Genre: Horror
Premise: (from Black List) After strange deaths and suicides skyrocket in a dying Appalachian coal town, Maggie – a first responder – wages a personal war against the local coal mine, unearthing a disturbing past that the company has kept secret within the waters of the local lake.
About: This script finished on last year’s Black List with 10 votes (ranking it just outside the top 20). It is the writer’s, Ezra Herz’s, breakthrough screenplay.
Writer: Ezra Herz
Details: 105 pages

Reader RT posted a great quote after yesterday’s script from writer David Koepp: “This is my 30th movie/script and storytelling is a mystery every single time. Things that you think will work, don’t. Things that you didn’t expect to work, do. Things go together that you didn’t imagine. You’re uncovering stuff as you go. Every single one of them is HARD.”

Never have words rung so true.

Every screenplay is a leap of faith. You know what you’re trying to do. But you won’t know if it works until you finish. Because scripts look different on 110 pieces of paper than they do as an abstract idea in your head.

Which is why you want to start with the best concept possible. The weaker the concept, the more it’s going to break down over 110 pages. A strong concept gives you the best chance at mitigating those things Koepp was talking about.

What’s a strong concept, Carson? Isn’t that subjective? Yes, it is. But all I’m saying is, you’re better off starting with an idea like Knives Out than Portrait of a Lady On Fire. You’re better off starting with an idea like Yesterday than Manchester by the Sea.

Today’s script has some mad potential for scariness. But when it’s all said and done, the fear factor is diluted – a scare fest in search of a focused story.

Maggie Dawson is a first responder in a small Appalachian town that’s participating in an upgraded coal delivery system called mountain shaving, a recently developed technology whereby you blow off the tops of mountains so you can pluck the coal from them right out the top.

Maggie’s town has been dealing with mining issues for decades. Many of the people here worked in the mines and developed black lung, including her father, who she has to steal morphine for from the hospital every day.

When Maggie starts to notice that many of the people she treats have a black rash on them (and commit suicide later), she suspects that something more sinister is going on, especially because every time anyone walks past an open mine, they hear creepy whispers coming from inside.

Maggie already had it bad seeing as her mom went crazy and died which led to Maggie’s husband leaving her and him restricting access to their 12 year old son (as far what happened with mother, that remains a mystery for the majority of the script).

Convinced that the mining company is behind all of this mayhem, Maggie goes digging, which leads her to a river by the local dam, where an entire town has been buried beneath the water. She scuba dives down to the ruins, sees a bunch of dead people in the houses (despite nobody else seeing them) and that’s when she knows it’s time to take this evil mining corporation down for good!

My experience has been that if a horror script not associated with Nightmare on Elm Street is using nightmares excessively, the script isn’t working.

If your scares are coming from random nightmare scenes as opposed to emerging organically from your concept, you probably have a weak concept. Or, at least, an unfocused one.

This is two horror scripts in a row (along with yesterday’s “You Should Have Left”) where we’re getting nightmare after nightmare scene. And, to be frank, it feels lazy. Even when it works it feels lazy because you’re cheating. You’re slapping together an easy scare sequence because nightmare scenes don’t need to connect with anything. For example, you can have a dead character come alive in a nightmare scene and then not have to explain it.

So whenever I see that, I know a script is in trouble. It’s not that it never works. But it’s one of those works 1% of the time deals. Take The Exorcist, for example, considered to be the best horror movie of all time. There’s no dream sequence in that movie. Good horror doesn’t need cheap nightmare scares.

Ripple is a frustrating script.

There’s something here. You have elements that could lead to a good horror film. But there’s way too much going on. We have a mother who went crazy backstory. We’ve got a father who’s dying from black lung. We have eerie orbs that pop up at night. We have a mysterious black rash showing up on everyone. We have people losing their minds and committing suicide. We have an evil mining corporation. We have strange whispers that come from the caves. And to top it all off, we have an underwater town that was flooded when the damn was built.

