The May Logline Showdown deadline is tonight (Thursday)! If you want to compete, send me your title, genre, and logline to carsonreeves3@gmail.com. The five best loglines compete over the weekend. Winning logline gets a script review next week! So the script has to be written. You have until 10pm Pacific time to get your loglines in.
Every screenwriter has been bombarded with the advice that they must start their script strong. It’s hammered into their stubborn noggins on the daily. Why is it important? Because nobody likes to read. Everyone’s impatient. And everyone expects a script from a writer they’ve never heard of before to suck. So when someone opens your script, they’re expecting to be bored out of their minds.
By adopting this mentality of writing a great opening scene, you at least give yourself a chance against these scruffy-looking nerfherders. However, despite everybody knowing this advice, no one’s ever talked WHAT KINDS OF SCENES you should write to immediately capture the reader. That’s what I want to do today. I want to give you ten opening scene options you can use to lasso onto that reader and pull them in. YEEE-HAWWW.
In Media Res – “In Media Res” just means that you’re dropping the reader into “the sh*t” right away. You’re not taking your time to set the scene. The scene is already going on and we’re being air-dropped into it. A classic example of this is Star Wars. We’re literally dropped onto a ship that’s being chased by another, much bigger ship. Remember, Star Wars originally started down on Tatooine with Luke Skywalker mowing dust. Imagine how much weaker that opening would’ve been. Especially in script form. A more recent example of this is Source Code. We’re thrown into the mix of a guy who wakes up in another person’s body on a moving train. About as ‘in media res’ as you can get. By starting out in the middle of something, we’re immediately pulled into the story whether we like it or not!
The Mini-Movie – The Mini-Movie opener is when you create an entire story, in your opening scene, that has a beginning, middle, and end. The reason this is so effective is because the audience gets an immediate payoff. They don’t have to wait for 2 hours to get their ending. They’re going to get it within the next 5-10 minutes! To that end, these work best when the stakes are high and the purpose of the scene feels important. Inglorious Basterds’ milk scene is a mini-movie. Scream is a great mini-movie. Up is a great mini-movie. It is a little different in that it contains a montage. But it has that clear beginning, middle, and end.
The high-stakes dramatic choice – A great opening scene option is to have a character (preferably your protagonist) given a difficult dramatic choice. The thing about choices is that audiences lock onto them immediately as they’re curious which choice the character is going to make. One of the most famous examples of this is the opening of American Sniper. Chris, our protag sniper, is covering his team when out walks a kid and his mom who may be carrying a bomb. Which gives Chris the most difficult choice ever. Does he murder a mom and her kid? This specific scene also reminds us that the bigger the consequences behind the choice, the more compelling the scene is going to be.
Suspense and Action – Action, all on its own, is boring to read. But action and suspense are captivating to read. Which is why Raiders has the best opening scene ever. It vacillates, for 8 full minutes, between suspense (how do we get through all these trick sections of a cave) and action (killer darts, pitfalls, boulders). Most beginner writers don’t get anywhere with their writing until they understand suspense. Suspense is something that has power on the page AND onscreen. You tell the reader that a potential bad result is coming and then you string out the buildup to that moment. There’s a big fat golden statue sitting on this stone table. But it’s clear that, if you take it, something bad is going to happen. So we build up to that moment through Indy’s careful deliberation and planning on how to deactivate the bomb. One of the most suspenseful 15 seconds you’re going to see.
Suspense and Danger – Give us an opening scene that places our character in danger and then draw the suspense out as much as possible until the dangerous moment comes. This is the most old school version of writing a great scene you can use. It can be (and should be) used anywhere, not just \ your opening scene. A brilliant example of this is the opening scene in The Hurt Locker. Our main character has to defuse a bomb in an active war zone. What makes the scene so good is not just the suspense of deactivating the bomb itself. But the fact that the area is teeming with additional dangers. They could be attacked at any moment. It’s a great scene.
Mystery – This one is kind of obvious but boy does it work well. And it can be combined with suspense and danger to create an even more potent opening. Jurassic Park uses all three. We start with the suspense. A bunch of workers look terrified as they wait for this shipment to arrive. Then we see this giant box and hear noises inside. There’s your mystery. What’s in this thing??? Now we’re totally hooked. But then you add danger (whatever’s inside is clearly dangerous) and we can’t wait to turn the page. The Matrix is another one. We build all this mystery around Trinity and these cops who are going into the building to capture her. Then we get more mystery with her being able to achieve all these supernatural feats. It’s a mystery party.
A Dead Body or a Death – It’s simple. It’s straight to the point. But an immediate death tends to draw the reader in. Especially if the death is unique or intriguing. Because the more intriguing/weird/interesting the death is, the more curious we’ll be. Watching the young woman choose to plunge to her death in the opening of Lethal Weapon definitely pulls us in. Just as the opening of Sunset Boulevard, with the dead body staring at us in the pool, pulls us in.
Make sure something happens – We’re not always writing some big action movie, or suspense movie, or horror, or sci-fi. Sometimes, we’re just writing character-based stuff. But that doesn’t give you an out when it comes to your opening scene. The reader doesn’t say, “Oh, he’s got less to work with. I’ll give him a break.” No. If anything, they demand more from you because they’re assuming your script is going to be even more boring than normal. So prove them wrong. You can do this by starting your story with something important happening. A great example is The Social Network. We don’t start with Mark Zuckerberg arriving at school as a freshman with stars in his eyes. No. We start with him getting dumped by his girlfriend. The resulting scene is their discussion about that break-up. Remember, “stillness,” “inaction,” “taking your time,” — these things never work for opening scenes. We don’t meet The Joker taking care of his sick mother. We meet him at work, with kids stealing from him, and then see him get beat up. Something important in this character’s life should be happening in your opening scene. Trust me: We’ll want to keep reading.
Time Crunch – Any situations where your protagonist is in some sort of time crunch is a great way to start your movie. Because readers have a natural desire to see people catch up with time. When we meet Marty McFly in Back to the Future, he’s late for school. So he has to hurry the heck up and get there. The script could’ve easily started with him meeting up with his girlfriend at the school entrance with plenty of time before class. Bob Gale and Bob Zemeckis would’ve probably loved that because they could’ve taken their time and helped the reader get to know those characters and how much they liked each other. But that would’ve been boring. By making Marty late, you pull us in right away because we want to see if Marty gets to school on time. I know it seems silly that we’d be invested in such an objective. But that’s the power of a time crunch.
Shock – It’s becoming harder and harder to shock audiences. To be honest, I don’t love this option because shock is over quickly. It doesn’t take up a lot of space, like suspense. But if you have a great shocking moment, you better believe you can pull a reader in with it. The opening of Goodfellas, with the men in the car, is a good example. The scene actually starts with some mystery. They hear a banging from inside the car. That’s initially what draws us in. But after they stop and open the trunk and we see the bloodied but still alive guy begging for his life, that’s when the shock comes. Tommy Devito lunges at the dying desperate body and viciously and repeatedly stabs him. That’s followed by James shooting him five more times. It’s unsettling and very shocking. If you can shock a reader, you can buy a good 20 pages from them easy. Cause they now think you’re capable of surprising them again. They got their dopamine hit and they want more!
There you have it. If you’re not using these 10 scene templates to open your script, you probably aren’t doing everything in your power to hook the reader.
Logline Showdown tomorrow. GET THOSE LOGLINES IN!
May Logline Showdown
Send me: title, genre, logline
Deadline: 10pm pacific time, Thursday, May 18th
Where: carsonreeves3@gmail.com
