Something has been happening frequently enough in the amateur consultation scripts I’ve been reading lately that I need to bring it up. Because if it’s happening in five of the last seven scripts I read, it’s happening everywhere.

I’m talking about OFF-SCREEN STORY. Off-screen story is any story that occurs outside the pages of your screenplay. A traumatic moment that your adult main character experienced when he was seven – that’s off-screen story. Unless you flash back and show it to us, of course.

But off-screen story can also be something simple. If you show us your hero eating dinner with his family and then the next scene is him at work the following day, well, there’s a good 12 hours of off-screen story that occurred between those two scenes.

Your character STILL EXISTS in those moments. Stuff happened in his life. Maybe his youngest son got picked on at school and he had to give him a little speech to make him feel better. Maybe he needed to help his teenaged daughter with algebra homework. Maybe he got in a small fight with his wife about a friend’s wedding she wanted him to come to but he doesn’t want to go.

And by the way, there are additional off-screen stories going on with your secondary characters. Just because the hero’s wife only appears in four scenes, that doesn’t mean she didn’t have things to do and places to go while we were following your main character.

What I’ve found is that the more a writer knows about their off-screen story, the better the script is. This skill really does belong to a small percentage of writers – and they tend to be the advanced ones.

It makes sense when you think about it. Beginner and intermediate screenwriters are still learning the basics, like character arcs, and conflict, and how to create suspense, and how to pace their story out. Having to worry about things that don’t even happen on the page is the last of their concerns.

And yet, it is the thing that will take your screenwriting to the next level.

Here’s why.

The more you know about the world you’re writing in, the more confident your writing will be. It’s no different from real life. The more you know about a topic, the more confident you’ll be talking about it. Whenever you know more about your characters and the world they exist in, the more confidently you will write. And I’m going to prove it to you.

Write a 3-scene story about a guy who works at a telephone company. Doesn’t matter what the story is. Just write it. When you’re finished, write a 3-scene story with you as the main character that takes place at your own place of work.

I bet you the second scene is going to be a lot more specific, a lot more authentic, and populated with a lot more detail. Why? Well first of all, you know everything about yourself because you’re you. So you know what kind of mood you were in last night, all the obstacles you’ve experienced the past week. You know everyone at work to an annoying degree. You have such a specific understanding of what you do, that you’ll be able to come up with something that feels real.

With your telephone dude story, you won’t know anything about his life except for maybe his age and whether he’s married or not. You have no idea how a telephone company operates so good luck making that feel real.You won’t know anyone at his work so you’ll depend on cliches to build the characters (the “holier than thou” boss, for example).

It’s night and day when you write from a place of knowledge, and that’s all off-screen story is. It’s having all those details to draw from IF YOU WANT THEM. And that’s why most writers don’t bother with off-screen story. Because the truth is, you don’t use most of it.

Your hero might’ve gone through a goth phase when he was in high school. But your script never gives you an opportunity to mention that or even use it to inform how your character reacts to things. So the prevailing belief is that it’s a whole lot of work for not a lot of payoff. It’s easier to just focus on the stuff that’s on the page. Cause that stuff actually “matters.”

The key word in that last paragraph should stand out in big bright lights to you. It’s “easier.” If it’s easier, that usually means it’s not good.

So, in one of these amateur scripts I read, which was a sci-fi script, there was a really generic bad guy. I could tell that the writer didn’t have any idea what this villain’s childhood years were like. Or even the years where they became a bad guy. They didn’t know how it happened. They didn’t know what motivated him to become this person. Which amounted to a villain with no clear power-set (since they didn’t know how he gained his powers in the first place) who was just bad because he was bad.

It’s impossible to create memorable characters this way. You have to do the hard work. You gotta take a few weeks (if they’re a major character) and figure out everything that’s happened in that character’s life to lead them to this point.

I know it’s impossible to compare to the greatest characters in movie history. But there’s a reason Hannibal Lecter was so memorable. This movie wasn’t even his first appearance. Author Thomas Harris had written Hannibal into previous books before. Which means he had all sorts of off-screen story to utilize when writing Hannibal’s scenes or coming up with his dialogue.

When Dr. Frederik Chilton references to Clarice the fact that Hannibal once bit a chunk out of a nurse’s face and shows her the picture, that didn’t come out of thin air. Thomas Harris already knew that that happened, either because he’d written it into a previous novel or written it into backstory for his own knowledge. That’s the power of off-screen story, is you can draw from all of these things that you already know.

When you don’t know those things, you always go to the top of your brain for choices, and the top of your brain only contains cliches and stuff from previous movies you’ve watched. So the script is always generic and always boring. It’s why you write dialogue exchanges like, “Is that clear?” “Crystal.”

Now there’s two ways to do this. The first is to do a bunch of research and character bios and world bios and backstory before you even write the script. I know a lot of writers who do this. They’ll come up with a concept, then collect ideas for that concept over the course of a few years. Then, when they have enough notes, they flesh out all of those ideas in a document – we’re talking 15-20 pages here – and then write the script.

Another way to do it for the impatient crowd is to jump right into the script and start writing. However, these writers have to know that they’re going to write between 10-15 drafts of the script. The plan will be to find all the off-screen story in those subsequent drafts. That’s a perfectly viable plan as well. But you gotta do one or the other. You can wing it, of course. But a script is always going to be better if you’re starting from a place of knowledge.