It’s idea overload.

I know you’re sick of hearing this but screenplays need FOCUS. Make your characters as complex as you want. But the plot needs to be reasonably simple. And today’s script is anything but simple. At one point a girl who was saved from a fire starts showing up behind our heroine when she’s at the hospital, then disappearing when our protagonist turns around and all I’m thinking is, “What does this have to do with anything?” It feels like a scare always took precedence over logic.

This week is a reminder of just how hard writing a script is. Because yesterday we had what I’m arguing for today, which is a simple story. But yesterday’s script was weak too. And that was written by one of the top screenwriters in Hollywood! I guess it’s a reminder that you’re always striving for balance. You don’t want things to be too sprawling. But a script that’s so simple there aren’t any toys to play with isn’t fun either.

There is one consistent thread between these two scripts, though. When you write a horror script, the horror element needs be clearly defined. Both of these scripts fail in that department. Yesterday’s script was about a haunted house that was brand new which sometimes had time displacement and disappearing doors?? Today’s script is about a mining operation that gives people black rashes and forces some to commit suicide which is tied back to strange orbs and a town underneath the water??

Contrast that to movies like A Quiet Place: If you make a noise you’re dead. The Exorcist: A demon has possessed your daughter. It: An evil clown kills children in a small town. Midsommar: Four friends visit a remote strange cult that starts killing them. The horror element in all these movies is very clearly defined.

I suppose if you’re making an argument against this line of thinking, you would use a movie like, “The Ring.” You’ve got a video tape that kills anyone who watches it after seven days. You’ve got a scary wet dead girl who comes out of a TV?? People die in frozen screams (but are also somehow aged into a mummy state when they die??). You’ve got dead horses. A bizarre 8mm film. A little boy with psychic powers. An island with a lighthouse. It’s a weird combination of elements, for sure.

But to be clear, I didn’t say it was *impossible* to make these sorts of horror scripts work. Only that it’s harder. A lot harder. As weird as The Ring was, the story connected together well. The setups and payoffs were strong. Everything that happens in that weird 8mm VHS tape film is a setup for things they encounter later in the movie.

I didn’t get that same sense after reading “Ripple.” The elements felt too raw and too disconnected. Then again, this is screenwriting. You can always write another draft and keep connecting those dots. That’s actually what rewriting is all about. Using each draft to make everything feel a little more connected than it was before.

I wanted to get into this script because I like the setting. I like the idea of putting a horror film in this environment. But it was too messy for my taste.

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

What I learned: I’m all for creating conflict and strife in your main character’s life. But it feels manufactured if EVERYBODY in their life has some form of conflict. Here we have the mom who went crazy and died. We have a dad who’s dying of cancer. We have a husband who left our hero and doesn’t trust her. We have our protagonist’s kid who she’s not allowed to see. It’s too much. There has to be some normality SOMEWHERE in your character’s life or their life won’t feel real.

What’s David Fincher’s next movie? THIS is David Fincher’s next movie.

Genre: Biopic/True Story
Premise: The story of Herman Mankiewicz writing Citizen Kane for Orson Welles, and the wild Hollywood ride that led up to it.
About: We’ve got David Fincher’s next project! This one comes from his father, Jack Fincher, who was obsessed with Herman Mankiewicz, the writer of Citizen Kane, which most cinephiles believe is the greatest movie of all time. Rosebud! I’ve heard that the script is now in Eric Roth’s hands (Jack Fincher died in 2003). This is the Jack Fincher draft. Here is an article on Mankiewicz that I confess I haven’t read yet.
Writer: Jack Fincher
Details: 120 pages

One of the most frustrating things a screenwriter can do is when he has a large cast of characters but he doesn’t give you any indication, as these characters are introduced, who’s going to be important and who isn’t.

