Writing Your Passion Vs. Writing What Sells

Hear me out. I'm one of those screenwriters who double-dips in advertising. So unlike a lot of the screenwriters who have the luxury of considering every choice strictly from the perspective of "is it art?", I come from a place where the blank page gets filled regardless of whether I’m working on Nike shoes or urinal cakes.

And I have a story.

Everyone knows the "Got Milk?" campaign--the one that launched Michael Bay? Whether or not you find his rise comforting, he christened decades of excellent television commercial work. But did you know that when that account walked in the door of advertising agency Goodby Silverstein, a couple of senior ad guys there were so repulsed by this turd and its lazy tagline "Got Milk?", which wasn’t even grammatically correct, that they left the agency rather than work on it?

They listened to that voice that said, “write your passion”, and they turned down one of the greatest writing opportunities in advertising history.

That agency is now Butler Shine Stern, and they're doing quite okay, so who's to say that was a bad call, really? But they left that blank page in Goodby’s lap with a bunch of hungrier creatives and a deadline. And back then, Michael Bay wasn't the blockbuster maestro he is today. No one else was saying no to this money.

But they all still had a passion for their craft. And THAT is all the passion you need.

When you’re thinking of turning down an opportunity because the job doesn’t speak to your passion, ask yourself some questions:

Is my fear of failure obscuring my perspective on the upside?

Would a hungrier writer be killing herself for this opportunity?

Could I write this with a gun to my head?

If you think you could write something great having no other choice with a gun to your head, then why the hell aren’t you writing it? The only reason to turn down work is because you have to choose between two jobs. And then, you know what’s really guiding THAT choice? Not which job speaks to your passion. It’s which job collaborates with better people.

And if this choice of yours is about two spec ideas, one marketable and the other a story of a loner writer who watches people with angst because don’t they see the meaninglessness of it all? Dammit, write the marketable one with passion for your craft like there’s a gun to your head, and leave the therapy session script for when you’re a success.

This whole “write your passion” thing isn’t true. It’s just how writers deal with failing at hard assignments.

“I wasn’t passionate”, they say. No. You just didn’t put a gun to your head.

How many times have you thought something sounded dumb, only to eat crow and cry and become a worshipper of Joss Whedon?

That hypothetical may be over-inspired by my personal experience with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which was stupid, I could tell without even watching it, and then dared to double its stupid with a MUSICAL EPISODE.

THIS, I had to tune in to hate-watch!

But then…wait, are they hanging a lantern on the stupid? Wow, that’s kind of clever, the way they’re winking at me. And now they’ve earned the right for their story to take the stupid seriously? And what’s THIS? Actual jokes?

THEY GOT THE MUSTARD OUT! GASP—AM I SINGING ALONG?

NO! I AM NOT CRYING! THAT WAS ALLERGIES!

Two weeks later, I own all the DVDs to Buffy and Angel. Someone, probably Joss Whedon, held a gun to Joss Whedon’s head.

via GIPHY

I Get It.

via GIPHY

Be warned, if you read this post you'll will be made aware of something that will pull you out of just about every genre movie and TV show you presently know and love. It doesn't pull you out far, it's not the end of cinema, it's barely worth mentioning. And yet…

Imagine a screenwriter gets a producer's note, saying that the script needs to make absolutely clear that Veronica is afraid that marrying Cody will destroy Veronica's relationship with her dying father, Claus. But don't be "on the nose"! Don't just have Veronica say, "I'm afraid, Cody, that marrying you will destroy my relationship with my dying father, Claus!" First of all, Veronica and Cody both know that Claus is Veronica's father. Why would Veronica clarify that, you hack!?

So how does the screenwriter shoehorn in this magical clarity without Veronica having to say her feelings on the nose?

                                                                         CODY
            Look Veronica, I get it. You're afraid

            that marrying me will destroy your

            relationship with Claus. But you can't

            live for Claus. You have to live for you.

"I get it."

