No, this is not my response to the entries! But there is a projectile vomit scene in one of the featured scripts!

Today we’re going to look at ten entries from the Scriptshadow First Act Contest. For those who don’t know my judging process, I give each entry at least 10 pages. From there, I keep reading until I get bored. If the script manages to keep me reading all the way to page 30, it advances to the next round. From there, I’ll re-evaluate every script that advanced, pick five finalists, then choose a winner.

Today, I’ll be letting you know a) what page I made it to, and b) if the script advanced or not. Also, just so there’s no confusion, I’ll often open a script without reading the logline because I want the writing to speak for itself. Therefore, if I seem confused by something in my analysis that’s easily explained in the logline, you know why. By the way, roughly 1 in 30 scripts are advancing, so there’s little margin for error. Let’s get to it!

Title: Haven
Genre: Supernatural Crime Drama
Logline: Held on an isolated farm, three desperate and debt-ridden scientists have twenty-four hours to recreate a failed experiment. When their captors seek to erase the secrets of the site, its full, terrifying potential is unleashed and their logical world descends into chaos.
Writer: Ben Allan Watkins

Analysis: There were a couple of things right off the bat that hurt this entry. First, we have a second page dedicated to the script’s logline. You don’t want to do that. That’s a pretty overt sign that an amateur writer is writing the script. But the more damning mistake was introducing the main character, Sam, without a character description or even an age. You can’t make that mistake. From there, I couldn’t really understand where I was or what was going on. I was in some sort of farm, as far as I could tell. It was a commune, maybe? People were sleeping everywhere. Nobody seemed to be related, which is where I drew the “commune” assumption from. When it’s hard to figure out even the basic building blocks of a story, that’s a script killer. Those early pages cannot, under any circumstances, be confusing. I would encourage Ben to work harder on his clarity. Put yourself in the reader’s shoes. Ask, if you were them, would you easily be able to tell what was going on? If not, add more information.

Read until: Page 10
Advance?: No

Title: Killer Instinct
Genre: Action Comedy
Logline: A man gets injected with a pheromone-based serum that makes anybody who smells him suddenly want to kill him…
Writer: Mike Hurst

Analysis: This entry felt more professional. But it was a mixed bag and, ultimately, I had a couple of issues with it. The first scene is a senator beating up a woman and then throwing her out a window to her death. That’s a dangerous scene to write in a post #metoo world, even if it’s motivated by the concept. But that wasn’t my main issue. My main issue was that the woman was super sick or something. She could barely stand? So she’s got her own weird thing going on (sickness). Then this senator comes in and has a completely different thing going on (rage). So there’s just no consistency across the scene. I suspect it will later be revealed that the woman’s sickness is what activated his rage. But, in the moment, there are too many rules being thrown at us so the scene doesn’t go down easy. By the way, I would recommend switching genders here. Have the senator be a woman. Have the person in the hotel room be a guy. It’s a way more interesting scene if a woman easily beats this guy up. Not bad writing at all. Had a good laugh later in the classroom scene. But that opening scene was problematic enough that I decided not to advance Killer Instinct.

Read until: Page 10
Advance?: No

Title: Too Old to Rock and Roll, Too Young to Die
Genre: Comedy
Logline: When they are mistakenly plucked from obscurity to headline a summer festival tour, a band of middle-aged Dads have four weeks to live out their rock and roll fantasies and learn that not all dreams are quite what they seem.
Writer: David Glitzer

Analysis: Comedy is a funny thing. Just like it’s hard to make a joke funny by explaining it, it’s hard to explain why a joke didn’t make you laugh. Here we open on a guy who works in a bird store and the recurring joke in the scene is all the birds say dirty sexual sexual things (“Lick my balls.” “Tickle my a$$hole”). I just didn’t understand why all the birds were sexual. I thought maybe they overheard the owner having a lot of sex all the time? And they were parroting the things they heard from his dirty sexual exploits? The problem was that the owner was described as a loser who owns a bird store. So that would imply he doesn’t have a lot of sex. Which brings me back to the birds. Why do they scream out sexual things? Frankly, I just didn’t get the joke. That’s followed by a projectile vomiting scene and I was pretty much out from there. As I’ve said numerous times, I think body fluid jokes are lowest common denominator comedy. I like comedy that’s more clever. That’s just me personally. Doesn’t mean the next reader won’t like it. But, obviously, if I wasn’t connecting with the comedy, I can’t advance the script.

Read until: Page 10
Advance?: No

Title: Swift Wing <—- Carson note: Needs a better title!
Genre: Science Fiction/Dramedy
Logline: On a dying wish, two explorers land on a strange planet in search of the legendary Winged Creatures, but the local inhabitants believe otherwise and try to kill the alien invaders.
Writer: Bruce Richardson

Analysis: A lot of times when you read a script, you’re just reading things that are happening. The writer isn’t in that mindset of “I must write a series of events that are so good, the reader cannot stop reading.” That “non-urgent mindset” is what leads to scripts like this one. Nothing here is bad. But nor is it “I must turn the page” good. We’ve got some beginner errors. When characters are introduced, their names are not capitalized. A park ranger is casually shooting and killing people. I suppose, if this is a comedy, casually killing people can work. But it seemed a little *too* casual. It just felt like life didn’t matter in this story, which is a bad way to start any story because it lowers the stakes. If lives are unimportant, then who really cares what happens to anyone? The two aliens who show up were *mildly* amusing. But I needed them to be *highly* amusing to keep reading. This is a classic example of the writer not understanding what the bar is. Cause I think Bruce is a good writer. But he’s not writing scenes that knock you out. He’s writing scenes that casually nudge you along. No nudging please. Readers don’t respond to nudges.

Read until: Page 10
Advance?: No.