For example, let’s say you’re introducing the second biggest character in your script and you do so by saying, “BOB, 31, takes a drink of soda.” Meanwhile, three pages later, you introduce some character who’s only going to be in the script for two scenes. And with him, the description is, “DAVE, 40, thick with rage and beaten down by alcoholism, is an asshole of the highest order, the kind of person you turn away from when you see him on the street.”

To a reader, this is frustrating. Because one of the toughest things for a reader to do is keep track of who’s who in a script, how everybody knows each other, what the specifics of their relationships are, etc. And one of our only clues is how a character is introduced. If they’re getting big thoughtful introductions and we stay with them for 3-4 scenes in a row, that’s typically an indication that THIS IS A PERSON YOU NEED TO REMEMBER.

So when a character is introduced like Barely Introduced Bob is, then 30 pages later he comes back and becomes this super important character, the reader doesn’t remember who they are or how they’re connected to the story. They vaguely remember someone named Bob being introduced, but the introduction was so quick, they assumed the character wasn’t important.

This is only exacerbated when you have a script like Mank where you’re jumping around in time. It’s 1940. Then it’s 1932. Then it’s 1941. Then it’s 1934. Your script is almost designed to make people forget your characters because there are entire sections of the script where key characters aren’t around. Then when we jump back to their year, we have to reset our minds and try to remember who’s who, a tall task when half the “whos” were given blink-and-you-miss-it introductions.

This is why I’m not a huge fan of period pieces that do a lot of time jumping. All these characters are second nature to the writer, as he’s spent months/years with them. But we’re meeting them for the first time. And if you create a story where characters disappear for 30 pages at a time then, when we come back to them, they’re major lynchpins in the film, the average reader is going to be thrown.

I’m not saying it’s impossible. But you need to be an expert in the art of character introduction (great descriptions, memorable introductory scenes) and great with character development in general. Interesting people. Flaws that resonate with audiences. Personalities that distinguish one character from the next. Those are the things that make characters memorable enough that, regardless of how complex the narrative is, we always remember who’s who.

I opened up Mank expecting it to be about Herman Mankiewicz’s (Mank) relationship with Orson Welles during the writing of Citizen Kane. But that’s not really what the story explores.

We meet Mank in 1939 when he’s commissioned to write Citizen Kane for Orson Welles. Mank is in his 40s and a big fat drunk. He’s given a secretary, Rita (who types 100 words a minute – ON A TYPEWRITER, THANK YOU) and he starts to write. However, we barely spend any time with Mank in this setting. The majority of the script is flashbacks.

We flashback to the early 30s where the country is in a depression. As far as I can tell, Mank is still an alcoholic back then, too. He’s just not as bad of an alcoholic. One of the most interesting storylines is that Mank used to be friends with newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who is the figure Citizen Kane is famously based on.

He’s also friends with Hearst’s mistress, Marion, and routinely goes up to Hearst’s mansion. There is an opportunity to show the disintegration of Mank’s friendship with Hearst which, we presume, is the reason he’s now recklessly skewering him in this screenplay, but this potentially intriguing plotline is barely covered.

Instead, Mank’s biggest storyline involves the political aspirations of Upton Sinclair, a former writer turned politician who was running on an “End Poverty” campaign who Hollywood hated. Sinclair was famous for getting shafted via false propaganda films that will have some seeing shades of Bernie Sanders.

To be honest, Sinclair’s life sounds interesting. But I’m not reading a script about Sinclair’s life. I’m reading a script about Herman Mankiewicz’s life. Which led to me wondering, “Why is the titular character of the movie playing second fiddle to a politician who was introduced on page 60?”

If you want to be a screenwriter, one of the most important things you must master is focus. Focusing your narrative is everything. If you try to cover eight different storylines, no matter how interesting each of those storylines is individually, you’re going to have a tough time keeping the reader invested.

There’s a quote in the script where Mank’s manager says to him regarding his early Kane pages, “Well I hate to say this, old man, but I am afraid the story as told is a bit of a jumble. A hectic hodgepodge of talky episodes. A collection of fragments that jump around in space and time like – like a bag of Mexican jumping beans.”

