Today we look at the script that got Mattson Tomlin the most coveted screenwriting job in Hollywood, writing Matt Reeves’ “The Batman.”

Genre: Action
Premise: A bad man takes a group of people hostage at the top of a building and informs the media that he will start killing one of them every hour until the masked vigilante known as The Leopard surrenders to him.
About: Mattson Tomlin is a spec-writing machine. He writes fast and doesn’t like rewriting, which allows him to deliver product after product at a breakneck pace. His biggest credit to date is the Netflix film, Project Power. He’s written a ton of scripts that have appeared on The Black List. This script, Kill The Leopard, appeared on the 2018 Black List and is what got him “The Batman” job.
Writer: Mattson Tomlin
Details: 90 pages

Is there a more spec-y screenwriter than Mattson Tomlin? Methinks not.

What do I mean by “spec-y?”

The purest form of screenwriting is a “spec script,” an original story you’re writing without getting paid, SPEC-ULATING, that it’s going to be so good that someone will buy it and turn it into a movie. Over time, writers realized that writing a spec script required a completely amped up skillset compared to writing on assignment.

Every rule you’d normally follow in screenwriting would need to be amped up ten-fold. Take the rule, “Come into a scene as late as possible and leave as early as possible.” For spec screenwriters, you’d come into a scene even LATER than as late as possible and leave even EARLIER than as early as possible. If you’re supposed to keep a regular script to under 110 pages, a spec script should be kept under 100, or 90 pages!

Preference shifts from writing a great movie to writing the easiest-to-read script. Keeping the story moving takes precedence over everything, even character development.

Of course, the best spec screenwriters find a balance. They try to write a great movie within this amped-up format. Mattson Tomlin, however, doesn’t do balance. He fully leans into his spec roots and doesn’t apologize for it.

An evil looking bald guy named Simon Savero grabs his team, who he’s nicknamed the Seven Dwarves, throws them in a truck, and heads into the city to the Enso Building. The Enso Building, we learn, was the site of a tragic situation last year. 30+ people were forced up to the top of the building as it burned by a dude known as the Red Rabbit.

As the flames caught up with them, instead of burning, they chose to jump to their death, one by one. At the last second, a masked-vigilante named The Leopard swooped in and recovered the Red Rabbit, sending him to prison for the rest of his life. Since that day, the Enso Building has struggled to shake its image as a giant death trap.

So today, they’re commemorating those who died and moving forward. It’s a day of rebirth. That is until Simon and the Seven Dwarves storm the building as the press conference is being held, herd everyone in the lobby up to the top of the building – AGAIN – to repeat last year!

Simon then goes on TV and says he’s got the building rigged with explosives. If anyone tries to come in, they go off. He has a simple directive. Leopard? Wherever you are? You must come here and turn yourself in. For every hour that you don’t, Simon will throw a hostage off the building.

One of the hostages, Mike (who Tomlin literally describes as ‘like Bruce Willis from Die Hard’) has no plans on dying here. Any chance he gets to fight back, he’s going to do it, he tells the other hostages. Luckily, he doesn’t have to. That’s because the masked vigilante known as The Leopard shows up and surrenders.

Simon tells The Leopard to take off his mask. He does. And he’s… just a guy. Simon shoots him. While Simon is distracted, Mike charges him and takes him down, gets his gun, then shoots him. With both The Leopard and Simon incapacitated, Mike finds himself in charge.

He then gets a call from the Seven Dwarves, who are a floor below him. They say if he sends down the bodies of Simon and The Leopard, they’ll let all their hostages go. Mike says fine, only to realize that none of the other hostages agree with him.

This leads to a series of arguments between the hostages as to what to do, and a number of revelations about how they’ve all had previous encounters with The Leopard. What will Mike do? What will anyone do? Who the hell knows. I certainly never figured it out.

The further into this script I read, the more I remembered how much I struggle with Tomlin’s screenplays. It’s honestly like somebody wrote a script in six hours. There’s zero thought put into any of the choices. Nothing comes together organically. The twists that occur make zero sense.

I mean… there’s a twist here – I’ll just give it to you. One of the hostages, a woman, refuses to let Mike send the incapacitated Leopard down to the bad guys. For thirty pages, we don’t know why. Finally, the woman tells this story about how the Leopard saved her from a bad marriage and she’s fallen in love with him. The Leopard looks at her like she’s crazy and says, “You’re not in love with me. You want to know why? Because I’m a woman!” The woman looks a little closer at The Leopard and realizes, oh yeah, although she has somewhat masculine features, she is a woman.

I mean… am I going insane right now? In what screenwriting universe does this make sense???

By the way, how does the Leopard know everyone?? We keep getting these hostage flashbacks, a la “Lost,” where we learn that they’ve each had individual encounters with The Leopard at one point in their lives. The problem is, this is completely coincidental! These are all just random people yet somehow they’ve each had this intimate and life-changing moment with The Leopard. Or Leopardess.

The one thing Tomlin does well is he subverts expectations. The Leopard comes to save the day but, nope, he/she gets shot and is incapacitated. Ditto the main bad guy, Simon. So we really are in uncharted plot waters, which can be exciting. In most cases, the audience knows what’s coming next. Here, you have no idea.

But subverting expectations is an art. You don’t just do it to do it. Because, a lot of times, subverting leads to a less interesting plot. Which is what happened here. Batman comes to save the day. He’s shot. Hans Gruber is going to kill the hostages, he’s shot. Major expectation subverting on every level. But what do we have left? We have a group of people squabbling with each other about whether to send two bodies down an elevator.

Is that an exciting plot?