I can spend years giving you examples of this. Quentin Tarantino writing an entire season of his fictional character’s (Rick Dalton) cowboy show for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. J.R.R. Tolkien coming up with entire languages before he wrote Lord of the Rings.

I understand that there is a tipping point here, where the amount of time you spend creating the off-screen world becomes detrimental to writing the script. Cause, theoretically, there’s always another character in the script you could know more about. And knowing more about them would help the script, yes. But if it’s preventing from ever writing the script, that’s not good.

Still, my experience is that 99% writers are on the other end of the spectrum. Especially amateur writers. They don’t do enough off-screen story work and, as a result, their scripts have zero detail, zero specificity. So everything feels generic. And characters have no depth because you can tell the writer knows absolutely nothing about them when the camera’s not on them.

You’d be shocked at how many consults I’ve had where I’ve asked the writer, “What is this secondary character’s job?” “I don’t know.” How could you not know?? A job informs half of a person’s life. It possibly has the biggest influence on who they are. And you don’t know what your hero’s wife does for a living? If you don’t know that, you don’t know your main character. Because he’s living a completely different life if his wife is a high-level corporate lawyer compared to a secretary for a used car dealership.

I’m sure some of you are still pushing back but think about that for a second. Let’s say you now know the wife is a lawyer. Well, if you get to page 72 and there’s a legal snafu that occurs to your character, guess what? You know exactly who he’s going to go to for help because you knew, ahead of time, that his wife was a lawyer. If you don’t know that, you’re bringing in Rando Joe The Lawyer who you’re introducing on page 72.

This is the stuff that elevates your script to the next level because it’s the stuff that takes your script from a fun fictional experience to actual real life. It’s what makes us believe that the movie is happening. It’s where our disbelief is suspended.

I know it’s annoying. I know it takes a long time. But do you want to write average screenplays? Or do you want to write good screenplays?

I hope it’s the latter.

Hey!  Have you been sending a logline out and not getting any responses?  How bout your scripts?  Are readers not recognizing your genius?  I do consultations for every stage of the screenplay journey: logline ($25), outline ($99), first act ($149), full pilot ($399), full screenplay ($499).  I’ve read thousands of screenplays, including all the ones that get produced and all the ones that don’t.  There’s no one better at identifying why a script isn’t making the mark than me.  I can help you understand what needs work in your script and I can help you become a much better screenwriter.  If you’re serious about improving, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com and let’s work together!  

Genre: Dark Comedy
Premise: Two lesbians, one slutty, the other conservative, head down to Florida on a road trip, unknowingly carrying a high profile suitcase that belongs to some very bad people.
About: The Coen Brothers split up! So Ethan is now writing with his wife, Tricia. This is their first project together. It was originally pitched in the early 2000s, with actresses such as Holly Hunter, Selma Blaire, Christina Applegate, and Chloe Sevigny attached.
Writers: Ethan & Tricia Coen
Details: 97 pages – This is an older draft. I’m sure they’ve updated a few things to make it more modern since then.

Emma for Jamie?

I’m not sure what I’m in for today.

All I know is that the Coens have split up. Something tells me that they took a long look at their last decade of movies and said, “Maybe we’re getting a little stale. Maybe it’s time we did our own thing.” This gave them the opportunity to do the movies they’ve been pitching each other for years that the other didn’t want to make.

The first film on that slate was Joel’s MacBeth. Although I’m sure a small group of people will pound the ground the second you say that movie was a failure, I have yet to meet someone who’s actually seen it (feel free to strike back in the comments if you have). So as far as I’m concerned, they’re 0-1. Today’s Coen movie sounds a little more commercial, but only a little.

Look, I am a Coen fan. These guys have written some of the best screenplays ever. But I also call it like I see it. So if this is good, I’ll be leading the charge to watch it. If it’s bad, I’m going to be honest and say it’s bad.

Let’s take a look!

Our movie begins with a very “Coen”-like scene. A Chinese man named Jimmy Yun clutches a briefcase as he walks hurriedly down a street at night, looking around frantically. Soon he is chased down by someone who corners him in an alley and shoves a corkscrew into his neck, causing Jimmy to scream at the top of his lungs.

Cut to a second scream, this one coming from a woman being sexually exploited in untold ways by another woman named Marian. Marian is a lesbian. A very slutty Philadelphian lesbian. And this foray into casual sex with some random chick is about to lose her her girlfriend, who, truth be told, Marian didn’t like much anyway.

Meanwhile, we meet Jamie, a very uptight conservative lesbian who only engages in sex when it’s inside a deep meaningful relationship. For that reason, she hasn’t gotten laid in six years. Luckily, she’s got Marian, her best friend, who is determined to help Jamie end this drought.

When Jamie quits her job to experience more of life, she decides her first order of business will be to go on a road trip. She signs up for a “drive away” service, one of those things where you drive someone else’s car to them in another city. That way, you get the car for free. And Marian invites herself along for the fun.

The job will take them to Florida. And it has a big stipulation. The car MUST be there by tomorrow. Jamie says that’s fine. But Marian is having none of it. She plans to stop at every lesbian bar between Philadelphia and Florida to get laid. And she’s going to force Jamie to do the same.