Title: Paramedics on Patrol <—- Carson note: Needs a better title!
Genre: Thriller
Logline: A mysterious woman wakes up inside an ambulance to find she’s being abducted.
Writer: David Fabian

Analysis: This is the best of the batch so far. It’s a really fun idea. You wake up in an ambulance. You don’t know what happened to you. Then all of a sudden you start to suspect these aren’t really paramedics. And you may be getting abducted. That’s a movie premise right there for sure. I think the problem David runs into is that he moves the plot along too quickly. I know that’s a criticism that seems counterintuitive since I’m always saying to move the story along fast. But he’s got such a good setup that he should be milking it. I just feel like if we’re on page 20 and we’re already getting into the abducted woman’s secret life and reasons for why this entity wants to kidnap her – I don’t find that interesting. Her having some secret thing going on is a good plot twist but you don’t want to bring that up until the midpoint. Until then, this should be about her gradually realizing she’s been abducted. And instead of screaming at them, “You’re kidnapping me! Stop!” She should be more discreet about it and start to work the problem, figure out a way to escape. In other words, the story is more interesting when both sides are keeping secrets. Once everything’s out in the open, it’s just a screaming contest. I’m going to do something rare and advance this even though I didn’t get to page 30. Even though I feel like I’d need to guide David a lot to get this where it needed to be, the idea has a ton of potential. I would tell David, start writing a version of this where she suspects she’s being kidnapped but doesn’t tell them. And she starts working the puzzle. Trying to figure out who these guys are. Trying to figure out where they’re headed. Trying to figure out how she’s going to escape.  There can be a scene where the bad guys are both up in the front for a minute and she tries to reach her phone and contact someone. We want those types of scenes, at least at first, rather than all this screaming nonsense. Oh, and one more quick thing, David. It’s “were,” not “we’re!!!!!”

Read until: Page 23
Advance?: Yes

Title: Gutshot
Genre: Thriller
Logline: A cop-turned-snitch fights to survive a night in the wild as she bleeds out from a gunshot wound sustained during a failed kidnapping attempt by her former partners.
Writer: Caleb Yeaton

Analysis: This script has the right idea. You start by showing a bad guy staking out a house, about to do something bad. Cut to inside the house to show unsuspecting people, in this case, a couple of women (or maybe one woman, with the other one being on the phone, it wasn’t clear) and now we have this dramatically ironic situation brewing where we know the women are in danger. But here’s the problem. None of this was clear. When the bad guy drives up, we’re told there are other people in his car, so I thought it was a family and, therefore, didn’t tab him as dangerous. Therefore, when we were in the house, we get this endlessly boring conversation between these two women where they’re talking about some random trial we know nothing about. This goes on for five pages (!!!). I was fighting to keep my eyes open. Granted, this dialogue plays a lot better if I know the bad guy is lurking outside. But it’s up to the writer to make that clear. I think so many writers are terrified of being on-the-nose that they’re too subtle with the details of their scenes. But the details are everything, especially in a scene like this, where, if we’re confused about even one variable, we miss the point of the whole scene. Also, the dialogue between the women here needs to be 10,000 times better. It just doesn’t have anything going for it. Needed more purpose.

Read until: Page 10
Advance?: No.

Title: Artificial Obsession
Genre: Sci-Fi
Logline: After a video of her goes viral to the world, a small town cop gets caught in the most dangerous love triangle in history when the first artificial superintelligence capable of taking over the planet becomes romantically obsessed with her.
Writer: Gregory Mandaro

Analysis: I’m not in love with the choice of spending the first two pages of the script focusing on an interview on the TV in a restaurant. I understand that we have to get exposition in somehow, especially if it’s complex exposition. But those first ten pages are such valuable real estate that I don’t think spending them on a television interview that doesn’t contain any of our main characters is the best way to go. From there, we get a random Twitch streamer approaching our heroine, who’s waiting for her date at the aforementioned restaurant. This leads to more exposition regarding our heroine’s deaf sister, who, coincidentally, is also a streamer. You’re trying to cram three different things into this scene (TV interview, girl waiting for her date who hasn’t shown up, random Twitch streamer who stumbles up and decides to have a conversation with our heroine). It makes for a clumsy reading experience. It was hard for the script to recover after that. We then get a chase scene (our heroine is a cop) which was fine, with a decent reveal at the end (there was no one in the car she was chasing – it’s A.I. driven). It was nice that Greg gave us a scene with something exciting happening. But that first scene really did the script in for me. That’s not the kind of clear entertaining streamlined scene you want to open a script with.  Let’s focus less on exposition and more on entertainment in the next draft (straight up starting the script with the car chase and the “no one inside” reveal would be a much better first scene).

Read until: Page 10
Advance?: No.

Title: SYSTEM ERROR (alt: A CYBORG MANIFESTO)
Tag: What happens when you’re the glitch in the system?
Genre: Sci-Fi
Logline: When her brain-implanted medical device suddenly develops a personality, a codependent geneticist must save the rest of a tech-addicted humanity from the same glitchy global update.
Writer: Katie Gard

Analysis: It’s good to finally see Katie get in on the action. She always contributes thoughtful and inquisitive comments. I started off liking this one due to the intense specificity regarding the computer talk. A ton of world-building went into this and it pays off. I liked the stuff where she controls “skins” on the people she’s talking to. So she can make her 60 year old therapist look like Tom Cruise in Risky Business. I can see how that would lead to some interesting character situations. If you were with an average looking boyfriend, in order to make him look more attractive during sex, say, you could just add a skin to him. And he doesn’t even have to know. But what if he suspects that’s what you did because the heroine was more into the sex than normal? Now you have some interesting conversations to play around with. So I like that this setup makes you think. My issue is more on the storytelling end. 10 pages go by and what’s really happened? A woman has talked with her fake AI therapist and we’ve gotten some flashbacks to explain why she has a special ability to control the variables by which she sees the world. It’s essentially all exposition. Where is the entertainment? I suppose some of it comes from learning about this cool technology. But that can’t carry the entire load. You need to come up with scenes that ‘show don’t tell’ and have fun with them. Take my boyfriend example above. Start with them having sex, he’s suspicious after it’s over, he asks if she used a skin on him, something they agreed not to do. Guilty, we see from her POV as he goes from Zack Efron to Paul Giamatti, and now you’ve given us exposition in a more dramatic, and therefore, entertaining way. What I read was not bad but we need the storytelling to come up to the same level as the world building.

Read until: Page 14
Advance?: No.

