finds a local cop, Fitzroy, blocking the main road. We don’t know why, but we get the sense this guy’s not on the up and up.

We’re proven right soonafter when Fitzroy and his brother kidnap and prepare to rape a local girl. When Fitzroy leaves to take care of something, Shane catches the brother with the woman and shoots him. The woman says there was another man, and the hunt is on to find out who. Problem is the person they’re reporting this to is Fitzroy, the OTHER MAN.

In retaliation for killing his brother, Fitzroy burns down Shane’s church. Ironically, the church happened to be where his brother stashed a bunch of drug money. Naturally, the drug lord who was owed this money is not happy. So what does he do? He storms into town and takes over the school Shane’s wife teaches at. He’s going to hold everyone there hostage until Shane gets him that money (being that it was his church that the money burned up in). So Shane has to rob a bank to get the money, or potentially lose his family.

Let’s start with the good. The second half of this script is ten times better than the previous draft of Blood and Fire. Once the drug lord comes in and takes over the school, this screenplay really picks up. We are in genuine fear for Shane’s family’s life.

I also liked Fitzroy. There’s no character more fun to root against than a villainous corrupt cop. And Fitzroy plays that roll to a T. When he kidnaps Chloe, Shane’s daughter, you just wanna burn the guy at the stake.

I also liked how in this version, Shane is forced to team up with Caron, the bad guy from the previous draft. I love when characters who hate each other are forced to work together because there’s so much inherent irony and conflict in the partnering. These two should not and cannot work together and yet they have to. Loved it.

And overall the script was just more focused. That was the biggest improvement. We weren’t jumping all over the world and flashing back to places. The story was more centralized, which made a world of difference.

My big problem with Blood And Fire Part 2: The Rewrite was that the first half of the script was way too slow. There simply wasn’t enough going on. And when there was something going on – such as the early Almost Rape scene – it didn’t seem to matter enough to the story. I kept waiting for a direction to emerge and eventually one did (with the school hostage scenario) but by that time, I’d sort of given up.

Let’s start with the first scene – Shane’s family on a plane. What happens in this scene? Absolutely nothing. Zip. Zero. There’s a brief moment where Shane gets mad at his daughter for something trivial but that’s it.

Let me explain why this uneventful scene is such a problem. Your opening scene is the VERY FIRST SCENE A READER GETS TO JUDGE YOU WITH. And believe me, they’re judging you. One of the worst things you can do then is give them an opening scene where nothing interesting happens. Because what that says to them is: “This writer doesn’t know how to write an interesting opening scene. So how is he going to write an interesting movie?” That doesn’t mean start with an action scene. But it means give us SOMETHING, ANYTHING of interest, intrigue, mystery, surprise. Make us curious. Make us care. All that’s happening here is people sitting on a plane.

True, afterwards we get this scene of a Mexican Drug Lord killing a guy, but that scene didn’t work for a completely different reason, mainly that it was too cliche. Boss Drug Guy kills Lesser Drug Guy. How many times have we seen that in movies? A billion times? Our boss even has a “scarred and pocketed” (pockmarked?) face like every other really mean Mexican drug dealer. It doesn’t resonate. In Wednesday’s review of 2 Guns, we start out with a similar scene but there we have chickens buried in the dirt for target practice. We have a guy standing up to a drug lord over bad passports. The setting was familiar. But the details were different – giving the scene a unique flavor.

But let’s get back to that plane scene. You can occasionally get away with a scene like this IF you’re telling us something interesting or relevant about the characters. This scene tells me nothing about the characters other than that Shane’s daughter is a typical rebellious teenage girl. And since she plays so little into the plot anyway, that means we spend the only bit of character development in this opening scene on an irrelevant character. Nothing about the wife (who plays a much bigger role in the story) is explored at all. And really nothing about Shane is either. This is your main character! And you’re telling us nothing about him in his introductory scene!

We then get 8 character introductions in the first 2 pages. That’s 4 per page! We get something like 15-18 character introductions in the first 10 pages. If I didn’t know Karlos, and I had no connection or commitments to this script, I would’ve quit right there. You have 10 pages to hook a reader, to convince them that you have a story worth telling, and in that time you’ve given them a pointless plane scene, a cliché drug killing, a ride into town, and a family looking at their new house.

If you absolutely have to start with their arrival, this is all you need:

INT. 737 – NIGHT

Shane Rider, 43 (description – maybe a quick action to tell us something about his character) notices the approaching city out the window. He checks his watch and looks over his family, a wife and three daughters, all asleep.

