So here’s the scenario. You’ve just been told you’re going to die from cancer in six months. As you sit down and consider what’s most important (family, friends, etc.) you realize that the one thing you want to do before you leave this earth is sell a screenplay. That’s been your dream. If you can pull that off, you’ll die a happy man/woman. But where do you begin? If it was easy, you would’ve done it by now, right? Well, amazing things can happen when you have a literal ticking time bomb lighting a fire under your ass. The main reason you haven’t sold a script yet is because you haven’t maximized your chances. You haven’t skewed all the odds in your favor. Remember, all you want to do is sell a script. It’s not about “art.” It’s not about “staying true to yourself.” You just want to sell a script. With that in mind, I’m going to lay out the most likely plan for achieving this goal. In other words, this is what I would do if I were you.

6 months equals 24 weeks (roughly). Let’s break those weeks down.

WEEKS 1-4 – Come up with idea, maximize story potential, outline. 

1) THE IDEA – Here is the most important choice you will make in this entire process because it’s going to MAXIMIZE YOUR READS later on. The more reads you get, the better chance you’ll have of selling your script. You need to come up with a high concept easy to understand idea that you can see 13-25 year olds racing out to the theater to see – Think big. Aliens. Time-travel. Gladiators. Car racing. Dream heists. Dinosaurs. Super-heroes. The apocalypse. Killers with masks. Big ironic comedy situations. Mythical creatures. Ghosts. Monsters. Nazis. Lower budgeted versions of these ideas will give you more potential buyers, but if you’ve got a really great high concept idea, don’t worry about the budget. — Now there are some things I want to mention here. Make sure you’re INTERESTED in the subject matter. If you’re a vampire fan, don’t write about aliens. Write about vampires. Even if we’re just writing this to sell, your love for the subject matter must come through on the page. People can smell a cash grab, which may be what this is. But if you love your cash grab idea, it’s going to read a lot better than if you don’t. Next, the idea has to be clever or unique in some way. It can’t be “Aliens land on earth and start destroying things.” We’ve seen that before. “The Days Before,” a spec that sold a couple of years ago, had aliens jumping back in time a day at a time to destroy earth. It was different. Your idea has to be different. Finally, TEST DRIVE YOUR IDEA. This will be one of the most IMPORTANT STEPS YOU’LL MAKE IN SELLING YOUR SCRIPT! Mix up your idea with ten others (find other loglines from Scriptshadow or Tracking Boards) and have your friends rank them. If your idea doesn’t consistently finish near the top, don’t write the script. Come up with another batch and start over again. I know time is ticking but I can’t stress how important this part of the process is for later.

2) CLEAR STORY – I would make sure that this is a clear easy-to-understand story. A hero with a CLEAR GOAL he DESPERATELY WANTS TO ACHIEVE. Indiana Jones going after the Ark. Marty McFly trying to get back to the future. Colter trying to find the terrorist in Source Code. Note that this doesn’t mean “dumb your story down.” I don’t think anyone would call Raiders or Back To The Future “dumbed down.” It just means not having 7 different subplots winding around a murky narrative. Hero desperately trying to achieve something and shit gets in his way. That’s the structure you want you to go with.

3) MAIN CHARACTER – I would have an interesting male main character. Remember, a big actor has to want to play the lead role. That means the role should be juicy and in the 28-45 age range. Have some conflict going on inside of them. Neo doesn’t believe in himself. Denzel in The Book Of Eli (a big spec sale from a first timer) is afraid to get close to others. Make sure there’s something – it doesn’t have to be game-changing – but SOMETHING the main character is battling. Because one of the first questions the producers will ask is, “Who can I cast in this role?”

4) KEEP IT EXCITING – Make sure something interesting and/or unexpected happens every 15 pages or so. 110 pages is a lot of white space and watching one character try to do the same thing for 2 straight hours is boring. So unexpected things need to happen along the way to mix it up. Have your main character die (Source Code), get caught by the Germans (Indiana Jones) or get to his destination only to realize it’s no longer there (Star Wars). If something interesting or unexpected or surprising or stake-raising doesn’t happen every 15 pages or so, your script is probably getting boring.

5) OUTLINE – Outlining saves you rewrite time later. All of the things I listed above (clear goal, interesting main character, something happens every 15 pages), you’ll only be able to do because you’ve outlined. Get yourself a good 3-10 pages to work with and make sure all the major story beats are covered. It’s okay if you don’t have all the details figured out. As long as you know where you’re heading, you’ll be fine. No outline and no direction will equal a wandering storyline. We can’t afford that if we’re going to sell this puppy.

Weeks 5-10 – Write The Script

6) WRITE – I would write at least 8 hours a day. But because you’re dying, you should probably write even more. Also, because you’re dying, you’re not allowed those excuses you usually use. “Oh, I’m not feeling it. I’m going to take the rest of the day off.” Or, “Maybe I should go watch a movie to get some inspiration.” You’re dying. Every second is valuable. You have to WRITE. And you know what? It shouldn’t be hard. You’ve already outlined. So you know where your script is going. If you run into a tough scene, switch over to a later scene. Doesn’t matter if this isn’t the way you usually write. YOU’RE DYING. You need to maximize your time. ABW. Always be writing!

