Week 16 of the “2 Scripts in 2024” Challenge
Argylle teaches you how *not* to rewrite a script
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
Week 11 – Chill Out or Ramp Up
Week 12 – Lead Up To the “Scene of Death”
Week 13 – Moment of Death
Week 14 – The Climax
Week 15 – The End!
The last time I saw you guys, we’d completed our script! While I wasn’t planning to leave two weeks in between articles, I’m glad we did. Because one of the most valuable commodities in rewriting is DISTANCE. The more distance you have from what you’ve written, the more objectively you can judge it.
The scripts of mine that I’ve found the most clarity over are the ones that I hadn’t read in years. When I pick those up, it’s obvious to me what’s wrong with the script. Conversely, the reason it’s not obvious right after I’ve completed a draft is because all writers have something called “EAS.” Emotional Attachment Syndrome.
Writing is, and always has been, an emotional endeavor. This is because you’re almost always writing about yourself. Or, if not yourself, the things you personally like and personally believe. Therefore, you have an attachment to those beliefs that go beyond writing. To you, those things are part of who you are as a person.
So when you go back and read your characters and your scenes and your plot beats, your EAS goes into overdrive. It becomes impossible to judge anything objectively.
For example, one of my favorite themes to explore in stories is people who don’t believe in themselves. I love it when those characters overcome that flaw. I just watched Back to the Future again recently via one of these “First Time Youtube Watch” videos (one of my favorite new activities) and I tear up at the thought of George McFly not believing in himself. In his original timeline, he doesn’t show his writing to anyone. But after defeating Biff, he gains confidence and ends up becoming a successful author in the subsequent timeline.
So, if I write a character who struggles to believe in themselves, I will only see that character through my stubborn EAS lens. Therefore, if that character is humorless or passive or annoying, I won’t notice it. All I see is the character arc that I so desperately want to execute in my story. And nothing will get in the way of me executing that arc!!!
This is why so many scripts stay boring throughout rewrites. The writers are too attached to their original ideas and their EAS prevents them from making the changes they need to make in order to improve their scripts.
Probably the best professional example of this is M. Night Shyamalan’s career. Night has talked openly about how important certain plot themes and character themes are to his stories. As a result, he can’t see the forest through the trees. He is too blinded by his EAS, leaving each of his movies worse than the last.
This is something it took me forever to figure out. It should never be about what you’re trying to say through your creative choices. It should only be about WHAT IS BEST FOR THE STORY. Good writers are able to detach themselves emotionally and admit when a particular variable isn’t working and then get rid of it (or fix it) in the next draft.
If you keep doing that draft after draft, your script will get better. And that’s the end game. We’re trying to write the best script possible.
So bringing this back to today, all I want you to do this week is READ THROUGH YOUR SCRIPT. I don’t want you rewriting too much. I know, as writers, when we see something we hate, we have to change it immediately! But try to limit those changes as much as possible. Because what you don’t want to do is spend four days rewriting a sequence only to find out two drafts later that you never needed that sequence in the first place.
Instead, try to read through your script as a reader. Readers aren’t allowed to change scripts. They just read. Some of you are going to be tempted to at least jot down notes. If you have to, that’s fine. I always have to write down ideas as they come to me. But the advantage of reading straight through is that you’re mimicking the reader’s experience. Which is what I want. I want you to feel exactly what the reader feels.
As you’re reading your script, please give yourself grace. You will hate a lot of what you’ve written. That’s fine. I would even go so far as to say, if you don’t hate a lot of what you’ve written, you’re doing it wrong. Cause that means you have an overly optimistic opinion of your writing. Every first draft is messy. And that’s okay.
After you’ve read your first draft, write down the three biggest problems you had with your script. Some common problems include a first act that goes on for too long. A lot of on-the-nose dialogue. An unlikable main character. A main character who isn’t active enough. Major supporting characters who don’t pop off the page. A third act that comes around too quickly. A third act that isn’t nearly as powerful as you imagined it would be. Way too much exposition. A rudderless second act. A weak forgettable villain. Things come to your hero too easily (you, as the writer, are giving them a hand rather than challenging them). If you’re writing a sci-fi script, the sci-fi choices don’t feel imaginative enough. Ditto your set-pieces in action scripts. It’s hard to come up with set-pieces, especially in action films, that are new and fresh.
But the three things that are probably the most important are: 1) A main character that’s working. 2) A strong 3-Act structure, and 3) A second act that stays purposeful the whole way through.
That second act is usually where readers give up. That’s because a lot of screenwriters don’t know what to do in that second act. We readers can feel that when we’re reading the script. It’s like we’re in the writer’s room with them as they lose faith in real time and just throw any scene on the page in order to keep the story going. So that second act is a big one.
You don’t have to know how to fix these problems yet. We’ll talk about that more next week. All I care about now is you figuring out your script’s issues. I know this can be challenging cause it’s not always clear. So the way I like to do it is to NOTE the exact moments in the script WHERE I GET BORED.
Once you know WHERE you started to get bored, you can backtrack to figure out what caused the boredom. For example, I watched Argylle recently (not a good movie). And I was bored instantly. Agent Argylle walks into this dance club and meets some hot chick who it turns out is another agent trying to kill him. John Wick moment where everyone on the dance floor points guns at him.
We’ve seen this before. We’ve even seen this version of the story where it turns out to be a writer writing this scene. That’s how fast a screenplay can become boring! One early cliched scene. What are you doing differently with it? Nothing? Okay, then expect the audience to be bored. This movie was released and what did everybody universally agree upon? It was boring.
So, in that case, if you had written Argylle, you need to start your rewrite from the very first scene. What’s a more original secret agent set piece I could put here? And you’re on your way to a better script.
By the way, cliched scenes and characters are going to be a major problem in every first draft. That’s because, when you write a script, the things that feel “right” to you when you’re writing them only feel right because you’ve seen versions of them before. So you’re inadvertently copying what’s familiar to you. It’s only in the rewrites that you then challenge those weak cliched choices and try to come up with something fresh.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Your job this week is to simply read your script and write down what isn’t working. Feel free to get a jump on next week by writing down potential solutions for these problems.
By the way, if you didn’t participate in the 6-month Script Challenge, you can still do the Rewrite Challenge! Just go back into your archives of scripts and look for that script you always liked but never had the motivation to rewrite. Now that I’m guiding you, I can be the motivation to fix that script.
Seeya next week, when we come up with actual solutions for these problems! :)