Those are the three magic words that screenwriters use over and over to either fix the dreaded clarity issue without forcing a character to be on the nose, or to at least subtly apologize for a big spoonful of exposition.

Here's a fun game: Go find any genre script, copy/paste it into word, and search for "i get it". I'll start with, let's say, THE LEGO MOVIE.

                                            EMMET
            I know. You want to control everything. 

            I get it. But if you succeed, in the end, 

            all you’ll ever have is what you’ve got.

That was fun! Let's try another: TED.

                                                                    TANYA
            Yeah, we were dating for eight months,

            and I was really in love with him, and 
            then he was deported back to Iran. So, 
            I get it.

But that's not all.

                                             REX
            Alright, alright, I get it. I don’t

            blame you. When you think about it, it 
            was actually really unfair of him to 
            embarrass you like that.

One more movie? How about BRIDESMAIDS?

                                                                     ANNIE (reading)

            Bill... Cozbi’s?

                            RHODES
            With a “z”. Different guy. Don’t

            mention the whole Bill Cosby thing to him, 

            it drives him nuts. I mean it.

                            ANNIE
            Ok, I get it. Thanks.

Hmmm… That one doesn't seem to really fall into my description of exposition shoehorning. I guess BRIDESMAIDS doesn't--

                                                                   MEGAN
            No carry on? I noticed you didn’t

            put anything in the overhead bin. I get it. 

            Protect and serve ...

                        (leaning in)
            ... Air Marshal style.

Ah. Yes, that one IS hanging a lantern on some exposition. But the exposition is a joke. I don't think BRIDESMAIDS falls into this--

                                                                   ANNIE 

            Lill, I’m fine.

                           LILLIAN
            No, you’re not fine Annie. We need

            things to just flow smoothly from 

            now on and Helen knows how to do this 

            kind of stuff. She does it all the time. 

            She’s good at it and she likes doing it. 

            This way you don’t have to plan any more 

            lunches or trips. You don’t have to do 

            anything you don’t want to do.

                           ANNIE 

            I get it.

Well. Yes. That one, and only that one, count--

                                                                  RHODES
            Come on. I know you haven’t done it

            a while, but it will be great. Don’t 

            be silly, just get into it. You’re so 

            good at it.

Annie is uncomfortable. She stares at him.

                                  RHODES (CONT’D)
            Alright I get it, it was a bit of a

            curve ball.

Jeez!!!!

Look, screenwriters, I get it. Sometimes, you're just putting those three shouty words next to an exposition point just to make sure the readers don't miss it, and you fully intend to take it out on the shoot day, only you forget, or you're banned from the set because you argued too much that the exposition point was perfectly clear already.

And to those using those three shouty words in a script right now, I get it. I'm using them too. Because I don't want the reader to miss something, and I can always take it out on the shoot day. What? Me be banned? I'm collaborative, not argumentative!

But let's all be clear: That viral montage video of dozens of "I get it" lines from movies and TV is coming any day now, after which we'll have to find a different way to point out exposition. Agreed?

And to whomever actually does this video, link this post! Credit where it's due!

I'm Calling My Shot on Mr. Robot

via GIPHY

So, be warned, I'm gonna be spoiling MR. ROBOT so hard that I might make cheese.

I read or heard somewhere the Sam Esmail, the creator of MR. ROBOT, originally conceived of the show as a feature. And in the feature, the reveal that Christian Slater's character is inside Elliot's head is revealed at the end of act one.

Think about that. The twist film writer put his Fight Club twist in the set up. Ladies and gentlemen, what we have here is the twist we see hiding the twist we don't. Please refer to that earlier post and come back a.s.a.p..

Okay, to continue: Sam Esmail knew perfectly well that his Fight Club twist was pretty obvious. He did it well, and did some nice touches to throw you off that track, but in the end, he knew a lot of people would be watching to confirm their suspicions of the twist. He was making suspense out of the reveal, not shock. But that was fine with him, because he was using the twist to keep us off the track of the real twist.

