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Hollywood Reader reading a non-dramatized script.

I can’t take it any longer. I can’t take reading all these scenes that are so…….BAD! Scenes that just sit there. Scenes where nothing happens. Scenes where characters babble. Scenes that only dole out exposition. Scenes without conflict. Scenes without DRAMA!

Ah-ha! There’s the root of our problem! No drama. No baby mama drama. And what do scenes without drama result in?…Does anybody remember? That’s right! Scenes of death. The worst possible scene you can write in a screenplay. These are scenes with no dramatic or entertainment value whatsoever. I don’t care if your characters are talking about the origins of the universe. If it isn’t dramatized, we’re bored.

Confused? Do you still not know what “dramatizing a scene” means? Don’t worry. Actually, DO WORRY. Because if you don’t figure this out, you will never learn how to write an entertaining screenplay. You’ll be able to write people talking to each other. You’ll be able to write exposition. You’ll be able to move the plot from point A to point B to point C. But you won’t write anything that entertains an audience. So let’s make sure that’s never the case.

“Dramatizing a scene” means finding a dramatic component – usually fueled by conflict - to center a scene around. For example. 2 people talking about their day is a boring scene. 2 people talking about their day when one of them has a secret lover hiding in the closet is a dramatized scene.

An easy way to assess whether a scene is dramatized or not is to imagine the rest of your movie stripped away. All you have is this one scene. Would that scene entertain a reader? Context, of course, is essential to any good scene. So that always needs to be factored in. But in general, is your scene entertaining in its own right? If not, chances are you haven’t dramatized it. Because that’s what dramatizing a scene does – it makes the scene work on its own.

In order to help you understand the practice better, I’ve decided to lay out three screenplays I’ve been working on in my free time. In each of them, I will show you what a non-dramatized scene looks like, and then the thought process and approach that goes into dramatizing it. Now I’m trusting you guys to not steal my ideas here. These are three of the best ideas I’ve ever had so please keep them to yourselves. Let’s start with the first one, my martial arts fighting epic…The Weigh-In.


TITLE: THE WAY(EIGH)-IN

PREMISE: A martial arts fighter named RIGBY BONAPARTE is near the end of his career when he gets a surprise shot at the mixed-martial arts championship of the world.

SETUP: Rigby is getting by on ramen noodles and Wonder Bread, fighting a bunch of nobodies on Friday night undercards. At this point in the movie, he hasn’t yet been offered the title shot.

THE SCENE: Rigby heads over to his gym to get some of his angst out. As he battles away on the punching bag, he watches a couple of hot young fighters spar in the ring. The entire gym watches them in awe. It’s clear that Rigby feels old, left out, forgotten. He gives the bag one last PUNCH and stomps out, pissed about life.

VERDICT: This may SEEM like a decent scene. We’re showing instead of telling. That’s good, right? It does get across some information about the character (that he’s over the hill and frustrated) but we kind of already knew that. I mean, where’s the drama here? The guy is punching a punching bag, watching people. That’s not a scene.

Time to take The Way(eigh)-In through the Scriptshadow Dramatizer!!!

DRAMATIZED SCENE: Clearly, this scene needs more conflict. I have an idea. What if Rigby went into the locker room to change, only to find out that…his locker’s been given to someone else! Now we have some conflict (our hero is confused/angry) – somewhere to start our scene. Already, the scene’s looking better.

The situation also forces our character to be ACTIVE. He has to find out what happened. Why did someone change his locker? So let’s send him to the owner’s office and have him go off on the guy. That’s drama, right? Well, sort of. But I feel like we can do better. I mean, how dramatic is a private argument in a back office? Let’s put the argument right in the middle of the gym! Yeahhhh! Now the whole gym can stop and watch them go at it! Ooh, I’m liking this.

We’ll even have the owner, some crotchety old trainer named MACK, ignore Rigby when he approaches, focusing instead on these young buck fighters we had in our previous pointless scene. And to really maximize the drama, let’s make Mack hate Rigby. Let’s make him think Rigby is the biggest bum in the world, a real waste of space. Now, when Rigby finally reaches Mack and demands to know what happened to his locker, we have ourselves a bona fide dramatized scene.

SUMMARY: (Real movie – Rocky) I don’t know about you but I like this scene waaaaay better than the one where he’s banging on a speed ball looking upset. And all it took was a little dramatizing!

TITLE: THE BOAT HAZARD

PREMISE: A young strapping lad named Carribou Willoughby has managed to stow away on a passenger boat headed to America. It is on this boat that he falls for a beautiful out-of-his-league young lady named Jezzebel Gonzalez.

SETUP: So far, Carribou has only been able to marvel at Jezzebel from afar. She’s always flanked by a first-class entourage. He wonders if he’ll ever get a chance to speak with her before they reach America.

THE SCENE: One night out on the back of the boat, Carribou is laying down, chewing on some hey, when he notices – gasp – Jezzebel! She’s at the railing, staring at the stars, all by herself! This may be his only chance to talk to her. So he approaches, sidling up to her. “A wonderful night, isn’t it?” She turns, startled. But when she sees the handsome young man in front of her, she smiles. “It is.” Silence passes. The two look up at the stars. “You know what my father used to stay about the stars,” Carribou offers. “No. Tell me,” she replies. “He used to say that every star was one of the sun’s children. And that one day, they would all come back to rejoin him and when they did, there would never be darkness again.” She turns to him, offers her hand. “I’m Jezzebel.” He takes her hand up to his mouth, kisses it. “They call me Carribou.”

VERDICT: WORRRRRRRRRST SCEEEEEEEEEENE EVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVER!!! No conflict. On the nose dialogue. Cheesy lines. Ugh. Awful.

Let’s push this puppy into the SCRIPTSHADOW DRAMATIZER shall we?

DRAMATIZED SCENE: Okay, first of all, a person standing at the back of a boat looking up at the stars is the equivalent of placing your reader in a 4x4 foot concrete coffin. That’s how boring it is. So, how can we spice this up? First of all, let’s change Jezzebel’s situation. Let’s say she’s engaged to a man she despises. Yes! That’s good. And he makes her feel trapped. To the point where she’s considering suicide. Ooooh. Okay, now we’re on to something.

Jezzebel isn’t going to the back of the boat to look at stars. No. She’s going to the back of the boat to jump off! Now, instead of Carribou simply having to start a conversation with Jezzebel, he has to save her life!

But let’s amp up the conflict even more. She’s dead set on jumping. Nothing’s going to change her mind. So Carribou has to come up with a clever way to stop her. “The freezing water!” he thinks. That’ll be his angle. He can use that to scare her. And you know what? It’s working, to the point where she lets him approach, even take her hand to help her back over.

But that’s too easy. This is called the “Scriptshadow Dramatizer,” not the “Scriptshadow Sort-of-make-things-more-interestinger.” So what if she slipped! Yes, an obstacle (DRAMA!)! Now he LITERALLY has to save her. Using all his strength, he yanks Jezzebel up over the railing and to safety. Phew, she’s okay!

SUMMARY: Obviously, this is a scene from Titanic. You’re aware of the finished product. But what you didn’t know is that the “the sun and the stars” scene I mentioned earlier could’ve made the final cut had Titanic been in the hands of an amateur. Believe me. I’ve read tons of “Sun and The Stars” scenes in my life! Too many!

TITLE: CHUBBS HENRY

PREMISE: Chubbs Henry is an idealistic middle-aged literary agent at WMA who wants to change the business. He’s tired of the agency selling these crappy POS screenplays to the studios and wants them to make a stand. So he sends an e-mail out to everyone saying they need to get behind good material and good material only, even if it means selling less product.

THE SETUP: While Chubbs’ idealistic approach goes over well at first, a week later his boss calls him in and fires him. Sorry Chubbs. That’s not how this industry works. We sell crap because we make a lot of money off crap.

THE SCENE: Okay, so Chubbs just lost his job. What is he going to do? Well obviously he’s miserable, depressed. But he’s got to think of the future! So on the way to his car, he starts calling all of his writers, seeing if they’ll stay with him. The first eight say no but his big moneymaker, his top writer, says yes! Hooray. Chubbs is still in the game.

VERDICT: BORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRING!

Let’s take this puppy through the Scriptshadow Dramatizer…

DRAMATIZED SCENE: First of all, the method of firing (boss calling him in) is too standard. Let’s try something different. Why not make it so his rival (Ted Sweets) gets to fire him? YEAH. Now this firing has some meat behind it, some angst. This should piss our hero off (pissing off heroes is good – creates conflict).

Next, him calling his clients on the way to his car is boring. Let’s make him have to do it at the office. Now he has to walk through an entire company that knows he just got fired. How embarrassing. But talk about conflict! Already this scene is way better.