Was subverting expectations worth it?

At least I finally understand how Tomlin got the Batman job. It’s 100% the setup of this script. You’ve got the “seven dwarves” thing. Comic book producers love shit like that. Red Rabbit. Love names like that. Love’em. Gangsters herding a bunch of hostages to the top of a building. They love that shit. And I’m guessing they’re going to use this basic setup for one of the major set pieces in the film.

But, man, virtually nothing else in this script works. It’s just a bunch of make-it-up-as-you-go-along-gobbledy-gook, the kind of thing aspiring screenwriters look at and say, “Wait, I’m not good enough to write in Hollywood yet this guy gets to write Batman??”

Hey, I respect the hustle. But, wowzers. This script was all over the place.

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

What I learned: Don’t use adverbs just to use adverbs. Use them with a purpose. “Metal and glass angrily glimmer in the last moments of sunlight.” How do you angrily glimmer at anything? This is a weird choice of words and something I see all the time in amateur writing. Throwing in a ‘spin-of-the-wheel’ adverb regardless of what image it might evoke is not good writing. Seek out your adverbs with a purpose or don’t use them at all. “Metal and glass glimmer in the last moments of sunlight” isn’t going to win a pulitzer prize but it’s a much better sentence.

You know how it works. Lots of people fought to be included in High Concept Showdown. Hundreds didn’t make it. Shall those writers go on for the rest of their lives never knowing why they weren’t chosen? NOT HERE ON SCRIPTSHADOW! We’re taking five submissions that didn’t make it and explaining why. Hopefully, you can use this information to improve your next submission. Let’s begin!

Title: Call of Judy
Genre: An eye-popping Action Adventure with real heart
Logline: When a kid wins First Play of a Next-Gen VR-Experience but gets lost in its digital limbo, his technophobe Mom must complete four bespoke games they were due to play together to find him.

Why You Should Read: This idea came to me fully formed. My son plays Xbox for hours (and hours), especially since lockdown, and he’s monosyllabic while online. 

I’ve been known to play Call of Duty or GTA but my wife hates it ALL so I wrote it through her eyes.  

Judy experiences the jolts her son gets from playing Xbox  – but amplified massively.   These two player games were created for Judy and her son, from a psych quiz but her son filled hers in so everything is askew.

Being it fully immersive VR, Judy’s inside each game, so those jolts are super visceral. And by playing 4 games, it opens up contrasting worlds of eye candy. 

There’s endless fun riffing of several game genres but the search for her son packs an emotional punch that hits hardest. 

Analysis: I occasionally see people play with the genre label, like David’s entry does. While this can be fun for the writer, in my experience, it indicates a bad script is coming. This goes back to the age-old notion that good writers don’t need bells and whistles. They don’t need a big crazy font for the title of their script. They don’t need to write a bunch of asides to the reader. They don’t need to invent their own genre. All they care about is telling a good story. To that end, one genre is preferable. You can get away with two (Comedy/Horror). But you should probably stop there.

As for the logline itself, I’m not up to date on video game lingo. So when I see “First Play,” capitalized, I’m not sure what it’s supposed to mean. Is that a game? Or is it a known term in the gaming world. “He got First Play of Red Redemption 2.” Capitalized words that aren’t typically capitalized tend to confuse me.

I’m into VR stuff so I liked that. I’m not sure I like the phrase “digital limbo.” It’s a murky way of saying what you’re trying to say, which is that he gets lost in the game. You don’t want any haze hovering over your logline. You want to make it as easy to understand as possible. I like that his mom is a technophobe. Some nice irony there. “Bespoke” is an odd word in this context and took me a minute to figure out. Anything that slows down a logline is a bad thing. And, finally, the central task itself isn’t very interesting. Based on what you’ve told us, the mom is going to be sitting in front of a TV playing video games for the 2 hour running time. Is that the movie?

This logline is a good example of how important each word and phrase in a logline is. The wrong word can send the reader off in a completely different direction than what you intended. I would encourage David to focus on clarity in the next go-around.

Title: Viewers
Genre: Sci-fi thriller.

Logline: After the CIA remote-viewer(psychic) program is dissolved due to a mission gone awry, an ex-member of the force comes across information about a Russian spy recruiting retirees. With nothing to lose, he puts together a rag-tag team to help hunt down the spy and prove to his previous employers that his best days are still ahead of him.

Why You Should Read: None



Analysis: The first thing I notice about this logline is that it’s long. A long logline does not mean the logline will be bad. But the more seasoned a writer gets, the better they get at writing loglines, and one of the things they learn to do is to keep the logline tight. Again, this isn’t a logline killer. It’s just a little red flag. 

“After the CIA remote-viewer (psychic) program is dissolved…” Okay, this is a red flag. Putting something in parenthesis is a major no-no in loglines. Also, the word ‘psychic’ seems to be an important detail. So why you’d relegate it to parenthesis, I’m not sure. From there, we get a lot of common logline words and phrasing. “Ex-member of the force,” “Russian spy,” “rag-tag team,” “hunt down,” “that his best days are still ahead of him.”

I know this is hard, guys. You’ve got this very tiny amount of space to convey all this important information and the majority of those words are going to be common ones. But that’s why you need to make the key moments in the logline stand out. You need key specific phrases (“dream heist” from Inception, for example) that differentiate your idea from everything else. Without any differentiating elements, it’s just a bunch of words we’ve already seen before.

Title: The Bone Butcher’s Cosmic Slaughterhouse
Genre: Sci-fi/Horror
Logline: A couple of ex-addict, rock star has-beens discover an extraterrestrial portal allowing them to relive past moments and change their greatest regrets, but the new choices they make and a nasty creature threatens to make them pay for it with their blood.