Weeks 11-15 – Feedback and Rewrite

7) FEEDBACK – Afterwards, give it to a few friends/family. Now this is important. You need to convince your friends/family to be honest. A pat on the back does nothing for you. You need them to mean, cruel, heartless. Get them to tell you what works and what doesn’t work. They’re your friends and your family so they’re always going to be too nice, but I’ve found that if you ask them pointed questions, their true feelings start to come out. You’ll hear frustration, indifference, disbelief, impatience. So keep track of when those reactions come up and star those parts of the script as problem areas.

8) REWRITE – I would love to have more than a month for my rewrite but time is running out man! The good news is we picked a clean narrative (a main character with a goal he desperately wants to achieve) so the fixes shouldn’t be too complicated. Isolate the big problems in the script. Come up with solutions. Start the rewriting. After you’re finished, polish it up and make it as easy to read as possible. No long paragraphs. An easy succinct style.

9) PROOFREAD – You may only have 3 months to live, but you’re not stupid. You’re not going to go all this way only to get your script rejected because of too many typos in the first ten pages. I don’t care how much blood you’re coughing up. Make that script as clean as a whistle.

Weeks 16 – 24 – Sell it

10) RESEARCH – This is the place where most writers fail. They have their script but no place to go with it. That’s why I’ve given you 8 weeks for this section. This is going to take some effort on your part and probably require you to do things you’re not comfortable doing. Well suck it up Sally. You only have two months to live. If you can’t face your fears now, when can you? To ease you into this tumultuous section, I’ll start with something simple. RESEARCH! Subscribe to IMDBPro (don’t sweat the 20 bucks, you can’t take money to the afterlife) and write down the producers names/companies who worked on every movie that’s ever been like yours in the last 10 years. Do the same with the Black List. Do the same with any spec sale that hasn’t been made yet. Find the producers who bought/worked on those movies and write down their phone numbers (IMDBPro has most phone numbers. Savvy googling should find you the rest). Your list should have somewhere between 100-300 names.

11) CONNECTIONS – Okay, we’re almost in the arena – where you’re going to fight to the death. It’s going to be unpleasant. So here’s one last area to prepare you. You need to call every single person you know and ask them if they know anyone in Hollywood who will read your script. Depending on where you live, this might be 3 people. It might be 20. And chances are, they won’t be Spielberg or Cameron. But they’ll be working in the industry. And if they like your script, they just might know someone else to pass it on to. So call these people up. Be excited. Thankful. Chatty. Don’t bring up your chemo treatments. Say that you’d love the opinion of someone who works in the business. Would they read your script? They’ll probably all say yes which will put you in the perfect mindset for the most difficult part of this entire process. So pump yourself up. It’s time to start calling all those numbers you researched.

12) COLD CALLING – Cold calling sucks. But guess what? You’re dying. Cold calling can’t be worse than that can it? You’re going to go directly to the producers here. You don’t have time to wait for agents. Now, pay attention, because cold calling is an art. You’re going to call these people and be upbeat, nice, cordial, energetic (but not TOO energetic) and professional. You’ll get the secretary, who will probably sound impatient, but don’t let that phase you. You have 199 other people to call if she stonewalls you. But she won’t. Because you’re going to keep this simple. You’ll say something to the effect of, “Hi, this is Jane Smith. Is Mr. Adams (the producer) in?” “May I ask what this is in regards to?” she’ll probably ask. “Yes, it’s about my script Act of Vengeance.” Depending on the status of the producer, you may or may not get through to them. A quick detail to remember. There’s a ton of turnover in these secretary jobs so this person is probably just as new to this as you. DO NOT BE INTIMIDATED.

13) PRODUCER CONVERSATION – I hope you don’t mind lying, because you’re about to. This is what you’ll say: “Mr. Adams. Hi, this is Jane Smith. You read one of my scripts awhile back and I have a new one I’d love to send over.” Now you may be afraid of getting caught in this lie. Don’t. Producers receive a TON of material. An endless amount. They can barely remember what they read last week, much less something they read two years ago. And they don’t read most of the scripts anyway. So there’s no way they can prove that you’re lying. If they press you, be vague. “Where do we know each other from?” “Oh we haven’t formally met but I sent my other script to your assistant a couple of years back.” If everything works out, he’ll say, “Sure, send it over.” But, he might say, “Yeah, have your agent send it over.” Don’t freak out. An important thing to know is that there are a lot of solid writers out there without representation or “between” representation. So just say, “Oh, I’m not represented at the moment. Is it okay if I get a release form from your assistant?” He might say yes, he might say no. But you should probably hit with at LEAST 30% of these calls. So if you call 200 producers – that’s 60 PEOPLE READING YOUR SCRIPT! And not just any people – but targeted people who make your kind of movie.

14) IF YOU’RE NOT A LIAR – Now if you don’t like lying (wimp), here’s an alternative approach. You’ll say: “Mr. Adams. Hi, this is Jane Smith. I just finished a script that I know your company will love. Can I send it over?” Don’t let any awkward pauses derail you. After collecting himself, he might say something like, “Have we met before?” Just reply, “No, not personally. But I know how much you love these kinds of movies and I really think you’ll like this. It’s about [recite your logline.]” And THIS is where all that hard work you did at the beginning will pay off. Had you gone with your passion project idea (a wheat farmer who’s been a victim of domestic abuse goes on a spiritual journey through Peru), you’d get hung up on. But because you test drove and went with an intriguing high concept idea, the first thing that will go through that producer’s mind is, “Hmmm, that actually sounds like it could be a movie.” “Sure, send it over,” he’ll say. If he says he can’t accept unsolicited material, ask if you can sign a release form. If he still says no, thank him for his time and hang up. Then, either right then or later, call back and talk to the secretary. Tell her it didn’t sound like Mr. Adams had time to read your script, but is there any way she could read it? Remember, these secretaries are desperate to move up. If they bring their boss an awesome surefire 300 million dollar box office hit, they’re set for life. Tell them you’ll be happy to sign a release form. They might say no but don’t sweat it if they do. Just go on to the next person.