And you know what? Why take Sweets out of the picture? When you have a great nemesis/villain, you want to use him as much as possible. Hey, I know! What if Sweets immediately starts calling all of Chubbs’ clients, trying to poach them before Chubbs can call them himself?? Okay, now we have some URGENCY to the scene. Chubbs has to move fast or risk losing his writers to Sweets. We could turn it into a sort of “phone-battle,” with both of them speed-dialing numbers as fast as they can.

That’s a good scene but you know what? We could dramatize it EVEN MORE. What if, in a previous scene, Chubbs’ promised one of his lower-level writers more personal attention? Like SWORE TO HIM that he’d give him more personal time? Yeah, and let’s say that that writer (we’ll call him Joe Estzeras Jr.) calls him RIGHT IN THE MIDST of this phone battle, demanding that personal time come RIGHT NOW. Okay, now we have a real obstacle. He can’t call people if he’s stuck talking to Estzeras Jr. Friends? We have ourselves a real scene!

SUMMARY: Obviously, this is the famous scene from Jerry Maguire. But did you see how it looked before it got dramatized? Talk about boring. And yet I read DOZENS of those scenes every single day. Which goes to show just how important dramatizing a scene is!


Hopefully these examples have given you an idea of how to dramatize a scene. And while it may seem daunting at first, figuring out how to dramatize a scene actually becomes really fun! It’s like a puzzle where you’re constantly asking yourself, “What elements can I add to this scene to make it more dramatic?” Just remember, not all scenes have to be over the top dramatized. Just like any aspect of screenwriting, the level of dramatization will depend on the genre, the scene, the tone, the situation and dozens of other smaller factors. Sometimes you need to throw a big heavy dose of dramatization onto a scene (like the Jerry Maguire example) but other times it might be something simple – like a wife who’s upset with her husband but won’t tell him why. What you don’t want to is a write a scene without a single dramatic element to it. I cannot stress how often I read that type of scene though. So I’m telling you guys. START DRAMATIZING YOUR SCENES. Recognize how to dramatize.

type='html'>As many of you may have heard, I took a year off from Los Angeles to move back to Chicago and reclaim my soul. But I'm moving back in August and as I started looking for places, I realized, like Liam Neeson in Taken, that I had a particular set of skills. I’d lived in LA for 8 years, bounced all over, been to every neighborhood at least once. If there was anyone who could help future LA screenwriting transplants find the right neighborhood to live in, it would be me! So even though this KIND Of article has been written before, it’s never been written Carson-style. So buckle up beanbags. Shit’s about to get square footage.

3rd street Promenade in Santa Monica

SANTA MONICA ($$) - Santa Monica is one of the best places to live in Los Angeles because it has one of the most active beaches in LA, one of the best shopping areas in 3rd Street Promenade, and it's the most centralized beach town in the city. Now you will be taking most of your meetings in the Hollywood/Beverly Hills area, and Santa Monica is about a 30-40 minute drive from there, but it’s a small price to pay for being close to the beach, right!? The only real downside is that Santa Monica is the homeless capital of the United States. I don't know if this is official or anything but it's impossible to go anywhere without running into homeless people. And be careful, since LA’s homeless crowd is the best dressed in the nation, they often look like normal people. I once thought I’d made a new best friend only to have him screaming at me five minutes later that I was working for the government. Very embarrassing. Especially since I had just bought him ice cream.

BRENTWOOD ($$) – Brentwood is a really cool place situated just west of UCLA, about 20 minutes from the Santa Monica beach. It’s sectioned off from the university by the notorious parking lot known as the 405 freeway. Very clean and pretty. It has this nice (if humongous) central street with all these nice little shops around it. The crowd here tends to have a young, slightly upscale feel to it. I love going here every once in awhile but my impression of the community is that they’re a little stuck-up. Maybe I’ve just had bad experiences there but I didn’t quite gel with the people. However, if you consider talking to others overrated or you're stuck-up yourself, Brentwood is perfect for you! (p.s. Conan lives in Brentwood)

If anybody can find me a place here, I'd love you.

VENICE ($$) - Venice is one of the places I'm looking at. It's another beach town, just south of Santa Monica. It’s less pretentious, and the clientele reflect it. You'll find a lot more tattoos and piercings here. Venice is also home to the famous Venice Boardwalk. And if you Google that, you’ll get a feel for what you can expect. There's a community further inland in Venice that's a little more sophisticated, yet maintains that sort of rebel edge. This is where I’d like to live, unless I have enough dough to live beachside or on Venice’s famous moat-river thing. That will depend on how many of you buy my book. I should start a slogan. “Books for beach!” Someone go trend that on Twitter right now! (I still don’t know what trending means btw). Keep in mind Venice is even FURTHER from the Hollywood/Beverly Hills area (45 min), so meeting transit times might become an issue.

PALMS/WEST L.A. ($) – (about 25 min from Beverly Hills) I lived in Palms for a while. It's about a 20 minute drive directly east of Venice Beach, and since you're much further off the water and south of high priced Santa Monica, the property is cheaper. Like a lot of places in LA, you can weave in and out of Palms and find some pretty nice buildings as well as some pretty not-so-nice ones. This is a great starter neighborhood though, because you’re right next to the two major highways in the city (the 405 and the 10), allowing you to get anywhere you want to go.

CULVER CITY ($$) – Culver City is located adjacent to West LA. Much of Culver City used to be the MGM lot, so it's a really neat little place, tucked into the trees, with a lot of history to it. I like it because it has sort of a Midwest suburban vibe to it, how I grew up. And recently, within the last 10 years, the downtown area has really picked up. The Sony lot is right in the heart of Culver City, so you have lot of young hip people coming from over there. I really like Culver City but since I lived there already, I want to try a new area.

MARINA DEL RAY ($$) – Oh, the stories I could tell you about Marina Del Ray. My first girlfriend in Los Angeles lived on a boat in Marina Del Ray. Wasn't the brightest bulb on the tree. Once, while in the boat, we started shaking, and she said, “Oh, here comes another earthquake.” I looked at her and I said, “Huh?” And she said, “Yeah, there's a lot of earthquakes in Los Angeles. Sometimes like ten a day.” I said, “That was a boat passing us.” She kind of squinted at me and went, “Ohhhhh.” Anyway, Marina Del Ray is south of Venice and is sort of an unknown spot in Los Angeles. But it's got some really cool beachfront property that's reasonably priced. And it's reallly quiet there. The downside is that you’re on the southern tip of what would be considered “reasonable driving distance” between everything in LA. It will take you an hour to get to Beverly Hills.

IN AND OUT ($4.99 – double double and a fry) – In and Out is the most popular burger joint in LA. It sells just burgers and fries, nothing else. Nothing is frozen and everything is made to order. It’s ridiculously delicious. Now while you’re not technically allowed to live inside an In and Out, you can sit inside for a few hours before an employee notices you. And even once you do get kicked out, they have tables outside that you can sleep under. There are about 50 of these stores throughout the city and the last time I checked, about half are available.

BEVERLY HILLS ($$$) - There's no doubt that Beverly Hills is prime real estate. The houses are a lot bigger, the lawns are a lot wider. It even makes you ignore the insane amount of concrete that dominates the city (some streets in LA will take you 3 minutes to cross they’re so wide). Having said that, there are a few places on the fringe of Beverly Hills that aren’t too expensive. They're pretty small, but you can have that coveted Beverly Hills zip code if you really want it. There's also an area called “Beverly Hills Adjacent” that’s basically like the ghetto of Beverly Hills. However, the ghetto of Beverly Hills is still pretty nice! I lived there once. And what I found is when someone asks you where you live, you can just say “Beverly Hills ashsushaa,” and slur the last part. If you’re lucky, they’ll think you just said Beverly Hills. Oh, and Beverly Hills Adjacent is also the central hub for the Orthodox Jew community. So if you want to live here, you gotta grow a beard and get a top hat.

WESTWOOD ($$) – (25 min or less to Bev Hills) Westwood, or “Tehran East” as I like to call it, is a strange place. There are two types of people you’ll see here – college students from UCLA (where the university is located) and Persians, who make up 60% of Westwood’s population. I just made that number up but it’s reasonably accurate. Westwood is the first town east of Santa Monica, so it’s about a 25 minute drive to the beach, straight down Wilshire Boulevard, which is the biggest street that’s not a highway I’ve ever seen. The area itself is pretty nice. It has an okay downtown area whose highlights include large old-school movie theaters that are great for premiere parties. And if you’ve got a sweet tooth like yours truly, it has two GREAT places to get your fix – Diddy Reese (where the cookies are always fresh) and Stan’s Donuts (which has the most unique donuts in town. They actually bake a reeses peanut butter cup into one of their donuts. Need I say more?).