Why You Should Read: This is not a wacky idea by an undisciplined writer! I have to say that right off the bat. The script started off as trying to be a very disciplined, marketable “It Follows” meets “Alien” with a kick-ass, high-concept engine. Well… that engine took over and renamed the script. Upon finishing an early draft, I was sure the story was too ambitious. Ex-addict, deeply flawed protags, fantastical, outer space set pieces, awesome creature designs, too much blood, cosmic music concepts (Don’t worry it’s not a musical!), and people willingly getting gruesomely torn apart by a black hole.  

Yet then somehow, this script became a finalist in a couple sci-fi and horror contests as well as taking 2nd place in one. And my cynical writing group actually liked it. So I kept tinkering and polishing and getting feedback. Growing this thing like a cosmic chia pet for this very moment. I truly appreciate this opportunity and would relish in even the smallest amount of that amazing Scriptshadow feedback I’ve read over the years. Fingers crossed.

Analysis: While I wouldn’t call this an “everything and the kitchen sink” logline, I might call it an “everything and the slightly smaller bathroom sink” logline. Let’s go through it piece by piece. “A couple of ex-addict, rock star has-beens…”. So far, so good. I have a good feel for these characters. The ‘ex-addict’ feels organic to their old job, so it’s not just thrown in there to make the characters sound more interesting (something I encounter a lot in loglines). “… discover an extraterrestrial portal…”. Okay, we’ve just taken a huge leap. Whenever I see “portals,” I know there’s potential for the story to go sideways. I’ve read all the portal scripts, guys. It seems to be permission for a lot of writers to go to Wackyville. So, now, I’m on guard.

“…allowing them to relive past moments and change their greatest regrets…”. Okay, you’ve officially lost me. I distinctly remember having to read this part of the logline three times. It’s not written as elegantly as it could be. Also, it never works in loglines (or in scripts, for that matter) when there’s more than one objective. “They need to do this AND this.” You want a clean narrative. That means ONE thing. In Jaws, they’re not trying to kill a shark AND fix a broken dam. They’re just trying to kill the shark. “…but the new choices they make and a nasty creature…” At this point, there’s nothing that the logline could’ve done to reel me back in. But adding a creature to the mix definitely made things worse. It just feels like there’s too much going on at this point.

The good news is, people helped with this logline in the comments. And this is the new one they came up with: “A downtrodden couple, drowning in regrets, discover an extraterrestrial portal that allows them to change their past sins, but unwittingly unleash the portal’s blood-thirsty gatekeeper.” This logline is WAY better and shows you what a difference a well-written logline can make over a badly written logline. Which is why you should get a logline consultation from me! (E-mail carsonreeves1@gmail.com with subject line: “Logline Consult.”). Would this new logline have gotten the script into the High Concept Showdown? Probably not. But while I’d say the first logline put the script in the top 60 percentile, this new logline put it in the top 10 percentile. That’s a huge jump.

Title: High School Samurai
Genre: Martial Arts/Action
Logline: When a bullied, high school delinquent discovers that his local kendo dojo is a secret base for teenage samurai, he must fight with them to protect his family and the city of LA from an invading army of yōkai.

Why You Should Read: Yōkai are demons, ghosts and monsters of Japanese folklore. There are many tales of these creatures terrorizing the people of Japan during the feudal era, and even more tales of the brave samurai who faced them in battle. This script is one such tale, set in modern time where the yōkai have expanded their terror to the American west coast, and it’s up to the worst possible samurai to stop them; a troubled youth who lacks honor, loyalty and discipline. He must learn these values if he’s to protect those he loves, all while navigating the other great terror that is high school.

With splashes of Buffy, Kill Bill and Ninja Turtles, as well as the writing essentials like GSU and great characters, this is the kind of popcorn movie you’d enjoy with your best friends on a Saturday night at the local cinema. So kick back, play some koto music, and forget the worries of the world. This is “High School Samurai,” and I hope you enjoy it. Arigato!

Analysis: This one got some love in the comments. I love the title, “High School Samurai.” It rolls off the tongue. But when I got to his dojo being “a secret base for teenage samurai,” that’s a moment where you either buy in or step back. And I stepped back. I’m not sure why. It might be a preference thing – that pesky “personal taste” that gets in the way of so many great loglines. But I tried to imagine a bunch of teenaged samurai in my head and my head wasn’t cooperating with that image.

With that said, it was a big enough idea to still be in the running, which leads us to the second half of the logline, which ends with the words, “an invading army of yōkai.” I don’t know what yokai are. And that’s the thing with loglines. If the reader is on the fence, one wrong step can be the finishing blow. Now, astute readers of the site will point out that, in the very first sentence of the “Why You Should Read” section, the writer explains what yōkai are. But here’s the thing. Cause I remember this exact moment. I had a few hundred of these things to get through so I had to move fast. As soon as the nail was placed in the coffin, I was on to the next one. And this situation is not unique to me by any means. Nobody has time. Everyone’s moving on as quickly as possible. Now, do I think this logline is something the writer shouldn’t pursue? I wouldn’t go that far. People in the comments liked this so there’s obviously something to it. For my own taste, however, it wasn’t for me.

Title: KINGDOM COME
Genre: Sci-Fi Action
Logline: When a determined fleet admiral plans to ambush insurgent forces at a deep-space military base-planet, the base’s mechanic steps up to lead ground operations on the planet’s surface, and must step in when her admiral mother decides to take out the insurgency by any means necessary.