Title: Druid
Genre: Horror
Logline: After returning to his family home on the wild North York Moors, a failed businessman must battle for survival against the human-hunting worshippers of a prehistoric god.
Writer: Finn Morgan

Analysis: “Druid” has the right idea. It starts off with a big snazzy cold open. A guy in an animal mask in the middle of nowhere throws himself in front of a BMW and gets obliterated. What was that all about? We have to keep reading to find out. We then meet a guy who tries to kill himself but fails. He goes home to his ex-girlfriend. Looks like they’ve broken up. This dude has definitely seen better days. Then he moves from the city back to his farm, I think. And immediately he sees someone in an animal mask chase someone else in an animal mask onto his property and kill them. He then has to run from the killer, and a chase ensues. To Finn’s credit, there’s a lot going on here, unlike many of today’s entries. I don’t know why I wasn’t more into it, though. The main character’s suicide attempt gives him some depth which makes us root for him. I guess my hesitancy comes from already having seen the whole “animal mask” thing before. So maybe it feels a little cliche to me. Not new enough? All I know is that around page 15, I wasn’t compelled to continue reading. I didn’t *have* to find out what happened next. And that’s the ultimate question in a script. Always. Have you created something that readers can’t *not* keep reading? I’d put this in the upper 30th percentile of today’s entries. But it wasn’t quite enough to advance.

Read until: Page 15
Advance?: No.

Title: America or Die
Genre: Action-Adventure
Logline: Post World War III, a fierce backcountry woman is enslaved to the Balkan Federation’s cruel Defense Minister and ends up in a do-or-die struggle for freedom.
Writer: Joe Stevens

Analysis: This is another script that does some things right. After setting up the post World War 3 world we live in via a title scroll, we meet this small community of non-technological people. The people are then attacked by a group with motorcycles and cars and drones. The pursuit soon centers on our heroine, Shelby. But here’s a crucial component to writing that you have to nail. Before Shelby gets chased, you gotta give us a reason to love her, to root for her, so that we care when she’s chased. Cause I didn’t care. The only thing I know about this person is that she thinks prayer is a waste of time. That’s not enough insight for me to say, “Oh my god! I’ll be miserable if these guys catch her!” Whether it’s through a save-the-cat scene or a more elaborate protagonist setup that really makes us like this woman, you need that part. Big action scenes carry with them a natural intensity. So they can be a good choice early on in a script. But if we don’t care enough about the characters involved in that big action scene, we’re not going to care what happens to them.

Read until: Page 13
Advance?: No.

And there you have it! One script advances. Congratulations to David Fabian. Download the scripts themselves above. I’ve provided links to all of them. Tell us what you think. Did I make a gigantic mistake and miss an obvious finalist? Let me have it. If you guys liked this exercise, let me know, and I’ll do another one next week. :)

Happy Weekend!

GET PROFESSIONAL FEEDBACK BEFORE YOU SEND YOUR SCRIPT OUT THERE!!! – I give screenwriting consultations for every step of the process, whether it be loglines (just $25!), e-mail queries, plot summaries, outlines, Zoom brainstorming sessions, first pages, first acts, full pilots, full features. E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com if you’re interested in any type of consultation.  I want to help you make your script as good as it can possibly be!

You guys have been waiting for it!

Maybe “waiting for it” is an understatement. “Angrily demanding it” might be a better assessment?

I do apologize for taking so long but this is one of the realities of a free script contest where one reader reads all the entries. It’s going to take a while.

Reading screenplays is a funny thing. I personally love doing it. People ask me all the time, “How are you able to get through all those bad screenplays? Doesn’t it drive you nuts?”

It doesn’t, actually.

For a couple of reasons. One, I love storytelling. I get a kick out of characters trying to maneuver their way through obstacles to achieve an objective. I have this inherent need to “see what happens next.” Even if it’s not perfect, I like being in an imaginary world and not knowing what to expect. It’s exciting.

Second, there’s a voyeuristic aspect about writing that I love. Every time you read a script, you’re essentially going into someone’s head. They’re bringing you into their universe in a way that you don’t get in any other medium.

You learn about a person’s fears in a way they’ve never told anyone else before. You get to see their bizarre interpretation of the world. And you get reminded that we’re all experiencing the same things together. Like when a character has doubts, it’s a reminder to you that having doubts is okay. Writing connects you with the rest of humanity.

That’s not to say it isn’t frustrating at times. Yesterday’s script was a reminder of how vapid and vanilla many scripts can be. Writers choose ideas that are way too common then execute them in the most obvious fashion possible. That’s the part of writing I don’t like. When writers don’t give you anything new.

I’ve often asked myself why does this happen? Cause to me, it’s obvious that they’re giving us an old concept with a predictable execution.  So why isn’t it obvious to them?

The conclusion I’ve come to is that for a very long time in every screenwriter’s journey, they’re trying to rewrite their favorite movies. They have 3-10 movies they loved growing up. And they’re basically writing and rewriting identical versions of those movies. They don’t realize they’re doing this because, as they’re writing, they feel inspired. And who’s going to say no to inspiration? What they’re not identifying is that their inspiration is coming from a place of replication, of getting to recreate something they love.

I’m not sure you ever truly grow out of this phase. But good writers reach a point where they understand that they’re doing this and take precautions to differentiate their scripts from their favorite movies. They find ways to tweak the concept, tweak the genre, tweak the execution, so that while their script may be inspired by that favorite film of theirs, it becomes its own thing.

Get Out is a great example of this. Jordan Peele clearly loved Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner as a kid. He then tweaked the genre to horror and, all of a sudden, you’ve got a completely different movie.

So that’s what I’m looking for whenever I open a script – writers who’ve gone through this maturation process and realize writing a vanilla execution of a familiar concept isn’t good enough. They have to find a new way to tweak things or not write the script in the first place.

So has this latest contest taught me anything new?

Not really.

But it has reinforced a few things. Reading a bunch of scripts in a row reinforces, to me, the importance of nailing that first scene. If the first scene isn’t entertaining – if it’s just setting up a character’s life or setting up the world – you’re done. Because the script that reader read right before yours?  That one DID entertain them right away. So why would they pick your script over that one?

It also reinforced the cut throat nature of screenwriting. You realize that the person who writes the script doesn’t matter. I know that sounds harsh but I don’t sit here thinking, “Man, this writer has probably been through so much to get to this point where they’re able to write a competent screenplay and they’re really hoping this script is going to be the one that finally breaks down doors for them and I have to respect their work ethic and how hard it was to get to this point and…”.

No!

The ONLY thing that matters is “Am I entertained?” That is it, man. That is f@#%ing it.

I’m telling you. When you read 15 entries in a row, you aren’t thinking about the writer. You’re thinking, “is what’s on the page entertaining me right now?” Better yet, you’re not thinking at all because you’re enjoying what you’re reading so much.