PACIFIC PALISADES ($$$) – (55 minutes to Beverly Hills) Pacific Palisades is one of the nicest areas in Los Angeles. It's the main beach area north of Santa Monica. You gotta take this windy twisty road to get there so it’s a bit of a hassle to commute. But this place is like a prettier Beverly Hills (at least in my opinion). It’s hilly and vegetative (is that a word?) and has places on the beach. If you’re drowning in money and don’t need to drive a lot, this place is for you.

THE VALLEY ($) (BURBANK, STUDIO CITY, OTHER TOWNS) – In Los Angeles, you have these hills that split the city in two. On the south side of those hills, you have proper Los Angeles (which I’ve been talking about) and to the north, you have the valley. I'm just gonna come right out and say it. I hate the Valley. I worked there once (in Burbank) and I didn't like anything about it. The heat gets trapped in the valley so it's always hotter there. The smog also gets trapped in the valley, so you’re sucking down soot wherever you go. And there's just this feeling of depression whenever you’re in the valley. Like it never made it out of the 70s. The huge plus side of living in the Valley, of course, is that it's a lot cheaper. So it’s a good starter place. And if you absolutely have to live in the Valley, I’d recommend Studio City. I can't say I know much about it but the few times I've been there, I liked it better than anywhere else in the valley, probably because it actually has current stores. Plus it's right across the hill so should you wake up one day and realize you’re actually in the valley, you’re just a 15 minute car drive from freedom.

 

Silver Lake

LOS FELIZ AND SILVER LAKE ($$) – (I think 35 min to Beverly Hills?) These are two places I'm thinking of moving to. The crowd here is young and hip and artsy, but, from what I've been told, not the pretentious kind of young and hip and artsy. The people are more genuine. It's kind of a hilly interesting area with some unique houses that date back to a long time ago. It's just northwest of downtown, so you're not gonna like this place if you're a beach person because it's a good 45 minute drive to the beach, but I'm hoping that the energy and the people here will make up for that because I want to find some cool folks in my second stint in LA!

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - Up until I left, there was a huge push to make downtown Los Angeles trendy. And they have put a lot of cool lofts up, which is nice because you don't really have many loft options in LA. But when I went down to look at these places, it was as dead as a door nail and you would walk one block and find yourself in a sketchy part of the city. Also, I'm 95 percent sure they hired actors to walk around with dogs in order to make it look like cool hip people lived there. It has been a year though, so maybe that’s changed.

HOLLYWOOD ($ - $$$) – Oh boy. I have mixed feelings about Hollywood. Here’s the thing. Los Angeles is so messed up and their layout so confusing, that I’m not even sure where Hollywood extends to. But the part of Hollywood I’m familiar with is dirty, grimy, and desperate. Because it's one of the most popular town names in the world, it's where all the clueless people live when they first arrive in LA. All these people care about is becoming famous. So there’s a dominant young narcissistic vibe on top of all the dirtiness. However, if Hollywood does extend as far west as I think it does, there are some places at the west end of Hollywood, off Sunset, that are nice. But that area might actually be “West Hollywood.” I don’t know. It’s confusing.

West Hollywood and the Sunset Strip!!

WEST HOLLYWOOD ($$) - West Hollywood is one of the cleanest nicest most centralized areas in LA and, like I said, where most people want to have meetings. So very little driving (except when you’re going to the studios, which are freaking spread out all over Los Angeles). I don’t like it though. It’s just packed so tight, I feel like a sardine whenever I’m there. But it’s right next to the famous Sunset Strip so if you’re a partier, this is a good area to live in. West Hollywood is also the central hub for the gay community in LA. Which may explain why it's so clean. And last I checked (which admittedly was awhile ago) there were some rent control areas. So you might really luck out with a sweet affordable pad.

ORANGE COUNTY ($ or $$) - I actually really like Orange County, which is South East of Los Angeles and the home to Disneyland. There are a lot of nice little apartments and houses there, many of which are very affordable. And if you don't like the pretentious LA scene, Orange County is a great alternative because many of the people there don’t even consider themselves Los Angelites. But if you expect to be taking meetings or coming to Los Angeles a lot, I'm gonna save you a lot of time and tell you to steer clear of Orange County. On an average day, it can take you an hour and 45 minutes to get to town. Or longer!

OTHER - Los Angeles also has a bunch of tucked in tiny areas that are really nice. For example, further inland from Marina del Rey is Mar Vista, which is like this secret little perfect community with all these awesome places that only a few people in LA know about. There's Pasadena, which is really nice but a bit of a hike out east so I’d stay away from there unless you’re only planning to come to LA every couple of weeks. And if all else fails, Los Angeles is a great place to be homeless. The weather is always nice. The thrown away clothes are often designer-quality. And if you fall asleep on the sidewalk, you’ll wake up with seven full burritos from Baja Fresh laying by your side. Yes, homeless people in Los Angeles get fed well! Maybe next article I’ll highlight the best park benches in Los Angeles to sleep on. They have some great ones up at Griffith Park.

So guys, where should I live?? And where do you live now?? Pros? Cons?

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Lorene Scafaria has 2 entries on this year's Top 10

Screenwriting is hard. Every year I'm reminded of that. Most scripts can be divided into two categories. There’s the script that's trying to tell the same old story as exceptionally as it can (something like Taken or Pretty Woman). And there’s the script that tries to do something different (District 9 or Pulp Fiction). The pitfall with the first option is that you have to nail every single rule in order to get the script right. And the pitfall with the second is that when you have to make up your own rules, which typically results in the script being all wrong. So it's sort of like a “pick your poison” deal. That said, ten scripts rose above these complications to become my favorites of the year. As has been the case in the past, this lineup reflects my feelings at this specific moment. In other words, the list may not coincide with my Top 25. I wouldn’t say anything truly blew me away in 2011, but a few scripts came close. Let’s take a look.

10) Reunion by Adam Zopf
Premise: At their ten-year reunion, a formerly bullied outcast decides to enact revenge on the cool kids who made his life miserable.
I'd read 60 straight Amateur Friday scripts before Reunion, and while a few of them were decent, there was nothing I would've told a producer he had to check out. Reunion was the first script to buck that trend. And what I loved about it most was the character exploration. 99 out of 100 amateur horror writers would've chosen to ignore what made their characters tick. Adam was the one who realized that no matter what genre you're writing, the thing that the audience cares about the most, whether they know it or not, is what's going on inside of the people. That’s what makes you care about them. And that’s what makes you care about what happens to them. I don't think this script has been picked up yet so if you're a producer looking for some great material, check out Reunion now.

9) The Imitation Game by Graham Moore (based on “Alan Turing: The Enigma” By Andrew Hodges)
Premise: The story of how Alan Turing cracked the impossible “Enigma” code, which helped the Allies win World War 2.
It’s rare that I get e-mails from people saying, "You have to read this now.” I get plenty of e-mails saying I should “check this out when you get a chance.” But people so excited they want me to stop what I’m doing *this minute* to read a script? That doesn’t happen often. The Imitation Game is a spec script that proves if you write a compelling main character dealing with an extraordinary situation, your script will sell. That’s because every producer in town knows that if they find a script with a challenging main character, every A-Lister in town will want to play him. I also loved how this biopic was a story, with a goal, stakes, and urgency. Not just a highlight reel of Turing’s life. I didn’t expect to like this one. But boy did I ever.

8) Your Bridesmaid Is A Bitch by Brian Duffield
Premise: After agreeing to groomsman duties at his sister's wedding, Noah Palmer realizes he may have made the mistake of his life after finding out that the woman who broke his heart is also part of the bridal party.
This is going to be a running theme throughout the Top 10. The reason this script is elevated beyond your run-of-the-mill rom-com is because the characters are so great. Not only do you feel the main character’s pain, insecurity, flaws, fears, and history here, but I loved what Brian did with Anna, the girl Noah is hopelessly still in love with. I think most writers would've made her a complete bitch. But Brian makes her cool, makes us understand why Noah fell in love with her. That steered us away from black and white – which is where 99% of romantic comedies exist – and into grey, where the world is way more interesting. It would be easy for us if Anna was a bitch. But because she isn’t, we don’t know what we want. I wish I read more rom-coms that made interesting choices like this.

7) Inherit the Earth by JT Petty (based on the graphic novel by Chris Ryall & Ashley Wood)
Premise: The last human on earth, a young girl, is protected by an army of robots against an even bigger army of zombies.
With the sub-par box office showing of Cowboys and Aliens, it's looking less and less like this film will ever get made. But the reason I liked it so much was because it actually asked the question, “What would a ten year old girl really be feeling during this experience?” That may seem unimportant. But when you have zombies and robots battling for world supremacy, you need something honest anchoring the story. A little girl who just wants to be loved, who wants a mother and a father – that’s something real people can identify with and understand. For those of you paying attention, that's four scripts so far, and four examples of me ogling over the character exploration. Have I convinced you to do more character development in your next script yet?