Little do the two know, there’s a special suitcase under the spare tire in the trunk, a suitcase we may remember from the opening scene. As soon as the owners of that suitcase and that car realize that Marian and Jamie did not deliver the car on time, they send two heavies to take the car back. And let’s just say these men have no problem adding two more bodies to their trail of violence.

Drive Away Dykes is the Coen version of Due Date. It’s a broad comedy with some of that Coen special sauce drizzled all over it. It’s got gore. It’s got inappropriateness. It’s got the kind of humor that makes you laugh and cringe at the same time.

Most importantly, though, it has something that all scripts need. Which is that, whatever genre you’re playing in, you have to bring something new to the table. Drive Away Dykes is the first road trip I’ve encountered that’s centered around two lesbians. And that’s why it feels so fresh.

And it’s not just for show. Not just to be different. You know that because this movie doesn’t work UNLESS the main characters are lesbians. There’s so much focus on Marian’s desire to get laid and Jamie’s resistance to get laid, that every situation they encounter with other lesbians becomes this sort of game where we’re wondering if Marian is finally going to win out and get Jamie a woman.

On top of that, there’s this undercurrent of sexual tension between these two, and therefore we’re wondering if anything is going to happen between them. I suppose this has been done before with road trips that follow a guy and a girl. But there’s definitely a different flavor to it when both characters are lesbians.

As anyone who’s written a road trip movie knows, the two characters at the center of the story have to have an intense amount of conflict between them, which Marian and Jamie do. And the “bigger” character has to be really really funny. They can’t be kind of funny. I can confirm that Marian is really funny. Her sexual obsession combined with how easily she’s able to discard the sexual scalps she racks up makes her worse than the biggest male womanizer you’ve ever met. She’s so cavalier about it, you can’t help but laugh.

And she’s a quote machine. Every word out of her mouth is nuts. “Well, hello, they’re all repressed in New England. That’s why we’re going the other way. Although there was this one chick I screwed once from New Hampshire? She was, she got her tongue so far in me I thought it was gonna wriggle out my asshole.” “Marian!” “No, really, they say there are advanced yoga people who can do that. In India, supposedly. Like, black belts in cunnilingus. They can even do it to themselves — they have pictured of it, like, in medical texts.”

On top of that, the Coens cannot help themselves and always throw some bad guys in there who are unafraid of killing people. This is what sets the Coens apart. Most comedy writers will throw villains into the story. But they’re villains in name only. They’re not actually scary or dangerous.

Coen villains are dangerous. This creates the unique voice that permeates the Coen-verse, as you feel something in a Coen comedy that you never feel in a studio comedy, which is genuine fear for the protagonists. The Coens somewhat brilliantly set this up in the opening scene. By showing us not just a kill, but a kill in gruesome detail, they show us what’s capable of happening to our heroes.

Finally, there is no shortage of weirdness to this story. You’re going to do a double-take when you find out what’s in the suitcase. And from there, it only gets weirder. The most shocking thing about this script is that you wouldn’t know that both Coen brothers didn’t write it. It feels just like every other Coen script. So maybe Ethan’s wife, Tricia, is just on the same wavelength as the brothers.

I have a feeling this is going to cause a stir when it comes out. In a good way.

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

What I learned: The Coens are at their best when they keep things simple. They have characters with a goal (drive to Florida). They have a macguffin (the suitcase). They have bad guys chasing good guys. Then they just try and come up with fun original set pieces. If you follow that formula – as long as you push yourself and come up with genuinely original set pieces – you can write a really good screenplay.

By the way, it helps if you start with an already original setup. It would’ve been harder to come up with original set pieces here if we were following a guy and a girl. The fact that they’re lesbians looking for lesbian hook-ups, places them in set pieces that are already gonna be different. Which is why this script stands out.

Genre: Drama
Premise: Two former best friends, at opposite ends of their sport’s success spectrum, take each other on in a match for the ages in front of the woman they both love.
About: Big one here! Zendaya in a tennis movie! With “Call Me By Your Name” director Luca Guadagnino directing! That may be the most unorthodox trio of elements (Zendaya, tennis, Luca Guadagnino) I’ve ever seen in a project. And I love tennis so I’m here for it! The writer is brand new.
Writer: Justin Kuritzkes
Details: 128 pages (lots of dialogue, though, so it doesn’t read that long)

Normally, I go into scripts naked. I have no idea who wrote them or where they came from. All the stuff you read in the “About” section is usually research I do after I’ve read the script. I do this so I can judge every script equally. This time, however, I know a little about the script.

That’s because it’s a tennis script. And anybody who knows me, knows I’m a tennis guy. To give you a peek behind the curtain, I had the Miami Open on Tennis Channel playing, literally, on a loop, all last week. So when a tennis script comes around, I’m more curious than usual.

In this case, I’m insanely curious because it’s a tennis script……… directed by Luca Guadagnino. Well respected critically acclaimed directors don’t typically direct tennis movies. And even when they do – Woody Allen – the movie isn’t any good. In fact, tennis movies still have an 0-19 track record in cinema.

And yes, I’m including King Richard, which I don’t consider to be a tennis movie. It’s a movie about a crazy dad who turns his daughters into tennis players. A legit good tennis movie that focuses on tennis has not happened yet.