Why You Should Read: As a sci-fi fan, I’ve often thought about how galactic empires could manage to oversee bases and colonies spread across entire star systems. How likely is it that soldiers and other staff stationed at a base will be ready to fight, or even want to fight, a war they’ve been waiting years, maybe even decades to participate in? When they call, who responds? KINGDOM COME follows one individual who steps up when nobody else will, and she doesn’t stop until the job gets done, no matter where it takes her. You might know me in the Scriptshadow comments as CCM30. I’ve read and critiqued many scripts in this community over the years, and now it is my pleasure to offer up a work of my own.

Analysis: There were a couple of things working against this entry. For starters, this is a big science-fiction movie. Big science-fiction movies cost lots of money to produce. So, already, you’re at a disadvantage. When studios do make these movies, they hedge their bets on pre-existing intellectual property. If Warner Brothers is given the choice to spend 200 million dollars on a Dune movie or 200 million dollars on an original movie called, “The Divinity of Zal’Nahr” which one do you think is the more financially responsible choice. The reason it’s so important to internalize this is because it’s a question that filters all the way down the pyramid to the tiniest movies that the industry makes. If you’re a production company with a million dollars to spend, do you spend it making a horror movie or a drama? If you want to stay in business, it’s a horror movie. So you need to be thinking about your potential buyers when you’re coming up with an idea.

With that said, there is a caveat. And that caveat works like this. The more expensive a movie is, the better the idea has to be. Now, of course, “better” is subjective in a lot of ways. But one metric you can tap into is the ‘originality quotient.’ If the logline consists of a lot of generic words or things we’ve seen in other movies, it’s easier for the reader to say ‘no.’ Look at all the key words in this logline. “Fleet,” “admiral,” “ambush,” “insurgent,” “deep-space,” “military base,” “mechanic,” “ground operations,” “admiral mother,” “insurgency.” There isn’t a single unique word in the bunch. It’s all basic stuff. This results in a logline that doesn’t have the “flash factor.” Because the words are so generic, we imagine a generic movie. That’s why I didn’t pick this logline.

A few weeks ago I read the Black List rom-com that sold to Sony, Voicemails for Isabelle. It was easily the best rom-com I’ve read in years. The dialogue, in particular, was great. I said in that review that I would leave a voicemail for Leah and, what do you know, she replied! So we got on the phone and talked all things “Isabelle.” Leah was really forthcoming with her answers, which led to a great conversation. A little background here. Leah was an actress first. So you’ll see us referring to her acting throughout the interview. I also wanted a lot of dialogue advice so I asked a bunch of dialogue questions. Enjoy!

CR: The state of rom-coms in the last 15 years has been pretty bad. I think it’s because the genre is so inherently formulaic. How do you, Leah, approach the genre in order to stand out?

LM: I didn’t really know what I was doing and, in a lot of ways, that was my saving grace. Not just in rom-coms but in writing. I have no training in writing. And I agree with you. They’re so formulaic. I’ve seen a lot of rom-coms so I know the structure I have to follow in order for the audience not to get angry with me. But on some level I try to infuse it with some story about humans and sisters – my sister is my life and my love and my biggest supporter.

CR: And the inspiration for the story, I’m assuming.

LM: Yes, so what happened was I moved to LA to become an actress and my sister stayed in New York and I would leave these long voicemails to her late at night hoping to make her laugh. Or detail a terrible date. And in a lot of ways they became these confessional moments for me. The story was born out of that. I don’t know how to “write a rom-com.” All I focused on was telling my story. (for those curious, Leah’s sister is alive and well, so no tears need to be shed today)

CR: You reference a lot of rom-coms in the script so I think you know the genre better than you’re giving yourself credit for.

LM: Maybe! Yeah, I guess I do. I kinda feel it in my bones a little bit. Like I know at a certain point, “She needs to lose the guy here.”

CR: So your writing is instinctual?

LM: Yeah, that’s how I’d put it.

CR: How did you sell the script to Sony?

LM: This is going to be a long answer because it started back when I wrote and produced my first indie film, M.F.A. (a film about a rape at college). Cause I was running around asking everyone “How do you get an indie film financed?” And I would read all these sites and nobody would give me any concrete answers. So I would ask friends, “How do you do this?” And they would say, “Oh, you’ll find people,” And I would say, “But where are the people?” [laughs]

So I bought all the “How to Finance A Film” books and they weren’t very helpful either. None of them gave you a clear path on what you were supposed to do. Finally, I told everybody I knew that I was making a feature film and did they know anyone who’d be interested in investing in it. It was a slow process. Lots of dead ends. Lots of ‘this person leading to this person.’ But little bit by little bit we cobbled it together and shot it for $250,000, which included all the money I had at the time. The film got into South by Southwest and that gave me some legitimacy as a writer.

CR: Wow, you went all in.

LM: [laughs] I went all in in a way I do not recommend. Whenever filmmakers tell me they’re going to max out credit cards to make their film, on some level, I’m like, “Yeah! Do it or die!” On another level I’m like, “Self-care is important. Don’t do what I did.” [laughs] Because I came out of it so destroyed. I mean, in the midst of making that movie I was in so much pain because I was not eating. I was running on adrenaline. I ended up at the urgent care center. Anything that went wrong on the movie I took so personally in a way that you shouldn’t. I just want to say to people that I don’t think you should have to kill yourself for a movie.

CR: Yes, killing is bad.