6) The Mighty Flynn by Lorene Scafaria
Premise: After a cruel heartless efficiency expert gets fired, he meets a strange 16 year old girl who unexpectedly helps him turn his life around.
This script is Jerry Maguire for a new generation. People keep saying it will never get made because of Up In The Air, but it's so damn different from that movie. I mean, does Up In The Air remind YOU of Jerry Maguire? No, because Jerry Maguire is a lot more fun, and that's the feeling I got from this script. It’s fun. Scafaria, besides being cute and having a cool last name, is really good at mixing drama with comedy. And I love the unexpected pairing she came up with here, not only because it’s different, but because she didn't take the obvious route and create some sleazy romantic relationship between the older guy and the younger girl. It's just a unique friendship. The only fix that needs to be made here is the ending and this script could be perfect.

5) Nautica (Riptide) by Richard McBrien
Premise: An investigator tries to solve a murder case on a ship which involves a handyman, a stock broker and the stock broker's girlfriend, which won’t be easy since each suspect has a different version of the story.
This script has had a long journey and a lot of close calls and for whatever reason, still hasn't been made. This is Dead Calm but with a more complicated backstory. There have obviously been a fair share of Rashamon-inspired films, but this is one of the few that lives up to the technique. I remember going into this with no idea what it was then coming out exhilarated after all the twists and turns. The characters here are interesting. The story is interesting. I can't see anyone not wanting to be involved with this project. So let's boot this out of development hell already.

4) How It Ends by Brooks McLaren
Premise: A man must race across the US to save his pregnant wife as the apocalypse rains down around him.
Here I am, trumpeting the importance of character development for six straight entries, yet my number 4 script barely peeks beneath the surface of its characters. I think that's what turned people off and made them wonder why I ranked it so high on my Top 25. Commenter JakeMLB responded to this critique best. Brooks decided to take a realistic approach to his story. He wanted to put you right there in the action, attempting to mirror how it would really be. When you take that approach, an artificially constructed character flaw can feel forced and artificial. For example, it’s okay for Han Solo to finally overcome his flaw of being selfish at the end of Star Wars. But had we done the same with Will, it starts feeling like a Hollywood movie as opposed to a real situation. It's a fine line and I almost always lean towards creating a flaw, but in this rare case, it worked. Not to mention, this is about as intense a script as you’ll read all year.

3) When The Streetlights Go On by Chris Hutton & Eddie O’Keefe
Premise: (from Black List) In the early 1980s, a town suffers through the aftermath of a brutal murder of a high school girl and a teacher.
Let the controversy continue! “Streetlights” inspired some of the more intense debate over a script’s quality as we've had all year. Some people were moved by it. And some people wanted to move it into their toilet. Count me among the former. I'm a big believer in this script and more than a week after reading it, I’m still moved by its haunting tone and chilling ending. At the beginning of this article I talked about the two types of scripts you can write, the predictable one and the chance-taking one. “Streetlights” takes chances almost every step of the way. An ongoing voice-over. Lack of a clear protagonist. A period piece. A love story that doesn’t emerge until the final act. And yet, somehow, it all comes together. If anyone can tell me how these guys are only 21 years old, I'd love to know.

2) Seeking A Friend At The End Of The World (no link)
Premise: As a life ending asteroid shoots towards Earth, a lonely man befriends a strange woman and the two embark on a road trip to say their goodbyes to their loved ones.
Writer: Lorene Scafaria
This is another one that just stayed with me. I love Scafaria’s knack for going quirky, yet still making her choices relevant to the story. For example, one might complain that Keira Knightly’s character’s sleep issues (the girl can sleep through the world falling apart) are a bit on the “Ooh, look how different I can make this character” side. Yet her sleep issues turn out to be a big set up for a later payoff during the climax. On top of this, I'm just a sucker for stories where two misunderstood people find each other. I never reviewed this script on the site but Scafaria, in her directing debut, finished shooting it earlier this year, so we should get a trailer soon.

1) After Hailey by Scott Frank (based on the novel by Johnathan Tropper)
Premise: After a newlywed war photographer’s wife dies, he must decide whether to help out her troubled son from a previous marriage or move on and start a new life.
What can you say about After Hailey? It's one of those scripts where every character is perfectly written. It walks that inexact line between comedy and drama exceptionally. It's got a great central unresolved relationship at its core, and one we’re not used to seeing – a man stuck with parenting a stepson he barely knows after his wife dies. I know I talk a lot about “heart” on this site and maybe I don't explain it all that well. But if you want to know what heart reads like, check out this script. It just makes you feel good inside and it tackles a lot of identifiable situations we all deal with in our everyday lives, but in an amusing and heartwarming way.

Now that 2011 is over, I want to set a personal challenge to all of Scriptshadow Nation: Let’s dominate this list next year. We got one on the list. Let’s try for 3 or 4 in 2012. The things I preach on Scriptshadow aren’t revolutionary. But I believe that the people who follow this site understand the essentials of storytelling way better than the people who don’t. So let’s do this. Get out there and start writing. Create something great. I’ll be here to celebrate it when you’re finished.

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I love you Melanie. Just not your film.

I generally like to bust out the optimism here on Scriptshadow. There are too many people bringing others down in this business. “You can’t do this.” “You can’t do that.” Everything, according to these folks, is terrible. The truth is, the people who make it in this business are the people who ignore the naysayers – who don’t get caught up in the negativity. That being said, I’m a moviegoer just like everyone else. And while I respect the fact that thousands of man-hours were put into these pieces of entertainment, I’m just as mad as anyone when the product I paid for is junk. So I’ve reserved one day of the year to air out my frustrations. I should note that I haven’t seen “In Time” or “My Sister’s Retarded” (or whatever that Adam Sandler movie is called), both of which I hear are beyond terrible. And of course any year with a Transformers movie means that movie is automatically number 1 – so I won’t even bother putting it on the list. As for the rest of these films, each of them took my breath away. As in, I almost died of boredom watching them. Beware of what follows. It gets ugly.

10) Win-Win – Maybe Win-Win shouldn’t be on this list. It’s a competently made film with some okay moments. But I’m including it because it was the most average film I saw all year. And “average” can sometimes be worse than “bad.” I’ve had a problem with McCarthy’s films for awhile now, never quite understanding all the love they got, but going along with it because they were independent and Rotten Tomatoes always seemed to give them high scores. I figured it was my fault I didn’t like them. But after this movie, I’m not falling for it anymore. The narrative in Win-Win is all over the place. The central relationship between the boy and the coach is uninspired. I’m not even sure what the motivation of our protagonist is. To win a wrestling championship? I don’t get the sense that’d change his life in any way. So where are the stakes? The kid is boring. The grandfather scam is okay but ultimately unsatisfying. The mom stuff is cliché. There’s just nothing to grab onto here. It feels like one giant exploratory first draft.

9) Everything Must Go – I can't tell you how much it pains me to put this on my list. For those readers new to the site, Everything Must Go was my favorite script a couple of years ago. I thought it was such a clever story - the idea of this guy being kicked out of his house, forced to live on his lawn with all his “stuff,” then realizing that stuff was a symbol of his past and that in order to move on, he would have to get rid of it all, which he does in a yard sale. Unfortunately, I can't remember a movie where the performances were as dead as this one. The kid was boring. Will Ferrell was boring. Even the captivating Rebecca Hall seemed confused. Like “Am I supposed to like you or just be a helpful pregnant neighbor?” It was as if the entire cast was sleepwalking through the movie. And when your entire movie takes place in one location, the performances need to be amazing. I learned a lot from this film. Unless you’re writing a thriller or a horror film, be wary of placing your movie in a single location.

8) Cowboys And Aliens – Here’s a question for you. Who wins in a fight? Cowboys? Or Aliens? No wait, let me be more specific. Who wins in a fight? People 140 years less advanced than us? Or aliens 1 million years more advanced than us? Hmmm, let me think about that for a second. I don’t know. It’s a tough call. I mean the cowboys do have horses. Oh yeah, wait. THE ALIENS DO! But apparently the producers of this movie thought this was some sort of even battle, not realizing that any rational person would realize that if the Cowboys won, it would only be because the writers cheated. But that wasn't this script’s only problem. The writers decided to write a movie where nothing happens for 60 minutes. I mean seriously. What happens in the first hour of this movie? The highlight for me in this film was realizing that one of the actors was Captain Hadley from The Shawshank Redemption.