15) STAY ON IT – Keep working the phones. Call people back. Remind people to read your script. 2 weeks is the industry standard for you to politely check in and ask if they’ve read your script yet. I didn’t realize how important this was until I started getting submissions myself. Even when I like an idea, I sometimes get bombarded with work and simply forget about it. A number of Amateur Friday reviews came directly from people reminding me about their screenplay. Keep doing this. Stay on top of it. You can’t get a yes unless they read it so you’ll have to remind them until they do. Even if that reminder is from your death bed!

16) CELEBRATE – You wrote something fun and marketable. The plot was clear. The story had enough twists and turns to keep the reader interested. The main character was perfect for a movie star. And you got it to enough people that it finally found someone who fell in love with it. You did it. You sold a screenplay. Now go party your ass off before you kick the bucket.

If I had no Hollywood connections whatsoever, this is the path I’d take without question. Now all you have to do is convince yourself you’re going to die in six months and write your script. Just make sure to send me 10% when you sell it.

Genre: Action
Premise: An undercover DEA agent and an undercover Naval officer, both unaware of each other’s status, decide to rob a bank, each for their own reasons, only to simultaneously double-cross each other afterwards, which ironically results in them having to work together to clean up the mess they created .
About: The writer, Blake Masters, is the creator of the TV show “Brotherhood.” He also developed “Law And Order: LA.” “2 Guns” is being adapted from a graphic novel. It will star Mark Wahlberg as one of the “guns,” but there is no word yet on who would play the other. There were rumors that Vince Vaughn might be interested, but I believe that was back when a different director was attached.
Writer: Blake Masters
Details: 117 pages – 9/17/09 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).

Don’t get me wrong about last week. Foxcatcher and Silver Linings Playbook were great. But they dealt with some serious ass subject matter. After topping them off with that abysmal monstrosity of a screenplay about the most boring serial killer in the world, I was on Serious Overload. I needed to take the Tickle Train back to Fun City. I needed some smiles dammit! Evidence gave me some. The Trade murdered them. Was 2 Guns a shot at rebirth?

So we have Bobby and we have Stig. Bobby’s the clever one, the guy who can talk his way out of anything. Stig’s talents lie solely in his shooting ability. He isn’t the kind of guy you want talking to anybody. Bobby clears this up when Stig expresses interest in helping Bobby negotiate a deal: “Stig, you and I are here to do business. Diplomatically. If closing this deal involved shooting the wings off a fly while driving on two wheels through a ring of fire, I’d be the one getting something to eat.” The two hustlers have worked together for months, and are on the cusp of their biggest deal yet – securing hundreds of fake passports from a dude named Papi, who I admit I just imagined as “Tuco” from Breaking Bad. If you don’t know who Tuco is, just imagine the scariest motherfucking Mexican drug lord possible.

The deal goes sour but our guys manage to get away and it actually turns out to be a blessing in disguise because when they’re crossing back into the US, their car gets raided by a very confused DEA team, who was sure they’d find a bunch of fake passports. Afterwards, Stig suspects Bobby may have had something to do with the raid (could Bobby be a DEA agent?), and the two break up.

During that time, we learn that Stig’s not Oliver Honest either, as he’s actually an officer in the Navy. Is anybody telling the truth here? After a series of events too complicated to explain, Bobby gets kicked out of the agency and the only way he can prove his innocence is if he robs a bank. I swear that makes sense within the context of the movie. I think. Actually that’s a lie. I’m not sure it makes sense at all. But anyway, Bobby eventually convinces Stig to team up with him to rob the bank.

Unfortunately, whereas they thought they were robbing 2 million dollars, they find out it’s more like 80 million dollars. Somebody lied about the loot! That’s only the beginning of their problems because when you rob somebody of 80 million dollars, that person tends to wanna find you. And the person in question is a mega-time drug dealer from South of the border who makes Papi (aka “Tuco”) look like a 2-bit homeless man trying to pass oregano off as weed. Now you may be asking, “How did they steal money from ‘someone’ if they were stealing from a bank?” Good question. I’m not clear on that either.

Eventually they learn that all of this money is tied back to the CIA…umm…somehow. Which means they’ll probably be coming after Bobby and Stig too. That means they have the DEA, the Navy, the biggest drug dealer in Mexico, and the CIA all coming after them. Only way to clear this up? Break into the central Naval base and obtain…errr… evidence that they’re innocent. To…umm…prove their innocence? I think?

We sure talk a lot about stuff that’s underplotted – about thin stories.  But it’s rare that we run into a script that’s overplotted – that has TOO much going on. I think all those years on Brotherhood and Law And Order may have convinced Masters that he had to jam a season’s worth of twists and turns into a single film. At one point it seemed like every other page had a twist.

All you have to do is read my synopsis to see it. I was never exactly sure what was going on. And when the reader doesn’t know why a character is doing something (isn’t clear on their MOTIVATION), it’s hard to emotionally invest yourself in that character’s plight. If motivations are unclear, by association so are stakes. It’s hard to grasp the consequence of someone’s actions if you don’t know why they’re doing the action in the first place.