I was so struck by how accurately this line explained “Mank” itself that I thought, maybe, Fincher was doing it on purpose. Maybe he was trying to have the script mimic the broken alcohol-ridden mind of Mank himself. But while that sounds great in theory, you’re playing with fire when you’re making your script a metaphor. A script has to work on its own.

If I were producing this screenplay – and I’m guessing that would be David Fincher’s worst nightmare – I would get rid of the Sinclair stuff and focus on a) the current timeline and Mank’s battle with Welles to get the script done, b) his former relationship with Hearst. And c) maybe his relationship with his younger brother, which had potential. That’s all you need. You’ve got yourself a doable interesting biopic that covers a pivotal moment in Hollywood history.

And just to remind everyone – when you’re doing these biopics, YOU CAN’T INCLUDE EVERYTHING. No matter how much you want to. Or how much you can convince yourself that these peripheral stories like Sinclair’s election connect thematically with the rest of the script. This is a movie. It’s not a novel. It’s not a TV show. It’s a movie. And a movie needs to be focused. Which means getting rid of stuff you love. That’s part of the deal you sign when you join the screenwriting club.

HOWEVER!!!

I would like to add a theory I’ve come up with about this project. And if this theory is correct, it throws everything I just said out the window.

This project was given to Eric Roth. What is Eric Roth’s most famous movie? Forrest Gump. What was my least favorite part about Mank? That Mank is the least important character in the story. He weaves in and out of all the Hollywood elite players from that time, each of them getting these big juicy moments. So WHAT IF that’s what they’re going for? Mank isn’t even the key character. He’s more like a Forrest Gump who stumbles into the rooms of these major Hollywood titans. If that’s what this movie ends up being, that could be really cool. I mean, who doesn’t want to see David Fincher’s version of Forrest Gump?

Roth was recently interviewed on Barstool Sports’ “Pardon My Take” podcast and he sounded really excited about this project so, could it be that’s what he’s doing? We’ll see!

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

What I learned: They say don’t write movies about Hollywood. There’s a caveat to that. You can write movies about Hollywood THAT ARE SET BETWEEN 1930 and 1979. Directors and studios absolutely love this era of moviemaking. So they always love to go back to it when they can. We just saw it with Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. They love creating the Hollywood of old. So if you’re ever going to write about Hollywood, that’s the era to set your screenplay in.

So I finished Netflix’s Into the Night and I can honestly say it’s the best TV show of the year so far.

I haven’t encountered a show with this level of urgency in a long time. The closest I can think of is Netflix’s Black Summer. But what makes Into the Night so much better is that the urgency is organically built into the premise. They have to keep flying to avoid daylight.

There are three screenwriting tips I want to bring up in particular with this show. It should go without saying that I’m including spoilers. Watch the show first if possible. I guarantee that once you start, you won’t be able to stop.

Oh, and fun little piece of trivia. This show is based on a book. And the creator adapted the entire first season from the FIRST PAGE of the book.

The first concept I want to talk about is called sandwiching.

There comes multiple times in every TV or Feature script (but TV especially) where you’ve got to write a scene with boring exposition or two characters who don’t have a lot going on. This could be the C-story in a TV episode. You’ve been told you have to write the scene and there’s nothing interesting going on between the two characters.

In these situations, you want to SANDWICH the scene with something really big before and PROMISE something big is going to happen after. If you do this well, we’ll tolerate the scene.

So there’s this moment in episode 5 of Into the Night where Sylvie, our helicopter pilot protagonist, goes back to the apartment of her dead boyfriend and mourns. Another character shows up to try and convince her to come back.

Now before this scene, we just showed a major fight between two characters in another location where one character beats the other one to near death. He then leaves that character to get back to the plane. That’s the first piece of bread on this sandwich.