7) No Strings Attached – Look, Ashton Kutcher seems like a nice guy. No, really, he does. And I’m not even mad at him for cheating on Demi Moore. But come on. This guy cannot act to save his Twitter Account. When you then combine his talents with Natalie Portman, who is to rom-coms what Snooki is to book clubs, you get the abomination that is No Strings Attached. Not only do these two look uncomfortable in their own skin, but they have zero chemistry together. No. They have negative chemistry together. Is it possible to have negative chemistry? I’m going to look that up because if not, we may have just made a major scientific discovery. Which would mean at least something good came of this film. It didn’t help that Liz Merriwether’s original script was sanitized down to a faux-edgy piece of fluff. Natalie, I love you. But stay away from anything resembling comedy. Ashton, I love you, but stay away from anything resembling movies.

6) The Dilemma – I just…I just don’t know what to say about this terrible film. Actually, I do. How is it that you can overlook a story flaw so big, it eclipsed the sun the day the final draft was turned in? A movie about whether a guy should tell his best friend that his wife is cheating on him? That’s not a movie. That's a subplot. That's a scene. But if you think you're going to keep an audience's interest for an entire film with that sort of secondary conflict, you need to be sent to screenwriter jail. No chance of parole. This is a movie! The conflict has to be bigger!! Our main character’s girlfriend is the one who has to be cheating. But even if you don't take that into account, it still doesn't make sense. Should you tell your best friend that his girlfriend is cheating on him or not? Hmmmmmm…um YEAH! You should. Movie over. And on top of all this we have to endure Vince Vaughn and Kevin James bumping into things for 90 minutes. Here’s a dilemma for you. Do you tell an established producer that the movie he’s about to make is going to be terrible?

5) Happythankyoumoreplease– Oh Josh Radnor. I still remember the day I read your script. I still remember thinking how beautiful the writing was, how amazing the characters were, how original the story was. Yeah, it was a bit self-congratulatory in places. But overall, I was amazed by your talent as a screenwriter. And then you had to go and direct the film even though you’d apparently never picked up a camera before. Long shot, close up, close up. Long shot, close up, close up. All that was missing was a wind-up bolex and 3 reels of 8mm black and white film. I can't remember a single moment where a character was actually moving. Everybody always seemed to be sitting down in small rooms. And then of course there was the…..duh duh DUHHHHH…. COUPLE OF DEATH! I will never forget that couple, the way they argued over and over again about the same thing. About how depressed they looked. About how depressing they were. Those scenes were so torturous that I don’t think I’ll ever fully recover from them. R.I.P. The Couple Of Death. R.I.P. Happythankyoumoreplease.

4) Somewhere – Look, I’m all for experimental film…WHEN YOU’RE A FILM STUDENT. But when you’re asking people to pay ten bucks for your movie, a cohesive storyline is required. Or a goal. Or a purpose. Or a point. “Somewhere” is a film that feels cobbled together from random dailies and rehearsal takes. Isn’t one of the first things you learn as a writer to cut out all the boring parts? When you start putting theme and symbolism and experimentation ahead of entertainment, you’re playing with fire in a fireworks factory. People will only travel down that path for so long before they start asking where you’re going. Coppola better be careful. She’s quietly directing herself out of the business. The title to this film is appropriate: “Somewhere.” Unfortunately, neither the director nor the audience knew where.

3) Sanctum - James Cameron should be ashamed of himself for producing and supporting this crap. What disappoints me so much is that Cameron understands the value of story. He made his living as a screenwriter before he became a filmmaker, and while it's not his biggest strength, he’s pretty darn good at it. So why, then, does NOTHING HAPPEN IN THE FIRST 50 MINUTES OF THIS MOVIE??? I remember a 7 minute helicopter landing scene. I remember 20 minutes of people radioing each other back and forth in a cave about NOTHING. There was no main character as far as I could tell. No point to any of the action. It’s never good when nearly a full hour into the film you’re still asking the question, “What is this movie *about*?” I mean I could’ve improved this script by 1000% had you just given me 30 minutes. If your movie revolves around a mysterious and fascinating cave, then DON’T ALREADY START in the cave. We have to go in there together. Discover it together. Build some actual suspense. Where’s the fun in everybody already being inside? And you know what? I actually would’ve been okay with this IF the reason for it was so we could jump right into the story. Except we get there, then listen to people radio each other back and forth for 50 MINUTES! So the whole point to starting late isn’t even taken advantage of. I wish somebody would’ve pushed me into this cave also.

2) Beginners – No no no. Make it end. The memories of this film still burn inside of my brain. Pretentious. So pretentious. Have not seen a movie this pretentious since film school. Subtitles whenever the dog talks. Make it stop. Entire movie told out of order for no other reason than the writer wanting to be weird and different. 83 year old father coming out and going to clubs that play house music so he can pick up 30 year old men. Non-stop voice over telling us insignificant things or stuff we already know. 83 year old newly gay father is also dying of cancer. Of course he is! We must make this indie and different and as pretentious as possible! No story here. Just a writer trying to be “deep” and different for different’s sake. Sometimes random images would flash across the screen. Because of the pretentiousness. They hadn’t hit the quota yet so they had to keep going. This movie was a cinematic fatwa. The only reason it isn’t number one on my list is because of Melanie Laurent who was as cute as a jelly bean. Thank you Melanie for saving me from a boredom coma.

1) Skyline – Sometimes Redbox sends me codes for free movies. I used one to get Skyline. I still want a refund. Apparently a couple of visual effects wizards figured they’d skimp on screenplay costs and, what the hell, WRITE THIS MOVIE THEMSELVES. As a result, we get 47 scenes in a hotel room that I’m pretty sure were the same scene from 47 different angles. Oh, and 5 scenes where they peek outside and see aliens. I couldn’t begin to tell you what the plot was here. Some guy is staying at a hotel. Maybe he’s an actor. His friends come by. I think one of them just won a Ferrari in a game show or something. Game Show Ferrari Guy gets mad at our hero because, um, well because it’s a movie and people get mad at each other in movies. People’s faces turn blue sometimes because, um, room service sucks? I have no idea. Note to aspiring filmmakers out there. Not anyone can write a script. Find some money and pay someone who knows what they’re doing. At the very least your movie will be coherent.

Oh man. I really needed that. Those were some pretty awful movies. But stay tuned for tomorrow when Happy Carson returns. My 15 favorite movies of the year, which I promise will contain some surprises. See you then. :)

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Talk about a great opening 10 pages!

Okay guys, Twit-Pitch is alive and well. And if you were following my Twitter feed every night, you’d be seeing me analyze the first ten pages of these entries in REAL-TIME. That’s right. I actually tweet what I’m thinking AS I’M THINKING IT. What other contest does that!? This is unprecedented stuff here so if you’re not following me on Twitter yet, you best remedy that right away!

Now, I bring up Twit-Pitch because when you read ONLY the first 10 pages of a bunch of scripts in a short span of time, you REALLY start paying attention to what makes those pages work or not work. And while it’s nothing new to say “Make sure your first 10 pages are awesome,” it really hit me how important that piece of advice is during this exercise. I realized how quickly that feeling of going one way or the other comes for the reader.

The thing is, when writers hear this advice, they get the wrong idea. They believe “make your first 10 pages great” means immediately assaulting the reader with a huge car chase or a big action set-piece. I’m not saying those won’t capture the readers’ attention if done well, but a generic action scene is just as boring as a generic dialogue scene.

So I sat back and thought about all the openings I liked (both with these pages and with other scripts I’ve read) and while I can’t say I’ve come up with a definitive formula for roping in the reader, I can tell you that when comparing the first ten pages of all these scripts, I found a few go-to approaches that give you the best shot at grabbing the reader’s attention.

One of the best ways to open a script is to introduce a problem. When you introduce a problem, the reader will want to stick around to see if that problem is solved. So in The Sixth Sense, the movie starts with husband and wife having a quiet moment in their bedroom, when, all of a sudden, an old patient breaks in and starts threatening them. This patient is the *problem.* He’s threatening our hero and his wife. I don’t know any readers who would not want to find out how this scene ends.

But you don't have to be telling a ghost story or writing an action film to start with a problem. You can inject a problem into anything. Maybe you open with a teenage girl on the subway with two menacing hoodlums staring at her from across the car. Maybe you start with a woman finding out she’s pregnant. Maybe you start with a lawyer losing his job. Just introduce a problem and you’ve got us.

The next thing you can start with is a mystery. A reader is always going to be roped in if there's some sort of mystery presented to them. You need look no further than Inception to see how to open your script with a good mystery. We see our main character washing up on shore. We see our main character asleep in an apartment with a mob approaching. We see our main character asleep on a train. If I'm a reader, I want to find out how this is happening. I want to keep reading.

The third thing you can start with is a good old-fashioned Scriptshadow staple - a GOAL. Just give your character a goal and we’ll want to see if he gets it or not. The prototypical example of this is Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana Jones’ goal is to get the gold monkey in the cave and get out. Throw a few obstacles in the way and you have yourself a great opening sequence.