Let me give you a prime example from the script. Once Bobby screwed over Papi, Papi stuffed 100,000 dollars in his bank account to make it look like Bobby was on the take so he’d get fired from the DEA. Bobby was fired, but knew that Papi had 2 million dollars in a local bank. He figured he’d steal that money to prove Papi had it, which would allow the DEA to nail Papi for tax evasion, which would in turn…prove that Bobby wasn’t on the take? Does that make sense to you? Even if it does, it sure is a lot of dots to connect.

That’s how I felt weeding through this one. I had to connect a hell of a lot of dots to keep up. And after awhile, my brain just checked out.

So then why did I still enjoy 2 Guns? Because the two main characters worked. There’s a great opening scene where they’re trying to get these passports from Papi, and Stig is over in the corner watching these henchmen shooting at live chickens who they’ve buried up to their heads. Stig is pissed that they’re hurting these defenseless animals (Characters who stick up for defenseless animals = likable) and lets them know it. Then there’s Bobby, who’s handed a bunch of crap passports by Papi, who then tells him that there’s no way he’s accepting these pieces of shit passports (Characters who stick up to bullies = likable). So we immediately like these two.

Also, there’s this ongoing gag where Stig is always trying to order Bobby pancakes whenever they eat. But Bobby hates pancakes. So Stig will order him pancakes and Bobby will have to run down the waitress and cancel the order. And Stig will ask him, “How can you not like pancakes? Everybody loves pancakes.” Which inflames Bobby even more. And you just get the sense that this relationship is REAL, that these two have a past. Whenever you allude to an issue between characters that’s been going on since before the movie started, it gives the audience the illusion that these two imaginary people have a real history together. Which makes them more real!

So this was a weird read. On the one hand, the plot was impossible to keep up with. On the other, the characters were funny and likable. I could probably go either way, but since I can see this pairing easily working on screen, I’m going to give it a “worth the read.”

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

What I learned: Limit the dots! I’m a big believer in motivation simplicity. The less dots we have to connect, the easier it is to understand why our hero is doing what he’s doing. Now sometimes the genre you’re writing in requires a lot of twists and turns – I get that – but they should never come at the expense of understanding the story. Breaking Bad has tons of twists. But I always know exactly why the hero is doing what he’s doing – he needs money to pay for his cancer treatments (I’m only on Season 2 – not sure if this will change later).

Genre: Comedy?
Premise: Based on a true story, The Trade documents a pair of pitchers on the 1970 Yankees who traded their wives.
About: This script landed high on the 2009 Black List, was purchased by Warner Brothers, and quickly got mega baseball fans Matt Damon and Ben Affleck interested. It’s written by Dave Mandel, who’s known mainly for a stellar TV career. He helped write tons of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes. He also wrote the huge spec sale “Eurotrip,” and most recently scripted the upcoming Sacha Baren Cohen vehicle, The Dictator.
Writer: Dave Mandel
Details: 125 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).

Let me start out by saying I’m a huge Dave Mandel fan. Eurotrip is a hidden gem of a comedy (“Scotty Doesn’t Know!!!”) and he helped write some of the best Seinfeld episodes ever (The Secret Code, The Wig Master, The Soup Nazi). He also co-wrote two of this season’s instant Curb Your Enthusiasm classics, “Palestenian Chicken” and “Larry Vs. Michael J. Fox.” So this guy has had me in stitches since the 90s.

Which is why this script confuses me so.

It’s never a good sign reading a comedy and you’re not sure if it’s a comedy. For the first 30 pages, I thought this might have been a light drama. And to be honest, I’m still not sure. The tone vacillates so wildly that I gave up trying to categorize it. I guess I’d call it a light comedy sorta drama?

The Trade is actually based on the real life story of 1970s Yankee pitchers Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich. Fritz is an overachieving underappreciated lefty playing on a lousy Yankees team. He’s married to his overly bossy wife, Marilyn, who’s turned him into a big pussy.

Then Mike, another pitcher (tagged “the next Sandy Koufax”) arrives on the team and everything changes for Fritz. Mike is free-spirited and weird and could care less about his own wife, Susanne. The two married in high school and as far as he’s concerned, he’s still living the high school life – not a care or responsibility in the world.

Mike quickly ropes Fritz into his partying ways, and the next thing you know Fritz is bedding ladies left and right. But that’s nothing compared to what happens next. When the men start double dating, it’s clear they get along a LOT better with each other’s wives than their own. One thing leads to another and soon they’re……well, they’re dating each other’s wives!

If only that were the end of it. Each man then FALLS IN LOVE with the other’s wife and they realize that the only proper thing to do is to SWITCH LIVES. So Mike moves in with Marilyn and Fritz moves in with Susanne. They even switch KIDS!

Unfortunately (or fortunately), after awhile, Mike starts freaking out about Marilyn’s controlling ways. He can’t handle it anymore. The problem is, Fritz and Susanne have fallen deeply in love. So Mike wants to trade back but Fritz doesn’t. News of this scandal soon leaks to the media, and the next thing you know all of New York is talking about it. The guys will have to resolve the conflict themselves or the Yankees will resolve it for them.

Okay, let’s be real here. The only thing that works about “The Trade” is the title. It’s clever. It’s perfect for a poster. It works.

Everything else?

I don’t know where to begin with this one. This is a 5 minute conversation piece stretched out to 120 minutes. There just isn’t ANY meat to this story.