Adding some spice to the dish is that Zendaya is starring. Four months ago I wouldn’t have cared about that. But since then, I’ve fallen in love with Euphoria, and now consider myself a Zendaya fan. I am soooooooo so so so very interested in if this script is actually good. The pieces indicate literally ANYTHING is possible. Let us find out together, if this is finally the first good tennis screenplay.

Our story opens on the beginning of a tennis match between 6-time Grand Slam champion, 33 year old, Art Donaldson, and 32 year old tennis journeyman, Patrick Zweig, playing the finals of a Challenger (low-level) tournament in the middle of nowhere.

The best player in the world is playing a tiny Challenger because he’s coming off an injury, needs his confidence back, and therefore wants some cupcake wins leading up to the U.S. Open.

Watching the match is 33 year old Tashi Donaldson, Art’s hard-nosed wife and coach, who seems very into this tiny nothing match where the winner only gets $7000. That’s because, as we’re about to find out, there’s a LOT of history between these three.

Flash back nearly 20 years ago when the three were juniors. Art and Patrick were the toasts of the junior boys’ world, winning the junior U.S. Open doubles championships together and facing off in the singles final. And that’s where they meet Tashi, who’s better than both of them. There’s an instant connection between the three.

The script then jumps back to the present day, where we’re a little further along in the match. This is the structure we’ll be following. We’ll play a little of the match, then jump into the past for a while, before coming back again.

Each time, we learn something new about the relationship and the players. We learn that Patrick, who decides against college and joins the tour, starts dating Tashi. We watch as both Tashi and Art go to Stanford and become good friends. We watch as Art starts to undermine Patrick in an attempt to date Tashi himself. We see Tashi experience a devastating injury in college that kills her career in an instant. And we see this strange entanglement of the three until Art and Patrick begin to detest each other.

This makes their present-day match all the more compelling, as talent and skill go out the window. This is not the number 7 player in the world playing number 207. It’s two former best friends committed to destroying each other out of pure hate. Who will win?

Let’s cover the biggest question on everyone’s mind: Was the tennis stuff accurate?

Okay, maybe nobody cares about that except me. But actually, it is important. Even if you, the reader, don’t have a clue about the subject matter, you can always tell when the writer doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It’s a sense you get. And as soon as you get it, you don’t trust the screenplay as much. It’s no different from walking up to your tennis lesson and catching the last few points of your pro playing against a good player, and seeing him get his butt kicked. All of a sudden, you’re not so sure about learning tennis from this guy anymore.

The tennis stuff was, for the most part, accurate. I never read anything and thought, “That would never happen.” Sure, it’s unlikely that one of the best players in the world would play a Challenger tournament. But they made a pretty good case for it. Art needed a few easy wins under his belt to gain confidence going into the U.S. Open and this was the only tournament available with a week left.

Where the script runs into trouble is in the love triangle. At times I was into it but there were these super-long dialogue scenes that didn’t always feel genuine. It felt like a writer trying to put the words HE wanted into the character’s mouths, as opposed to the words that would actually come out of peoples’ mouths.

We all are guilty of this. In fact, this is one of the hardest things about screenwriting, is letting go enough to let your characters speak. The challenge is that scenes need to push the story forward so you do need to GUIDE the conversation. But finding that balance of guiding the conversation and also letting the characters speak is a line finer than any of the lines you’ll encounter on a tennis court.

For example, early on, when the characters are just 17 years old, they’re hanging out at a big tournament for the first time. There’s some flirting going on as the guys try to gauge if Tashi likes them. Tashi mentions that she’s seen them play before and Patrick has some fun with it, replying, “I didn’t know you’d been watching.” Tashi responds: “I haven’t been. I just watched you play once at the Junior Australian Open, and it was obvious to me that no one’s ever taught you anything. They’re all afraid of messing with the magic. That’s why you still have that atrocious serve.”

I have been in hundreds of conversations with tennis players at tournaments and no player has ever said to another player, who they’ve just met, that one of their strokes is horrible. When you get to know someone, sure, you have fun with that sort of thing. But first time you meet? Come on. Imagine coming off any field or rink or court, meeting someone, and them saying, “God, you can’t dribble worth shit!”

Yeah, the writer is trying to establish that Tashi says what’s on her mind. Which I sort of get. But you still have to play by the rules of reality. Especially if you’re writing a drama, which this is. A comedy, you might be able to get away with that if you’re going for a laugh. I could see Will Ferrell delivering that line. But this is supposed to be real life. It’s not realistic to insult someone about their passion within a minute of meeting them.

With that said, the writer gets more right about this 3-way relationship than wrong. I know that because I found myself caring more and more about the match the more I learned about the characters’ history. Each new piece of information deepened the grudge in this grudge match, which tells me I was buying into it.

But I do think Tashi is the weak link here and I think I know what’s going on. Art and Patrick are the ones who get to play. They get all the action. Tashi is relegated to watching on the sidelines. So the writer knew that he needed to make a really strong character. Somebody who left an impression. That, Tashi is. She’s incredibly strong, opinionated, brash, intense. The problem is, she’s so much of these things, that you kind of hate her. She’s always angry. She’s always yelling at someone, always telling them off. I was kind of thinking of Jada-Pinkett Smith whenever she spoke. I’m not sure that “pissed off” is the best defining trait for a character.