Another solid opening move is a surprise. I like this one because it actually allows you to start slow. You can introduce your characters. Establish a little bit of setup along the way. And then at some point in the scene, throw in a shocking surprise that jolts the reader. It's been a while since I've seen Iron Man, but if I remember correctly, we start with Tony Stark in a Humvee with some other soldiers chatting away, then out of nowhere – BOOM! - his vehicle is attacked.

If none of these openings float your script’s boat, then AT LEAST start us off with some conflict. Give us an imbalance that projects a feeling of instability. If something's unstable, we intrinsically want to stick around until it stabilizes. So in Fargo, a man walks into a bar to discuss the kidnapping of his wife with a couple of contract men. Immediately, the two parties are not on the same page. They point out how our protagonist is late. Our protagonist counters by insisting he’s on time. This conflict seeps its way into their conversation, making a somewhat straightforward dialogue scene interesting!

Now you don’t have to use any of these approaches if you don’t want. There are plenty of other ways to open a screenplay and I encourage you guys to list them in the comments. But from my experience, if you want to hook a reader right away, these are extremely solid bets. Now if all this stuff intimidates you or confuses you, or you’re convinced there’s no way to use any of these methods in the kind of script you’re writing, then there’s one failsafe rule to fall back on: Make sure something interesting is happening. That's all. Don't bore us with two people talking about something that’s ultimately irrelevant. Give us a scene where something interesting is happening and we’ll be intrigued.

So now that you have a good idea of how to rope a reader in with your first 10, I thought it would be the perfect time to look over the first 14 entrants I’ve read in the Twit-Pitch contest. Of these 14, 8 of them did not make it to the next round. 5 of them received “maybe” votes, meaning I’ll revisit them after I’ve read everything, and 1 received the coveted “definite” vote (“The Tradition - 1867 After losing her father, a woman unwittingly takes a job as a maid at a countryhouse of aristocratic cannibals”). Below, I’m including all the scripts the writers let me post. Check out what you can and study the first ten pages. Determine why you liked some and disliked others. Share your observations in the comments section. And if you know of any other tricks to pull the reader in in the first 10, share those too!

DIDN’T MAKE IT

Tusk
The ghost of a legendary movie star gets tangled up in his own biopic when he needs the help of the heartthrob cast to play him.

Untitled Hoarder
A hoarder finds the girl of his dreams only to lose her in his apartment.


Treetop
After running away from home, an eight foot tall teenager stumbles upon a retirement town for sideshow performers.

Nuts & Rats
An ex-cop awakes in an alternative reality where normal people are locked up in mental institutions and society is run by lunatics.

Open House
Desperate to divorce but cash-strapped, ornery newlyweds must put their feuding aside to sell their house, much less agree on a price.

Godfathers
Two guys have one weekend to battle for the coveted 'Godfather' title to their best friend's new daughter.

Local .357
Ex-CIA assassin unionizes an eclectic group of freelance hitmen to "negotiate" with their mob employers. Norma Rae meets RED

The Lipschitz Affair
When an art heist interrupts a wedding at the Guggenheim, everyone's a suspect -- even the bride and groom

MAYBE

The Last Rough Rider
It's 1901. Terrorists have just taken over the White House. And only Theodore Roosevelt can stop them.

Blackhats
A hacker for hire finds himself in a deadly web of corporate espionage after being hired to steal the 1st sentient A.I.

Ridin’ The Gravy Train
With his favorite fast-food sandwich facing its final week before it's phased out forever, an obsessed man leads a protest to save it.

Gino And Me
In early 1980s New Jersey, a 12-year-old decides to profile the local mob boss for his seventh grade English project despite the vehement disapproval of his mother.

Crimson Road
Can it get any worse than living next door to a serial killer? It can if you live on CRIMSON ROAD... the whole street is full of them.

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One thing I believe I've done a fairly good job of on the site is reinforce the value of structure. You guys understand the inciting incident. You understand where the first act turn needs to be. You understand goals, stakes, and urgency. Some of the more advanced writers understand obstacles and conflict. All of these things are going to give you, at the very least, a solid screenplay.

But lately, I've been running into a lot of screenplays that do all of these things, yet are still boring.

You’d think that if somebody executed my precious GSU, I’d be preparing a 5 course meal of praise for them. But as wonderful as my darling little GSU is, it can’t make up for a crater-sized emotional void in a screenplay. And there are more craters in these scripts than there are on a full moon. They leave me feeling…empty. They don’t connect in some way.

A while back I wrote an article about the 13 things that every screenplay should have. At the end of that article, I talked about something called the “X-Factor.” The X factor is that indefinable thing that elevates a script above the pile. It’s that special sauce that makes all the pieces melt together. I call it the X-Factor because it’s hard to quantify. Something feels exciting and fresh and charged about the screenplay, but you can’t put your finger on what it is.

I believe I've finally figured out what it is.

SOUL.

These well-executed but boring screenplays don't have any soul. All of the elements are where they're supposed to be. But it’s the difference between a human being and a robot. You can feel a human being’s presence, the life beating out of them. The robot may look human, may even act human, but he emits no emotion, no love, no SOUL. So as neat as a human-looking robot is, you’ll never be able to connect with him.

So I set about trying to figure out the impossible: How to quantify SOUL. I realized I couldn’t do it in real life. But maybe I could figure it out in the screenplay world. After looking back through some of my favorite movies, I was able to identify a few things. These probably aren’t the only things that add soul to your script. But they’re the big ones. Naturally, most of them revolve around character.

RELATABLE CHARACTERS – Try to make your characters relatable in some way. There has to be something in them that’s identifiable so an audience can say, “Hey, that’s just like me,” Or “Hey, I have a friend going through the exact same thing!” This familiarity creates a connection between you and your audience that you can then use to extract emotion out of them. Because they now have a personal investment in your character, they’re more likely to care about what happens to them. It might be that your character loses someone close to them (Spider-Man), which is something a lot of people can relate to: loss. Or it might be that your character’s underestimated (Avatar), which is something a lot of us have felt in our lives. But make no mistake, if we don’t relate to the character in SOME WAY, chances are we won’t feel the power of your story.

CHARACTER HISTORY – Every day I believe more and more in character history (or character “biography”) and let me tell you why. The most boring characters I read are the most general ones. The characters I’m attracted to, the ones I want to know the most about, are unique in some way. And you can’t find the uniqueness in a person unless you know their history. Oh sure, you can give your character a quirky little habit to set them apart, like being a master harmonica player or something, but if you don’t know how or why he’s a harmonica master, it’ll just feel like a gimmick. The more work you do – the more you find out about who your character is - the more specific you can make them. If you know your character’s sister died in a car accident, for example, you can make them a cautious driver. If you know your character used to be fat, you can give him low self-esteem. If you know your character used to be a football star, he’ll probably always be bragging about the glory days. The more you know about your character, the more specific you can be. So take the time to write out those big character biographies and GET TO KNOW YOUR CHARACTERS.

CHARACTER FLAW - Creating a character flaw is a key part of giving your screenplay soul because it represents the thing about your character that most needs to change. We all have that, that monkey on our backs that won’t go away, that won’t allow us to reach our full potential. For some of us it's that we're not aggressive enough. For others it's that we let ourselves be taken advantage of. For others still it's that we don't allow people to get close to us. By giving your character something to struggle with, you invite the audience to participate in whether they’ll overcome that struggle or not. And since we all have flaws ourselves, it’s something we want to see rectified. We believe that if our hero changes, WE CAN CHANGE TOO! It inspires us. It gives us hope. And for that reason, we *feel* something.

RELATIONSHIPS - In addition to addressing your characters individually, you want to address who they are with others. Remember that our entire lives are dictated by our relationships. The people we connect with on a daily basis are our world. So you want to spend a big chunk of your screenplay exploring those relationships. Start by finding relatable issues your characters are going through. Maybe a marriage is in trouble because the husband is a workaholic. Maybe two soul mates meet but it turns out one of them is engaged. You then want to explore the conflict and the issues in those relationships in a way that’s unique to your story. And really *think* about what your characters are going through. Treat them like real people with real problems. Lester Burnham in American Beauty had to come to terms with his wife no longer loving him. It resulted in a very real exploration of a dissolving relationship. Even the most famous action movie of all time, Die Hard, has a strong core relationship at its center - John and his wife. If you're not exploring relationships as deeply and as obsessively as you can, you’re probably not writing very good screenplays.

THEME - The way I see it - Anybody can write a film with “stuff happening.” Those films can even do well at the box office if they’re targeted to the right demo. We've all seen (and quickly forgotten) Transformers. But the screenplays that are trying to say something, that are trying to leave you with something to think about, those are the screenplays readers put down and say, “Man, I have to tell somebody about this.” One of the most effective ways of doing this is to establish a theme in your movie, a “message.” Take a step back and look at your script as a whole. What is it about? What are the things that come up over and over again? Once you figure that out, you can subtly integrate that theme into the rest of your script. The Graduate, for example, is about feeling lost and directionless when you take your first steps into the world. Saving Mr. Banks is about learning how to let go. Screenplays without a theme, without a deeper message, will likely be forgotten hours after they’re finished.