My biggest issue with The Trade are the stakes. There are NO stakes here. None. Zip. Zero. If you don’t have stakes, you don’t have comedy.

What do I mean by that? Well, in The Trade, neither character has a problem with their wife being with the other man. So there are no stakes there. Also, it doesn’t really matter whether they get caught. I suppose they’d have some explaining to do. But it’s not like they lose their job. It’s not like either of them loses their livliehoods. They simply get made fun for a couple of weeks. Big freaking deal. They’ll get over it.

In the end, the scandal does, in fact, get them traded. But never once is the possibility of that threat conveyed DURING the screenplay – only after the fact. You never get the feeling that if they get caught, something bad will happen. So there’s NOTHING there. The situations are the same over and over again and because we know the trade isn’t going to hurt anybody, there’s nothing to lose. And if there’s nothing to lose, there’s no humor.

Look at the simplicity of Mandel’s “The Soup Nazi” Seinfeld episode. He establishes at the beginning that this soup is like CRACK to the characters. The characters will do ANYTHING for this soup. To lose (stakes) this soup would be the equivalent of dying. THAT’S why the scenes are so funny! When the Soup Nazi screams at them to move, they do it! Because they know if they screw up, they could be kicked out and never allowed to have their soup again. Something is at stake! We never have a scene in The Trade where anything important can be lost (minus the very end – which I’ll get into in a moment).

Another issue here is that the current standard for media scandals is about 1 million times worse than 1970. We have R. Kelly peeing on underage women. We have history’s best golfer – one with a squeaky clean family image no less – having sex with an endless number of hookers. We have celebrities popping out sex tapes weekly. Two guys on a baseball team playing wife swap just doesn’t seem like a big deal.

When you combine this with an unclear tone and unclear writing, it’s hard to find anything to grab onto. For example, there’s a moment where we find out Marilyn wears a wig. When it’s off, her hair is described as thin and disgusting. So I’m imagining a Cryptkeeper look. Then later in the script, she decides to go to a party without her wig and all the guys go gaga over her. Umm….what??? You’re telling me that women rocking the Cryptkeeper is attractive??? There were a lot of unclear moments like this in the screenplay.

On top of all this, there’s no goal! There’s nothing driving the story forward! And there’s no time-frame, no urgency. I admit there are instances where you can get away with only the G and U in GSU, or the S and the G, and in the rarest of circumstances, just one of the three. At least if you have a GOAL for your characters, your characters will be active. But to try and write a story where you have none??? Not a single one? It’s like a blind man going bird-hunting. I don’t know how you make it work.

Can The Trade be salvaged? I don’t know. But I know the first thing I’d do on the rewrite is make this trade MATTER. Make sure there’s danger present and that the audience UNDERSTANDS that danger. In other words, make it clear that if they get caught, their lives would be destroyed, uprooted, ruined. Make playing for the Yankees a bigger deal for both of them as well – a dream! Now they have SOMETHING TO LOSE if they’re discovered. Raise the stakes of this movie and the movie improves dramatically. From there, try to add some sort of goal (maybe one of the players is trying to meet a huge contract bonus? And that bonus is threatened by the problems this trade is causing?). I don’t know. But something. ANYTHING.

I’ll admit that when I heard about this script, I thought to myself, “How do you make an entire movie out of such a thin premise?” But it was a Black List script so I assumed they’d figured it out. Man, I was wrong. I would love to see Matt and Ben back onscreen together again talking about “cahs” and “bahs.” But they’ll have to gut this thing and figure out a new angle first.

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

What I learned: The only portion of this script that works is the last 25 pages. Why? Because SOMETHING IS FINALLY AT STAKE! Fritz and Susanne have fallen in love. We FEEL that love. We know they want to be together. So when the media crashes down on them and Mike wants his wife back, we actually feel someone’s pain – Susanne – because SOMETHING IS AT STAKE. Somebody in the script ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT SOMETHING and that something could be ripped away from them. This is how powerful stakes are in a script. Show that somebody wants something badly and then introduce the possibility of that thing being taken away from them. Whether it be love, a job, or soup. As long as you have stakes, you’ll have drama.

Genre: Thriller/Horror
Premise: At their ten-year reunion, a formerly bullied outcast decides to enact revenge on the cool kids who made his life miserable.
About: 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: Adam Zopf
Details: 116 pages (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).

Let me give you some background on this read. It was 10:30pm. I was preparing to read my Amateur Friday script for the week. Chose one with a good premise. 13 spelling mistakes by page four. Went back to the well. Pulled out the next one. I had to read the first sentence four times to understand it. Threw it out. Pulled out another one in which the writer promised it was better than famous movies A, B, and C. By page 5 I realized I’d drifted into a daydream about Uncrustables. I tried to keep reading but it was like swimming through bricks. There wasn’t a friendly sentence in the lot.

I considered the possibility that I was too tired to read and decided to call it a night. Then I thought, ehhhhh, maybe I’ll try one more, and begrudgingly picked up Reunion. It’s not that I didn’t like the premise. It was okay. But I’ve read a lot of these high school thriller scripts and they always end up being lame. Advanced Placement was a perfect example. And that was one of the BETTER ones. So I ain’t gonna lie. I was expecting bad things from Reunion.

My fears were verified almost immediately when I was barraged with these huge paragraphs in the opening pages (Adam, you gotta get rid of these). I was doing that thing where your head falls back against the chair, you stare up at the ceiling, and you plea to the Script Gods to make it end.