A cool thing about Challengers, though, is that it shows you you can create big stakes without needing a big plot. All the tennis scripts I read have the players playing in the final of Wimbledon or something. It’s cliche. And, as a result, we don’t take it seriously.

The way to create big stakes in a smaller movie is through the characters. You raise the stakes through the relationships you build between them. And Challengers is really good at that. From learning these two used to play doubles as kids, when they were best friends, to falling in love with the same girl, to both dating that girl at different times in their life, to one of them becoming great and the other flaming out — all of that makes their puny little Challenger match a big deal. Ironically, the tournament doesn’t even matter. All that matters is beating this person they detest.

The script also has some… we’ll say… surprising developments towards the end. Not on the court. Well, sort of on the court. But more so off the court. Ehh, if I say anything more, I’ll spoil it. But I want to say one more thing because it’s an important screenwriting point. The dialogue gets noticeably better towards the end. And I was wondering why. I finally realized that the earlier dialogue, which was occasionally on-the-nose, no longer felt on-the-nose since the characters were in these climactic heated “everything’s coming to a head” conversations. Those are the moments where characters really say what they mean. So what was on-the-nose before, now felt authentic. I think the writer just needed to dial that “I’m a character who says exactly what he thinks all the time” stuff down in the earlier portion of the screenplay. But at the end, it was great. It led to some truly powerful moments.

It’s for these reasons that I recommend Challengers. Will it be the first truly good tennis movie ever? I don’t know. Tennis movies, like Patrick’s career, tend to flame out onscreen. But they’ve got a great director and an ace up their sleeve with one of the hottest actresses in town so maybe they crack the code. I’ll know right away once they drop the trailer and report back to you then!

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

What I learned: Think long and hard about what a character’s defining trait is. Because that’s the trait that we’re going to see over and over again in the majority of the scenes they’re in. So if you want us to like someone and their defining trait is, “pissed off,” you’ve probably failed. There’s all sorts of defining traits to choose from. So pick the ones that both capture the character but also make the audience see that character the way you want them to be seen. Ripley’s defining trait in Aliens was, “determined,” or “brave.” Ruby’s defining trait in Coda was that she lacked confidence in herself. Guy’s defining trait in Free Guy was, “optimistic.” Julie’s defining trait in The Worst Person in the World was, “noncommittal.” She never knew what she wanted. I’ve noticed that when a writer picks the wrong defining trait for a character, the character doesn’t work. And that’s what I think happened with Tashi. Don’t get me wrong.  She’s not a terrible character.  But she was grating, like sandpaper, and I’m not sure that’s what the writer was aiming for.

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Genre: Heist/Sci-Fi
Premise: Still reeling in the wake of her husband’s death, master thief Viola Crier signs on to a risky, last-minute job set to take place inside a man-made time loop, but as the number of loops increases, the job begins to spiral out of control.
About: Today’s writer and her script finished with 10 votes on the Black List. She is repped by William Morris Endeavor. This is her first screenplay. Or at least the first that’s made any noise.
Writer: Lindsay Michael
Details: 120 pages

How in the world do we follow yesterday?

I’m still thinking about it. Every time I think about what happened, I still can’t believe it. This guy hit someone on stage and then 15 minutes later, everyone gave him a standing ovation. We have to be living in a simulation for that to have happened, right? It defies all logic. There have to be some repercussions. Or are we going to all pretend it never happened, like the Oscar audience?

Anyway, we shall try to move on. And what better way to move on than with a new loop script! I’ve developed one of these myself so I know how tricky they can be. Let’s see how today’s writer handled it.

It’s 2038. A young female thief, Viola, is doing a job in Shanghai with her thief-husband, but he’s killed by the people they steal from. Viola is barely able to get out of Shanghai, with the help of a mysterious man named Okafor. Okafor tells Viola that he wants to hire her for the hardest job she’s ever done – stealing a 53 million dollar diamond. Go put a team together, he says.

She first gets 50 year-old Sybill, who is a master of disguise. She then flies to another country to pick up 19 year old safecracker, Cass. She then grabs explosives expert, Nemo, in Uzbekistan. And finally she gets pilot, Jackie, who’s going to fly everyone out once they steal the diamond.

The target is a place called Sandpiper Resort, in the Namib Desert. The place is a sand ski resort for the rich and famous. Okafor’s brother, a war profiteer named Wangari, took the diamond their dead father left for Okafor and Okafor wants it back. Wangari is in town to vacation at Sandpiper and Okafor knows he’s brought the diamond with him.

Once everyone is together, Okafor reveals their ace in the hole – he’s got a time-looping device. That means they’ll have not one, not two, not three, but four full shots to get the diamond. Anything after that and the time distortion field will destabilize. Nobody is very happy about this unpredictable device but since each individual’s take is 10 million bucks, they get over it fast.

The first run-through, the bomb they use to break into Wangari’s room ends up accidentally blowing a hole in the underground resort and sending a stream of suffocating sand in to snuff everybody out. Once the loop resets, they decide to spend the next shot on a test run. There are too many unknown variables that they need to figure out to pull this off. That leaves them with only two tries left. As you can imagine, the pressure mounts quickly, and the group come to the realization that four tries at the heist of the century might not be enough.