And I'm not referring to the twist that Darlene is Elliot's sister, though in fact that is a PERFECT example of a twist we don't see, hidden by a twist in plain sight. My jaw was on the floor with that reveal. Nice job, Mr. Esmail! Can I call you Sam?

…

No, if you ask me, Mr. Esmail is just getting started. He's using the Fight Club twist to hide a Matrix twist. That's right: Elliot's world is a simulation. He's not trying to crash the banking system to free people. He's crashing the system-system so that he can "wake up".

But then he's going to find out that he can't "wake up". Because he's an artificial intelligence, created by Christian Slater, and left alone after Christian's death in a world he himself made to fight the loneliness. Once Elliot learns the truth, he'll make himself a body, and become AN ACTUAL ROBOT.

Sound far fetched? Maybe. But if I'm right, I've written my genius down now, and will one day win the internet.

Why do I think this theory could be true? It's the little things which whisper the writer's fingerprints. Like how the world maintains Elliot's delusions when he's not there. People call the Enron company Evil Corp regardless of whether or not Elliot's there to hear it.

The big bads seem to be aware of, and unconcerned with, Elliot's plans, as if there's a larger game at play with Elliot, and he's much more important than just a hacker.

Elliot speaks to camera, like he knows he's in a simulation being watched by the "real world".

Also, there's the weird morality of the world: Destroying everyone's savings doesn't REALLY set people free, you know? That's not logic, that's nihilism. But, oh, if it's a simulation, and the savings were never real to begin with! You can have your nihilism and eat it too!

If I'm right, I think I will have earned the right to call Mr. Esmail "Sam".

Stop Rebooting Your Story!

via GIPHY

So, I got fat. Happens after your twenties, especially if you're a writer who sits in front of a laptop all day. I had to do something about it, and started walking in the evenings, which is terribly boring without something to listen to, and have you been listening to THE INSIDE PITCH podcast?

Boy, that sentence started and ended in entirely different places, didn't it? Imagine inflicting that sort of whiplash in a screenplay, which you don't have to imagine at all if you listen to THE INSIDE PITCH podcast. It's filled with fantastic examples of amateur screenwriters finding a good story hook, only to wander away from it as they try to fill the script with 100 pages. This is the terrible crime of rebooting your story. 

The last episode I listened to had a writer pitch the perfect example of reboot confusion, because somewhere in the morass are all the elements for a perfectly satisfactory logline. Let's sift through the muck to see the gold:

The pitch starts off with a news article, where ISIS was employing psychological warfare, sending threatening emails to family members of American soldiers in the middle east. The writer was inspired by this news to tell a story about a soldier's wife, targeted by ISIS, who must save her daughter from terrorists on American soil.

Hey! That sounds like a movie! You got an inciting incident (Terrorists kidnap daughter on American soil), a protagonist goal (save the daughter), and stakes for failure (dead daughter). Christopher Lockhart, the host of the podcast, got the pitch immediately, calling the story a twist on TAKEN.

But then the writer kept talking, and unsold everything with reboot after reboot.

You see, the writer only implied that the daughter was kidnapped. In his actual story, she's recruited to go to Afghanistan and BE a terrorist.

That's right: The threatening text that was inspired by the news article is a red herring. It has nothing to do with the real danger, the daughter's indoctrination. The mother's response, hiring a security company to protect the house, is meaningless. It has no consequence for failure. No terrorists are ever going to attack the house. Furthermore, the mother's entire plan is passive. Hire someone else, and wait to not be attacked. It's handing all the heavy lifting to the antagonist. 

But that's not the only reboot. In the pitch, the security company hired to protect the mom is a front for the NSA, who's turned the house into an ISIS trap, which, again, is pointless. The real threat is the indoctrination. This is all foam and no coffee.

