Today’s article taught me a tremendous lesson about creating memorable main characters.

Genre: Article – Drama/Crime
Premise: Covers the unique job of Gary Johnson, a Houston cop who specializes in going undercover as a hit man to entrap murders-for-hire.
About: This article, which was written all the way back in 2001, was snatched up by indie super-director, Richard Linklater, who cast Glen Powell hot off the success of Top Gun: Maverick. He went and made the movie, which just premiered at Toronto Film Festival, and sold to Netflix for 20 million bucks, the biggest acquisition deal of the year. Linklater read the article all the way back in 2001 but couldn’t find an angle for it. It wasn’t until longtime collaborator Glen Powell came along (the two have worked together on three projects) that a movie emerged, as Powell zoomed in on the final three paragraphs of the article, which focused on a female client who wants to kill her boyfriend.
Writer: Skip Hollandsworth – article; Glen Powell and Richard Linklater – script
Details: about 4000 words

I’ve said it once. I’ll say it again a million times.

One of your primary jobs as a screenwriter is to look for stories that have a familiar element, then spin that element in a slightly different direction.

I’m not using the word “slightly” frivolously. That’s an important part of the equation. If you attempt to spin the familiar element too aggressively, it becomes unfamiliar, and audiences can’t connect with it.

Get Out spun a familiar setup – “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner” – into a horror movie. Easy to understand. Beau is Afraid is a horror movie told through the lens of extreme anxiety. Nobody understood it.

Then you have the opposite mistake, where there’s no spin at all. That’s when you get movies like Blue Beetle. The exact same superhero origin story we’ve seen a million times already and, by the way, it involves a power suit that, literally, every superhero wears now.

We’ve seen a million versions of hit men. So it was a smart idea to flip that and say, “What if the hit man wasn’t really a hit man? What if he was a cop pretending to be a hit man in order to capture bad people trying to murder others?”

That’s a great starting point for a movie.

The article, appropriately titled, “Hit Man,” isn’t so much a story as it is a summary of the unique life of Gary Johnson. Johnson wanted to work in psychology but when he moved to Houston, he didn’t get his dream job. So he took some psych-adjacent work at a local Houston police office and stumbled backwards into his first murder-for-hire plot. A woman wanted to off her husband because he had taken to complaining too much about her spending. When a friend alerted the police, they threw Johnson into the fake hit man job simply because they had no one else.

Johnson went in with preconceived notions that he was going to have to put on some elaborate fake persona but the reality was the woman just wanted someone to hear what she was going through. Johnson listened, he secured the money for the hit, and the wife was immediately arrested.

Word spread that Johnson had an effective unassuming way about him that got people to open up, a crucial component to convicting these criminals, since you needed them to say, “I want to kill my spouse” for the arrest to hold up in court. So began a strange illustrious career of Johnson going on three hundred murder-for-hire calls in the span of 20 years.

The only call that went sideways was when a woman wanted her abusive boyfriend killed and when Johnson looked into her claim, he learned that the guy was, indeed, abusive. So he decided to help her instead of incriminating her. Which is the kernel of the story that seems to have inspired the movie.

I went into this article expecting to talk about concept. But the biggest thing that came out of it for me was the second paragraph. Here it is…

The man lives alone with his two cats. Every morning, he pads barefoot into the kitchen to feed his cats, then he steps out the back door to feed the goldfish that live in a small pond. He takes a few minutes to tend to his garden, which is filled with caladiums and lilies, gardenias and wisteria, a Japanese plum tree, and rare green roses. Sometimes the man sits silently on a little bench by the goldfish pond, next to a small sculpture of a Balinese dancer. He breathes in and out, calming his mind. Or he goes back inside his house, where he sits in his recliner in the living room and reads. He reads Shakespeare, psychiatrist Carl Jung, and Gandhi. He even keeps a book of Gandhi’s quotations on his coffee table. One of his favorites is “Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.”

The reason this paragraph spoke to me is because, in the last four screenplays I read, I didn’t have any feel at all for the main character. I knew, generally, who they were. But I didn’t *know* know. It’s hard to write a good story if the reader doesn’t have an innate feel for who your hero is.

The primary reason this happens in a screenplay is the writer’s reluctance to add detail. Threre’s a distinct lack of detail in the character’s appearance (an athletic frame tells a completely different story about a person than an obese frame). But, more specifically, there’s a lack of detail in their everyday life. As I read this second paragraph, I was overwhelmed by how quickly I knew this person. The fact that he has two animals he takes care of. The fact that he has this small pond with goldfish that he feeds every morning. That he tends to his garden. The fact that he meditates. Then he reads.

This morning routine tells us SO MUCH ABOUT Johnson. Just the fact that he has a morning routine and doesn’t wing it, tells us that he’s responsible. That he takes care of multiple animals tells us he’s loving. Meditation tells us he values giving time to himself. Reading Carl Jung and Gandhi tells us that he’s an intelligent man.

