Remember the days when you were a young gullible screenwriter and assumed that whoever you sent your script to sat down in front of a warm fire, a glass of expensive red wine by their side, and read your script from start to finish with the determined focus of a surgeon?
Ahhh, those were the days.
Eventually, you learned the truth. That most people who open your script don’t finish it. Sure, people who have been paid to read your script, such as readers doing coverage, will finish it. But the people who actually matter – the producers, the execs, the directors – they’re out the second they’re no longer entertained.
Most screenwriters don’t know that someone finishing your screenplay is a big deal. Even if they only thought the script was okay. The fact that they actually read your script cover to cover is an amazing feat. I still contend that entertaining people with words written on a page is the most difficult form of entertainment to hold someone’s attention.
It sucks that you never know *when* someone gave up on your script. People are generally nice. They don’t want to destroy your dreams. So even if they stopped reading on page 5, they tell you they finished it but it wasn’t for them. And how does that help you? You’re trying to become a better writer yet nobody’s identifying where it is you need to get better.
While I can’t tell you the exact moment readers give up on your script, I can give you the two most likely places. If you can master the writing in these two sections of the screenplay, you will reach your ultimate goal of writing a script that someone reads from beginning to end.
The first of these moments is THE FIRST TEN PAGES.
There is so much going on in the first ten pages from the reader’s side. For starters, they’re seeing if the first scene draws them in. They’re deciding if you can write. Is the writing professional? Is it easy to read? Or is it choppy and clumsily written? They’re deciding if they like you as a writer. Do they like your style? Do they like your voice? I just read a script by a well-known writer that I hated because I hate the writer’s style.
But what the reader is really looking for in those first ten pages is to get lost. I don’t mean that in a bad way. I mean that what you’ve written is so compelling that they forgot about everything else that’s going on in their life and only care about one thing – what the next page holds. That should be every writer’s goal with those first ten pages.
This is why I tell writers to start their script with a mystery or a problem or an objective. All of these require a character to be active. They’re already moving through the story. And if the mystery or problem or objective is interesting, you’ve got us hooked. There’s a reason Raiders of the Lost Ark is considered to be the greatest movie opening of all time. You’ve got this big objective that’s seemingly impossible. And we get to watch this bad-ass motherf&%$#er try to obtain that objective. It immediately thrusts us into a fun entertaining situation.
But that’s not the only option. It can be a scene that plays to your biggest strength. If you’re great with dialogue, for example, drop us into a conflict-filled dialogue scene with 2-4 characters and let the dialogue fly, like the breakup scene in the opening of The Social Network. If you’re truly good with dialogue (and don’t just *think* you’re good with dialogue cause your mother told you so), readers will recognize that and not need a big flashy opening. The crispness of the dialogue will tell us, “This guy has talent. I need to keep reading.”
And don’t take your foot off the gas in those first 10 pages. I’ve read a lot of good teaser scenes that last 4-5 pages and then the writer reverts to clunky character setup and exposition. You don’t have the luxury of doing that. Your script isn’t already greenlit. As unfair as it is, once a script is greenlit, they can take their time in the first 10 pages. But you’re still trying to win people over. So you don’t get vacation time. You have to keep pressing. You have to constantly ask yourself, “Is this moment boring?” If it is, rewrite it until it isn’t.
If you manage to write a great first ten pages, readers will almost certainly give you until the end of the first act. The first act is where the big problem in the movie is set up (save the princess, get into the exclusive party, retrieve the infinity stones) and the beginning of the second act is where the characters set off on their journey. That stuff is inherently structured and usually fun to read.
This brings us to the second most common place a reader gives up on your script, which is 10-15 pages into your second act. The reason for this is that most writers know how to set up a story. But very few know how to tell the middle act of a story. They don’t have a plan. This becomes evident almost immediately. The goal isn’t clear. The characters seem unsure. The direction from the writer, if there is any, is vague. It just feels like they’re making things up as they go along (probably because they are).
And the threshold for how long a reader will put up with that is about 15 pages. Personally, I’ve seen so many scripts fall apart at this stage. You can almost read the writer’s mind. You can see the lack of confidence building with each subsequent scene.
The trick to getting this section right is, first, understanding what the second act is. It’s the obstacle act. Your hero will be pursuing something – the ultimate goal in the movie – and you will then throw a bunch of obstacles at them. Sometimes these obstacles will be overcome. Other times they will set your hero back. If, at any point, you let your foot off the gas with either of these (character no longer pursues goal, interesting obstacles stop appearing or don’t appear frequently enough), you will start to lose the reader’s interest.
In the movie Nightcrawler (one of my favorite screenplays ever), the ’15 minutes into the second act’ marker has Louis Bloom getting to a crime scene too late because his newly hired assistant, Richard, accidentally sent him the wrong way. It’s an obstacle he did not overcome. He gets right back on the horse, speeding 90 miles an hour through the streets of Los Angeles to get to the next crime scene where he’s able to get some gruesome footage that he sells to the local news.
He then parlays that into a meeting with the station’s news producer. He wants to set terms for future deals.
Louis Bloom’s determination – his goal to become the number one nightcrawler in the city – creates a narrative where, when we reach 15 minutes into the second act, he’s going to be doing something. And readers LOVE THAT. They love when the main character is ACTIVE and DETERMINED and will do anything to achieve their objective.
Conversely, in Gilroy’s and Gylenhaal’s next collaboration, Velvet Buzzsaw, if you fast forward to 15 minutes into the second act, you see Gylenhaal’s art critic character lazily waltzing through an art showing, chatting up others at the gallery. It feels random. Not to mention, the story hasn’t established which direction it plans to take. You take Gilroy’s name off of this script, I guarantee you no one makes it past page 45. Such is the importance of establishing a direction by the writer and a purpose for the main character.
If you can get this section right, I’ve found that most readers will read the rest of your script. If they make it to page 45 and they’re still into the story, they’ve decided your script is worth their time. So pay extra attention to these two sections of the script. When they’re good, it usually means the entire script is good. Good luck!
P.S. Look for a new SCRIPTSHADOW NEWSLETTER in your Inboxes Friday night!!! Update on Kinetic! Yayyyyyy!