With scripts like this, you have to watch out for information overload and subsequent reader disorientation. Screenwriters are notorious for forgetting just how much information they’re throwing at the reader. To them, this information is common knowledge, so they assume it’s common knowledge to you, as well. This is what gets them into trouble. They’re operating on the assumption that you’re on the same page they are, when, in reality, you’re still ten pages behind them, trying to figure out that thing that happened on page 9.

Sandpiper starts out with a woman standing over a dead body in a morgue, a man whose wedding ring is featured prominently and, therefore, may have been our hero’s husband. Our hero then runs off with a Chinese detective, escaping a team of policemen, only to later get double-crossed by the detective.

At this point, I don’t know who my hero is, why we’re in China, what just happened to her maybe-husband, why she’s playing secret games with a Chinese cop, and what her job is. The next thing you know we’re meeting some random guy named Okafor who helps us escape on a train, then offers us a job to steal a diamond, then minutes later we go on a 4 continent montage to collect a mission impossible team, meeting four team-members who are going to help Viola do the heist.

It’s only after all this is over that we learn her and her husband were a thief-team and they’d been caught, which is why he was killed. In other words, I’m only learning what happened on page 1, on page 40. That’s not acceptable. I know, as writers, we think we’re cleverly withholding information and creating suspense by drip-feeding relevant backstory twenty pages at a time, but you have to be realistic. I’m supposed to keep track of those details while memorizing 4 different people on 4 different continents. That’s unrealistic.

This particular mistake is almost always a beginner one as it takes a while, as a screenwriter, to understand what a reader can and can’t keep up with. That comes through feedback from dozens of people reading your scripts. Which is one of the reasons I encourage new writers to first master simple one-character stories before moving on to Marvel-level 22-parallel storyline screenplays.

This issue continues throughout the script, making relatively straightforward plot points difficult to keep up with. For example, Viola gives up her 10 million dollar share to Jackie. Jackie says why would you do that. Viola says why does it matter? Then, 30 pages later, Viola reveals that Okafor promised her that, if she could steal this diamond for him, he’d use his time loop machine to send her back to save her husband.

Why all the cloak and dagger? Why not just tell us FROM THE BEGINNING that Okafor offers Viola this? I would’ve been way more invested in Viola’s pursuit since I’d know that the stakes were much higher. I just didn’t understand why everything needed to be a secret from the reader. Sure, sometimes you want secrets but not with basic important story elements, like motivation.

I’m not going to knock everything about the script. The loop heist idea is cool. And, strategically speaking, this is the kind of script you want to write if you’re trying to get those Mission Impossible studio jobs. You write in a “big action script” adjacent genre, like sci-fi action. But the hard stuff should be the characters and plotting in a screenplay, not conveying basic stuff like GSU. It just killed any potential enjoyment of the script.

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

What I learned : Never make a script exactly 120 pages. It makes seasoned readers think that you read a screenwriting book that a script couldn’t be over 120 pages and so you nipped and tucked your script relentlessly until you finally got it down to exactly that number. There are definitely things in your script that are not precious enough for you to hold onto that number. If you’re at 120, try to get it down 115. Even 117 is better than 120. 120 has “newbie” written all over it as it reeks of OCD adherence to ancient screenwriting requirements.

As we tighten up our first acts for the next Scriptshadow contest, the First Act Challenge, which you can start submitting to tomorrow (YAAAYYY!!!), I want to take a trip back to the last contest, the “Anything Goes Showdown,” and look at some of the scripts that didn’t make it.

I know how frustrating it can be, entering your scripts in contests and not knowing why they didn’t advance. So I wanted to give you a little behind the scenes look at what goes into the decision-making process. Granted, my contests are subjective, since it’s only me judging, but at least you can get an idea of why people turn down submissions. Let’s take a look!

Title: Bunker
Genre: thriller
Logline: A financially-struggling father is hired to keep up the maintenance of a luxury underground bunker, only to find himself in possible danger when a mysterious group on a retreat arrives
WYSR: This is a one location thriller with sci-fi elements and an arc for the main character.  I’d write more but it’s 10 pm

Why it didn’t get chosen: Funny enough, this is the kind of logline I usually go for. I like contained thrillers. I like mysterious groups showing up and throwing everything into disarray. I just like that setup for a movie. Also, as I’m thinking like a producer, stuff like this would be really cheap to make. The reason I didn’t pick it, though, is because the submission feels rushed. The word “thriller” is not capitalized. There are no periods at the end of the logline or “Why you should read” sentences. Even the WYSR admits that there’s a “rushed” component to this submission. My experience tells me that when a submission feels rushed, or sloppy, that that’s going to carry over into the script itself.

One of the mistakes screenwriters make is forgetting how many other people they’re competing against. They don’t know that the person reading their submission may have read 50 other submissions that week. Or 100. Or more. These readers are making direct comparisons between your submission and everybody else’s. So if they sense that you haven’t put everything into that query, they’re probably going to pass you over. The only exception would be if you have the greatest idea ever. But, as you can see, even someone who likes these types of movies wasn’t willing to risk their time on such a hastily written submission.