LM: Right, and from that, I got my first literary agent. As well as my literary manager. And I got sent on the water bottle tour. Which is you go and you meet every single production company who liked your movie. And they’re all like, “What do you want to do next?” And I didn’t understand what I was doing at any of these places. I didn’t understand that I was supposed to be [laughs] pitching things. So I was sitting there thinking it was a friend date. I’m chatting and drinking my free coffee. So I said, “I don’t know what I wanna do next. Something cool I hope.” And I’m like, “Are you going to hire me now? What is happening?” And they all said, “Well, we’ll stay in contact.” And I was like, “Cool, we’ll stay in contact. Whatever that means.” [Carson laughs]

So during that tour, I met a producer named Becky Sanderman and we became really good friends. Becky pitched a TV show to me called, “What The F*ck, Glenn” about a mother dealing with her husband committing suicide. So I wrote that and that got me connected with Becky and Escape Artists, who are on the Sony lot. That led to me writing a father-daughter zombie project. And, for the first time in my life, I had a million voices giving me notes and I didn’t know how to handle it. Cause keep in mind, I was the only voice on M.F.A. I got so frustrated by the process that, in an act of rebellion, I wrote Voicemails for Isabelle. And one day Becky asked me if there was anything else I was working on and I told her about Voicemails and she said, “You are sending that to me as soon as you finish it.” And that’s what led to Sony buying it. I know that’s a long answer but I also know how frustrating it is for writers trying to understand how something gets sold so I wanted to be as detailed as possible.

CR: I’m not surprised it sold. I think you have a really strong voice, particularly your dialogue. Can you tell me your general approach to dialogue?

LM: My acting teacher John Rosenfeld always said, “Your characters are not as emotionally articulate as you.” People are not emotionally articulate most of the time. If you know that a character is heartbroken or sad, that doesn’t always come out as “heartbroken” and “sad.” People will try to play every emotion before they do that. They will get angry. They’ll be mean. They will turn it into a joke. So I very rarely play act a true darkness. We’re always trying to avoid that as humans. So a lot of times in my script where something sad has happened, there’ll be a scene that’s funny. I don’t do a lot of, “She cries and he holds her.” I don’t find that in my own life very often [laughs]. So I don’t write it.

Actors are also trained to observe people. So I’m always watching and listening and if I hear a good line, I write it down and make sure it gets in a script. For example, the other day a friend and I were looking at places to eat and we found this one restaurant that had these delicious looking noodles and he said, “Mmm, my mouth is hard.” I thought that was so funny. So the next time I have two characters in a food situation, they’re not going to say, “Mmm, that looks delicious.” They’re going to say, “Mmm, my mouth is hard.”

CR: That works in a comedy, obviously. But what about when you’re writing M.F.A., which is about a campus rape? How do you keep the dialogue interesting when you can’t depend on humor?

LM: Good question. I try to subvert familiar situations when I can. The scene that everybody brings up in M.F.A. is when the lead character, who’s been raped, goes to a “Feminists on Campus” meeting hoping for support. But when she goes to this gathering, she doesn’t get this outpouring of emotion or comfort. Instead, the girls were like, “Oh my God. Hash Tag Feminsim!” “We should do a bake sale.” “Oh yeah, we should provide a nailpolish where if you stick your finger in a drink it shows you if it’s been drugged.” “Ooh, good idea!” So it goes against what the main character is looking for in the scene and what the audience is expecting from the scene.

CR: What do you think the difference is between good and bad dialogue?

LM: Bad dialogue is often too literal. Too robotic. It has too much information. What is that word called? I have this list of words I always have to check.

CR: Exposition?

LM: Exposition! I’m a writer. I swear. That’s the thing that kills me. When there’s too much exposition. When a writer is doing too much telling and not enough showing. I’m such a big believer in show don’t tell.

CR: What do you mean by that because if you’re showing, you’re not writing dialogue.

LM: For example, if someone is heartbroken, they shouldn’t say, “I’m heartbroken.” If she’s in the room with the guy who broke her heart, you want to focus on how she won’t make eye contact. Or the guy doesn’t make eye contact. That sort of thing. No character who’s in pain should ever have to say that they’re in pain. We should be able to feel that through their actions.

I have this writer friend I’ve been helping and his characters explain everrrryyyyyyyy-thing. I’ve told him you need to cut all of this waaaaaaaay down. What isn’t being said is far more interesting than what is being said. Humans rarely talk about their emotions. They avoid emotions.

CR: Not a lot of writers are blessed with a natural comedic ability but they’re still required, at times, to write comedic scenes. How does one write funny dialogue?

LM: I don’t know. I tend to go with “TMI.” The things that would be so awkward if you said them but you’re still thinking them? Having your character say those things has always been a guide for me. A lot of times my characters are sort of irreverent and say the wrong thing. They very rarely say the right thing. If you could’ve done it over, you would’ve said it better. But there’s so much humor in the person reaching for the right thing and coming up short. There’s this great quote: “Funny people are just really observant.” I think that’s true.

One of my favorite movies is Little Miss Sunshine and my favorite scene is when the main girl says, “Grandpa, am I pretty?” And he says, “You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in my whole life, I’m completely in love with you. And it’s not because you’re intelligent, it’s not because you’re nice, it’s completely because you’re so beautiful.” And I love that so much because it’s a little inappropriate for a grandpa to say to his granddaughter. And you’re not supposed to tell a little girl that her heart and her intelligence do not matter. But it’s so true and so honest that that’s how he handled the question. That is the kind of s*#t I want to write.

CR: My favorite scene in Voicemails was the meet-cute scene between Jill and Tyler. What I noticed about that scene was that the characters rarely said what you expected them to. They always seemed to say the opposite of what they were supposed to say. How did you approach that scene?