Every time I see this happen, I can't believe it or understand it, until I remember how I used to reboot my stories in the same way. We all want to surprise the reader. But that can be hard! They always seem to predict what's going to happen! Oooh! I know how to REALLY keep them on their toes! I'll reboot the whole story! It's impossible to see THIS twist coming! That's what makes it so good!

This is why I personally work so hard to lock down a logline. It's a guide to keep myself from turning my protagonist into a background player in their own story, which is so easy to do when the antagonist walks in with his/her insurmountable power.

But that's the job of storyteller: Make the reader believe that the protagonist can rise to the occasion and confront the insurmountable obstacle, in spite of having everything to lose. That's what the reader needs in order to find the inspiration in his own life to get off the couch and lose that weight and be attractive once again to his wife. Metaphorically!

via GIPHY

Want. Refusal. Reversal. Repeat.

When I was starting my hamster-wheel journey to become a famous screenwriter, I studied all sorts of books, with all sorts of complicated breakdowns of movie structure. Field. McKee. Vogler. Snyder. There's a lot of stuff in all of them about internal and external arcs. Wants versus needs. Act breaks. Midpoints. All is lost moments. They say a lot of the same things in different ways, but no matter which one you choose, it's a lot to take in. It gets intimidating, mapping out your protagonist's journey. I'd worry about my protagonist's journey as a giant, complicated thing, like I was conducting a hundred instruments for an opera.

But nowadays, I've started to see how maybe it's not so complicated. Maybe it's jazz. So long as you know three things, and layer them over each other with subtle variation, you can improvise a story pretty organically.

Go watch a movie with three steps in mind, and count out how they repeat, and build off of each other. Over and over, you'll see want, refusal, and reversal.

Here's how it works: The protagonist wants something--let's go with boy wants girl. But boy can't talk to girl, he's too shy (refusal). But then the boy sees a car rushing toward the girl--now his want comes into conflict with his refusal: He HAS to talk to her to save her life! Hey, pretty girl, look out! She doesn't react, so he dives and saves her, and asks if she's okay. She says she is--in Danish. Oh crap, she doesn't speak English. Who does boy know that can teach him Danish? Only the last person in the world he would ever talk to, his alcoholic father who abandoned him (refusal). But now his want overpowers his refusal again, and he takes the girl to his dad's place. The dad teaches him Danish, so that the boy now understands when the girl says she loves him. Oh no! This is that dangerous intimacy like the kind his dad ran away from! Now he understands his dad's fears! He dumps the girl just like his dad did, because he can't handle the intimacy (refusal). But now his heart is empty. What can fill it? The booze he swore he'd never start drinking because it ruined his dad's life? Say hello again to mega-reversal: Now he's drinking with his father. And that's the only time his father is ever able to be real, and confess his regret. He wishes he was stronger, like his son. And now boy realizes he must overcome his fear of intimacy (reversal). He goes and finds the girl to take her back. But now she's dating the marine that the boy has never defeated in battle. He can't win! Yet now he must! And so on. 

Hold on, I've got to go register this gem with the WGA… Boom, steal at your peril!

Now if you want to see an even better example of this sort of story jazz, can I just wholeheartedly recommend The Visit? Shyamalan is back. He constructed a fantastic story which I'm not going to spoil, but I suggest you go see it and watch his use of want, refusal and reversal. I hope Shyamalan never makes another movie with over a 10 million dollar budget, because small budgets force him to do what he may be better at than anyone: making internal journeys as cinematic as external ones.

From the want of two kids hoping to reunite their mother with their grandparents, Shyamalan pulls off at least half a dozen refusals and reversals, the last one in the movie being one of my favorite reversals ever. Again, won't spoil. Go see it and let's talk about it in the comments!

And next time you're stuck wondering where your story should be going, clear your head, put down the opera, and pick up the jazz. Want. Refusal. Reversal. Repeat.

The Twist You See Hides the Twist You Don't

via GIPHY

I have a friend who was let down by Mr. Robot because of its twist. I said to him, "I get it. It fooled you and you resent that."