I know this sounds harsh but I say it because I believe it can help you. Once you realize nobody cares about you, you can take yourself out of the equation and simply ask, “Is the reader going to be entertained by this scene I’m writing right now?”

The second – and I mean THE SECOND – you write a scene that could be considered boring in the first 15 pages, you have likely lost the reader.

Enough generalizing, Carson. Give us an example! Okay, so I read a WW2 entry the other day. This is World War 2, mind you. One of the most deadly dramatic intense wars in history. Every human being who was in World War 2 in any capacity has at least one INSANE story about something that happened to them.

I read a World War 2 contest entry where, for the first ten pages, characters are talking to each other and doing chores. I’m sitting there staring at these pages thinking, “What’s even happening right now???” How are you writing about World War 2 and use your first 10 pages as character setup????????????? This is such an immense miscalculation, I can’t even comprehend it.

Conversely, I just reviewed Randall Wallace’s World War 2 script, With Wings as Eagles, and the opening scene has a secret black ops German soldier stumbling into a room full of Russian soldiers and having to find a way out of it.

By the way – I want to make this VERY CLEAR – me needing an entertaining scene does not mean a big splashy action scene. Look at Inglorious Basterds. The opening scene with Hans Landa looking for Jews – not a big flashy scene at all. But one of the most entertaining scenes ever written.

This is what you’re competing with people.

Think of the screenwriting world as an entertainment contest. You are going head to head with people who are trying to write way more entertaining scenes than you. So ask yourself, as you’re writing that first, that second, that third, fourth, and fifth scene, “If these scenes were to go up against 100 other screenplays, do I honestly believe that each of my scenes would beat 97 to 98 of the other scenes on an entertainment level?” Cause if not, you’re not doing this right.

You gotta be the top 1 or 2 out of 100 to make any waves in this business.

This brings me to a secondary issue that I’ve been seeing in many of the entries, which is that the writer WILL BE TRYING to entertain with their first scene. But they’ll do so in too familiar of a way. Kudos to the writer for at least understanding that you have to pull the reader in. However, an entertaining scene we’ve already seen before is still a script killer. True, there are only so many entertaining scenarios to choose from. But there are an infinite number of ways to execute a familiar scenario. And your job, as a screenwriter, is to find one of those angles.

For example, I’ve read a handful of entries so far that start with a female character running from something. Three of those entries happened in the woods. How common is an opening scene of a woman running from something in the woods? Very common. And the writers didn’t do anything different enough with the scenes to pull me in.

What does “different enough” look like? “It Follows.” That movie starts with a woman running. But they’re running in odd circles in the middle of an empty suburban street. They’re looking behind them as if something is following them but we’re seeing nothing. What’s going on here? Why is this woman running from nothing?? That’s a familiar opening that adds a fresh element. I want to know more after reading that. I don’t want to know more after reading a frantic woman in the woods running from a killer. I’ve seen that way too many times already.

Okay, Carson, now that you’ve depressed us to the point of wanting to burn our pirated copies of Final Draft, do you have any good news for us? Any scripts that have actually impressed you? Yes, in fact. Let me share with you the two latest scripts to advance to the next round.

One is a sci-fi script called, The Castle. Here’s the logline: In 1209 a reluctant German crown princess must defend her castle against a brutal group of bandits, consisting of special forces soldiers from the 21st century. Script starts off with a cow-hanging that got my attention. I love seeing fun concepts and then I open the script and get something completely different from what I expected. A cow-hanging??? It was great. And all the characters are really fun so far.

Another is a psychological thriller called Smiley Face. That one is about a popular online influencer’s troll. Admittedly, I’m fascinated by influencer culture. So this one got points just for being the type of idea I’m into at the moment. But I felt that the writer did a good job conveying what an influencer’s life was like and, also, what an influencer’s troll’s life was like. It’s just as demanding of a job as being the influencer. So that one feels promising.

How long is it going to take me to finish all these? I don’t know. Sometimes I read 100 entries a week. Sometimes I read 10. It depends on my mood and my workload. But I’m going to try to incentivize myself to keep charging forward.

Next week I am going to highlight ten entries on the site. I am going to list the script details you sent me, as well as letting you know if your script advanced to the next round or not. Then, I’ll include several hundred words on why I either advanced the script or passed on it. If you want to be one of these ten, e-mail me at carsonreeves3@gmail.com and the first ten of you who e-mail, you will be the ones who get your script highlighted. Bonus points if you allow me to post a PDF of your first act.

To be clear, I’m not going to trash your script if I don’t advance it. This is going to be more of a teaching thing. I want to help you, and others, understand what’s required to write a strong first act.

If you’re game, let me know!

ONE “$100 OFF” SCRIPT CONSULTATION DEAL! – It’s mid-month so I’m giving $100 off one feature (feature only!) screenplay consultation. E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com with subject line: “100.” I give screenwriting consultations for every step of the process, whether it be loglines, e-mail queries, plot summaries, outlines, Zoom brainstorming sessions, first pages, first acts, pilots, features. E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com if you’re interested in today’s deal or any other type of consultation.  I’ll be here! 

Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: When stranded on the far end of Manhattan by a mysterious city-wide blackout, a group of inner-city middle schoolers must fight through seemingly supernatural forces to make their way back to their parents in the Bronx.
About: Today’s writer, Chad Handley, did a little TV writing, mostly story editing, on The Righteous Gemstones. This script finished with 7 votes on last year’s Black List.
Writer: Chad Handley
Details: 125 pages (!!)

Seems like Caleb McLaughlin would be a slam dunk choice for the lead here.

Whenever I see a Black List script at 120+ pages from a writer not named Aaron Sorkin, I get worried. But, as we’re going to talk about today, page length isn’t as important as “page quality.”

“Page quality” is the concept of making sure your pages are entertaining. If you do that, it does not matter how many pages your script is. The irony is that writers who write over 120 pages tend to be the writers who believe that anything they write is must-see screenwriting. They don’t have that inner editor who’s able to say, “This doesn’t move the story forward,” or “This isn’t entertaining enough to warrant its inclusion.” So their 120+ scripts perpetuate the rule that all long screenplays are bad, as opposed to change the narrative.