The second piece is we have to leave within an hour! That’s when the sun comes up. So we have to get back to the freaking airplane NOW! This is our exciting second piece of bread which is a PROMISE that something interesting is coming. And it’s for that reason we tolerate this slow decent-but-mostly-boring scene of Sylvie trying to get over her dead boyfriend.

Where writers get into trouble is when they get lazy, when they stop sandwiching boring scenes, when they try to pile 3 or 4 boring scenes inside a sandwich, or when they don’t understand the technique at all. Because that’s when you’re at risk of writing 20-30 pages of boring story.

In an ideal world, every scene would be riveting. But it’s just not possible. You need to set certain things up for later scenarios to be exciting. And setup can be boring.

Moving on, tip 2. Dialogue doesn’t matter as much as you think it does. Into the Night is one of the most riveting TV shows I’ve ever seen. But it’s in another language. And I don’t understand that language.

Therefore, I have to use subtitles. Now, for those who don’t know about the job of subtitling, these people do not directly translate what the characters are saying. Instead, they give the bare bones generalized idea of what they’re saying in its most basic form.

If you want to have some fun, turn on the dubbed English audio and also put on English subtitles. You’ll see that their dubbed words don’t even match the subtitles. That’s because two different people are doing those jobs and they’re both just putting up their generic interpretation of what’s being said.

I bring this up because everybody talks about the importance of dialogue when shows like Into the Night and movies like Parasite are amazing yet we’re basically watching them with 3rd grade level English dialogue translation.

Does this mean you shouldn’t strive to write great dialogue? Of course not. But it’s a reminder that it’s what’s SURROUNDING the dialogue that’s most important. If you get that right, a scene will work regardless of how basic the dialogue is. Shows like Into the Night prove that.

Add conflict. Add tension. Add dramatic irony. Come up with an interesting scenario, like 7 passengers questioning an 8th passenger on if he’s really who he says he is.

From there, do the best you can with your dialogue. But it’s setting up the situation surrounding the dialogue that matters most.

Finally, one of the writing devices I like the best is when the writer makes it seem TRULY IMPOSSIBLE that the characters are going to succeed in the end.

And I stress “truly” for a reason. Because most writers set up an ending where they’re already thinking of how they’re going to get the characters around the obstacles in their way, and therefore, it doesn’t TRULY feel impossible. We can sense the writer carving that escape hatch that the characters are going to find and be okay.

Instead, you want to write your ending almost like you hate yourself. You want to make it as hard as possible for you the writer to figure out how your characters are going to get out of this.

Into the Night aces this test and then some.

(Major Spoilers)

While on their final flight – they’re not going to have fuel after this – the group has located an old Soviet bunker in Bulgaria that government officials are fleeing to. So their plan is to land the plane at the Bulgarian airport and haul ass to the bunker.

Now get this.

There’s no guarantee they’re going to get inside. It might be locked. It might be full. So right from the start, it’s bad news.

Next, they don’t know exactly where the bunker is. They’re working with some janky old map.

When they land, they have half an hour until sunrise. So they have to find a mystery bunker that they only vaguely know the location of in a country they’ve never been to before, driving on roads that are completely foreign to them, and then hope they get inside when they get there.

Only one person can carry the map but there are 9 people so they have to split up into two jeeps. So the first jeep is speeding away. The second jeep has to try and keep up with them on these winding roads. If they lose them, there’s no way to know which way to go.

Three quarters of the way there, the second jeep crashes. So they have to walk the rest of the way. Meanwhile, the first jeep crosses a gate that automatically closes behind them, locking the second group out.

The second group eventually gets to the gate but it’s electric, so they can’t even climb over it. There’s only 12 minutes left before the sun rises, by the way. They don’t even know if they’re close to the bunker or not. Also, nobody knows where the bunker entrance is. It’s not like a McDonald’s with Golden Arches signaling the location. It’s metal doors built into a hill.

I was sitting there watching this both in awe of the show, in how well it was crafted, and in awe of the writer, who so boldly made things difficult for himself.