But then…a strange thing happened. My exhaustion started to dissipate. Those huge paragraphs? They evaporated like snow on a warm Spring day. The words started to flow together like chocolate and caramel. The characters, who at first seemed cliché and boring, started to grow on me. Most surprising of all, I wasn’t thinking about Uncrustables anymore. Which is just not possible once I start thinking about Uncrustables. When it was all said and done, I realized that I had just read the best Amateur Friday script I’d ever read on the site.

John Doe is your average 28 year old dude. Holds down a normal job. Lives a normal life. Type of guy you’d pass on a busy street and not think twice about. It so happens that John’s just received an invitation to his 10-year High School reunion. Although it’s not clear to us why yet, John looks like he’s been waiting for this invitation for a looonnnng time.

Jason and Maria are the perfect couple – high school sweethearts who never lost the spark for each other. Jason was the popular athlete and Maria the prettiest girl. These two also receive their reunion invitation, but while Maria’s thrilled to mix it up with all her old friends, Jason’s kind of moved on with his life. He’ll go, but only because Maria wants to.

They get to the banquet hall (not in the high school) and within minutes the gang is back together again. There’s Vicki, little Miss Perfect and former valedictorian. There’s Derek, the name you see in the dictionary when you look up “meathead.” There’s his meathead brother-in-arms Wes. There’s Quincy, the smart one of the bunch. Ryan, the face-man of the group. And finally the desperate duo of Molly and Claire. Never as popular as Maria or Vicki, yet 5 times as likely to abuse their power.

During the reunion, the group gets a mysterious invitation to continue the party back at the high school. They look at it as a spontaneous opportunity (just like they used to do in high school!) and head over there. It’s there that they find a big fat keg in the middle of the gym floor. They get to drinking but pretty soon find themselves woozy. They pass out, and the next thing you know wake up in desks with collars around their necks.

The P.A. system sputters to life and a mysterious man claims to have Meathead Derek with him. If they don’t follow his orders, Derek will be hurt. They of course think this is all a joke. But there’s something unsettling about the voice. He explains that the collars they’re wearing are a combination of poison and acid. If they try and run, they will die a painful ugly death. Hmmm. Now everybody’s getting worried. This IS a joke, isn’t it?

John reminds them of who he was in high school. Grossly overweight. 300+ pounds. And these guys let him know it every single day. They’d scream out “FAT PIG!” and squeal whenever he was nearby. Every day for him was a nightmare. And it was all their fault.

So he’s giving them a chance to redeem themselves. If they can tell him his real name, he’ll let them go. But until then, he’s going to put them through a series of “tests” so they can learn what it was like to live every single moment in fear.

We go from classroom to pool to woodshop to almost every location in the school, and each time, they’re tested. Sometimes the tests are as simple as answering questions. Other times they’re as complicated as swimming to the bottom of a pool teeming with piranhas. And John Doe is no joke. If you don’t do your job, you die. And members of the crew start dropping like flies. Will anybody survive this? Will they stop John Doe’s insane experiment? Or will he eliminate them all?

Okay, as I indicated before, I expected a really shitty script here. It’s just hard to make anyone believe in or care about a situation that’s so obviously manufactured. I mean, something like this would never happen in real life. So the challenge of getting an audience to suspend their disbelief is immense. Which is probably the biggest achievement here. Just the fact that Adam got me to believe in this scenario was amazing.

In my opinion, what made the script work so well is that I was torn between who I was rooting for. I mean we have this crazy psycho lunatic executing these innocent people left and right, and yet as the story goes on, and we learn WHY he’s doing this, we slowly start to root for John. I mean I’ve never experienced such an intense divide in who I was rooting for before – the “hero” or the “villain.”  I could make an argument for both sides.

And that doesn’t happen unless the character work is great. And the character work is just really strong here. John Doe is the kind of character you will continue thinking about for weeks after you finish this screenplay. Why? Well, because Adam decided to ignore one of those crusty screenwriting rules all of us screenplay enthusiasts preach: Avoid flashbacks at all costs.

Reunion THRIVES because of its flashbacks. It’s in these flashbacks that we experience John’s life in high school. We see his loneliness. We see what it was like for him going to school every day. People laughing at him. People calling him “Fat Pig” wherever he goes. And because Adam tells it in basically the first person, we feel like WE’RE the Fat Pig. We feel like WE’RE being made fun of. It’s a brilliant decision. Because we really start to identify with and understand John. And that’s where great scripts separate themselves – by creating complicated complex characters. John is KILLING people. So then why is there a part of us that wants him to succeed? Why is there a part of us that understands him? It makes us uncomfortable. It confuses us. It frustrates us. In other words, it makes us FEEL something. It makes us THINK about something. Most scripts just wanna make things explode. Which is why Reunion is so powerful.

I think what I liked best about Reunion though is that it never quite went how you thought it was going to go. For example, I just assumed the flashbacks were going to be a series of repetitive ventures showing us again and again that John got bullied. Instead, there’s an entire STORY within the backstory. There’s an arc. John actually has a heroic moment. The school actually falls in love with him. It’s stuff like this that really separates the men from the boys. If you can surprise the people who read everything, you’re doing a good job.

But it’s the last image of those flashbacks that will stay with you. It’s that moment that will have you thinking about Reunion long after you’ve put it down. It’s the reason you’ll find yourself rooting for John to take out the last of these hyenas, even though you know it’s wrong.