We saw this just this weekend with Thor Love and Thunder. Taika had a 4 hour cut. He realized that two of those hours were neither relevant or entertaining enough. So he cut them out.

Okay, onto the plot!

For what it’s worth, I believe everyone in this story is a minority. David Wei is the CEO of a giant mysterious particle physics company and he’s built this thing called the “Inflation Reactor,” which sounds like something that’s responsible for my recent 90 dollar trip to the gas station.

Let’s meet our kids. There’s 15 year old Amir, who’s always stealing things. There’s his twin sister, Seneca, who also likes to get into trouble. They have their little brother, Isaac, who’s obsessed with science. Then have a dad, Seth, who’s never around.

We also have Kale, Amir’s football player best friend, and other friend Chance, who’s a loudmouth. We’ve got Parker, a hot rich girl Amir is in love with. And then Lily, Parker’s 8 year old sister.

The group all meet at the Science Museum because Isaac has to study something there for a school assignment. Then, on their way home on the subway, there’s an explosion, and they have to climb out of the wreckage and get back to the surface. Along the way, they lose their father, which, if we’re being honest, isn’t that different from their everyday life.

After stumbling around the city looking for him, they learn of these alien beings who have made it to earth through that Gas Hike machine David Wei built. These beings have stopped the planet from spinning and also stop random people in time and space, so random New Yorkers will be straight up frozen. Will our Goonies-esque team find their dad? And what about destroying these alien creatures? Can they use science to send them home? We’ll find out.

One of the most difficult things to explain in regards to “good screenwriting” is this concept of looseness. One of the biggest differences between really good screenwriters and really green screenwriters is that the good screenwriters have a tightness to their writing.

They can set up a character in just three lines who feels like you’ve known him your whole life. Then can craft a single scene that sets up a character, moves the plot forward, and is highly entertaining in under 2 pages. And their ability to pace the story so that it never feels slow is second nature.

Whereas, green screenwriters sort of ramble on unnecessarily. Scenes don’t alway have a purpose. They’ll take four scenes to set up a group of characters they could’ve set up in two. There’s a lackadaisical approach to exposition so that it takes way too many scenes to get relevant information across.

That’s the feeling I got while reading The Dark. The first 30 pages were SET-UP CENTRAL. Setting up characters. Setting up mythology. Setting up family relationships. Setting up birthdays. Setting up homework that’s due. Setting up friendships.

And I know that you have to set stuff up somewhere. It’s not like you can just skip all this. But this is where the good screenwriters prove their worth. They can move faster through this stuff. And they make it a lot more entertaining.

Which, by the way, is a secret way to speed up a story. Two screenwriters can be tasked with writing the same scene. Both scenes are exactly the same length – 4 pages. But, somehow, one feels WAAAAAAY faster than the other.

That’s typically because one screenwriter knows how to make a scene entertaining. They know how to use suspense or drama or anticipation or surprise or conflict to make the scene fun. And when we, the reader, are having fun, time doesn’t exist. When we’re not having fun, every line feels like a page.

To be fair, it’s always going to be harder to move an ensemble of characters along. You can’t just cut to the main character, show him experiencing an issue with his dad, then send him off on his adventure. You have to do that for ALL THE CHARACTERS IN YOUR ENSEMBLE. Which is why you want to think hard about if you can handle an ensemble script.

It’s hard enough creating one compelling main character. Imagine that job getting multiplied by eight. It’s why people have been trying to remake The Goonies for 30 years unsuccessfully. Because it turns out it’s hard to write a bunch of strong memorable kid characters.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t do it. Screenwriting will never be a safe space. It’s more like a “drive you insane space.” But just know that the work LITERALLY gets eight times as hard when you have 8 main characters. Sure, you COULD be lazy and not develop half of them. Or make them stereotypes. But it will show. I guarantee you it will show.

Now, whenever I talk about moving the story along faster, I’ll occasionally get someone asking the legit question of, “If you cut out all the setup and only concentrate on moving the story forward, you’re going to get to your second act break by page 10. And the middle of the second act by page 30.”

“You have to add meat somewhere.”

Fair point. So let me try and come up with an analogy for you.

Let’s say you’re writing a story about a cat trapped in a tree. Your main character, Joe, comes out of his house, spots the cat, and decides to rescue it. How would you write a story like this that doesn’t end in ten seconds?

Because you could easily have Joe climb the tree and save the cat. Story over. Which seems to be in line with the note I’m giving today. That the writer should’ve ditched all this never-ending setup and gotten to the actual story.

No.

What you want to do is create entertaining obstacles and then use the time that your character is trying to overcome those obstacles to tell us about the character, or to provide exposition. In other words, you’re hiding the boring stuff inside the actual entertainment.

Let’s see what that looks like in action.

But first, let’s add a couple of scene boosters. 8 year old Jessica, the cat’s owner, is crying off to the side. This is her favorite cat in the world and she’s desperate to see it safe. This ups the pressure on Joe.

Also, we learned in the previous scene that Joe is on his way to a very important job interview that he cannot be late for. He’s dressed up considerably for this interview in a nice white pressed button down shirt and pants.

You can already see that saving this cat is becoming a bigger and more complicated ordeal.

Now, our cat is about ten feet up the tree. Joe knows he can comfortably climb up ten feet. So that’s what he does. But just as he’s reaching out for Scratchers, our annoying black cat, the cat freaks out, scratching Joe’s hand, causing him to lose his balance and fall to the ground, right on the freshly watered grass, which heavily imprints a lot of green on his white shirt. And meanwhile, the cat has climbed up another ten feet and is therefore, even higher on the tree.

Joe checks his watch. His important interview starts in less than 15 minutes. He’s got to go. He apologizes to the girl. She pleads with him. Please save my cat. “I can’t. I have to go to this interview.” “For what?” the girl cries. “It’s for a rare engineering job. This type of job never comes up.” Jessica pleads with him. Joe checks his watch. Checks his shirt. What does he do??

The point here is that you can extend any part of your story out for as long as you want. You can give us any amount of exposition (what job interview our character is going to) AS LONG AS YOU ARE ENTERTAINING US IN THE MEANTIME.

If you entertain, perfectionist readers like myself won’t even realize that your first act was 15 pages too long.

I know I didn’t really talk about today’s script. Which seems unfair since, once we hit the second act, that’s where all the action starts.