LM: I’ve never told this to anybody. When I got to LA as an actress, I started writing things secretly. I didn’t know how to write a screenplay but I understood how to write a scene. So I would write these little scenes. And I had written that meet-cute scene during that time. It wasn’t inspired by anything other than my own life – moving to Hollywood. Trying to navigate the town. Anyway, many years later when I was writing Voicemails, I stumbled across that document with all the old scenes in it and I found that scene and I thought, “Hmm, that’s pretty good!” And I pasted it into Voicemails without changing a whole lot. But that was a real revelation for me because I realized, you might not know how to write a script, per se, but it doesn’t mean that you don’t know how to write or that you don’t have talent as a writer. It’s really validating to hear that that was your favorite scene cause that’s one of the first things I ever wrote.

But yeah, if I analyze why that scene works now, I think it’s because they’re pushing each other, testing each other, and that’s where the fun banter comes from.

CR: Any last dialogue tips you can give us? For that writer out there who never gets complimented on their dialogue?

LM: Hmmm. People don’t generally speak in complete sentences. It’s difficult for people to have complete thoughts in the moment. They stutter. They start making their point only to realize they’ve messed up and double back. They struggle to get to the point. They say very inappropriate things along the way. The big thing for me is the verbal diarrhea character. Their own honesty is a plague for them. If it’s comedy, I’d say honesty is your best friend. The uglier and grosser and more grotesque the answer is, the better. And if it’s a dramatic scene, have your characters struggle with their pain. Struggle to hide the truth. The elephant in the room is the true emotion. But they should play EVERY OTHER emotion before going to that one. It’s so much more interesting to watch a person try not to cry than to watch a person crying.

And if I could give one last piece of advice, I would encourage writers to not wait around for permission. Try to get your own stuff made. And I’m not just talking about getting a film made because I know films are expensive. But I did a 7 episode web series when no one would give me the time of day. I wrote six short films with parts for me as an actress. I always hustled and never waited around. I think that’s the reason for any success I’ve had. You can do the same. You can put two actors in a car with some green screen and shoot it on an iPhone for nothing. What’s your excuse? You can do it!

Is Normal People the “Titanic” of this generation? A love story that will be remembered for decades to come?

I’d been avoiding Normal People on more than one front.

I’d purchased the book and found myself reading a few pages at a time, unable to get into it. I’d throw on an episode every once in a while (the show can be found on Hulu), watch it in the background, and found myself lukewarm to the experience.

The show seemed to be a version of Twilight but without any of the things that made Twilight popular, namely that all the characters were vampires and werewolves. A Twilight show without the exciting stuff? Who’s idea was this?

But every few days I’d run into a glowing recommendation on the internet or from a friend. And then I heard that it was breaking all sorts of ratings records in the United Kingdom. That’s what really caught my eye. It’s nearly impossible to have a STRAIGHT DRAMA (not sci-fi, not superheroes, not vampires) break ratings records. So I said, “Okay Carson. No more hedging. It’s time to sit down and give this a proper shot.”

I’ll tell you the moment where it changed for me, when I knew I was watching something special.

It was when I realized the rich girl was the loser at school and the poor boy was popular. I know that seems like a minor thing but think about it. It flips one of the most common cliches in high school movies/shows on its head. The rich kids are always the cool ones. The poor kids are always the losers.

In retrospect, it was why I initially rejected the show. The setup was so different from what I was used to that I didn’t know what to make of it. It’s like anything that’s new and different. You’re not able to process it at first. I checked the episode count (12 episodes!) and was even more intrigued. How do you keep a high school relationship interesting for 12 episodes?

If you haven’t seen the show, it follows two teenagers, Marianne and Connell, who live in a small Irish town. Marianne’s family is rich. Connell’s mother is their maid. And that’s how they know each other. Connell will sometimes come by to pick up his mom. He and Marianne will share a few words and they go their separate ways.

Marianne is odd and rarely socializes at school. Contrast this with Connell, the best football player at school, the guy everyone gravitates to. Despite Connell having his pick of the litter, he can’t keep his eyes off Marianne.

She’s icy to him at first, but soon they start spending time together, and that time leads to a sexual relationship that blows Marianne’s mind. Connell is all she can think about. However, Connell is embarrassed by Marianne for reasons he can’t articulate. He can’t risk being seen with her. And so their relationship becomes a secret.

It’s a secret that works for a while. But when Connell asks another girl to the year’s final dance solely to avoid being seen with Marianne, Marianne is furious and stops talking to Connell cold turkey.

The series follows the two characters throughout the next six years as they have an extremely complicated relationship. Sometimes they get together. But more often they find new boyfriends and girlfriends, creating a never-ending flow of resistance between them.

The show puts a heavy emphasis on Marianne’s sexual journey as she searches out crazier and more intense sexual experiences that reinforce the negative feelings she has towards herself. At times it looks like life doesn’t want them to be together. And yet, somehow, Marianne and Connell always drift back together. Will they find a way? Or are they doomed to always know each other from afar?

One of the most fascinating things about this show is that there is no GOAL. There is no URGENCY. The things that normally keep a story together – there’s none of that. The series’ story engine is, simply, will they or won’t they? Will they or won’t they end up together?

‘Will they or won’t they’ scenarios are almost always secondary storylines. Never the centerpiece. Jim and Pam. Jack and Kate (Lost). You’d never be crazy enough to build an entire series whose only question is, “Will they or won’t they end up together?” But Normal People does. And somehow, against all logic, it succeeds.

