Ever since the beginning of the First 10 Pages Challenge, a segment of commenters have expressed doubts as to its purpose. They argued that capturing a reader from the very first word, then using each successive sentence to keep them invested is not only difficult, but unrealistic for every type of story (particularly non-genre stories). One of the more prominent arguments was that the first act is used to set up the characters and the plot so you can use the rest of the story to entertain the reader. Let us not forget, they point out, that the best action-thriller of all time, Die Hard, starts with a run-of-the-mill landing at LAX.
They further argue that the best scenes require an adequate amount of setup. You can’t place that rooftop scene in The Shawshank Redemption at the beginning of the movie, just as you can’t start Star Wars with the trash-compactor scene. It takes getting to know all the characters in that scene, learning about the Death Star, creating a scenario for us to get into the Death Star, saving the princess, trying to get out of the Death Star, before we can appreciate what’s going on and what’s at stake.
BUT if you’re using that as the reason why you don’t have to hook the reader right away, you’re sabotaging your screenplay gains. Let’s not forget that Star Wars begins with a pretty awesome scene – a giant ship overtaking a smaller ship, then invading it to capture the plans that the crew stole. The reality is, if you make it a priority, you can come up with a great first 10 pages for any type of story. You just have to adjust which tools you use. For an action script, it might be something action-y. If it’s a drama, you might use suspense, surprise, or dread. Hell or High Water is a relatively slow drama and it stats with a bank robbery. A Quiet Place has a great first scene where a family has to grab some things from town without making any noise. “But Carson, that’s a horror movie so it’s easier to write a scene with a hook.” I can’t tell you how many horror scripts I’ve read where the writer started with something mundane or boring. They could’ve easily taken this route in A Quiet Place and used their first 10 pages to set up the farm. You always have a choice. For every mundane scene you write, there is a suspenseful entertaining scene out there you could’ve written.
And while the focus for this challenge has been on the first 10 pages, I’m trying to teach you a bigger lesson here, which is that when push comes to shove and you need to write a great scene, you’re able to, regardless of where it is in the script. Most writers are unable to do that. They don’t understand what makes a scene work. They don’t understand basic storytelling principles like In media res, goals, obstacles, creating sympathetic characters, different types of conflict, dramatic irony, creating a problem that the audience wants to see the hero solve, suspense, mystery. Then taking those ingredients and giving us something either really well executed or unexpected (preferably both). If you want to watch a scene where the writer has all of these working, watch this short film.
But the most important reason you should aim to hook the reader right away is that you’re an unknown spec screenwriter. Nobody knows you. Nobody cares about you. The only thing you have to get peoples’ attention is the written word. So why risk boring these people with a slow or weak opening? Some of you will say, “Well if a reader is tasked with reading your script, they’ve got to read past the opening anyway. So what does it matter if you hook them on page 1 or page 15?” This is a common misnomer. A reader may be tasked with reading your script. But a lot of readers will decide early on whether a script is worth all of their attention or some of their attention. And most scripts fall into the latter category. So if you don’t hook them right away, there’s a change they’re reading your script half-heartedly. And that doesn’t even take into consideration what happens when the script gets passed up to the more important person (agent/producer/director). They owe you nothing. They can stop reading on page 2 if they want. And they do. Will Smith is notorious for giving a script five pages. If he likes those five pages, he gives the script five more. And as soon as the script gets boring, he stops reading. A lot of people in the industry are like that because they don’t have enough time to get through everything.
Where does that leave us today? Well, if there’s one thing I realized about this challenge, it’s that it’s hard to write a great scene. Especially the first scene of the movie, when we don’t know the characters yet. Sure, I can say, “Scream did it.” But Scream has one of the best openings ever. So it’s unrealistic to ask for that every time out. But there were two scripts (so far) that got me to read all ten pages (last entry here, and last entry here). And while neither of them were anywhere close to Scream-level, they both had something in common. And this is the big lesson I want you to take from today’s post: THEY DIDN’T GIVE ME A REASON TO STOP READING.
Let’s unpack that. The pages weren’t world-killers. The scenarios weren’t “oh my god” captivating. But they were interesting enough and the writing was easy enough to read that I kept reading. With all the other entries I bowed out of within 3 pages, it was torture reading them. Either I was confused, the scenes were overwritten, the setup was cliche, the setup was uninteresting, the writing was clunky. I was constantly given reasons TO STOP READING. So yes, I still want you to aim to hook the reader immediately. But, as a backup, you shouldn’t give us any reason to stop reading.
Assuming you’re dropping us into a situation that’s interesting (a scenario that has some level of drama and intrigue), here are three things you can do to make things as easy on the reader as possible. If you break any of these, you are giving the reader a reason to stop reading. That’s BAD.
1) Don’t be artsy and weird – You’re not trying to impress English professors. You’re trying to hook the reader. Too many writers think they have to be artsy and quirky with their opening. They must show the reader that they’re a “Writer” with a capital “W!” Just tell us what we’re looking at, dammit.
2) Keep your sentences (and your paragraphs) short and simple – No SAT words. No run-on sentences. Stay away from extraneous or unimportant information. Keep things short and to the point. In screenwriting, you’re trying to say as much as possible in as few words as possible. Nowhere is that more important than the first 10 pages.
3) Be clear – To bestow upon the abject redundancy of these rules, try retaining your core objective, the flaw that dictates where and how you resolve the early plot beats. If you read that sentence and said, “Um, what?” welcome to my biggest pet peeve – LACK OF CLARITY! The second I’m unclear about something, I’m out. After you write anything, put yourself in the eyes of the reader, read it back, and ask if what you’re trying to say is clear – as in, it can be understood by a 6th grader. If it isn’t, rewrite it until it is.
Carson does feature screenplay consultations, TV Pilot Consultations, and logline consultations. Logline consultations go for $25 a piece or 5 for $75. You get a 1-10 rating, a 200-word evaluation, and a rewrite of the logline. If you’re interested in any sort of 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!