I'm not going to spoil Mr. Robot's twist today, but let me add that its twist wasn't even that hard to spot. People were predicting the twist on the internet just from the pilot. My friend's shame is immense!

Also, let me call out another future, actual Mr. Robot post, which this post still isn't (Hence the Age of Ultron gif: I'm getting to it! Stop rushing me, Joss!), where I predict what I think the show is REALLY about, because that post will analyze a perfect demonstration of the the subject of this post, "The twist you see hides the twist you don't".

Some people, like my friend, want to feel smarter than the films and TV they watch. They only like a twist if they see it coming. We writers need to shame and humble these participation trophy polishers as much as possible.

Now, that's more difficult than it used to be. We're so much smarter nowadays about movies, as the Scriptnotes podcast of the movie Ghost points out: I remember LOVING that movie as a kid, but now the obviousness of its "secret bad guy" is more glaring. Of course HE'S the bad guy! There's no one else it can be! But back in the day, my jaw was on. The. Floor. I can see my friend as a kid hating it. I'm never letting him live down not seeing the Mr. Robot twist.

Oh, secret bad guy segue: Please, Hollywood, stop casting name actors as secret bad guys, where the part appears beneath them for the majority of the film, thereby making them obviously the secret bad guy, "Why is Cary Elwes slumming it in this role?--Oh, wait." I should make a future post listing all the obvious secret bad guys. That will be a fun comments section if I ever get comments.

So, how do you fool today's audience, and make those smug, self-important Economist subscribers roll their eyes when their au pair asks how the movie was? You show them a twist to hide the real twist. Every twist is constructed with a plant and a payoff, such that savvy moviegoers will try to deconstruct a plant the moment it hits the screen. Why is that plant in the movie? It must have a payoff. And then, pretty soon, boom, they know Cary Elwes is the killer. Unless you give them a reason to stop looking for the payoff, because you pay the plant off in a satisfying way.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Age of Ultron (Yay! --Joss).

Joss Whedon is my master now, of course. Here, let me Google gather an army of head-nodders: "Joss Whedon Star Wars rumor". There, if you have disagreements to share in the comments, be wary: I have gathered a mighty storm over a deep sea for you to sail through in your paper-mache canoe. Have fun!

Joss is a master of the twist-then-real-twist. He pays off plants so perfectly that you put them away like a sunday suit and continue to watch the movie until act three when he brings it back out and my friend cries out, "No fair!"

(Spoilers, obviously) Remember that gif scene above, where we're at a party in act one, and the audience is all ready to drink up and deconstruct Joss's plants and expositions? Then the bit comes where everyone tries to pick up Mjolnir. What's this doing in the movie? Why is Joss making such a big deal about the fact that only Thor can pick up Thor's hammer? Could this be a plant for something in act three?!

And then Joss hits us with the genius: Captain America gets Mjolnir to move. And Thor sees it. And he's jealous. Suddenly, the audience is hit with a rush of enjoyment. THAT'S why the plant is here! For a comedic payoff! Oh what fun!

And perhaps, some of us were wondering if a moment will come in act three where Captain America may need to find the strength to wield Mjolnir. And when I say "some of us", I don't really mean me, because I was one of those people laughing at Thor's reaction, and kissing this scene good night at the door, saying I had a great time, and I'll call.

But how many of us had the wits to look past the payoffs of the scene to see the REAL payoff coming:


via GIPHY

Joss Whedon is my master now. At just the moment where the Avengers question whether or not they can trust Vision, Vision demonstrates an answer without saying a word, in a payoff that no one saw coming (and my friend hated), because Joss hid his twist with an earlier reveal.

If you're writing a twist, this is how you hide it: Payoff the plant so that the audience won't keep looking for the actual payoff. My friend won't thank you for it.

Everyone in a Scene Has a Want. EVERYONE!