Part of the reason it succeeds is because it mostly keeps its characters apart. Remember, when your characters are together, the question is answered. It’s only when they’re apart that we wonder if they’ll be together. So for these types of stories to work (think When Harry Met Sally as well), you have to keep the characters apart mostly. And as long as we love both of the characters, we’ll keep watching to get our final answer.

But that’s not the only reason you want to keep them apart. By keeping them apart, you create a TSUNAMI of subtext whenever the characters meet up. There are so many moments in this series where Marianne has a boyfriend and Connell has a girlfriend. And they’re both in town for a weekend and they run into each other and despite the fact that the characters barely say any words, the scene is BURSTING with energy because you can see all the things that they want to say but don’t.

Also, every one of Marianne’s boyfriends and Connell’s girlfriends know how close these two are. So you get a lot of great scenes where, for example, Connell comes over to a dinner with Marianne, her boyfriend, and a bunch of mutual friends. And you can see the boyfriend simmering beneath the surface, which turns what would otherwise be a boring scene into a subtext battleground. The conflict born out of competition becomes the centerpiece of the scene, even if all we’re seeing is people pour wine and pass breadsticks.

If subtext has ever confused you, stop whatever you’re doing and watch this show. This show has more subtext in it than maybe any show I’ve ever seen. It actually has so much subtext it hurts the show at times. I wished that these two would just effing tell each other what they feel. But, by and large, it works because people not being able to say what they want is more interesting than people blurting out exactly what they want.

If there’s a Top 5 List of hardest things to do in writing, creating strong unique deep challenging characters is near the top of that list. Most writers will tell you it’s the hardest thing to get right. And I agree. 99% of the characters I encounter in the scripts I read are forgettable. What’s the secret sauce to finding that 1%?

Sally Rooney, the author of the book, has an interesting approach to that. She never looks at the character individually. She always looks at CHARACTER DYNAMICS. In other words, she needs a ying to the yang. She can never do just the ying. She must understand who Connell is in Marianne’s eyes and who Marianne is in Connell’s eyes to understand the characters on a deeper level. Only then is she able to figure out their backstories and how they came to be.

And that makes sense when watching Normal People. Their relationship is very complicated and very powerful and that’s probably because Rooney conceived of them as a pair as opposed to individually. Once you know the dynamic between the characters, you can go more confidently into their past to figure out how they got there.

Something’s obviously working because the “How they got there” stuff is so powerful in Normal People. The level of detail in their individual family relationships isn’t just strong. It’s a reminder of how important it is to figure out where your characters came from. The more you know, the more realistic they’ll be on the page.

Marianne comes from a single parent family. The father is gone. This has left her brother, a drunk, as the man of the house. And he hates his sister. He never misses an opportunity to tell her how worthless she is. And since her mother likes her brother more than her, she never sticks up for Marianne. She allows him to berate her.

Once you understand what Marianne has to endure at home on a day by day basis, you realize why she’s so reclusive. Why she’s so icy towards others. Her self-esteem is bottomed out. She doesn’t believe she’s worth anyone’s attention. And, of course, that’s why she’s so drawn to Connell at first. Here’s this boy everyone likes and he sees something in her. She’s so desperate for that positive attention that she’s willing to go along with his stipulation that they don’t tell anyone.

I loved the way Rooney used contrast in her characters. Marianne is a rich girl with an unloving mother who’s unpopular. Connel is a poor boy with a loving mother who’s popular. Think about the complexity of that for a second. It would’ve been easier to give Marianne everything. She’s rich. Her mom is great. Her school life is perfect. This is how most writers think. By giving the rich character the terrible family and the poor character the loving one, it creates more layers within the characters which makes them more realistic.

That’s the ultimate goal, by the way. You’re trying to make imaginary people made of words seem as real as you and me. And as we all know, we’re all a combination of plusses and minuses. We’re full of contradictions. None of us have it all. So it makes more sense to give your characters a messier makeup.

And to Rooney’s testament, she takes that to the next level because the characters evolve over the course of the show. Connell is popular when we meet him. But once he goes off to college and isn’t good enough to play on the football team, he becomes an outsider. His popularity disappears. Meanwhile, Marianne has tons of friends at college. That’s what was so brilliant about the show. The characters kept evolving and then had to deal with those evolutions.

In retrospect, I should’ve known I’d love this. It’s directed by Lenny Abrahamson who directed my favorite movie of 2015, Room. Oh, and that’s something I didn’t even mention. The acting in this is incredible. I don’t know if there’s been better casting for a movie or show in the last ten years. I mean that. These actors are so great in their roles. To the point where I searched for interviews of them afterwards so I could see them together again.

If you’re entering The Character Piece Showdown, this is a show you’ll DEFINITELY want to check out. It’s some of the best character writing I’ve seen in a long time. But bring a box of tissues and be prepared to have your emotions jacked around for six hours. You’re going to be emotionally exhausted after this show. But it’s a good exhaustion. Trust me.

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

What I learned: TENSION IN SCENES. Goals are great. Stakes are great. Urgency is great. But none of that matters if there isn’t TENSION in your scenes. Tension (a form of conflict) is the secret sauce to making scenes pop. It can be anger. It can be sexual tension. It can be unspoken tension. It can be a third character adding tension. The reason this show is able to be so good in spite of a weak narrative is because the writer makes sure there’s tension in every scene.

What? A new feature on Scriptshadow? A full 10 years after the site started? How does that even happen??