I probably know this character better in 10 lines than I do any character I’ve seen in the last 20 movies, despite spending two hours with each of them.

The next thing that caught my eye was this paragraph describing Johnson:

In law enforcement circles, he is considered to be one of the greatest actors of his generation, so talented that he can perform on any stage and with any kind of script. If he is meeting a client who lives in one of Houston’s more exclusive neighborhoods, he can put on the polished demeanor of a sleek, skilled assassin who will not sniff at a job for less than six figures. If he is meeting a client who lives in a working-class neighborhood, he can come across like a wily country boy, willing to whack anyone at any time for whatever money he can get.

In other words… ACTOR BAIT! This is one of things you should be looking for when reading an article or a short story that you’re considering turning into a screenplay. You’re looking for the kind of roles that actors would die to play. You should naturally extrapolate that out to the screenplays you write as well. Roles like this allow your main character to become different people which is the ultimate actor catnip.

I find it interesting that Linklater was unable to see the movie angle here. Because it’s pretty obvious. Here’s the last part of the article…

But not long ago Johnson did something out of character for him. He got a call about a young woman who had been spending mornings at a Starbucks in Houston’s Montrose area, talking to an employee there about the cruel way her boyfriend had been treating her. There was no way to escape him, she said. Her only hope was to find someone to kill him. She asked the Starbucks employee if he knew someone who could help. The employee called the police, who put him in touch with Johnson.

But before Johnson contacted her, he did some research into her case. He learned that she really was the victim of abuse, regularly battered by her boyfriend, too terrified to leave him because of her fear of what he might do if he found her.

This is what I call the “but then” hook. You don’t have a movie unless you have a “but then.” Of course it’s going to be fun to watch this police detective inhabit various costumes as he impersonates a hit man. Sooner or later, though, something needs to occur that gives us a plot for our movie! That’s the “but then.” “But then” this woman comes along who it turns out ACTUALLY NEEDS A HIT MAN. Cause her boyfriend is dangerous.

Now you can start to play with narratives, such as, does Johnson become romantically entangled with this girl when he starts to protect her? And who is this boyfriend? Is he a nuisance? Or is he connected to a more dangerous, potentially criminal, network? In which case, is Johnson now in over his head? Now you’ve got a movie.

Finally, when you’re looking for movies that don’t exist in the bigger flashier genres that keep Hollywood afloat (Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Action, Horror, Adventure), there must be the threat of death. You need those LITERAL life-or-death stakes. Cause you’re not giving us any flashy special effects to look at. You’re not scaring us to death. You’re not wowing us with your bottomless imagination. So you need to have the highest stakes possible. People hiring people for murder is a life-or-death situation.

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

What I learned: Give your main character a morning routine and make it as specific as possible. This morning routine doesn’t have to be in your script. But you at least need to write it out for yourself. Because one of the most telling parts of who someone is, is what they do when they wake up. Do they go on a five mile run? Do they go order 5 sausage and egg McGriddles from McDonald’s? Do they tend their garden? Do they go straight to social media? Do they have an elaborate half-an-hour skin care routine? Note how each of the things I just listed paints a different kind of character. You can create that same effect when describing your own character’s morning routine.

This juicy high-concept show starring Mahershala Ali will be Hulu’s next big buzzy “whodunnit.”

Genre: Thriller/Mystery
Premise: A once successful author does the unthinkable and steals a former student’s book idea after he learns of the student’s death. But after the book becomes a #1 bestseller, someone on social media begins taunting him, telling him he knows what he did.
About: Today’s author, Jean Hanff Korelitz, originally wanted to be a literary novelist, writing “important” and “thoughtful” character-driven stories. Until she realized the reality of her voice as a writer: SHE LOVED PLOT. Thus was born, “The Plot,” a book she said was the perfect writing experience. It shot out of her, uninterrupted, in six months during the pandemic. The sexy concept was quickly picked up by Hulu to turn into a series, which will star Academy Award winner, Mahershala Ali.
Writer: Jean Hanff Korelitz
Details:350 pages

Since we’re talking about the power of concept today – coming up with that big juicy movie idea – I wanted to remind you guys that I do a “Power Pack” logline consultation for 75 bucks. You send me 5 loglines. I give you analysis, rate them on a 1-10 scale (don’t write a script that gets less than a 7!) I rewrite each logline, and I rank them from best to worst. This is great for writers trying to figure out what script to write next.

I also do a la cart logline analysis. It’s $25. Use my expertise of having been pitched over 20,000 loglines to know if your idea is truly worth writing. Just e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com

Okay, on to today’s review. We’re going to talk about a lesser-known sub-genre in the storytelling universe called the “walls are closing in” narrative. Now, the “walls are closing in” narrative has a couple of advantages and one distinct disadvantage.

What it offers is this impending feeling of doom as the truth begins to close in on our hero. You’ll see this in movies where the main character has killed someone and the cops come sniffing around. As the story goes on, we can almost physically feel all avenues of escape shrinking. The walls come from around, above, and below, squeeeeeeezing until they’ve entrapped our protagonist.