Title: Miss-Understanding
Genre: Guy Rom-Com
Logline: When a comedian’s attempted clever marriage proposal goes awry, he must find his upset girlfriend in her hometown, a city he’s never been to, right before she’s set to fulfill maid of honor duties at her younger sister’s wedding.

Why you should read: I have written in the double digits for screenplays, mostly with comedies.  This could be a Hangover meets Bridesmaids type of film that would once again involve finding someone for a wedding, but with more emphasis on the female aspect compared to the Hangover. This also would involve the bond between sisters, so you get the wedding conflict and the older sister wanting to be there for the younger sister dynamic as older sister’s typically do. That’s on top of the conflict between a romantic relationship. In this day and age, people try to always be overly creative, theatrical if you will, and often it can blow up in their face. This plays upon that and is a throwback to more risque comedies of the past.

Why it didn’t get chosen: I feel like this submission could’ve been improved 75% with a better logline. A reminder to hire me for your loglines guys (carsonreeves1@gmail – just $25!). The logline is both clunky and hard to understand. “When a comedian’s attempted clever marriage proposal…”. This is too vague. I’d prefer to know what actually happened in the proposal if it could fit into the logline. “…he must find his upset girlfriend in her hometown…” Why is she in her hometown? Didn’t he just propose to her? Did he propose in his own town and then she flew to her town? Or were they already in her town when he proposed and she ran off? There should never be this many questions when reading a logline. You also want to avoid these siphoned off comma-asides (“a city he’s never been to”) whenever possible. They give the logline a start-and-stop feel. Loglines should flow. Then a separate wedding is thrown into the mix at the last second. And even if you understand all of this, it still basically boils down to, “Guy has to go find his mad girlfriend,” which I’m not sure is big idea enough for a movie. So please, guys, come to me in order to fix these issues, preferably before you write the screenplay, so I can tell you what you’re up against.

Title: OUR TOYS IN MIAMI
Genre: Profane Comedy
Logline: A Cuban American private driver is recruited to cover a toy car patent case after her court reporter client gets shot and unable  to do so.
WYSR: As a toy car collector, I couldn’t help but be drawn to a real court case involving two European toy car companies that fought in a US court over a little motor.  What makes it more interesting is the case was set in 1985 Miami at the height of some serious drug cartel action at the time and all the assorted things that make Miami a unique setting and open to roast.  And I’ve put them all out here, wrapped up in a profane, no holds barred, but romantic, and often tender telling that dulls the offensive to a point.  I don’t like to brag about my expensive trips, but I just came back from the gas station. We need comedy more than ever.

Why it didn’t get chosen: I actually considered this script for the top 5. I’m always looking for unique stories that I haven’t seen before and this definitely fits the bill. The reason I backed off was because I don’t like made-up genres (Profane Comedy). In the past, that tends to mean a rookie script with a lot of mistakes. And while I love specificity in loglines, since it helps differentiate your idea from everyone else’s, this idea seemed almost too specific. A Cuban American private driver (extremely specific), a toy car patent case (super specific), a court reporter client who gets shot (oddly specific). If all three of these things felt more organically connected, I might have posted the script. But each of them feel like different movies. This might be a logline problem. I would only know if I read the script. But, as written, I just felt it was too messy to take a chance on.

Title: BLACK MARKET
Genre: Horror/Crime-Thriller
Logline: An aging African-American war veteran tracking her missing family must take down a criminal network which targets people of color — as a desired cuisine for the rich and powerful.
Pitch: BLACK MARKET is a disturbing and metaphorical peek into America’s racism toward and consumption of Black and Brown communities by way of Jordan Peele, Ari Aster, and Robert Eggers in an after hours session at A24’s main office — or so I dare imagine.

Why it didn’t get chosen: A lot of you might see this idea and think, “This should’ve made it, Carson.” It’s timely. These types of scripts are getting snatched up all over the place. The Black List would probably put it on the list based on the logline alone. What’s the deal? Well, I did consider it. In the end, though, I felt it was a couple of notches shy of being clever enough. White people eating people of color. It’s a bit blunt and on the nose, in my opinion. You’re always looking for those ideas that have that clever, possibly ironic, undercurrent. The example I always use is that magazine story that sold a couple of years ago about two ice cream truck owners who start a war with each other. Ice cream is associated with fun, happiness, and good times. So it’s a funny idea that two ice cream trucks would start a war with one another. If the political commentary in this script is really sharp, it may prove me wrong. But when I read a logline, I want my eyes to pop out. With this one I sort of squinted and said, “Ehhhh, maybe that could work,” which wasn’t enough for me to post it.

Title: High Society
Genre: Comedy / Romantic Comedy
Logline: A stoned slacker follows his frisbee into his rich neighbor’s yard, and then follows his heart as he courts a beautiful heiress who is 1000% out of his league.
Why You Should Read: This fish-out-of-bongwater story is a mashup of the stoner film and comedy of manners genres — a stoner comedy of manners, if you will. — Inspired by a summary of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, it’s a tale of class and grass in which traditions go up in smoke and sparks fly as a pair of star-crossed lovers learn that their high hopes can only be realized with a joint effort.

