Includes a tip that will get the reader to turn all 110 pages of your script!
Today’s article was born out of this realization I had the other day that the entire goal of screenwriting boils down to making the reader turn the page.
I can’t emphasize this enough. The reader must have an insatiable appetite to turn the page. Because the second they don’t feel that need, they’re done with you.
That’s an important distinction between screenwriting and novel-writing because it’s different when you sit down and read a novel. You get the novel for the specific purpose of being entertained by it. So you’re willing to invest more time into it.
With a screenplay, the goal is different. It’s to determine if the script can be turned into a movie. The second the reader determines that it cannot, he’s free to stop. So that trigger is much faster on a screenplay, which is why understanding what makes a reader turn the page is so important.
Of course, I can’t give you universal reasons why readers turn pages. But I can tell you my reasons. And most of those reasons are going to line up with the people around town who read scripts. So let’s get into it.
A KICK-ASS CONCEPT
I can’t stress this one enough because it gives you a huge buffer for the start of your script. If someone sends me a really good marketable concept – like A Quiet Place or The Platform or Inception – you get 20 pages right off the bat. Even if the writing is bad, I will still give you 20 pages.
This is because a good marketable concept is hard to find. So even if the writing sucks, I’m thinking, “Could I bring another writer on to fix this?” I can see the movie so I’m willing to invest more of my time to see if there are solutions to the problems in the script.
But if it’s some indie concept or low concept (a road trip between a mother and daughter through the south), you don’t get any pages. I will literally stop reading on page 1 if the writing doesn’t capture me in some way. So, if you want 20 pages right off the bat, write that big concept script of yours. It’s going to make your post-script life so much easier.
VOICE
If the writer has a unique voice that sparkles on the page, that’ll get you 15-20 pages. I won’t go into what voice is in detail. I’ve written other articles on that. But, basically, it means the uniqueness in how the writer sees the world and their ability to translate that into their writing. It often involves a unique sense of humor. And you can see it by reading writers like Diablo Cody, Quentin Tarantino, Charlie Kaufman, Taika Waititi, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Yorgos Lanthimos.
WRITING IS A CUT ABOVE
If the writing is a cut above, that earns the script anywhere between 10-15 pages right off the bat. By writing, I mean the way the writer writes. Their sentence structure, their word choice, their turn-of-phrase, their intelligence, the way they weave their thoughts together. If that’s done in an advanced way, it usually (but surprisingly not always) means the script is worth reading. Look at Chandler Baker’s “Big Bad” short story that I reviewed. That’s what I mean by writing that’s a cut above.
Now, I’m not going to lie. If you have none of those things, your script is probably in a heap of trouble. But I’m about to surprise you. If you can be good at a few nuts and bolts things in screenwriting, you can still get that reader to turn the page. And if you keep rolling these things out, like breadcrumbs, throughout the script, the reader is going to be at the end of the screenplay before they know it.
A MAIN CHARACTER WHO I REALLY WANT TO BE AROUND
This is the biggest cheat code in all of screenwriting. Because as I said: The goal is to get the reader to turn the page. That goal remains the same whether we’re on page 1 or page 40. Interest can be lost so quickly during a read, it would shock you. The reader could be deeply invested in your story on page 27. But by page 35 they’re bored out of their mind. I’ve seen it happen more times than I can count. So you want a situation where you don’t have to keep coming up with something amazing every single page in order to get the reader to turn to the next one.
Enter a main character I want to be around. Either I like him or I’m intrigued by him or he’s funny or he’s caught up in something crazy that I have to see how he’s going to get out of. Giving us a main character who we want to be around is the thing that makes us turn all 110 pages. Even if the rest of your script is average, the reader will keep turning the page. I’m talking about Jordan Belforte, Arthur Fleck, Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Bella in Poor Things, Erin Brokovich, and Mildred Hayes in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
The large majority of the scripts I read have weak forgettable main characters. The writers seem comfortable with everyman and everywoman types who have no outstanding qualities. The story becomes the big star of the script and the main character, because he’s so bland, is overshadowed in the process. At the very least, give us a character with something to overcome. Because anything that is unresolved is a reason to turn the page. I must turn the page to see if it gets resolved.