It’s a fun narrative because we’re hoping that the protagonist somehow figures out a way to escape.

But there’s a second advantage to these movies that not a lot of writers are aware of. Which is that the main characters are a lot more interesting than your average main character. They’ve obviously done something bad in order to be placed in such a situation. That life-changing mistake creates this internal battle that the character must fight off throughout the story.  You know you’ve written good characters when the story stops and we still want to watch those characters.  The main reason we’ll want to do this is because they’re going through some major internal struggle, which is exactly what the “walls are closing in” narrative provides.

But that leads us to the downside of these narratives, which is that the characters leading them are passive. Often times, with “walls are closing in” narratives, the main character is waiting around. They’re hoping they don’t get caught. At best, the characters are running around, defensively protecting themselves from being discovered.

As you may know, the best stories are almost always stories where the main character is active. He’s going after something. Let’s see how The Plot addresses this.

Jacob Finch Bonner was once a prodigy. His book, “The Invention of Wonder” was critically acclaimed and became a New York Times best-seller. But it’s been a decade and, two books later, Bonner is seen as an also-ran, one of many famed authors who fell off a cliff.

It’s gotten so bad that Jacob was forced to accept a teaching position at a writer’s summit in a small college called Ripley. Dozens of writers paid to come and learn writing from real authors for a month and then went off and tried to apply their newfound knowledge to their own novels.

While there, Jacob meets the most pompous writer ever, a handsome kid named Evan Parker, who has the gall to tell Jacob that he doesn’t need any writing help. He already knows he’s a great writer. He just needs contacts for when he finishes his book, a book, he claims, that will be one of the best books ever.

Jacob internally laughs this off but then, in a private meeting after class, he asks Evan to tell him about the book and Evan does. Jacob is shocked to learn, as Evan goes through the plot, that it, indeed, will be one of the best books ever written. There’s no hesitation in that analysis. The story, which includes a whopper of a twist, is *that* good.

The summit ends, everyone goes their separate ways, and three years later, out of curiosity, Jacob looks up Evan Parker. He’s confused why he hasn’t seen Evan’s book get published. As it turns out, Evan is dead. He died of an overdose.

It doesn’t take Jacob long to decide what he’s going to do. He’s going to write Evan’s book. And he does. Cut to three years later and Jacob is back on top of the publishing world. But “Crib’s” success dwarfs anything he experienced with The Invention of Wonder. Even Oprah wants to interview him.

Evan even gets a wife out of it! A producer on a Seattle radio show named Anna first falls in love with the book, then with the man who wrote it. And Evan is living every writer’s dream. Until one day, on his website, someone leaves a comment: “You are a thief.” From that point on, Jacob’s dream becomes a nightmare.

Not because anyone is trying to kill him. Because now every minute of Jacob’s life is a minute lived in fear. Will today be the day he’s exposed? At first, the comments come every couple of months. But the mystery person gets on Twitter and starts telling anyone who will listen, that Jacob stole “Crib.”

It gets to the point where the publisher finds out and now they want to know what’s up. Jacob, of course, tells them it’s a lie. But it’s getting bad enough that he can’t just wait around anymore. So Jacob heads back to Ripley College, the area where Evan Parker lived, to see if he can learn anything about who Evan was close with, in the hopes of finding the troll. What he learns is that he already knows the answers to his questions. Because the answers are written in his book.

“The Plot” is a great example of how to come up with a low-key high-concept idea. When you think of high concept, you usually think of something involving dinosaurs, time travel, switching faces. But there’s this whole other range of options below the high-profile versions of high concept that can give you a more affordable great idea.

Some low-key high concept movies that come to mind are Double Jeopardy, Her, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Groundhog Day, Memento, Limitless, and Yesterday.

A writer who steals a concept from a dead writer only to learn, after his outsized success, that someone knows his secret, is indeed, a juicy setup for a movie (or, these days, a show) that isn’t going to break the bank. Which is why everyone on this site should familiarize themselves with low-key high-concept. Still, to this day, it’s one of the best ways to skip the Hollywood line.

And like I said at the outset, the idea lends itself to a fun “walls closing in” narrative, which I think the writer executes well. That first message Jacob gets (“You are a thief”) reminded me of that famous 90s horror thriller line: “I know what you did last summer.” I was scared for Jacob. Because it’s a unique threat in that there’s nothing you can do about it. At least not yet. All you can do is wait and hope that it somehow goes away, even though you know it won’t.

But what impressed me about The Plot is the thing that I keep telling every writer to do. Find a familiar concept/format/genre/plot and put a spin on it. The Plot is a “whodunnit”….. EXCEPT THERE’S NO MURDER. That’s what makes it unique. Once Jacob decides to do something about this troll, he becomes an investigator. He travels to Evan’s old town to learn about him and, hopefully, figure out who’s sending him these messages.