Genre: Sci-Fi/Drama
Premise: (from Hit List) When new technology allows people to have realistic sex in virtual reality, a man begins to suspect that the avatar he’s been digitally hooking up with behind his girlfriend’s back might belong to his best friend’s girlfriend. Secrets and lies come to the surface, jeopardizing both relationships in the process.
About: I’m SUPER PUMPED about this script. One of the best unknown directors out there is making his directorial debut with this film. I don’t know anything about the writer other than he made the Hit List in 2018 with this script. But director Saman Kesh is amazing. You can watch his short film, Controller, here.
Writer: Jacob Colman
Details: 107 pages

Bridget Regan for Amy?

Writing is so interesting.

Because whenever you write a story, you’re writing about problems. This is a necessity because if everything is okay, it wouldn’t be interesting. That means when you write about a marriage, it typically has to be a marriage in disarray so that we want to keep reading to see the problems resolved. If the marriage is fine, there’s no reason for us to stick around.

However, if you aren’t careful with the way you present the problems with your characters, you risk things feeling depressing or sad. Did anybody see that Mike Nichols movie, Closer? It didn’t do very well for that specific reason. You watched that movie and just felt… depressed.

A little of the same thing is happening with Blur.

These are people with problems which SHOULD MEAN that I want to see their problems get resolved. But I don’t. Why? Because I don’t like the characters. That’s another tricky thing with writing. You have to write about people in bad situations but you have to present them in a good enough way that we like them.

“Blur” follows four people. There’s TV editor and self-esteem poor Liam. There’s ladies-man who’s never had a job in his life Bobby. There’s wholesome but boring Amy. And there’s hot but detached from life Lydia.

Liam and Amy, both on the verge of 30, are married and have known each other since college. They also knew Bobby in college. And the group is close enough that Bobby and Amy had a brief fling before Liam and Amy got together.

Bobby has now brought his latest girlfriend, Lydia – who you could buy a diamond ring for while walking a puppy as the two of you were experiencing Disney World for the first time and she would still find a way to be bored – to spend some couples time together.

Independently, Liam and Lydia learn about this thing called Tryst VR where you can participate in realistic VR sex. The two each secretly buy a Tryst, keeping it from their significant others. The experience is particularly intense for Liam, who’s had a limited sex life. He meets another virtual person in the program and she rocks his world. Little does he know, it’s Lydia.

Liam begins to re-request this girl, named Eve in the program, and they engage in a myriad of sexual acts. Liam obviously feels guilty about the whole thing. But not guilty enough to stop! Meanwhile, Bobby secretly discovers Lydia’s Tryst VR and hops on it to see who she’s virtually banging. And the next thing you know, he’s rage-banging Liam, although neither of them are aware of it.

Will Tryst VR destroy these two couples? Or is it actually solving their relationship issues?

As much as I wanted this script to work it just doesn’t.

For starters, there’s no plot – nothing moving anything forward here. We’re just watching characters talk. Then watching characters go to work. Then watching characters use the Tryst headset. Then watching characters talk again. There isn’t a single active character or plot event pushing anything forward.

I guess there’s the VR stuff. Liam is technically being active by using it. But somehow even that storyline is stillborn. If you’re crafting a movie that’s all about sexual VR experiences, then each time you go in, the experiences should escalate. They should get either more intense or more dangerous. But they mostly stay the same in Blur. In a movie, things need to escalate and evolve, not stay the same.

It’s disappointing because this is the second script in two days that didn’t exploit its premise.

Quick tip for everyone. Be wary of writing a story where characters have miserable lives and don’t do anything interesting. Even if that’s the point you’re trying to make – that life is unfulfilling – there’s a high probability we’re going to be bored by your characters. Why wouldn’t we be? THEY DON’T DO ANYTHING AND THEY’RE ALL MISERABLE. Who wants to watch that? Especially when you don’t have a plot to fall back on. At least with a plot, we’d have something to look forward to.

American Beauty is a movie that played with unhappiness. A guy was unhappy with his life and so he made a drastic change to stop doing what the world told him to do and, instead, do whatever he wanted. It covered the same themes as Blur but it did so in a way that was much more active and entertaining.

Key in on that word – ACTIVE. Lester in American Beauty was ACTIVELY pursuing his dream of living life on his terms. Amy, Liam, Lydia, and Bobby just sit around and complain about their lives.

Based on this director, here’s what I know. This is going to look amazing. And I feel like he’s going to give us sex scenes that we’ve never seen in a movie before – really weird visceral fun shit.

But no matter how good of a director you are, you can’t save a script that a) has no forward-moving plot and b) fails at the main thing it’s trying to do.

This movie is trying to explore relationships but the dynamics that have been set up are aggressively uninteresting. Both of these are lame-duck relationships. They’re doomed. So why do I care if two people cheat? It’s just speeding up an inevitable process. And it’s not even real cheating. It’s computer cheating.

If these couples were in a good place, or even if only one of the couples was in a good place, now you have something to ruin because the character who cheats is potentially destroying the only thing that matters to them – their marriage.

In Blur, there are no consequences. Even if you make the argument that virtual cheating is still cheating, and therefore getting caught means breaking up, THAT WOULD BE A GOOD THING FOR EVERYONE INVOLVED because they were all miserable to begin with!

This was frustrating. Was hoping for more.

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

What I learned: We’re going to add a new feature in script reviews. A Character Description Ranking. Every script I read, I will take a character description and give it a ranking. Black Star – terrible. Bronze star – Barely okay. Silver Star – Good. Gold Star – Great. Platinum Star – Superb. The reason I like this below description is it takes us out of the static two dimensional world of words and pulls us into a real live environment. It’s not just adjectives. We’re in a bar looking at this person.

GOLD STAR CHARACTER DESCRIPTION! – “Amy does her makeup in the mirror. She’s exceedingly cute. That wholesome look that emboldens shy guys in bars.”