If my character is a coward, I must turn the page to see if he ever becomes brave. But if my character is fine and has no flaws, what do I get by turning the page? To keep finding out they’re fine? Do you really think that’s enough to make me keep reading?
GOOD SCENE-WRITING
As many scenes in your script as possible should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. If you do this well, we will want to turn every page because every page gets us closer to finding out how the scene ends. However, I don’t care how a scene ends if you don’t set up a problem that needs to be resolved. If you don’t set up a goal that needs to be achieved. Pretend each scene is a mini-screenplay. It should have a setup (which gives us the goal or the problem), conflict (things get in the way of solving the problem or achieving the goal), and resolution. If you’re able to do this consistently in each and every scene, then the reader has to keep reading to see how each scene resolves. But if you’re just showing snippets of characters lives without structure, then hell no am I going to turn the page. I’ll be bored within 2 pages, 3 pages tops.
DANGLING CARROTS
Getting down to the nitty-gritty – the way to get a reader turning each and every page is to dangle carrots in front of them. If there are no carrots, there’s no reason for the donkey to keep walking. Let’s say your opening scene is your hero getting ready for work. Why should I keep reading about that? Honestly, tell me why. Cause you thought of it? Cause you wrote it? This is the error in so many writer’s thinking processes. The reader owes you NOTHING. They don’t turn the page to be “a good person.” They only turn the page IF YOU GIVE THEM A REASON TO TURN THE PAGE.
So, what you might do here is, while your hero is getting ready for work, have his wife trying to calm him down about his big meeting with the boss today. Today is the day that he’s going to ask for that raise. This is called DANGLING A CARROT. Now I have to turn the page to find out what happens when he asks for the raise! Does he get it or is he turned down!
Even better, the more meat you put on the carrot, the more pages the reader will turn. For example, if you open your script with a murder and you make that murder brutal and you make it so we really want to find out who did it, that’s a meaty freaking carrot right there. So you might get 10-15 turned pages out of it before the reader demands more information about the murder.
SUSPENSE
Any time you can create suspense, readers will turn the page. Suspense is the skillful withholding of information to keep the audience in a state of anxious anticipation. In screenwriting, it’s almost always tied to the negative. So, if you show us a terrorist secretly planning to blow up a plane AND THEN you show our clueless protagonist get on that very plane, you are creating an open line of suspense.
Any time you open a line of suspense, the reader has to turn the page. And, as you can see, that line of suspense can cover 5, 10, 15 pages easy, until the plan either succeeds or fails. But we’ve seen suspense work for even longer. Look at Titanic. That whole movie is suspenseful because we all know what the passengers do not: That the boat sinks. So we have to turn the page in a script like that so we can see who lives and who dies when the boat sinks.
UNEXPECTED THINGS HAPPEN
I read more screenplays than you can possibly imagine that never do anything surprising in them. As a result, I don’t want to turn the page. But when you do unexpected things, you STAY AHEAD OF THE READER. Which means the reader has no choice but to CATCH UP. What’s the only way they can catch up? By turning the page.
Strange Darling is a good example (spoilers). We think the killer is the guy. It turns out to be the girl. Scream kills off who we think is the main character in the very first scene. Kinds of Kindness has all sorts of unexpected things happening in its multiple stories. Poor Things goes bananas with some of its early creative choices. If I don’t feel like I have a handle on something, I have to turn the page to get a grip on that thing. Don’t overwhelm your script with unexpected moments. But a few smartly placed unexpected moments can keep the reader riveted (and riveted readers turn the page!).
Let’s wrap things up here. The most powerful thing you can do as a writer is to ask yourself, at every single point in your screenplay, “Why would the reader keep reading?” And the answer can’t be because you worked hard on your screenplay and you deserve it. I wish the world worked that way but it doesn’t. You need to be able to logically convey WHY the reader should turn the page. Whether it’s the concept, the writing, the voice, the main character, the unexpectedness, the suspense, or something out of your own bag of tricks! Whatever you have to do to get the reader to turn the page, do it. Cause they’re bored and they’re ready to give up the second they open your script. Don’t let them!