END SCENE

Then a quick cut to them being greeted. Then a quick cut to them arriving at the house. Now we’re at the house by the end of the first page! A discussion between him and his wife before they go to bed – probably sneak in some exposition (why they’re here, the major conflicts they’re expected to encounter, an unresolved issue in their own relationship), and that’s it.

Then cut to them arriving at the church the next day. Introduce Fitzroy as a potential antagonist and you’re on your way. If you need to plug through some “mundane” stuff to start your screenplay – which I strongly discourage – at least do it as fast as possible to show the reader that you’re not going to waste their time.

Once the first 20 pages pass, the script picks up, but not enough. Things were happening (the almost rape, the burning of the church), but I wasn’t feeling anything. I didn’t care for some reason. And I thought long and hard about why and I came to the conclusion that I didn’t know the characters well enough.

This is going to sound contradictory to what I said above, but nobody spoke long enough for me to get to know them. Once we get the setup out of the way, somebody needs to talk about what the hell they’re doing here. But nobody says much of anything. We SEE these people adjusting to their new life, but there’s something very generic about it all. It’s a reminder that “show don’t tell” only works if those “show” moments really connect with the audience.

For example, I should’ve connected with Shane when he saved that poor girl from being raped, but afterwards he still felt like a blank slate to me, like there was nothing going on behind those eyes. I didn’t know the guy well enough. I didn’t know why he was out here. The ONLY member of the family I felt like I understood at all was Chloe because she was the only one who had a clear angle (not wanting to be here). Everybody else was so muddled in unclear motivations that they never rose above the page.

I think with a transition this big (uprooting a family and moving them to a whole new country – a dangerous country at that), the writer needs to clearly delineate why they’re here, who’s responsible, and what everybody’s feeling about the matter. The more conflict you can infuse into those opinions, the better. For example, I kept thinking this movie would work a lot better if Shane’s wife was against coming here. It’s not that she doesn’t want to help others, but maybe she thought it was important their daughters not be uprooted at such a young age. Or maybe she’s worried this place is too dangerous – which would be perfect foreshadowing for what happens later. Anything to create some tension and meat to this family. Outside of Chloe’s harmless pouting, everybody here was either too agreeable or too invisible.

I actually had some other things I wanted to get to but this review has gone on longer than I planned already. I wanted to get into the writing which I think is too mechanical. You want to keep your sentences short and to the point in a screenplay, yes. But if there’s no flavor, no flow at all, the writing starts to feel robotic and alienates the reader. The “voice” here is too mechanical. For an emotional screenplay like this, I think it needs to be warmer, more inviting.

So my big advice would be to speed up the first act here. Get into the story quicker. Then look for ways to connect us with these characters more, especially Shane. As I was coming to the end, it was hinted at that Shane had this really dark past, the way he was before he found God – and that he needed to draw upon that darkness, despite a promise to himself that he never would again, to get out of this tough situation. I LOVE THAT IDEA! But it wasn’t hit on hard enough. His past was still too vague to me. Which is consistent with how I felt about Shane in general. I just didn’t know enough about the guy.

I’ll try to share more thoughts in the comments but I want to say that despite my intense reaction, I just want Karl’s script to be as good as it can possibly be. This is definitely an improvement over the last draft. It was more focused and more contained. I just think we could focus and contain it even more. Oh, and I think you (Karl) should start a new script, whether you write it concurrently with this next draft or on its own. Even if you whip Blood and Fire into the best shape possible, the subject matter still makes it a hard sell. By writing something more commercial, you’ll have another bullet in your pocket and a better shot at breaking into this crazy industry.

Good luck! :)

Script link: Blood and Fire (rewrite)

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

What I learned: How one applies notes is what separates the paper clips from the brads. Writing the story in your head is relatively easy. But being told what’s wrong with that story and being able to come up with creative solutions to those problems requires a deeper understanding of the craft. For example, if a reader tells you, “Pages 30-60 were too slow,” you need to understand why they read slow and have access to the proper tools to fix that problem.

So you might add a ticking time bomb. You might cut an insignificant subplot. You might raise the stakes. You might add suspense. You might add a mystery. There’s a lot of different way you can make something read faster but if you don’t have the tools, if you don’t know which options exist, then you’ll probably just add an action scene, figuring that will make it “faster” (note: It will not – it will just give you a pointless action scene).