By the way, that’s how the book handles the “walls are closing in” weakness. It gives its main character a goal of finding out who’s posting these comments. That makes him active. So he’s not standing around the whole show.

Ironically, it isn’t the plot that puts this book on top. It’s the thing that the author claims to be least interested in: character. Because what this story is really about is the struggle of being a fraud. It’s a lot like “Yesterday” in that sense. You have everything you’ve ever wanted. But do you really have it if you ripped off the idea from someone else?

And that’s where The Plot becomes its most interesting, at least for fellow writers. Because it gets into a nuanced discussion about what constitutes “stealing.” Jacob wrote every word of this book. He didn’t use a single line of Evan’s work. So did he really steal? Evan had this plot. And he had this amazing twist. But Jacob wrote it. And that’s what he’s holding onto to keep his sanity. He keeps reminding himself that he wrote everything. But is he just doing that to feel better about what he’s done?

The big weakness in the book is the excerpts from the novel, “Crib,” that Jacob wrote. It’s supposed to be this amazing novel (it basically follows a toxic mother-daughter relationship) but nothing in Crib is as good as anything in the novel we’re reading, “The Plot.”

With that said, “Crib” starts to get juicier towards the end when we realize that the characters in “Crib” were Evan’s mother and sister. Now, if someone tells the world what happened to Evan’s mother and sister, it will clearly expose Jacob as having stolen the story from someone else.

I’m back and forth on whether this should be a series or a movie. Ideally, it would be something between the two. That’s always been the problem with novel adaptations. They’re always too big to be a movie and too small to be a TV show. So if you’re going to make a TV show, you need really good writers who can expand on the detail within the novel to keep the story moving during episodes 3, 4, and 5, where a lot of these bad 1-season TV shows die out.

But I think it’s going to work. Ali is great casting because he looks trustworthy. And I could see him depending on that to gain trust from family, friends, fans. Whereas, internally, he’s the biggest fraud in the world, something you’re typically not expecting with that actor. Remember everyone, one of the best ways to create great character is to make what’s happening inside of them and outside of them as opposite as possible. Success, fame, recognition outside. Shame, fear, feel like a fraud inside. That’s what’s going to make this show work.

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

What I learned: This is a major spoiler WIL. You’ve been warned. Whoever your “killer” is needs to be treated like every other character throughout the novel/script. Anna, Jacob’s wife, is treated so oddly throughout this story. She’s never around. Whenever she is around, she’s a wallflower. Whenever she talks, she’s very non-specific, vague. Meanwhile, every other character gets a super-detailed life. Anna is treated so differently that we know something is up with her. And, of course, she turns out to be Evan’s sister. She’s the one who’s been threatening him. Whenever you have a twist ending, you want to put yourself in the reader’s shoes and ask, “Who would they think the killer is?” Then make sure, whoever they’d think it is, NOT TO MAKE THAT CHARACTER THE KILLER. Not enough writers realistically evaluate readers when they do this.

What I learned 2: What you want to do instead is let Anna (or whoever your version of Anna is) be the disco ball. She’s the pretty shiny thing we’re all looking at over here so you can shock us at the end with that guy/gal we weren’t expecting at all.

Is “Suits” a perfectly constructed pilot?

Recently, I read an article that the two biggest streaming shows in America were Gray’s Anatomy and NCIS.

I’ve never personally met anyone who’s seen an episode of NCIS so, naturally, this was confusing to me.

I was also confused when, amidst a bottomless pit of shows on Netflix, many of which have had giant advertising campaigns, that the show that had become the most popular was one that had ended four years ago, “Suits.”

We have been led to believe that the TV landscape is dominated by prestige television shows such as Breaking Bad, Succession, Game of Thrones, and White Lotus. But the reality is, shows like Gray’s Anatomy, NCIS, and, yes, Suits, are the shows that truly get the ratings. Just not the love.

I decided to find out for myself if Suits was worthy of all the hype or if it was merely a curiosity brought about by the world’s obsession with Megan Markle (who plays a major character on the show). What follows are my thoughts.

Suits is set in New York City and follows a law firm led by Jessica Pearson, who’s trying to figure out if she should hand the firm down to her best lawyer, Harvey Specter. The problem is Harvey (a young George Clooney doppelgänger) is an arrogant blowhard who only cares about himself.

Harvey is on the lookout for a new lawyer, which is where Mike Ross comes in. Mike is a super-genius who’s had his life derailed by a couple of bad decisions and is in such a bad place that he actually agrees to deliver a suitcase full of drugs for money (that he plans to use for his sick grandmother, of course).

Mike goes to a hotel to make the drop but susses out that he’s being set up and makes a run for it… right into Harvey’s lawyer interviews. Mike stumbles his way into Harvey’s office where he accidentally opens the suitcase and all the drugs fall out.

Intrigued, Harvey asks Mike why he has a suitcase full of drugs and Mike tells him the truth. Further discussions lead Harvey to learn that Mike is beyond a genius and could run circles around all the Harvard applicants in the lobby. The kid is so raw, Harvey almost turns him away. But, in the end, he decides to take a chance on him. This leads to Mike’s first big case, a sexual harassment lawsuit.