But therein lies the problem. If you put me through 35 pages of setup hell, I am no longer mentally invested in your story. I checked out a long time ago when I decided that I didn’t want to be subjected to setup torture. You could give me Avengers Endgame level action scenes at this point but it won’t matter. I’m already mentally checked out.

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

What I learned: “Page Quality.” Are your pages as entertaining as they can possibly be? Or are they merely setting up future entertaining scenes down the line? If all you’re doing with a scene is setting up a future good scene, that scene needs to be rewritten. I’m going to give you some homework. Go watch the first act of Back to the Future. Notice how there isn’t a SINGLE SCENE in the first act that isn’t entertaining. And that movie has more exposition and setup requiremnts than your last ten screenplays combined. So having to set lots of stuff up is not an excuse to write boring scenes.

A good portion of you Scriptshadow readers are intermediates. You’ve been at this for over five years. You’ve gotten a good handle on the craft. You understand many of the screenwriting pitfalls and know how to actively navigate them. And yet, here you are. Still in this frustrating nomenclature of unpaid unknown screenwriters.

And you’re sick of it.

We’re all sick of it.

So what’s keeping you from making that leap from intermediate to pro?

Before we can answer that, let’s talk about what “Intermediate” means. I consider an intermediate screenwriter to be someone who’s written more than five screenplays and who has a solid understanding of the fundamentals.

They understand the 3-act structure. They understand basic page-marks to hit (i.e. the first act should end around page 25). They understand how to build flaws into characters and how to arc them. They understand nuances like how long a scene should be. They no longer make beginner mistakes with dialogue, such as being too-on-the-nose, too over-the-top, or making characters say things that people would never say in real life.

They’ve outgrown that phase where they believe anything that’s happened to them in their life is worthy of being turned into a screenplay and are, therefore, more discerning about the concepts they consider for a script. And they have an overall theme to their story in mind – or at least an idea that they’re trying to get across (i.e. the destructive nature of greed).

The thing about being an intermediate is that you can write a solid script. And that’s commendable. Because the majority of amateur scripts that I read aren’t good. The problem, though, with a solid script, is that it doesn’t leave an impression on the reader. The reader appreciates the knowledge of the craftsman who has written the script. But they never cross that magical threshold whereby they now see the characters as real people encountering real situations. And if a reader never feels an emotional connection to a script, they’re never going to recommend it to anyone. And therefore, nothing’s ever going to come of it.

Which leads us to – HOW DO WE GRADUATE FROM INTERMEDIATE TO PRO?

To be fair, every writer’s situation is different because we’re all better at some things than others. So the path for one screenwriter could be completely different from another screenwriter. However, there are some common themes in the writers who are stuck at that intermediate level. Let’s go over the most common issues.

I’d say that one of the top, if not the top, reason, someone is stuck at the intermediate level, is because of concept choice. They are routinely choosing concepts that don’t get people excited. This works against you in a couple of ways. The first is that less people are going to request your script. Which means less reads. Which means less potential for a “yes.” The second is that even if they do read your script and like it, you’ve given them an easy reason to say no, which is that the concept isn’t powerful enough to make it up that steep Hollywood incline that every project must trek in order to get made. So it’s easy for people to not start that trek in the first place.

A couple of weeks ago I reviewed a script that had just sold called, “Classified,” which was “Die Hard meets Raiders of the Lost Ark.” It was the ultimate high concept. And now it’s being turned into a big movie. Do I think the writers who wrote Classified are that much better than the intermediates I see on this site? No. They might have a slightly better understanding of structure and character due to being in the game a little longer. But these guys are not obviously better screenwriters than everyone here.

However, they understand the value of a big concept. Actually, I shouldn’t use the phrase “big concept.” Because I’m not saying you need to write a 150 million dollar movie to get noticed. “Splashy” concept is probably better. A concept that feels like a fun interesting idea. Don’t Breathe would fall into this category. Get Out. Knives Out. Yesterday.

A splashy concept gets more read requests. People can envision it as a movie so it’s easier to push up the chain of command in Hollywood. It just makes everything easier and, therefore, more likely to get you out of that intermediate level.

If you don’t like splashy concepts, you have to AT LEAST give us a marketable concept. For example, a true World War 2 story. Hollywood can look at that genre and say, “We’ve made successful movies in this genre for over 70 years,” and therefore take your script seriously. Meanwhile, if you’re pushing your coming-of-age script at the same people, they’re going to look at you cross-eyed. That’s just not going to get anybody’s motor revving.

Next we have INVISIBILITY.

No, I’m not asking you to acquire superpowers. Though, if you do, make sure to write about it. I’m talking about one’s ability to apply all the screenwriting tools to a screenplay INVISIBLY. What often happens in the beginner, and even intermediate phase, is you learn about all these screenwriting tools you’re supposed to apply in a script. For example: start a scene late, leave a scene early. Or, more broadly speaking, how to give a character a flaw.

Because you’re learning this stuff, you apply it in a clunky manner. So while you’re technically doing everything right, the reader can see the gears and pulleys moving to make your story go. The most obvious example of this is exposition. When we first start writing exposition, it’s in big shining lights and way over-the-top. “But Barry, the only way we can defeat the monster is if Jeff wields the Rylok Sword, and that sword is in the Forlorn Dimension.” “Then we have to get to the Forlorn Dimension?” “But how?” “We first must use the Zeezuldorf Mirror to cross over and then…”

Over time, we learn how to distill exposition down to its essence so there isn’t too much to it. We learn tricks to hide it. We learn ways for our characters to talk about it that don’t sound like exposition (using humor to distract them, for example). In the end, our exposition becomes invisible.

In order to move up to professional writing, you need to accomplish this ‘invisibility power’ across the board. You need to introduce your character flaws in a way that doesn’t sound like, “HERE’S MY MAIN CHARACTER’S CHARACTER FLAW EVERYONE!” Same thing with your act breaks and your plot reveals and your dialogue. You keep making adjustments to all of these things until they no longer feel like writing, but rather like we’re reading about something that really happened. You’ve mastered suspension of disbelief.

Another way to make the leap to pro is to focus more on your voice. As I’ve talked about before on the site, an argument can be made that we’re either born with voice or we aren’t. So it’s hard to manufacture voice. Which I agree with.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t lean into what you’re good at. Much of “voice” has to do with your specific sense of humor. So you want to pick concepts that allow you to use your unique sense of humor as much as possible. Look at John Hughes, one of the Mt. Rushmore faces of “unique voices” in screenwriting. Imagine if Hughes was determined to break into the business as an action writer. He was writing movies like John Wick or San Andreas. Do you think he would’ve succeeded?

