As I continue to read tons of amateur screenplays for my consulting services, I’ve noticed that I continue to give one note again and again. That note is, “Take a risk!” Take a risk SOMEWHERE in your screenplay. Because if you don’t take any risks at all, it’s very hard to write a screenplay that people actually remember.
Risks are scary. If I were to assess where I went wrong as a screenwriter, a lack of risk-taking would be up there near the top of the list. I can write you the most technically proficient screenplay that you’ve ever read. But without any risks taken, that’s all it would be.
Sometimes readers of this site erroneously assume that I’m Mr. Follow The Rules. And if you don’t follow the rules, that I believe it’s impossible to write a good screenplay. Well, I’m Mr. Follow The Rules with one major caveat. I want you to take at least one big risk in your script. Because that’s what’s going to bring your script alive.
But telling someone to take a risk is a weak note because what is a risk? Does anyone know how to break the word down into actionable tasks you can actually implement?
Yes.
I do.
Risk-taking breaks down into five distinct categories. I’m sure there are a few more. But these are the main ones. They are…
Concept
Plot
Character
Perspective
Time
Concept – Concept is picking a movie idea that is challenging just through its concept alone.
Plot – Something BIG happens in your plot that’s completely surprising and sets the story onto a previously unexpected path.
Character – You do something with one of your key characters that’s very risky. Something most movies wouldn’t do.
Perspective – The perspective from which you tell your story. Make it a little different, a little unexpected.
Time – Playing with time in such a way that challenges the story and challenges the audience.
Recently, I’ve been watching this show on Hulu called Fleishman is In Trouble. It’s about a New York doctor in his 30s, Toby, who’s in the midst of a divorce and, one weekend, when he’s taking care of the kids, his wife doesn’t show up to pick them up. She’s pretty much disappeared. We then spend the episodes bouncing back and forth in time, learning about how Toby met his wife and how they got to this point.
The show often contains narration by a third character, Libby, who is a former friend of Toby’s. She’s the one who takes us through Toby and his wife’s past and how they got to this point in their marriage.
So, in the case of Fleishman is in Trouble, the show is taking two of the six risks. First, the perspective. We’re not in some standard CW high school show where we dutifully see the story through each of the four main characters’ eyes, jumping back and forth between them in a very traditional 1-hour drama way. Instead, we’ve got Libby equal parts shot-putting and dragging us through this complicated relationship. The choice to make this random third character our narrator is definitely a big risk.
The other risk is Time. We’re jumping all over the place here. We’re in the present. We’re a year ago. We’re fifteen years ago. We’re five years ago. We’re never on this straight-forward linear path. That’s a risk.
Go watch an episode and see for yourself. The show doesn’t feel like other shows out there. And that’s because it’s taking two of the six risks!
In order to make this all a little bit clearer for you, here are five movies that took risks in each of the five categories.
Title: Parasite
Risk Type: Plot
Parasite was already a good movie before the big plot risk it took. This story about a family infiltrating another family’s home was one of the most entertaining commentaries on the disparity between the rich and the poor that we’ve ever seen. But the midpoint twist of there being an unknown basement in the home where another character was living, one who was even poorer than our protagonist family, elevated the film into an all-time classic.
Title: Marcel The Shell With Shoes On
Risk Type: Perspective
If you haven’t seen Marcel The Shell, it’s an animated film (for the most part) about a shell who’s living in this AirBnB house. The big risk the writers made was to tell the story in documentary style. This was a particularly risky choice due to the fact that animated films just don’t ever do documentary style. Which is a good lesson to internalize. Some risks are riskier than others. And this was definitely a huge one.
Title: Red Rocket
Risk Type: Character
One of my favorite movies from a couple of years ago, Red Rocket, follows a character, Mikey, a former porn star who’s been forced to move back to his tiny Texas town. Mikey starts dating a teenager who works at a local donut shop. The reason I liked this movie so much was because it was the biggest risk-taking character movie of that year. Sean Baker, the writer, made Mikey extremely likable. And you’re not supposed to do that in a story like this. And it made for a very complex viewing experience where you were constantly battling with how you felt versus how you were supposed to feel. And it was amazing for that very reason. I hold this movie up in the pantheon of how to take a big risk with a character.
Title: 1917
Risk Type: Time
When I say the words, “World War 1 movie,” what comes to mind? I’m guessing long-drawn out narratives about soldiers on the front lines for months if not years, and then coming home and dealing with the PTSD of war and not being able to re-integrate into society. Boring s—t, right? 1917 erased all that with one simple risk-taking choice. It made a World War 1 film real-time. Boom. Just like that, you have the most original World War 1 movie ever made.
Title: A Quiet Place
Risk Type: Concept
A Quiet Place did something very similar for the horror genre. It came up with a concept where nobody can speak. This instantly turned the movie into a silent film. That’s a pretty darn big risk. A major studio budgeted and promoted a horror film that was silent? Risks don’t get much bigger than that.
So I’m sure plenty of you are wondering, “Do you HAVE to take a risk?” The answer is no. You don’t have to. There are plenty of movies, with scripts, that didn’t take much of a risk at all. John Wick comes to mind. Top Gun Maverick. Black Widow. Free Guy. Knives Out. These are movies that know their lane and stay squarely inside of it.
But, here’s the thing. When you write a screenplay, you are now competing for readers’ interest. And readers read a lot of stuff. They see the same stories over and over again. The same characters. The same tropes. So, while it is possible to write this perfect version of a basic story, you can kind of hack the system with one big risky swing (assuming it pays off).
Uncut Gems is a huge character risk. We’re rooting for a truly despicable man. Barbarian took a plot risk. After that captivating opening, it jumped to a completely different character and now we don’t know where the script is going. Everything Everywhere All At Once, I believe, takes risks in all five categories. Which is why the movie is so beloved by the film community.
Risks are just like a lot of tools in screenwriting. You have to decide whether you want to use them or not. I can tell you, from personal experience, that when a writer a takes a big risk, that screenplay is always more memorable than the scripts that didn’t take a risk. Even if the risk doesn’t work.
So go out there and put your testicular fortitude on the line and take a risk in your screenplay. Something tells me it’s going to pay off.
