A reminder that you have until 10pm Pacific Time tonight to get your entries in for March Logline Showdown, aka “Movie Crossover Showdown.” If you need to know how to enter, here is the post that gives you the instructions!
Week 11 of the “2 Scripts in 2024” Challenge
As a reminder, we are writing a screenplay! That is correct. Over the first six months of the year, I am helping you write an entire screenplay. We are over halfway done. Don’t worry. If you missed out, you can go write your screenplay right now because I’ve included every article on the timeline right here.
Week 1 – Concept
Week 2 – Solidifying Your Concept
Week 3 – Building Your Characters
Week 4 – Outlining
Week 5 – The First 10 Pages
Week 6 – Inciting Incident
Week 7 – Turn Into 2nd Act
Week 8 – Fun and Games
Week 9 – Using Sequences to Tackle Your Second Act
Week 10 – The Midpoint
Today, we are taking on one of the least defined areas of the screenplay: The section of the screenplay that follows the midpoint. I believe “Save The Cat” calls this the “Bad Guys Close In” section. However, when I looked through a bunch of movies, I didn’t see a whole lot of bad guys closing in.
Instead, I saw one of three things happening. Either the characters chilled out, things ramped up, or we cut to subplots.
Let’s start with Zombieland. They finally get to California at the midpoint, which is a big accomplishment. The writers follow this by placing their four main characters at Bill Murray’s house and having them get to know each other. We get several scenes of the characters splitting up and chatting.
This happens in Leave The World Behind as well. We get the big Teslas Gone Wild midpoint scene, then we spend the night with everyone at the house. The dad gets to know the house owner’s daughter. And the mom gets to know the house owner. Each scene has a deeper dialogue-driven focus.
I get the sense that the writers of these movies know they’re going to ramp things up soon and build toward a rousing climax. So they treat this section as the “calm before the storm.” It’s the final attempt by the writer to do some real character work before the sh*t hits the fan.
The next option is to Ramp Up. This is the one I like best because it keeps the narrative moving and it focuses on the primary goal. In Back to the Future, the midpoint is Doc and Marty realizing, when they go to the high school, that Marty’s mom has fallen in love with him.
Notice how this gives us the opportunity to create an INTENSE GOAL that will be used to propel the story to the endpoint. The overarching goal in Back to the Future is for Marty to get back to the future. Duh. But now he can’t do that until he makes sure his mom falls in love with his dad as opposed to himself. THAT’S THE GOAL THAT GETS US TO THE GOAL.
So the very next scene after the midpoint is Marty approaching his dad at the cafeteria during lunch and trying to convince him to ask Lorraine to the dance. Notice how we’re jumping right back into the story after the midpoint. We’re not screwing around. We’re getting to the goal.
In my experience, the best screenplays are the ones where there isn’t a whole lot of dilly-dallying. Meaning, there aren’t a lot of scenes that aren’t pushing the story forward. When I look at Zombieland and Leave The World Behind, I find them both to be strong movies. But they are definitely not as good as they could be. And the reason for that is they have dilly-dallying scenes, scenes of the dad and the owner’s daughter smoking pot and discussing life (funny enough, Zombieland inserts a pot-smoking scene after the midpoint as well). Neither scene pushes anything forward. So why include it?
Whereas, with Back to the Future, which is arguably the tightest screenplay ever written, we see that there is zero dilly-dallying after the midpoint. We’re right back in the plot. And we’re back in it because they have a story to tell and they don’t have time to waste.
By the way, this is why, when you have plot issues later in your script, it’s usually because of mistakes you made earlier in the script. If you didn’t do a great job establishing a big goal with huge stakes and a lot of urgency, don’t be surprised when, later in your script, you’re struggling to figure out exactly what your characters need to do, to give those actions consequences, and to insert urgency.
Finally, you have subplots. All this option means is that, in stories where there are multiple plotlines going on separate from your main plot, this is a good time to cut to those subplots. You just showed us a major scene with your main characters via the midpoint. Give those characters a quick break to recharge and, in the meantime, get us up to date on the other storylines.
I suspect this is where Save The Cat’s “Bad Guys Close In” beat makes sense. Cause I pulled up Empire Strikes Back. The midpoint has Han Solo escaping an attack from an Imperial Star Destroyer. And then we cut to the main subplot, Darth Vader’s pursuit of them, and he angrily tells the ship’s captain to find Solo immediately.
I don’t remember exactly how No Country For Old Men was structured, but I would guess that that would also fall under “Bad Guys Close In.” We cut away from Llweyn Moss to see that Anton Chigurh is getting closer.
But you can also cut to other subplots. Jurassic Park actually does the opposite of Bad Guys Close In. Nedry (gotta love that name), the guy who steals the embryos, makes a run for it in his jeep, only to crash and get attacked by a mini-dinosaur. In that case, Bad Guys Run Away!
So there are plenty of options to work with here. It’s yet another reminder that screenplays are complex. There is no one-size-fits-all template. Nor should there be. Anyone But You is trying to do something different from The Beekeeper which is doing something different from American Fiction which is doing something different from Oppenheimer.
Despite that, I always find that it’s advantageous to have guidelines to work within. If you’re out there blind in the dark waving your hands around, it will show in the script. I read amateur scripts every single day and it’s one of the most common things I see. You can tell the writer isn’t sure where to go in the latter stages of their story.
I was just reading an amateur script the other day with this problem and the writer made up some side-quest that had no basis whatsoever in what had been set up previously. We do that when we don’t have a clear plan. No goals, no stakes, no urgency.
So figure out which of these options best fits YOUR script, and then have a plan. As long as you have a plan to keep pushing your story forward, you should be okay.
Once again, write 2 pages today, 2 pages tomorrow, 2 pages each Saturday and Sunday, 2 pages Monday, and then you get Tuesday and Wednesday to rewrite or catch up.
What are some of your strategies when writing directly after your midpoint? Do you have a plan or do you just wing it? Inquiring minds want to know!
Seeya next week when we take on pages 71-80.