Probably not.

Because he was too far away from the voice he was most comfortable writing in. Maybe that’s what’s going on with you. You’re choosing these script ideas that aren’t allowing your voice to shine. And if you just picked concepts in subject matters that you were confident in and could have fun with, you’d excel at a much faster rate.

Next up we have dialogue. Dialogue is definitely something that can hold intermediates back from getting to the big leagues. What I’ve found is that it’s not that intermediate dialogue is bad. It’s fine. And that’s the problem. Is it’s fine. It’s never memorable. It never jumps off the page. You never get those characters having that really fun conversation, like you see so often in, say, a Tarantino script.

Basically you need to figure out how to make your dialogue BIGGER. How to give it more impact. Most of the time, your problem is that you’re using your characters to convey information in order to move the plot forward. So your dialogue is technically doing what it’s supposed to do, but nothing more.

One of the easiest ways to improve this is to add DIALOGUE-FRIENDLY CHARACTERS. Because when you do that, you don’t have to TRY to write good dialogue. The characters are going to write it for you. Give me a Jack Sparrow. A Louis Bloom. A Peter Parker. A Tallahassee. A Waymond Wang (Everything Everywhere All At Once). Those characters are going to upgrade your dialogue IMMEDIATELY.

Beyond that, try and improve your “dialogue effort.” Ask yourself, “Is this the most interesting way for my character to say this line?” There’s a clear difference in dialogue effort between, “That didn’t go well,” and “That was about as choreographed as a dog getting f@%$ed on roller skates” (Succession). Not that every line needs to be a show-stopper but, with a little effort, you can always make a line more impactful.

A few more to go. The next thing that holds a lot of intermediates back is not taking chances. Learning the laws of screenwriting is kind of like being forced to type all your scripts in golden handcuffs. You’re always going to write something that’s solid. But you’re never going to write something that’s exciting.

The whole goal of learning the rules of screenwriting is to throw them away. Let me be clear about that cause I know it sounds confusing. If you try to break rules before you understand them, you’re going to write big ugly messy screenplays. It’s funny because these writers always think they’re revolutionizing screenwriting when, in reality, the only thing they’re revolutionizing is the need for stronger over-the-counter headache medication for having to endure the abominations they call screenplays.

You need to learn the rules first because once you do, you can start making conscious choices about which of them to break so that your script stands out. The most famous version of this is Psycho. Our main character is killed off 45 minutes into the story, and we then follow the villain. Another good example of breaking the rules is From Dusk Til Dawn. The genre changes midway through the movie.

There are other ways to take risks as well. I remember when I first read the Gravity script and realized we were following this person stranded in space in real-time as they tried to get back to earth. I just thought, “this setup is brilliant.” I hadn’t seen it before. But it *was* a risk. It didn’t even make sense according to scientists on the internet. But the concept was so fun it didn’t matter.

The idea here is to move away from writing predictable rule-following screenplays where the reader is 30 pages ahead of you. You got to take risks somewhere. In the structure, in the concept, in the characters. You gotta try something that’s a little scary. I remember Michael R. Perry telling me that he was terrified when he wrote The Voices because it was so risky and so different from every other script he’d written up to that point. But it became one of the hottest scripts in town and lead to him getting a ton of jobs.

Second to last, write things that you’re an authority on. What separates a lot of screenplays is specificity. Let’s say that ten writers, all equivalent in skill, write a script about the war in Afghanistan. But only one of those writers was a soldier on the ground in Afghanistan. That writer is going to be able to give detail and context to what happened that none of the other writers can touch. Readers can feel that – when there’s authenticity to a story. So it’s a huge advantage when you can write about something so specifically.

For example, let’s say you were a blackjack dealer in Vegas for five years. You’re going to have insight into the way that blackjack and Vegas casinos operate that separates you from 99.9% of the rest of the world. That’s a huge advantage. So come up with a really cool movie idea about being a dealer. Cause you can tell that story with a level of specificity that is going to make it authentic. And authenticity is VERY hard to find in the screenplays I read.

Now, if you’ve done all of this stuff already, and you’re still struggling to move from intermediate to pro, there may be one final barrier you’re not addressing. Which is HUSTLE. It may simply be that you aren’t hustling hard enough. I know a lot of writers have trouble with this part of the business. But let me remind you that hustling has never been as easy as it is now. When I started out? I actually had to physically go to agencies and ask them to read my scripts.

Between managers and agents and contests and screenwriting sites like this one, it’s easier than ever to get your scripts out there in front of peoples’ eyes. So do it! I know it sucks. But all of this eventually comes down to a numbers game. The more people who read your script, the bigger the chance that you’re going to get that “yes.” So get your hustle on and make something happen. Cause this isn’t a ‘waiting around’ game. Just like the heroes in your screenplays, you need to take the initiative and be active.

So do it!

Happy weekend everyone. Thor Love and Thunder Monday. :)

Genre: Drama
Premise: Awkward and lonely, Jared is only able to find a community online — until the day he realizes that his favorite Youtuber lives nearby. Desperate for a connection, he becomes determined to find a way into her life… whether she wants it or not.
About: This script finished with 7 votes on last year’s Black List. The writer, Alexandra Serio, has written and directed a couple of short films, one of which looks to be the inspiration for this screenplay.
Writer: Alexandra Serio
Details: 90 pages

One of the things I’ve been actively doing over the past month is weening myself off junk food internet content.

I’m doing this because, ironically, I watched a Youtube video about the effects of social media and what the video noted was that, a hundred years ago, you read the news in your small town and were immediately able to do something about it.

For example, if the local church burned down, you’d be able to get together with the community and help rebuild it. You’d have a physical outlet for the unresolved news issue.

But today, the news is always so far away – “Crazy Thing Happens in Washington!” – that you can’t actually do anything about it. So the energy that the news generates inside of you stays put, along with all the other junk you come across on the internet, creating a ton of anxiety that comes out in unproductive ways.

I bring this up because, as I’ve been detoxing, I’ve spotted more and more of these “black pill” videos. Since I don’t click on them, I don’t know much about the black pill philosophy. But from my understanding, it’s a negative defeatist way for men to look at the world.