Now the script isn’t bulletproof. It does get sloppy in places and some of the choices are questionable. I was not a huge fan of the math scene. I understand that we have to start small and build up with each lesson. But it felt a little silly with them sitting at desks with their lives in the balance over a math question. And the piranha scene was a bit much. I mean, how do you even get several hundred piranhas into a high school without anybody noticing? It was silly.

That’s the challenge with this screenplay. It’s a situation that would never ever happen in real life. So anything that reminds us of that should be avoided at all costs. I understand the use of the pool. You need some cinematic elements to this and if everything is in a classroom, it will get stale. But there has to be a more believable way to use the pool. Maybe he weighs one of them down and they’re pulled to the bottom of the pool and have to be saved. I don’t know. But come on. Piranhas?

Other than that, I loved this script. Fat Pig is a character for the ages. And you know what? Not only is this the best Amateur Friday script I’ve ever read, but it’s something that could actually be made – be marketed. People would go see this I think. If you’re a producer out there, I would jump on this before it gets snatched up.

Script link: Reunion

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

What I learned: Tell a story with your flashbacks. I think the flashbacks that bother me most are the isolated ones. When they’re unconnected one-offs that serve as lazy ways to convey backstory. But when they’re their own story, each one building off the previous, then we’ll be looking forward to them. The backstory becomes a story in itself. This is one of the better ways to use flashbacks in my opinion.

I hope you don’t think you’re going to learn a lot about dialogue in this article. Dialogue is a constant battle for me. It’s something I don’t totally understand. The reason for this is that dialogue is the one aspect of screenwriting you can’t truly “break down.” You can’t divide dialogue into three acts. You can’t add a character arc to dialogue. You can’t give dialogue backstory. You simply write down the voices in your head. And while some people have interesting voices to draw from, others don’t.

The funny thing is, dialogue looks so damn easy from afar! In fact, it’s why most people get into screenwriting. They think, “I can write better dialogue than THAT!” So they dive in, write up 120 usually autobiographical pages (likely the crazy adventures of them and their friends – “Our life is just like a movie!!!”), show it to their inner circle, get a bunch of polite but suspiciously distant “I liked its” punctuated by one brave soul who’s willing to say what everybody’s thinking: “I don’t get it. It’s just a bunch of people talking.”

Ohhhh. You learn your first lesson. Dialogue actually has to have a POINT! It actually has to move the story forward. Why didn’t somebody tell me? Quentin Tarantino has ten minute scenes about Royals with Cheese. Why can’t I do that? Because you’re not Quentin Tarantino. You’re you. And “you” has to learn that within every scene of dialogue, there must be a purpose. In fact, you should be doing SEVERAL things with your dialogue at once. And that’s where we learn just how difficult dialogue is. Sure, if all you had to do was have characters talk, dialogue would be easy. Instead, there are five main things that need to be accomplished whenever characters speak. Let’s take a look at them.

MOVE THE STORY FORWARD – Every scene should have a point. It should be moving the plot along in some way. If a problem is introduced into your story and a scene goes by without the characters attempting to address that problem, guess what? You’re not moving your story forward. So when your characters are talking, make sure the majority of what they say centers around pushing their own goals and needs along. You do that, you’ll be pushing the story forward. If no one wants anything? If characters just talk about life and stuff? Your dialogue isn’t doing its job.

REVEAL CHARACTER – You want to use your dialogue to tell us more about your characters. Screenplays are short. They’re not like TV shows where you have hundreds of hours to delve into a character’s life. Therefore you have to sneak character development in wherever you can. Dialogue certainly isn’t the only way to do this, but it’s one way. If a character says he just spent three hours at the gym, that tells us he’s a workout freak. If a character always talks about his ex-girlfriend, that tells us he’s not over his ex-girlfriend. One of the big ways to reveal character through dialogue is to identify your character’s fatal flaw and keep hitting on it throughout the script. Look at Rocky. Here’s a character who doesn’t fully believe in himself. So we get a scene where he expresses fear at the idea of fighting Apollo. We get a scene where he nervously flirts with Adrian. We get a scene where Mick tells him he’s a bum. The dialogue is constantly reminding us that Rocky doesn’t believe in himself yet, which is a key part of his character.

EXPOSITION – Exposition is the worst. It’s hard enough to make dialogue sound good on its own. Now we have to waste it on logistical story elements every 8 minutes? It’s like trying to pick up a girl and then her disapproving friend walks up. The words just don’t come out as easily. This is why the trick with exposition is to simplify what you need to say and convey it in as few words as possible. Exposition is always going to trip up your dialogue a LITTLE bit. But at least this way you minimize the damage.

KEEP IT UNDER 2 PAGES – To me, this is one of the hardest things about dialogue. If we had 5-6 pages for every conversation, dialogue would be as easy as accusing Justin Bieber of fathering your baby (baby baby ohhhhh…). But the average film scene is 2 minutes long. 2 MINUTES! That’s only 2 pages for your characters to say everything they gotta say. This is why new writers hear this critique so much: “Cut cut cut cut cut.” You gotta cut everything down to its bare essence because you don’t have time in your scene to include all the bullshit. Sure, some scenes are longer than others.  A five minute dialogue scene is not unheard of.  But it’s still rare.  Which means learning how to scrunch all your dialogue into a very small space. 