Because it would’ve been easy to throw one mildly difficult obstacle at the characters. To throw THIS many obstacles requires a lot more work. Because now you’re stopping the characters more. You’re having to come up with solutions to these problems you’ve created. And bad writers don’t want to do that. It takes way longer to write the obstacle overcoming scenes and requires a lot more brainpower.

So I was rooting for both the characters and the writers simultaneously with this ending because I couldn’t have asked for a better end to this season.

Those are my Into the Night tips. Take them with you, into the night, and use them on your next screenplay!

The other day, I started reading a Black List script and I was about ten pages into it and it was just boring with a capital B. Since I planned on reviewing a script that day, I had a choice to make. I could either ditch this script and start a new one (which I hate to do) or I could keep going.

So I went and checked the Black List to see if I could glean any extra information about the writer. I noticed he was repped by a manager I’d never heard of before. The script was a lowly ranked Black List script. So I made the decision that, based on the first 10 pages being boring and the writer having weak representation, I was out.

Now you may say, Carson, dude, that’s savage. Are you saying that every writer who is repped by a low-level manager sucks? Writers have to start somewhere. True. Of course there are going to be good writers who start with low-level managers or agents. But, based on the 8000 screenplays I’ve read, the data has told me that, WAY more often than not, if you’re repped by someone I’ve never heard of before, it’s likely the script will be weak.

That led me to some deeper analysis about reading in general and why I choose to give up on a script. Because every reader, whether it be the lowest reader on the food chain or JJ Abrams who’s looking for his next project, have some similar judgment process by which they’ll give a script a certain amount of time. And that time will coincide with a number of factors attached to the script.

That’s what I want to talk about today. I call it SCREENPLAY CURRENCY. It’s something I’ve been attaching to scripts unconsciously for years. But today I decided to solidify it into something more tangible so that writers can understand what’s going on the reader’s head and they can properly game plan how they write a script under those circumstances.

Now to those of you who have always poo-pooed this practice of readers giving up on an amateur script but giving pros preferential treatment and reading their scripts differently, I point all of you to Amateur Showdown. We’ve proven again and again that this is not a practice unique to the Hollywood guard. Every single person who reads something is gauging whether it’s worth their time to keep reading. And, as we’ve shown over and over again, most of you don’t make it past the first page of an Amateur Showdown script. So why would you expect someone working at a production company whose time each day is limited to act any differently?

What I do with screenplay currency is I assess a number to a script based on factors surrounding that script. These numbers represent, roughly, how many pages I’m going to give the script to pull me in. So if something gives a script +3 currency, I’ll give it 3 pages. If there are several factors adding currency, a +4, a +1, and a +10, I’ll give that script 15 pages.

Again, none of this is exact. I’m not a robot who finishes at exactly page 15 and then says, “Beep-beep-boooop. Carson, what shall you do? Do you like script, press ‘yes’ or ‘no.” But I’ve found that, over time, it’s roughly accurate. That combined number is usually how many pages of my undivided attention I’ll give the script. If it’s lame or boring or sucks after that time, why would I keep reading? Why would you?

Here is an incomplete list of some of the things that create my screenplay currency:

Script is recommended to me by an impartial party (not the writer): +5
Script is recommended to me by two different people who don’t know each other: +15
Script is recommended to me by 3 or more people who don’t know each other: +25
Script is recommended to me by someone I really trust and whose taste I respect: +30
Script is ranked high on the Black List (top 5): +50
Script is ranked low on the Black List (bottom 20): +10
Script is repped by a high level agency (WME, CAA): +7
Script is repped by a high level management company (Kaplan/Perrone, Anonymous Content): +5
The writer has professional credits: +7
The writer has written at least one movie I like: +25
The script has won a high level contest (Nicholl): +15
The script has been a finalist in a high level contest (Nicholl): +10
Semi-finalist at Nicholl: +3
A top level writer in the industry (Sorkin) or a writer I really love: +100 (I’ll almost always read the entire thing)
A random script from an amateur writer who I don’t know from Adam: +1

The obvious question then becomes, what if you don’t have any screenplay currency? Should you give up?