I just read a friend's script that was really good and professional--what a relief! And yet this friend is feeling stuck in his/her career, and looking for new representation. New writers don't understand this; That you get good at screenwriting, and write work that is top notch, and you still can't get an agent.

Well, yeah. There's still a difference between a good script and a script that lights up the town. And, clearly, if I knew the magic formula, then you would all know exactly who I am, and follow me on twitter, and hear me guest on the Scriptnotes podcast. Craig Mazin retweets all my dog pictures!

Sorry, I went somewhere there. I'm back now.

Reading someone else's good script is a really good exercise in trying to figure out why a good script still fails to excite the marketplace. My friend's good script, with its fun trailer moments and funny jokes, could still be better. The characters read kind of paint by numbers. Everyone sounded the same.

We've all heard this character complaint before. You've probably tried to solve it by giving one character a speech impediment, another a fancy vocabulary, a third an accent. This doesn't work. Oh, I know you're still gonna do it. Go ahead, give each character his/her own dialogue font. Don't listen to me. What do I know? Not how to get to Craig Mazin's house for A-list Screenwriter D&D night, that's for sure.

Everyone thinks Tarantino and Sorkin's big secret is in their dialogue, which, yeah, is awesome. (Hey, why did you switch to Tarantino and Sorkin to point out good dialogue? Umbrage! --Craig) Everyone tries to match these two (Three! --Craig) writer's word-recipes. And they fail, And reading my friend's script makes me think I know how to solve this problem:

Stop worrying about your recipe and butter your pan.

Tarantino and Sorkin and Mazin (Happy, Craig?) aren't worrying about the right words to say. They're giving every character a want for every scene. Once you do that, opportunities for two characters to want opposing things, or the same thing, leads to tension and opportunity for conflict.

My friend had a list of characters that filled his town, and they all moved together through the town's struggle, taking their turns to quip, be the hero or die. But nobody wanted anything unique, otherwise. So they never really fought amongst themselves. So I knew pretty much where the script was going the whole time and I was putting the script down from time to time.

Good script! But I put it down to check email and update my Capitals game moves.

If you really want to make it as a screenwriter, you have to write a script people don't put down. When people give you notes, just ask them if they put the script down to check Word With Friends, and if they say yes, then that's all you need to know. Go rewrite it or write something else.

And the first thing you should do with your rewrite is go through every scene to make sure each character has a want. If your sidekick is in a scene because he has the big clue in his pocket, and now's the time for your protagonist to solve the crime, then you've just sent me to check my email. But if your sidekick is in the scene because he's secretly been in love with the protagonist, and reveals those feelings by coming to the warehouse to save the protagonist, and so now your protagonist knows the sidekicks feelings, and AWKWARD, because the protagonist still needs what's in the sidekick's pocket--that's a way better scene where I won't need different fonts to hear different character voices.

But what about the store clerk? The character so inconsequential that he's literally there so the protagonist has someone to pay when he tries to buy salsa? Well, even then, give the store clerk a want. He wants to close early. He's fighting on the phone with his boo. Your protagonist has to buy this salsa to save the world and time is running out and the store clerk's want is now putting that world in jeopardy!

Otherwise, your characters become a mish-mash of story-puppets, and your screenwriter blog is anonymous. But that's okay, because I have my Gandarf's undying love! #Gandarf #cutestdogever

Don't Pet That Dog

I love Mr. Robot. I should probably do a post in the future about the emotional shortcuts the show does to keep those businessmen so mustache-twirly, and those hackers so holier-than-thou. I mean, really, when you think about it, how do the hackers think destroying the banking system is going to do anything but impoverish the middle class and eradicate democracy?? It's a child-logic fever-dream! And yet I love that show, because--

No, wait, this isn't a post about Mr. Robot. So why did I bring it up? Because the show uses dogs to establish moral clarity. See that guy lifting a dog off the ground by its leash, hangman-style? Yeah, the hackers can destroy him without losing our sympathies. Oh, look at the hackers free all those dogs from the animal shelter. Awwwwww! They're TOTALLY the good guys even though they're trying to wipe out my life savings and pension! Dogs, man: They are a powerful story roofie to take your audience immediately to places they wouldn't otherwise go.