IN SUMMARY
I don’t care if you’re writing a character piece, an action-thriller, a horror film or a coming-of-age movie, your script has to have soul. And it ain’t going to have it with a bunch of set-pieces and snappy dialogue. Those things help, but they mean nothing unless we’re attached to the characters, care about what happens in their relationships, and feel like there’s something deeper being said here. Plot is great. A great plot can take a script a long way. But if you want your script to hit the reader on an emotional level, if you want them to remember your script past tomorrow, you’ll need to inject soul. Hopefully these tips help you do it. Good luck!

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I read way too many boring scripts. And the thing is, the whole time I’m thinking, “Aww man, if they had just done this or done that, the script would be so much better.” I want to reach through the screen and correct their mistakes for them. But I can’t. And that’s what’s the most frustrating. They don’t even know what they’re doing wrong – so they continue to make the same mistakes over and over again – and I’m helpless to stop it.

Which is why I’m writing today’s article. If there’s anyone who knows what makes a script boring, it’s me. And I’m here to reveal those mistakes so that you guys don’t make them anymore. Some of them will be easy to apply and some of them will take – gulp – years of practice. But at LEAST you’ll know what they are, which gives you a fighting chance. The biggest reason for a bad screenplay is ignorance – not knowing or understanding the mechanics of what make a story work. Well my friends, consider yourselves enlightened. Here are 10 possible reasons people are bored with your script.

Your movie idea isn’t interesting - This one seems obvious and yet it's the most ignored piece of advice I give. Writers simply come up with uninteresting ideas. They want to write about a man coming to terms with the death of his mother or a woman’s road trip to discover the meaning of life. There’s no CONCEPT there. There’s no ironic component to make you sit up and notice. You need a SPECIFIC INTERESTING IDEA to explore or else we won’t care. So please, for the love of all that is holy, test-drive your idea with a dozen people before you write your script. If nobody seems that excited (beware fake excitement – which friends and family are good at) then move on to a better idea. It doesn’t matter how good of a writer you are if your idea is boring.

You’re writing scenes that say the exact same thing - New writers take four or five scenes to make a point. Pro writers take one scene to make a point. Because of that, their scripts move faster and because of *that*, their stories are more entertaining. For example, if you want to point out that your main character is afraid to get close to people, then give us an early scene showing them pull away from an emotional moment. Do NOT then follow that scene with four extra scenes specifically showing different versions of that exact same point. That’s not to say you won’t keep hitting on your hero’s flaw throughout the screenplay. But you should only have one scene specifically dedicated to it. That’s the problem with a lot of young writers. They repeat the same things over and over and OVER again when we got it the first time. It’s MUCH more important to keep your story moving than it is to drive your point down our throats. 

Lack of a compelling/interesting/intriguing main character – Oh my God this one is huge. Your main character is who we’re going to be following for the entire movie. So guess what? If he’s got nothing going on, we’re going to be bored! Too many writers make their characters Average Joes doing average things. And yes, some movies require that type of protagonist, but you HAVE to find something interesting about them if we’re going to follow them around enthusiastically. Maybe your hero’s like Indiana Jones, who’s a professor by day and a superhero by night. Maybe he’s a janitor at MIT who’s secretly genius. Or maybe he’s just a really funny dude who doesn’t have any ambition (Knocked Up). Whatever the case, your main character has to be interesting in some way because if he’s not, it doesn't matter what your plot is. We’ll be bored.

There’s no point to your scene - Pointless scenes are script killers. I usually run into pointless scenes as early as the second scene of the screenplay. In fact, that's a pretty common place to find them because most writers know what their big fun exciting opening scene is going to be before they write their script. But once that scene is over and they get to characters actually talking, it’s like the writer doesn’t know what to do any more. It’s like they think as long as two characters are having a dialogue – regardless of what they’re talking about – that they’re doing their job. Wrong. If there’s no point to your scene – if characters aren’t trying to get something out of the scene or out of the other character, you’re just talking to yourself. One of the easiest ways to make a scene interesting is to make sure the characters in it want something. That desire (that point) will suck the reader in.

Endless action - Endless action is one of those false security blankets. Young writers believe that as long as there's a lot of action happening, the reader will be entertained. But actually, if you're giving us endless action, it’s just as boring as giving us endless dialogue. The reason action scenes work is because of what's at stake. They work because you’ve used the previous 20 pages to set up how important this heist is or this battle is or this race is. Without that prep to establish the stakes, it’s just mindless action. So if you’re jumping from one action sequence to another with little to no breaks in between, I guarantee you we’re getting bored.

Scenes without conflict – Think of your scenes as a tug-of-war. One person in the scene wants one thing – the other person in the scene wants another thing. You write the scene to figure out who’s going to win that tug-of-war. Maybe Person A wins. Maybe Person B wins. Maybe nobody wins. But the fact that something is trying to be gained is what’s going to keep the scene entertaining. New writers RARELY add conflict to their scenes which is why their scenes are so boring. Now conflict can be tricky. It’s not just two people being angry with one another. In fact, sometimes a character may not even know he’s in a tug of war. So yeah, a conflict-filled scene could be as simple as a wife and husband arguing about who’s going to pick up the kids today. But it can also be a girl who secretly likes a boy and is trying to get him to realize it. Or it can be a wife who’s trying to get her husband out of the house before her lover shows up. However you look at it, scenes work best when there’s some sort of imbalance in them that needs to be resolved. So add some damn conflict to your boring scene!

Your characters are thin - I know too many writers who don't care about digging into their characters. Some will use the excuse that they're writing an action movie. Some will just say they're not interested. But if you're not digging into your characters and learning about them and understanding how they grew up and understanding the complications they went through and what regrets they have and what their dreams are and who they still hold a candle for - if you don’t know all those things about your characters, then guess what? Your characters will be thin. And thin characters are BORING characters. One of the reasons Avengers was so well-liked was because, even as an action movie, every single one of those characters had an intense backstory. I mean look at the Hulk. If that's not a character with depth, I don't know what is. So if they can do that in the biggest popcorn action movie of all time, then you can do it in your screenplay as well.

Not understanding the phrase “stuff needs to happen” - Stuff needs to HAPPEN in your screenplay. The problem is that young writers don't know what the word “happen” means. They think it means your character going to bars and talking with their friends or going to work for yet another boring workday. Yeah, technically something is “happening” in those scenes, but nothing INTERESTING is happening. In order to make something of interest happen, have the scene push your story forward. So instead of plopping two characters down in a location to discuss their lives, have them trying to figure out something that has an impact on the story. Maybe one of them is thinking of moving to a new city. Maybe one of them is thinking of asking their dream girl out. Now there's an actual purpose to the conversation so we’ll be invested in how it ends. “Happening” basically means writing a scene where you’re pushing the story forward. If you're not doing that, your scene’s probably boring.

An unfocused story – I can tell you right now, one of the quickest ways to reading boredom is when I lose track of what’s going on. The script’s become so unfocused that I don’t care anymore. We've ended up in a house in another state with a character whose goal I’ve forgotten trying to contact somebody I don’t know about something that’s never been fully explained. Of course I’m bored. A lack of focus almost always stems from an unclear character goal. If we’ve forgotten (or never been told) what the protagonist is after and why, then the script drifts into a sea of murkiness. So the lesson here is, MAKE SURE THE READER KNOWS WHAT THE CHARACTER IS AFTER. There's never any doubt that Indiana Jones is going after the Ark. That’s why that script whizzes by. So make sure you establish that and don’t be afraid to remind us every once in awhile. Because as soon as we lose track of what’s going on, we start to lose interest.

You’re not putting enough effort into your choices - Recently I read this script I felt could easily be a movie. It was very marketable and the kind of thing a studio would want to add to their slate. But it was incredibly boring. And it was boring because every choice the writer made was the most obvious choice in the world. The main character was a cliche obvious choice. The scenes were all scenes I’d seen a million times before. The funny sidekick character had nothing new to him. It was like the writer never thought past the first thing that popped into his head. It’s your job as a writer to always ask the question: “Can I come up with something better, more interesting, more original, or cooler than this?” Chances are you can. But most writers don’t take the time because it’s too much work. Well I got news for you. Screenwriting ain’t all fun. It’s work. I would go so far as to say if writing a script is pure fun for you, you’re not working hard enough. Challenge your choices. Come up with better ones. Don’t be the guy who sends out a script where everything is obvious, general, and cliché.

And there you have it. Now get back to your current screenplays and make sure you're not making any of these mistakes. Good luck!