Let’s cut to the chase.

Good writing is good writing is good writing.

It’s what I always tell people. Good writing prevails above all. It is almost impossible to find something that’s well written and completely ignored. Because good writing is rare. So when it arrives, it tends to birth a good product.

When it comes to TV, there are three writing ingredients that must thrive. The characters, the dialogue, and conflict. If you are good at these three things, you will be good at writing for television.

Cause TV isn’t so much about plot. Especially episodic shows like this one (case of the week). Plot is more for movies. The reason for that is, a movie needs a conclusion. And that’s where plot leads us. It gives us a goal and then, at the end of the story, we either succeed or fail at achieving that goal.

TV doesn’t need to end. It keeps going. So while there is plot in each individual episode (try to win the case), the plots are devoid of the kind of stakes that really matter. Cause who cares if Harvey and Mike win this week’s sexual harassment case? There’s going to be another one, just like it, next week.

For that reason, audiences come to TV shows more to hang out with the characters. Which is why all your TV writing should start with creating great characters.

Mike is a perfect character. Why? Two reasons. He’s an underdog and he’s super smart. These are two things that audiences DIE FOR. They love underdogs more than anything. This guy who didn’t even graduate law school being thrown into one of the biggest firms in New York — we love watching sh*t like that.

On top of that, audiences love characters who are smarter than everyone. There’s an early scene where Mike sniffs out that two men in the hallway (pretending to look like a bellhop and a guest) may be cops and he’s been set up with this drug delivery. So he asks the bellhop, “Hey, I was thinking about taking a dip later. How’s the pool here?” “It’s one of the best in the city, sir. You’ll love it.” Then we do a quick flashback of Mike earlier walking past the pool and a sign that says, “Pool closed for the summer.”

So we immediately know that Mike is smart. He uses his power of observation to stay ahead of everyone.

Then you have Harvey. I still don’t know exactly what the line is between hateable a$$hole and lovable a$$hole, but I know that audiences love lovable a$$holes. As long as the a$$hole is on our side.

One trick I’ve learned is to put our lovable a$$hole in the room with people who are worse than him. There’s an early scene where a client tries to railroad Harvey for not getting him everything he wants in their deal. But Harvey stays calm and outsmarts the guy, winning the conversation. In other words, if your hero is a bully and you want to make him likable, just add a bigger bully.

When it comes to dialogue, one thing I’ve noticed that these episodic TV shows live by is metaphors. They’re always using metaphors in the dialogue, which helps make the dialogue clever.

So, in the above scene where the client yells at Harvey, Harvey takes out a receipt of funds transferred and tells the guy that any threat to terminate their contract doesn’t matter because the firm has already received his money. The guy huffs out and it’s revealed that the piece of paper was a pointless memo. Harvey was lying.

Harvey’s boss then asks him, “How did you know he wouldn’t look closer and realize you were lying?”

Think for a second how you would write Harvey’s response. Because most beginner writers would write something like, “He’s a bully. And bullies never look closely at the details.”

It’s a lame lifeless line.

Here’s the line that Harvey actually uses in the pilot: “Cause a charging bull always looks at the cape, never the man with the sword.”

Now, is this the most brilliant line in the world? No. But it’s better than, “He’s a bully. And bullies never look closely at the details.” The metaphor automatically upgrades the line into something with more pop.

With TV, you really have to be on your dialogue game. If you are not a dialogue person, definitely stay away from this medium. It’s easier to get away with a lack of dialogue prowess in features because features are more plot driven, depend on exposition more (which is more technical), and are more about showing as opposed to telling. So you don’t have to write as much dialogue if you don’t want to.

Finally, we have conflict. Conflict is very simple to create. You put two people in a room who don’t see eye-to-eye, either about what’s happening in the moment, or in how they view the world in general. Or you give characters little goals and then throw obstacles in front of those goals.

The reason obstacles are great is not just to create conflict – which they do – but because they give your characters opportunities to shine, which is both entertaining and make us like the character more.

So that moment where Mike walks up in the hotel hallway and sees the bellhop and the fake guest — that’s an obstacle. Notice how Mike using the “is the pool open” bait shows him dealing with the obstacle in a clever way, which makes us like him more. The cops-in-disguise then chase him, which is where the conflict comes from.

Also, in the very next scene, when Mike interviews with Harvey, there’s conflict in that scene as well. Harvey clearly likes Mike. But he can’t hire someone who hasn’t even graduated law school. So there’s this tug-of-war where he challenges Mike with a series of problems that Mike passes one by one. Mike eventually wins him over and the conflict is resolved.

So if you’re good at these three things – character, dialogue, conflict – you can be a TV writer. And Suits is a great show to study for how to do it right.