Of course not.

But zero screenplay currency does mean you have to write differently than someone with a lot of currency. If you’re a writer who has 30 points of screenplay currency, you know you can take your time in the early scenes because you know the reader is going to stay with you.

But if you try to slow-burn your way through the first act with zero screenplay currency, you’re sinking your own ship. Readers have no reason to trust that trudging through that slow first act is going to pay off for them.

For that reason, you should be writing something that’s tighter, that’s faster, that has a flashier concept, something where you get the reader hooked right away. The perfect example of this is the script I reviewed Tuesday, Unhinged. The opening scene has our antagonist killing someone and then we’re, literally, off to the races.

Or if you don’t like car chase movies, another script that would’ve worked with zero screenplay currency is The Cabin at the End of the World. It starts off with this scary giant of a man approaching a small girl and we’re not sure if he’s going to kill her or not. First page, first scene, I’m in. And then we KEEP GOING. These guys break into this house, they tell our protagonists they have to sacrifice a member of their family and, heck yeah, I’m going to keep reading.

Conversely, if you have zero currency and you’re trying to write a script like BLUR, a drama about a group of depressed 20-somethings mucking around in life, I’m not saying it’s impossible to write something like that that gets you into the industry. But you’re stacking the odds against yourself.

The irony of all this is that the most successful screenwriters – the Sorkins, the Tarantinos, the Coens – they know they have all the screenplay currency in the world. An unlimited supply! Yet they still write LIKE THEY HAVE NONE. That’s why it’s a good mindset to have, that you have zero currency with anybody. Because when you know you have to hook a reader right away, you’re going to write more exciting stories. You just are.

So go forward with this knowledge and hopefully it will make you think twice about that next script you’re going to write.

Carson does feature screenplay consultations, TV Pilot Consultations, and logline consultations. Logline consultations go for $25 a piece or $40 for unlimited tweaking. You get a 1-10 rating, a 200-word evaluation, and a rewrite of the logline. They’re extremely popular so if you haven’t tried one out yet, I encourage you to give it a shot. If you’re interested in any consultation package, e-mail Carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line: CONSULTATION. Don’t start writing a script or sending a script out blind. Let Scriptshadow help you get it in shape first!

Where screenwriters rise from the ashes to prove once and for all, the voters got it wrong!

I know. A lot of you are angrily checking your e-mail, confused about the lack of a Scriptshadow Newsletter inside when I promised you it was coming at the beginning of the week. What’s going on, Carson!!? Hey, I’m right with you. I want that newsletter to show up, too. The problem is this week has been bumpy and I haven’t had the time to get it written. These things are 10,000 words long so they’re not easy. And maybe it’s good that it’s delayed. The trades are posting about a new script sale every day. Where are all these sales coming from? Maybe it has something to do with the coronavirus and the need for material? It’s 1996 all over again.

But hopefully, this will tide you over. Everyone deserves a second chance to make a first impression. So today we’re going to pit scripts against each other that barely lost out in their respective Amateur Showdowns. I’m hopeful that we’re going to find an undiscovered gem because when I went back and looked at all of these loglines, I thought to myself, “Man, these all sound like good movies.” So now I leave it up to you to find the best of the second best.

For those new to the site, Amateur Showdown is an occasional tournament I hold on the site where I pick five screenplays that were submitted to me. Then you, the readers of the site, read as much of each script as possible and vote for your favorite in the comments section. Voting closes Sunday 11:59pm California time. The winner will receive a review the following Friday that could result in props from your peers, representation, a spot on one of the big end-of-the-year screenwriting lists, a partnership with yours truly, and in rare cases, a SALE!