ENTERTAIN – This is the scariest part of all when it comes to dialogue. After you do all that stuff – the story, the exposition, the characters, the minimizing – the dialogue still has to entertain us! It still has to sound like two people talking in real life, even though in real life, every one of these conversations would probably go on for more than an hour! That means going back, smoothing it all out, editing it, rearranging it, adding a joke or two, and continuously asking yourself, “Does this sound like two people really talking?” Until the answer is “Yes,” keep rewriting it.

Now that we know the stipulations working against us for writing brilliant dialogue, let’s talk about the tools you can use to fight these inhibitors. I don’t have all the answers. I fight against dialogue every day. That said, I know these five tools help improve dialogue.

COME IN LATE, LEAVE EARLY
This was mentioned in the comments the other day and it’s a great tip – especially for beginners. Come into your scene as late as possible and leave your scene as early as possible. In other words, only give us the meat of the scene. Not the fat. Say your characters are meeting at a coffee shop. Tom is getting the coffee while Sarah waits at the table. Tom says, “What do you want again!?” “A double mocha decaf!” “Large?!” “Uhh, yeah, large!” Tom waits, grabs the coffees, walks over, sits down, a moment for the two to get settled, they ease into a conversation…and then SOMEWHERE around here they actually start talking about the story. UHHHHHHH…NO! Why the hell would you include all that irrelevant nonsense?? Start with them ALREADY AT THE TABLE WITH THEIR COFFEES. Catch them five minutes into their conversation, right when they’re talking about the important stuff. That’s what I mean by “Come in late.” Then, as soon as you’ve met the point of your scene, get out. Once Obi-Wan and Luke agree on a transport fee with Han in the Cantina scene, they don’t sit around for another five minutes chatting about the weather on Kashyyyk. We cut away. Now obviously there’s some flexibility in this rule. Sometimes you want William Wallace to take his time riding through the village, building up the suspense, before he BEATS DOWN the English. But for the most part, coming in late and getting out early will keep your dialogue focused and on point. You won’t write a bunch of boring shit if you only include the meat.

SET-UP
The best dialogue scenes are set up ahead of time by carefully building up your character’s goals, secrets, motivations, etc. You then place them in a scene (preferably with something at stake), and watch the dialogue write itself. For example, Joe and Jane talking about their friend’s wedding is boring. But if we find out beforehand that Jane plans to kill Joe in this scene, talking about that wedding becomes a lot more interesting. Paul meeting his potential father-in-law is mildly entertaining. But if Paul’s girlfriend tells him beforehand that she’ll never marry someone her father doesn’t approve of, now Paul meeting his father-in-law is SUPER entertaining. Watching Mick beg Rocky to be his coach is a strong scene no matter where it is in the film. But the reason it’s a classic is because we watched Mick kick Rock out of his gym and tell him he didn’t believe in him earlier. So if a scene isn’t working, go back in your script and see if you can set it up better. Once you find the right situation, the dialogue will write itself.

SUBTEXT/DRAMATIC IRONY
This is one of the best ways to improve your dialogue. Give one character a secret. Give both characters a secret. Or tell the audience something the characters don’t know. If you do any of these things, you’ll create subtext, unspoken words beneath the text. If we know that Frank plans to break up with JoJo, then anything they talk about before the break-up will have subtext. If Julie secretly likes Tom and the two accidentally get stuck in the bathroom at a party, anything they talk about (Math class, bird watching, dinosaurs) will have subtext. There are other ways to achieve subtext (which you guys are free to highlight in the comments section) but this approach tends to create the most powerful dialogue situations.

STAY AWAY FROM ON THE NOSE
When we first write dialogue for a scene, we often think literally. If a character asks, “Are you thirsty?” We might have the other character respond, “Yes. Could you get me some water?” That’s a very literal on-the-nose response. Most people talk in and around what they’re trying to say instead of saying exactly what they’re thinking. They use slang, sarcasm, manipulation, indifference, caution – any number of things – to keep the conversation off-center. Rarely does dialogue go down a straight path. So let’s ask that question again. “Are you thirsty?” A more interesting response might be, “No, my lips always dry up and bleed like this.” Your characters are not robots. Nobody speaks literally. So make sure you’re mucking up the dialogue and that no one is speaking on-the-nose.

KNOW YOUR FUCKING CHARACTERS (KYFC)
Writers hate doing character biographies because it takes so much damn time, but holy hell does it work. Why? Because the more you know about your character, the more specific you can make their dialogue. Bad dialogue is usually general – vague, non-specific. Rick comes home late one night and spots his roommate, Jed, on the couch. “What’s up man?” “Not much. How’d your day go?” “Shitty. I’m exhausted.” This is the most general boring conversation EVER. Let’s say I did some character biographies ahead of time though and found out that Rick is an aspiring actor and Jed is a compulsive gambler. Let’s try this again. (Rick stumbles in) “I’ve got two words: Fuck Stanislofsky.” “I need to borrow money.” Rick gives Jed a look. Jed: “What?? How was I supposed to know Vick would tear his MCL.” “I’m not giving you any more money.” “Come on. The Raiders are a sure thing.” It ain’t going to win any Academy awards but it’s certainly better than “How’d your day go?” Why? Because it’s SPECIFIC. It reveals character. It has the people in the scene saying things only they would say. Do your homework on your characters. I promise it will pay off.

And that’s all I got my friends. I know it’s not the end all article on dialogue but the truth is I don’t know everything about dialogue. Which is why I’m turning to you. Please. I want to learn. Tell me how YOU approach this aspect of screenwriting. What tips and tricks help you? This is the least defined area of screenwriting. Let’s try and crack it.