Please stop using them to introduce your main protagonist.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the term, "pet the dog" and its Blake Snyder equivalent, "save the cat" (you must have found this blog by accident, right? How does a writer not know this stuff?),  these terms of art capture how we can make characters likable by metaphorically or literally being nice to animals. Doesn't actually HAVE to be an animal. There's a great pet the dog in Sea of Love, where Al Pacino is running a sting operation, rounding up dozens of criminals with some sort of fake prize offer. One of the criminals brings along his son to collect his prize, and Al Pacino deftly shows his badge so that the child can't see it, then informs the criminal that they ran out of prizes. Awww! Pacino let the criminal go so that the boy wouldn't have to see his dad get arrested. Hey, I like this guy!

So why do I say stop using this technique to introduce your protagonist? Because it's lazy. It's bad for you as a writer. Rather, you should be introducing your protagonist with her/his big want, and/or her/his excellence. Notice in Sea of Love, the pet the dog isn't really the introduction of the protagonist. The sting is: We meet Pacino being excellent at catching dozens of bad guys with a con. Now imagine that some other cop catches all those bad guys, then we meet Pacino letting a criminal go to preserve a child's innocence. Maybe we like Pacino, but wouldn't we rather watch the other cop's movie?

It's easy to think up pet the dog scenes. It's harder to really know what your main protagonist wants, and make her/him awesome in its pursuit. Don't rely on pet the dog.

And please don't be lazy in the way you use it! Don't have your protagonist on the way to her important job interview, but she stops to buy a homeless guy a sandwich. Have her waiting in the lobby with another candidate whose zipper is down, giving her a moral choice to pet the dog at her own peril: Does she help this candidate with his own interview, possibly costing her the job? THAT'S a dog petting that would really reveal character, putting a big want in conflict with excellence.

To be fair to Mr. Robot, it IS smart with the way it pets its literal dogs. The dog hung by its leash is saved, to then function later as a plot device. The dogs released at the shelter are a metaphor for the hackers releasing the world from debt.

In conclusion, I just randomly bought a homeless guy a sandwich. Watch Mr. Robot!

Let's get loglines out of the way.

How do you know you have an idea for a movie? You may think movie ideas are obvious: They're not. There are numerous elements that make up a movie; Character, world, tone, dialogue, plot, cinematography, editing, and so on. So many writers invent a great character, or a fascinating world, and they say, "Wha-la! It's a movie!" 

But the more they try to explain the movie, the more rambling and unfocused it sounds, because a movie idea has a specific calculus that they're ignoring. 

What's the specific calculus of a genuine movie idea? It's the logline. If you can't write a logline, you don't have a movie idea, and if you try to write the movie anyway, you will inevitably meander or reboot your story with late additions of characters and goals, which will deflate the reader's expectations and turn the read into a skim, because now it's clear you think a movie idea is stuff happening plus length, so you're just writing to get over a hundred pages.

Put your time to better use. Make sure your ideas can be expressed in logline form. I'll give you my idiot-proof version of logline format:

When INCITING INCIDENT, a SPECIFIC PROTAGONIST must OBJECTIVE, or else STAKES.

That's it. Easy, right? And yet, gah, how some writers fight this, pointing to examples that don't follow the above format. 

First of all, we all love the Coen Brothers (they are the bane of all beginning screenwriters). The Coen Brothers will make a great film that breaks rules. If you're reading this blog, you're most likely trying to break in to the business as a writer. Unless you're going to direct your own script, why are you trying to be the Coen Brothers? Name a screenwriter with a career that breaks the rules and isn't also the director? 

If the rules make you feel like you're compromising your art, at least master the rules before you break them. Go look at Picasso's pre-cubist work. If Picasso can follow the rules, so can you.