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

What I learned: I don’t know if there’s a better setup than taking someone who’s perceived as “not intelligent” (or who has street smarts, or who does things differently than you’re supposed to) and putting them in a scenario where they’re competing against the “smartest people in that industry.” It’s built perfectly for us to feel a sense of satisfaction every week when our supposedly “dumb” hero outsmarts the “smart” guys once again.

Do we have a new Top 25 script on our hands!!?

Genre: Thriller
Premise: After a devastating wildfire wipes out a small California town, a teenage girl is missing and presumed dead. A year later, an obsessive mother and cynical arson investigator begin to suspect that she’s still alive…and in the clutches of a predator.
About: Dan Bulla is one of the newer writers on Saturday Night Live, joining the longstanding sketch show in 2019. He also wrote an episode of the Pete Davidson show, Bupkis. This script finished on last year’s Black List.
Writer: Dan Bulla
Details: 111 pages

Mark Ruffalo for Nick?

It is the most wonderful time of the year.

No, I’m not talking about the return of football. I’m talking about the U.S. Freaking Open! I’m currently bouncing around between watching 128 first round matches, having the time of my life.

It was during this trip to nirvana that I thought to myself, “You know what would be nice? Reading a script about a forest fire!” Hey, I can’t defend how my mind works. It does what it wants to do and I try and keep up.

Little did I know I’d be stumbling into a bona fide banger of a screenplay!

40-something Jessie lives in Avalon, California – one of those small Northern California towns in the middle of endless forests. And on this morning, it’s a bad day in Avalon. A massive forest fire creeps up out of nowhere, causing a mad dash to get out of town.

Jessie and her husband, Ken, are assured by the local police that the high school has been evacuated, meaning that their daughter, Wendy, is okay. Still, they barely escape and get to the rendezvous point, where they learn the devastating news that Wendy secretly ditched school that day.

Cut to Wendy and a couple of her friends goofing off in the forest when the fire approaches. They make a run for it but get split up, and Wendy finds herself on a road that is blocked in both directions. Just before she’s about to die, a red pickup truck arrives and a man named Randy saves her.

Cut to a year later and we meet Nick, a private fire investigator. Nick is in Avalon to meet Jessie, who says she has evidence that the fire was not, indeed, caused by a downed electrical generator, but rather by arson. Nick has a lot invested in Jessie’s claim because he’ll receive a giant windfall of cash if he can get the electric company off the hook.

Unfortunately, Jessie seems flat-out crazy these days. She lives in an RV in this shell of a town, collecting burned-up debris in the hopes of proving there’s more to this fire than meets the eye. Nick knows that her theory is weak from the get-go and considers turning around and leaving immediately. But Jessie’s emotional plea to help her figure out how her daughter died gets Nick to stay.

The next day, Jessie shows Nick a mysterious gray line she found in the burnt-up forest. Now Nick is interested. This line implies that the fire was started by arson. Which means somebody planned this. He further figures out that Wendy may not have died after all. Could these two things – the arson and Wendy’s disappearance – be related? And, if so, who, in town, has her?  Nick and Jessie will have to team up to find out!

Let me say that this is the first script I’ve read in months where I thought I was a lot earlier in the script than I was. I thought I was on page 60 and it turned out I was on page 85! Usually, it’s the opposite. I think I’m on page 60 and I’m on page 20.

That’s screenwriting code for: this script was awesome.

I liked the script even before I opened it. It’s a fresh concept. We don’t usually see serial killers and wildfires in the same story space. It’s a unique combination. More importantly, it rewrites the investigation narrative. Usually, when we read about a killer or an abductor, it takes place in a city, which means that every investigatory beat in the story is one we’ve already seen before.

Here, the investigatory beats are all unique because we’re in a bunt out town in the middle of nowhere. We’re not going to apartments in Brooklyn asking cousins when the last time they saw Jenny was. We’re in a forest examining dead animal carcasses. I can’t emphasize enough how important this is. Readers read the same stuff OVER AND OVER again. So if your plot provides a world with a bunch of fresh scenarios for your characters to engage in, you’re up on every other screenwriter in the business.

As always, these scripts depend on authenticity. I always say to writers – if you’re writing about a specialized subject matter, you better know a lot more about that subject matter than I do. If I think we know that subject matter evenly, I’m done with your script. Cause I know you didn’t do any research, which means you’re not trying.  I don’t have time for writers who don’t try.

I LOOOVED the opening forest fire scene here. It was SOOOOO intense. And the level of specificity to it was impressive (the way this fire spreads sounds eerily similar to what happened in Hawaii recently – and this script was written a year before that happened). There’s this moment where they’re desperately trying to get out of this logjam of cars and they finally break through and they’re racing against the smoke and they look over and there are these deers who are right next to them, also trying to escape. It felt so specific, like the writer was fully tuned into the sequence.

The writer also knows how to navigate the nuts and bolts aspects of storytelling. For example, there’s this early scene with Nick where the writer wants to establish that Nick knows what he’s talking about. You do this in screenwriting because it gets the reader on the character’s side. Readers LOVE when the character knows something that the average person doesn’t.