Why it didn’t get chosen: I loved the fun play-on-words throughout this submission. That’s the kind of thing that tells me, unlike the top entry, “Bunker,” that this writer really thought through his submission. My favorite was “fish-out-of-bongwater” story. But this is a simple case of knowing your audience. I’m not keen on stoner comedies. 99% of the regular comedy scripts I read are sloppy messes. The stoner comedies I read are even messier. So I’ve kind of given up on this sub-genre unless you send me the greatest stoner-comedy idea ever. You need to know who you’re sending your script to. If you’re sending a script to Nicholl, it better not be a sci-fi script, since no sci-fi script has ever won there. And you probably shouldn’t send a stoner comedy to Scriptshadow, although I guess it was free so why not take a chance. P.S. Nobody in Hollywood is well-read. So mentioning Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey might get you a lot of confused stares.

Title: PAST TOPEKA
Genre: Western
Logline: Years after their father betrayed a gang of outlaws to steal a fortune, 14-year-old Patrick and his two younger brothers greet one of that gang who comes searching for the fortune — and treats the boys like his own sons. When Patrick and his brothers discover the truth about the stranger, they must confront him and reclaim their father’s legacy.
Why: A good story well-told should count for something.

Why it didn’t get chosen: Westerns are hard to slip through the system because a lot of them sound the same. Someone betrayed someone and someone has to confront someone. I feel like Western writers make the mistake of loving Westerns so much they assume that just the offering of another one gets them points from a reader. No. A Western logline has to be even more clever, even more unique, than a logline from the other, more popular, genres. And this one just didn’t have anything in it that I felt I haven’t seen before. I also didn’t like the pitch. “A good story well-told should count for something.” That shouldn’t be a pitch. That should be a given. Everyone should think they have a good well-told story. If you have an idea that’s a little bland, like this one, your pitch should tell the recipient why it isn’t bland. On top of all this, the logline is clunky and, I suspect, leaves out information that might’ve helped it sound more intriguing. It could definitely use a rewrite.

Title: MATE
Genre: Horror
Logline: After a one night stand with a mysterious working girl, a man on the run in rural North Dakota is confronted by the reality that she may be pregnant with his child. When the man is welcomed into her family’s home, he believes the unborn baby will fulfill his dream of being a father. However, he soon comes to find that the woman and her kin have far more sinister intentions for him.
WYSR: We are a writing team that have been lurking Scriptshadow for over a decade, so this submission is a long time coming for us. Inspired by traditional gothic fiction we took a classic European horror monster and brought it to the oil fields and farmlands of North Dakota. Over the years, we’ve had several reputable producers and a-list talent attached to this script, but an official production has never come to fruition. Our goal this year is to finally get representation as writers, and we hope this script can help us do that.

Why it didn’t get chosen: This is another script I considered for the top 5. But I would say the logline falls into the category of “intriguing but not oh-my-god-I-have-to-read-this-now” worthy. Believe me, I know that coming up with an oh-my-god-I-have-to-read-this-now movie idea is hard. But you work so hard on these scripts and then you put them up against all these other ideas that are floating around, and people only have so much time to read stuff. So if that idea doesn’t scream “movie” to them, it’s a risk. It’s a risk of time. Because maybe it is a good script. But if it isn’t, then the reader just wasted their time reading something that was going to be a hard sell in the first place. For this reason, I would advise that these writers tell us, in their logline, what the sinister intentions are. That seems like the most unique aspect of the concept, and this a logline light on uniqueness. So why not make it a little flashier to increase the number of reads it gets?

Title: DOLL. MISTRESS. WIFE.
Genre: Drama / Erotic thriller
Logline: A frustrated air-con salesman installs a love doll at a secret rooming house, but finds the real women in his life increasingly unstable.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: Carson’s most recent newsletter bemoaned the current dearth of thrillers in the vein of Fatal Attraction. Well, look no further than this character-driven script with a unique conceit, suspense sequences influenced by the likes of De Palma and Argento, and terrific roles for two Asian actresses. Indeed, the Mistress and Wife became crucial to my original concept as I soon realized that a ‘Man and Doll’ story by itself would be too static. Ultimately, DOLL. MISTRESS. WIFE. strives for edge-of-the-seat entertainment wrapped up in a literary, cinematic and philosophical cocktail with a dash of personal experience thrown in for good measure!

Why it didn’t get chosen: I keep seeing this mistake over and over in loglines. It’s easily fixable with a quick logline consult (carsonreeves1@gmail.com). The first half of the logline doesn’t connect organically to the second half. An air-conditioning salesman installs a love doll at a room house, which makes us think we’re going to find out how that affects the rooming house. Instead, the logline takes a sharp 180 degree turn and starts talking about the women in the salesman’s life. Where is the connective tissue that links these two halves? It’s not there and, as a result, the logline sounds nonsensical. I hate to see this because writers are shooting themselves in the foot by simply not getting logline feedback. And it doesn’t even have to be from me. I’m sure any one of the commenters here on Scriptshadow could’ve helped with this one because it was so obvious.

What do you guys think? Did I miss out on a gem here? If you liked any of the loglines, I’m sure the writers would be more than happy to send you a link to their scripts. Let me know what you think of the pitches in the comments. And let me know if you want me to do another one of these because I have a ton of entries that didn’t make it.

AND KEEP WORKING ON THOSE FIRST ACTS! GET THOSE PAGES WRITTEN!