I am taking submissions for the next Amateur Showdown, which will take place between 4-6 weeks from now. So get your entries in. E-mail me at carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Include your script title, the genre, a logline, and a pitch to myself and potential readers why you believe your script deserves a shot. It could be long, short, passionate, to-the-point. Whatever you think will convince someone your script is worth opening, make your case. Just like Hollywood, the Scriptshadow readers are a fickle bunch. So be convincing.

Good luck everyone!

Title: Emergent (new draft)
Genre: Sci-fi/Thriller/Romance
Logline: A brilliant programmer gets embroiled in a bizarre and dangerous love triangle between a co-worker that saved her life and an artificial intelligence that nearly killed her.
Why You Should Read: Emergent had a good contest run last year, placing as a Quarterfinalist or above in Nicholl, Page, Austin, and Big Break as well as a few others. It landed me a few queries and even a couple meetings with managers, but no bites on it yet. I’ve since made some revisions (based on feedback from said meetings, etc.) and will be sending it out again this year. I’d really love to hear the opinions/advice/feedback from the scriptshadow community and even get it reviewed. Cheers.

Title: The Fire Tower
Genre: Contained Thriller
Logline: When a family on vacation to a remote fire lookout tower rescues an injured female hitchhiker, they wind up in a battle for their lives.
Why You Should Read: When I was 10, we went on a cross-country camping trip out west. One night we got horribly lost on a winding road, high in the mountains. Out of the darkness a hitchhiker jumped in front of our car asking for a lift. We gave her some water and snacks (but my mom wouldn’t let my dad give her a ride). Later, I was told that a whole family had disappeared without a trace not far from there. That was the seed of the story. But I needed a contained space to trap my family.

Lookout towers have been used in the United States for 100 years. At the peak of their popularity in the ‘40s, the U.S. had about 8,000. Today, there remain about 85 fire lookout towers in the U.S. in extremely remote mountain areas in the National Forests which you can rent for $25-$75 a night.

Title: Kamikaze
Genre: Action
Logline: After her creator is killed in a terrorist attack, an emotionally charged android, suffering from a fatal virus, struggles to hunt down the mercenaries responsible.
Why You Should Read: Kamikaze is a non-stop, can’t catch your breath action script. It’s placed very well in screenwriting competitions (finalist), it nabbed me a manager (we’ve since parted), but the script hasn’t gotten much traction. I’m really wanting to know if there’s something I’m missing, and if I genuinely have what it takes to make it. — The main character, Ali, in an android that can’t seem to keep her emotions in check, which is a major drawback to those that created her. The script plays with the concept of logic vs. emotion and how they can help/hinder in various situations. — Thank you for the opportunity to give it a read.

Title: Renaissance Men
Genre: Action, Comedy
Logline: In 16th-century Rome, astronomical badass Nicolaus Copernicus seeks papal approval for his radical new theory about the universe, but after he’s framed for the Pope’s kidnapping, he’ll risk his life and legacy to track down the real abductors.
Why You Should Read: I’ve always loved history. I just wish it could be funnier. If I had a time machine, I probably wouldn’t use it kill baby Hitler. Instead, I’d just swap him with baby Charlie Chaplin who was born a mere four days earlier. But since the latest version of Final Draft is easier to get my hands on than a functioning time machine, I decided to write Renaissance Men. A hilarious adventure that pits some of Renaissance Europe’s biggest egos including Copernicus, Machiavelli, Nostradamus and Michelangelo against each other in a high stakes game of cat and mouse.

I had many reasons why I wanted to write this. First, I knew it would be a lot of fun. Second, I was sure I could generate a ton of laughs. And last but not least, because a story about how the rich and powerful will cover up scientific truth to protect their political interests is even more relevant today than it was 500 years ago.

Title: THE BLACK PETREL
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Logline: A frustrated novelist goes to an old Southern hotel looking for inspiration and finds herself trapped in a nightmare with five strangers and a vengeful ex-slave.
Who am I: A writer trying to feed a hungry audience something delicious.
Why You Should Read: If GET OUT and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET got pregnant listening to a Nina Simone song, this is the baby that would pop out.