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Good Will Hunting has some of the best backstory integration ever in a script.

Backstory. 

It’s essential to every screenplay.

Yet so few writers understand how to apply it. 

Some choke their screenplays with so much backstory, their story suffocates and passes out.  While others add so little, it’s like their characters were born the second they typed “FADE IN.”  How much backstory should you be adding to your screenplays?  The answer lies in why you’re adding backstory in the first place. 

Backstory is the key to character depth.  Some teacher or writer started a rumor a few years back that nobody cares about a character’s past.  The only thing that matters is the present – what the character is doing right here and now.  The sentiment of that opinion is correct.  The character present – the choices your hero makes right now – have the biggest influence on how your character is perceived.  But your character can’t make a single choice that isn’t motivated by his past.  Which is why backstory IS relevant.

For example, if a character was sexually abused growing up, their choices in pursuing a serial rapist are going to be different from someone who’s never experienced abuse before.  Or, if you want to go to even more of an extreme, than someone who’s a closet rapist themselves. 

This is why laying out an extensive backstory for your characters is essential.  The more you know about your character’s past, the easier it is to inform their present and future.  In fact, as far as I’m concerned, it’s one of those things that separates the great scripts from the average ones.  I can tell when someone’s done their backstory homework.  Their characters all act and speak specifically.  Whereas when a writer knows nothing about their characters’ backstory, their characters speak in generalities and clichés, usually those that echo popular movies they’ve seen. 

For example, one of the reasons Will Hunting is such an amazing character is because of how well Matt Damon and Ben Affleck knew his history.  They knew the neighborhood Will grew up in, the friends he ran with, the girls he slept with, that his father beat him, how his father beat him, that he was self-taught, how loyal he was, how he’d kill someone before embarrassing a friend while out for drinks.  They knew the same thing about Sean, Robin Williams’ character.  They knew when he met his wife, how he met her (during the Red Sox game), the type of cancer that killed her, how long he had to take care of her.  These two characters were memorable BECAUSE of how well the writers understood them.  And that all goes back to how much research they put into their characters’ backstory.

Not only that.  But the more backstory you know, the more intricate and textured your story will be.  The backstory is where you’ll find out Marty McFly wants to be a rock star, that he’s become best friends with a mad genius, that his father’s been a loser geek his whole life, that his mom used to be a bad girl, that he’s fallen in love, that the clock tower died in the 50s after a giant storm.  The backstory is where you’ll find out John McClane’s wife moved to Los Angeles to pursue her career, leaving him behind.  It’s where you’ll find out Thor’s complicated relationship with his brother.  It’s where you’ll find out Hannibal used to eat his victims.

But how do you integrate backstory into a script?  How do you know when you’re writing too much backstory or not enough?  First, you need to understand the two types of backstory – VISIBLE backstory and INVISIBLE backstory.  Invisible backstory will account for 90% of your backstory research.  It’s everything from where your character grew up to their first love to their level of education to their biggest tragedies to their biggest fears to who they had the best sex of their life with.  Yes, all that stuff matters.  The more you know about your character, the easier it is to make them original and interesting.  The thing is, rarely will invisible backstory show up in a script.  It’s there more to inform your own relationship with your character.  It’s there so you can understand them and motivate their choices.

For example, if you’re writing a Romantic Comedy and your hero, Kate, is about to get married to the love of her life, the boring yet “perfect” Thaddeus, and the dangerous guy she had the best sex of her life with, Cabe, just happened to come back into town, you’ve created the perfect opportunity for conflict. Without having done your invisible backstory research, this knowledge, this opportunity for conflict, may have never presented itself.

VISIBLE backstory is different.  These are the 3-4 major things that have happened in your character’s past that WILL PLAY A PART in the movie itself. You only want to bring visible backstory up if it’s going to be relevant to the story in some way.  So in Taken, we learn that Liam Neeson has been a terrible father and husband.  He was not there for his family, which resulted in his wife falling out of love with him and running off with another man, taking his daughter with her.  His desire to win his daughter over again, to repair that relationship, is what creates the bond necessary for us to root for him saving her once she’s kidnapped.

Or in Bridesmaids, Kristin Wiig’s failed bakery stole a big part of her confidence away.  When it went under, she was forced to take a job she hated, leaving her desperate to find a man.  When she starts dating the police officer, baking again becomes a major theme in their relationship. And when she experiences her rock bottom at the end of the second act, baking visually represents her rebirth.

The point is, visible backstory represents 3 or 4 major things that will influence the story.  Your character may be the world’s pre-eminent Depression-Era nickel collector.  But if collecting nickels never influences the story in a relevant way, then log that under the “invisible” category, not the “visible.”  You only want to mention backstory that influences the plot (“Save the Clock Tower!”) or a character arc (Sean not being able to live life after his wife died in Good Will Hunting). 

So now that you understand backstory, how do you get it into your story?  Do you just throw it in there willy-nilly and hope for the best?  Of course not.  The way backstory is placed in your story is almost as important as the backstory itself. The worst thing a writer can do is have a character dive into their backstory unprovoked.  You guys know what I’m talking about.  Your characters may be between chase scenes.  It’s a quiet moment.  Then all of a sudden one of them launches into a monologue that starts off like: “I was six years old when my father first beat me. I still remember it like it was yesterday…”  Ugh.  Groan.  Please never do this. 

Instead, use Scriptshadow’s Fabulous Five Ways For Better Backstory Integration. You’ll thank me afterwards.

Resistance – One of the best ways to reveal backstory is through resistance. The character revealing their backstory shouldn’t want to.  This eliminates the falseness that comes with your character revealing backstory in the first place.  For a great example of this, watch the “Cage” scene in Silence Of The Lambs.  In it, Hannibal refuses to give Clarice the information she wants until she tells him the lamb story.  She’s desperate not to tell him, but she knows it’s the only way she’ll be able to get to Buffalo Bill before he kills the girl.  So she tells him.

Argument – Hiding backstory is easily achieved when two characters are going at it.  Because we’re so wrapped up in the argument (or conflict), we’re not aware that the writer is actually giving us key pieces of backstory on the character(s).  Watch the Good Will Hunting scene where Will talks to Sean in therapy for the first time.  Will starts challenging Sean’s credentials, and ultimately, his love for his wife.  The end of the scene gets very heated, with Sean physically choking Will – something he clearly deserved.  The conflict in the scene is top-notch, but check out what we learned during it – Sean’s storied education as well as how much he loves his wife.  Use those arguments baby.  They’re backstory batter.

Another Character Reveals The Backstory – You want to avoid your hero revealing his own backstory.  It just never comes out right.  A great way to avoid this is to have someone else reveal it for him.  Check out the limo scene in Die Hard for a great example.  We need to know why John has come to LA to visit his wife.  Instead of John telling the driver (which would’ve been totally out of character), the limo driver takes some guesses.  He figures out that she left to pursue a bigger job.  He figures out that John thought she would fail and crawl back to New York.  John never says a word about his life in this scene and yet we get a ton of backstory on him.

Showing, Not Telling – This screenwriting staple is a great way to reveal backstory.  Why?  Because you don’t have to say a word.  You show it instead.  And showing always resonates more with an audience.  In Moneyball, there’s a scene where Brad Pitt’s character comes to his ex-wife’s place to pick up his daughter.  Do we ever get a monologue about how he screwed up his marriage and wasn’t there for his family and now rarely gets to see his daughter?  No.  But we get a scene where he awkwardly waits in a living room with his ex-wife and her boyfriend while his daughter gets ready that tells us everything we need to know about his past.  Great screenwriters use this technique as much as possible.

Bits and Pieces – The longer you dedicate a moment to revealing backstory, the clearer it becomes that you’re revealing backstory.  The naturalism of the scene disintegrates, and pretty soon it feels like the writer’s stopped the story cold to directly remind the reader what’s going on.  A great way to combat this is to reveal backstory in bits and pieces.  Spread it out instead of throwing it at the reader all at once.  This will hide it, making it harder for the reader to discern that backstory is being disseminated.  One of the best examples of this is Field Of Dreams.  The reason Ray reuniting with his father in the climax is one of the great endings of all time, is because the writer mentioned Ray Cancella’s issues with his father in tiny bits and pieces throughout the screenplay.  You were never bombarded with any huge father backstory moments. So spreading out backstory in small easy to digest pieces is a super way to hide it. 

And there you go folks.  You now know everything you need to know about backstory – one of the more underrated facets of screenwriting.  I can’t stress enough that if you haven’t done an extensive amount of backstory research on your characters, your story is never going to have enough depth to impact a reader.  So go back to your current screenplay and see if that depth is there.  If it isn’t, it might be time to go back to the beginning of your character’s life.  Find out everything you can about him before your story started. I promise that once you do, your story is going to come alive.