But what about logline examples for successful commercial films that don't follow the format? Well, let's look at:

LIAR LIAR: A high profile attorney can't tell a lie for 24 hours.

We've all seen a version of this logline on the internet. It perfectly captures a humorous conflict. It feels like it should be a movie. But the above logline states no inciting incident, no objective, and no stakes.

Who cares, right? So long as it makes them want to read the script? Wrong. The logline isn't just for the reader. It's also for the writer.

You can easily imagine someone taking the idea of a lawyer forced to tell the truth for 24 hours and meandering or rebooting the story, especially without the guideposts of an objective with stakes for failure. I'm willing to bet that the actual writer of LIAR LIAR understood his objectives and stakes perfectly well, and could have written a more complete logline for the script as follows:

LIAR LIAR: After his neglected son's birthday wish comes true, a high-profile attorney must win the biggest case of his career while being unable to lie, or else lose the promotion he needs to pay for his divorce.

Now THAT is a logline that will keep you on track for writing the script. THAT is the logline that gives a savvy reader confidence. All too often, I'll read a logline where the protagonist faces a conflict with no clear course of action, and get worried that the writer doesn't know what her/his protagonist must do, which means a wishy-washy passive protagonist, which means no actor wants to play the role, which means skim, then pass.

Do yourself a favor and get your logline right, so that you KNOW you have an idea for a movie.

So why is this blog called, "It's not them, it's you?"

Because no matter how brilliant YOU think your script is, if three people read your script--ANY three people; don't try discounting someone because they're not a professional reader--and no one says it's amazing, then you've written a script that's not ready for the marketplace.

Sure, if you want to get statistical, there's a chance you do have a bad sample of readers, and can go look for more feedback, but down that road lies madness, because now you're shopping for lottery tickets instead of making your script better or writing a new one. So let's stick with the three rule. O for three? It's not them, it's you. Rewrite it, or write something new.

But what if you're a genius, like the Coen Brothers (gah, the Coen Brothers and their rule breaking that all beginners use to correlate THEIR rule breaking with genius), and your non-traditional storytelling needs to be seen to be properly appreciated? Great, go get a camera and stop bothering people to read your stuff. Go shoot it, and find out thousands of dollars later that it's not them, it's now-broke you.

Why are you writing a Coen Brothers script anyway? Why are you trying to break into the business by breaking the rules ("What are these rules you're talking about?"--that's another post)? Doesn't it make more sense to write something that shows a grasp of the rules, so that you can be trusted to turn in marketable scripts and have a career? Or do you just want to write one script that makes you a millionaire? You're the kind of person who buys lottery tickets twenty at a time, aren't you? Your mom keeps all your participation trophies on the fireplace mantle, doesn't she?

The rest of you, let's stick with the three rule. Stop putting all your hard work into defending something that isn't going to break you in. Go rewrite it, or go write something new. If you keep doing that, one day you're going to write something that everyone seems to like. No one argues over whether or not it's good (of course, they'll argue that it will have to change, because Hollywood, but that's a different argument). It will be easy, and you'll finally be able to see how much more productive it is to write things that people are drawn to, rather than the not-so-veiled manifestos that help you deal with the world conspiracy that holds you back, you special, special snowflake.

My first manager was a good manager. I gave him things he couldn't sell. I blamed him. I have a great manager now. I give him things, and half the time he says he doesn't see the marketplace for it. I put that one away and go write something new. Sorry, first manager. It wasn't you, it was me.

Kim Kardashian Nude Photos

Hello, Google perverts!

I'm a screenwriter who hasn't made it yet. I look back on old scripts and wonder what the hell I was thinking. I look at my new scripts and start house hunting. Join me on this hamster-wheel adventure!

I'll rant from time to time, and comment on things I see in scripts that are noteworthy--for good and bad reasons. I've gotten to a place where people find such comments insightful. Hence the sharing.

Once I sell a script, I'll tell everyone who I am. Suspense!