There’s this moment where Jessie is trying to convince Nick that a bottle rocket was the cause of the fire. Nick takes a look at the bottle rocket and the affected area and says this: “There’s deep char on the right side of the trees. Minimal char on the left. Burns rising, right to left, steeper than the slope. Branches all bent in the same direction. Foliage freeze. That means the wind was blowing right to left at the time of the fire. No odor. No sign of accelerant. It’s burned on top, untouched on the bottom. That tells me that a fully formed, advancing fire swept over this area, right to left, at about six miles an hour. The bottle rocket didn’t start the fire. It’s just some litter you found in the woods.” If there was any doubt that this guy is a fire expert, this assessment puts it to rest.

And then there’s this little moment early on that told me I was dealing with a guy who KNOWS SCREENWRITING. Jessie gets Nick to stay one more day by telling him that, tomorrow, she’ll show him a piece of evidence that will prove the fire was created by arson. The day comes, Nick shows up at her place, and says, “Where’s the evidence?” And she says, “Change of plans. First you’re going to tell me what happened to my daughter.”

The words “change of plans” should be a part of every screenwriter’s vocabulary. Why? Because YOU NEVER WANT THE READER TO GET COMFORTABLE. You don’t want them having a sense of where the story is going all the time. “Change of plans” throws the reader off. Cause now we’re going in a direction that wasn’t a part of the original plan. It’s exciting.

Not that you have to use those exact words (“change of plan”) every time. It’s more about you, the writer, occasionally changing things up so you don’t stay on that same predictable path the whole story.

Oh, one more thing.  In a lot of the scripts I read, the bad guys never get the deaths they deserve. They get these quick weak deaths where they don’t suffer at all. This bad guy gets a terrible death and it’s awesome.

All this adds up to a really good screenplay. One of the best – maybe even the best – scripts on last year’s Black List. Definitely check it out!

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

What I learned: There comes a time in a lot of scripts where a character will remember something about their loved one and share that experience with another character. These memories are one of the best ways to separate yourself from the average writer. Cause most writers have these boring on-the-nose memories they have their character recall.

“Oh, I remember when Wendy was 7 and she fell in the pool and she didn’t know how to swim and so I jumped in after her and I pulled her out and she wasn’t breathing and I’ll never forget giving her mouth to mouth. I thought for sure she was going to die. But, then, at the last second, she let out a breath. And it was at that moment that I knew my daughter was a fighter.”

Note how unimaginative that is. Note how 99 out of 100 writers would’ve been able to write the same thing. Real memories are unique. They have weird details. They don’t go according to plan. And they rarely line up with the five cliched memories that most writers use in these instances. Note how different, even a little bit odd, the chosen memory Dan Bulla uses for Jessie when she shares a story about Wendy…

“One time, I sat in the living room all night, waiting for her to come home. Just absolutely fuming. She finally snuck in just before sunrise. Didn’t see me sitting there in the dark. She shut the door. Locked it without making a sound. Then she went upstairs, straddling the steps so the stairs wouldn’t creak. And I didn’t say anything. I just watched her. And I remember feeling lucky. Lucky to witness that. Because I was seeing her. The real her.”

Is this the first time Scriptshadow gets sexy in a script review??

Genre: Thriller
Premise: (from Black List) A successful author/wife/mother plans a trip to a bucolic island to crack her next book and finds herself in a surprising situation.
About: Today we get the rare CELEBRITY script, as Power Rangers’ very own Amy Jo Johnson wrote today’s screenplay, which made last year’s Black List. More actors should be writing their own material and creating their own way like Amy Jo Johnson. The woman is a straight-up inspiration. Now someone please tell me what “bucolic” means.
Writer: Amy Jo Johnson
Details: 114 pages

Today is a first on Scriptshadow.

I am about to do something that I’ve never before been faced with on the site.

I am going to read a script from one of my early crushes.

We’re talking Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Felicity. And the utterly underrated, “Hard Ground.”

Amy Jo Johnson everyone. If you don’t know who that is you need to be arrested for dumbness.

Look, it’s not going to be easy reviewing today’s script. How can I ever judge AJJ objectively? What am I going to do if the script is an Amy Jo Disaster? Even if AJ has never heard of the site, I’ve learned that most of the writers of these scripts are made aware of the review at some point or another. Does that mean any potential future between Amy and I is 69’d? Wait, not “69’d.” That’s the wrong term. What’s the right word? 86’d! That’s what I meant to say. “86’d.” Honest slip of the keyboard. Sorry about that, guys.

Let’s get to the script!

Jennifer is a 45-year-old novelist with a family and a husband, Steven, who’s her biggest fan. Well, he *was* her biggest fan. He’s the agent who signed her and began her successful run on the best-seller list. But Jennifer hasn’t written a book in 5 years. She’s got an ugly case of writer’s block.