Naturally, then, it’s a perfect backdrop for a screenplay! So let’s get into it!

Jared is in his 20s, lives in a trailer with his mom, and works at Wal-Mart. So, yeah, things aren’t going well for Jared. Jared deals with this through the “black pill” online community. Essentially, black pillers believe that certain men, aka “incels,” will always be invisible to women and therefore they should either accept this and not try to get with women or kill themselves.

But a tiny part of Jared is holding out hope. He watches this ASMR influencer online and she routinely puts out affirmation content where she whispers into your ears as you fall asleep that you are “worthy” and that “looks don’t matter.” Stuff like that.

Lo and behold, Jared can’t fathom his luck when he spots Dee AT HIS WAL-MART! As a Black Piller he can’t actually go up and talk to her so he follows her from a distance, even leaving work to follow her home. Once she’s home, he’s able to watch her livestream in person. As in stalking from his car across the street looking through her window “in person.”

When Jared sends her the livestream question, “Do you have a boyfriend?” And she ignores it, he goes ballistic. A primal incel force is triggered inside of him. He goes and buys a bunch of home improvement stuff and renovates an abandoned trailer near his home. He then sneaks into Dee’s home, waits for her, and kidnaps her (while wearing a mask) during her livestream!

He chains her up in his secondary trailer and starts reading all the news. Due to being kidnapped on a live stream, Dee becomes a national story. Jared spends the next couple of days not really sure what to do with Dee. He’s like the cat who finally catches the laser beam. Now what? He ultimately decides to execute a dramatic suicide on Dee’s channel. Will he be able to pull it off?

As you guys know, I love a good character description.

They’re an easy way for me to identify if I’m reading a good writer.

I really liked the description of Jared here. It’s a little long. But the main thing with any character description is that the reader HAS A GREAT FEEL FOR THE CHARACTER after they read it. So here’s Jared’s description in Blackpill.

JARED, a weary 20-something, enters and drops into a gaming chair exhausted. One look into his dark eyes reveals his exhaustion is soul deep; the look of a man who truly believes he’s never caught a break.

Let’s break this down piece by piece. First we get his age with the added bonus of an adjective. Right away, we’re learning things about this guy.

We’re then told he drops into a “gaming chair.” A “gaming chair” is a very specific piece of furniture. That’s what you want to do as a screenwriter. You want to focus on the SPECIFIC things your character has. Not the general things. If you would’ve told us that Jared, instead, dropped down onto “a couch,” that doesn’t give us nearly as much information about him.

The next sentence gave me even more insight into Jared: “One look into his dark eyes reveals his exhaustion is soul deep.” That’s a different situation than someone who’s simply “exhausted.” “Soul deep” means the exhaustion is irreversible.

Finally, we get this tag about how he “believes he’s never caught a break.” I love that description because we all know people like this, people who believe that life is against them and is determined to make their existence miserable, and how they use that as a sort of defense mechanism to explain not trying to improve. In 40 words, I have a great feel for this character.

Contrast this with yesterday’s character intros. Here’s one for the sister from that script, Brie:

SNIFF! BRIE MORGAN (38, pretty like a wilting flower) snorts a bump of blow like a pro.

The one good thing about this description is that we’re introducing the character during an ACTION, and actions are a great way to tell us about a character. The problem is that snorting coke is one of the most cliche actions in movies. Contrast this with the gaming chair. The gaming chair is SPECIFIC. Snorting coke is GENERIC.

We’re then told, rather clumsily in parenthesis, that Brie is “pretty like a wilting flower.” What does that mean? Is a wilting flower still pretty? So you’re saying she’s kind of pretty? Or are you saying a wilting flower isn’t pretty at all and therefore she’s ugly? Trying to be too clever by half when you’re not clever in the first place is a recipe for writing disaster. Clarity over cuteness, always.

Or here’s one from a script I’m going to review in the newsletter:

Subtle pockmarked scars surround sage eyes — eyes carrying oceans of weight. In another life he may have been a poet.

Holy Moses is this weak. Eyes carrying “oceans of weight.” Extremely clunky phrasing that doesn’t quite make sense. Avoid at all costs. “In another life he may have been a poet.” That’s a strange thing to say after the “oceans of weight” debacle. Where is the connection? Just because you have a lot of history in your eyes, you’re a poet all of a sudden? Weird description all around.

Just remember that when it comes to descriptions, the harder you try, the worse you do. Key in on your hero’s defining characteristic (like Jared, he’s almost given up on life) and give us a simple description that conveys that.

As for the rest of Blackpill, it was pretty good. I enjoy the sub-genre of characters in mental decline. There’s a built-in trainwreck aspect to the narrative and as much as we hate ourselves for it, we all look forward to seeing the crash when we pass it. One of the best versions of this sub-genre is Magazine Dreams. Very similar to this script.

Where I had some issues with Blackpill was with the plot. There wasn’t a whole lot going on in it. Man feels unseen. Man sees influencer he’s obsessed with. Man prepares to kidnap influencer. Man does kidnap influencer. Man executes plan to kill himself.

My issue here is that I couldn’t figure out which route the writer wanted to go down. If this was a stalker thriller in the vein of Single White Female, it needs more twists and turns. If it’s a character study like Joker, you need to dig into the character more. Or, in this case, into both characters. While I had a good feel for Jared, I didn’t know Dee that well. And in a narrative this simple, you probably need to expand the character work to include the co-star.

Cause I think that’s what would’ve elevated this. Let’s look at the circumstances by which a guy could be pulled into this dangerous online religion. But let’s also see how girls can be pulled into, arguably, the just as dangerous religion of influencing. I felt like Serio was starting to go there towards the end. But it was too little too late. I believe this becomes a much more intellectual experience if we’re showing Dee’s influencer obsession as well.

With that said, it’s an easy read and I wanted to find out how things were going to end. As long as you accomplish that, you’ve written a good script.

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

What I learned: This script is a great example of how point-of-view changes a story. If you write this from Dee’s point of view, it’s a survival story. If you write this from Jared’s point-of-view, it’s an obsessive stalker story. But there’s a third option. You can write it from both points-of-view. And then it becomes more of an intellectual experience, something that gets cinephiles and critics talking. So always explore every potential point-of-view before you write your script. You might be overlooking the best version of your screenplay.