So Steven decides to rent Jennifer a house in the middle of nowhere (Alderney Channel Island) for three weeks so she can finally finish her latest book, “What We Became.” Jennifer doesn’t want to do it but the reality is, they’re running out of money. If they don’t start selling books again, they’re going to be looking for studio apartments on the south side of the 10 freeway.

Once on the island, Jennifer meets a young beautiful woman named Kathleen. Kathleen informs her that the house Jennifer is staying at was used by the Nazis for secret meetings back in World War 2. Kathleen offers to bring groceries over, periodically. But not any normal groceries. SEX GROCERIES (‘sex groceries’ is a term I just made up. It means getting people groceries when what you *really* want to do is have sex with them).

Jennifer is both elated and mortified by her desire for Kathleen. But what is she gonna do when the hot little number keeps swimming naked in her pool? I mean, who can resist that? Not Jennifer.

Not long after they start sleeping together, Jennifer heads into town and meets Kathleen’s mother by chance, who tells her Kathleen is dead and has been for five years. Wrestling with her newfound potential necrophiliac status, Jennifer confronts Kathleen, who admits that she’s not Kathleen. She’s actually a fan.

Jennifer is so turned on by this chick that she keeps sleeping with her anyway, despite the creepy fan stalker issue. It helps that she’s flying through the pages of her novel. She’s never been this inspired in her life. She’s so inspired that she straight-up ignores her husband’s calls, to the point where Steven gets worried and flies to the manor, where he learns that his wife has been sleeping with the help.

After a big blow-up between Jennifer and Steven, Jennifer has to figure out, once and for all, who her lover is. Is she a liar, a ghost, a Nazi, a stalker? One thing’s for sure, whoever Kathleen is, she’s unstable. And that lack of stability is going to lead to a giant confrontation.

I have good news, everyone.

I liked it!

You all know this about me. Put a character on an island and I’m in.

Make them a writer and I’m even more in. Of course I’m going to be pulled in by a story set in the subject matter of my chosen profession.

The only thing holding this script back is the fact that, with the wrong director, it becomes a cheesy Netflix romantic thriller. But with a good director, it could be awesome.

Cause Johnson writes in a sophisticated enough way that the story is elevated above your run-of-the-mill romantic thriller. She’s very detailed when she writes. She’s good at describing the setting – adding just enough detail to convince us that we’re really there.

In scripts like this, it’s the sum of all the mini-parts that elevate the script above average-ness. For example, this could’ve taken place anywhere. In some generic woods setting, for example. Placing it on the Alderney Channel Island, an island I’ve never heard of, off the coast of Britain, made it feel real. Specifics and detail help your story every time. Never forget that.

I say that as someone who just read two scripts from writers who used little-to-no-detail. Who always went with the basic general option. It’s the difference between having your characters get the pear-gorgonzola gelato at Gelateria Fatamorgana and… your character go to the “ice cream shop” to get “yummy ice cream.” Specificity makes a difference.

Another thing that impressed me here was the sex stuff. We don’t usually talk about sex on the site. Sex scenes are tricky, to shoot as well as to write. Because if you’re too soft, they’re boring. If they’re too hard, they become exploitative and overwhelm the moment, pulling the reader out of the story.

I thought Johnson wrote these perfectly. The scenes are sexy, slightly original, occasionally push the boundaries, and most importantly, remain authentic.

I think the reason sex scenes can be challenging is because, in order to make them authentic, we do have to bare our soul a bit. We have to give those uncomfortable details of our own sexual experiences because those are details that make the moment feel real. If you try and write, “He gets on top of her. They kiss. She moans.” That’s not going to cut it. It’s too generic to make an impact, especially in a script like this where the sex is a key component to the plot.

If I have any complaints about the script, I’d say Johnson relied too much on twists and turns. I loved the first twist of Kathleen being dead. I thought, “Ooh, are we going into ghost territory here?” Then there’s another twist where we learn she was just saying she was the dead girl to hide her own identity and that she’s actually a fan. Then there’s another twist still that she’s never read one of Jennifer’s books. And there’s even another twist after that.

Twists are fun. But most scripts can’t handle more than two big twists. Cause if every ten pages is a twist, then we stop believing in what’s happening and we don’t trust the writer anymore. Just to be clear, smaller twists are fine. But big twists? 1 or 2 is all you need.

Let’s be honest. The “romantic thriller” isn’t the coolest genre on the block. A lot of industry people roll their eyes at it. But if you’re passionate about a genre, even if it isn’t cool, you should write in that genre. Cause that’s the genre you’re going to be the most passionate writing. That passion is likely to result in a good script, like this one.

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

What I learned: Don’t introduce juicy red herrings that you’re not going to pay off. That’s like promising steak for dinner and cooking SPAM. Red herrings are a great way to get the reader off your scent. I encourage using them in any mystery. But don’t introduce a big fat juicy red herring – like Nazis – and not pay it off. Cause it’s just going to upset the reader. I was hoping that the Nazis came back into this script somehow after they were mentioned in the first act. So I was bummed when that setup was abandoned.