I just wanted to take a second to point you all over to a friend’s site. It just started up in the past few days, but it promises to be quite worth the read.
It’s called Matriarchal Script Paradigm. Basically, Kristy reviews scripts that she gets a hold of (much like our mutual friend Carson). Her site is intriguing because, well, let’s face it - the fairer sex has a different take on things then those of us with too much testosterone.
It is rare that a knowledgeable female screenwriter would take the time to post in depth script reviews on a regular basis. Sure we have Scriptgirl, but one could hardly call her reviews extensive or in depth. Not knocking on her, we all know she’s great. I’m just saying it’s nice to have a female voice speaking so extensively about what does and does not appeal to them in the scripts they read.
Personally, I find that kind of insight beneficial. Especially considering that a screenwriter has (if I’m not mistaken) something like a one in five chance that the agent, manager, producer or production exec reading their script is a female (a percentage, I might add, that should be much higher).
So when you have the time, hop on over and read Kristy’s reviews. She has valuable insight - not simply because she is a woman, but also because she knows the craft. She is a voice worth listening to.
While I may be an internet persona, I am still somehow human.
It seems my vehement critique of Umbra has rubbed some people the wrong way. Honestly, I’m okay with that. My writing is caustic in nature for a reason.
Still, I wanted to take this time to clarify that I don’t hate Karczynski. I will not recant any of what I wrote, because that’s not what this blog is about. It’s there, and I’m fine with it. I will, however, take the time to clarify my position and apologize to Karczynski in the (very) off chance that he read my blog and was bothered by it.
I would like to also take this time to clarify to new and existing readers that I don’t hold back on this site. I take great joy at the opportunity to write unabashedly about the craft I love so much. In other words, this is the first time I’ve done something like this, and it’ll probably be the last.
I’m doing this because I wouldn’t want people to think I somehow hate Karczynski for any reason. Hell, I don’t even know the guy. I have no feelings towards him one way or the other as an individual. In fact, I admire the hell out of his ability to create and build tension. As I said, he had me on the edge of my seat for the entire first half of the script. My anger was not pointed at him (though it perhaps came off that way in my writing). It was pointed at the lack of a quality ending for what would have otherwise been one of my favorite scripts of all time. Seriously, the first half of Umbra is just that good.
I’m a fanboy by nature. I’m not afraid to admit it. If something I love gets fucked with, I tend to get a little ruffled. I honestly fell in love with the first half of Umbra. That rarely happens with a script. I usually decide I love a screenplay after I’ve read the whole thing. I’ll say it again: Umbra’s beginning is just that good. So when I got to the third act and everything fell apart and none of the promises were paid off, I felt robbed. Like the real ending was out there, and someone had stolen it from me. Also, I am sure the frustrations of spending all day wrestling with my latest script fed into my rage and made it seem more amplified.
So if you read this, Karczynski, I hope my jabs did not wound you. I know we writers can be a vulnerable bunch. I have confidence that the rewrite process will fix any and all issues people may have had with the script. Also, kudos on that first half, man. It is something truly special. Give us an ending that is equally amazing and I will love you forever.
On Monday, my friend Carson over at ScriptShadow posted a review for a script called Umbra. The industry buzz the script was getting lured me in, so I dove in head first (before reading Carson’s review)…
This isn’t a review. It’s a rant. I’m just gonna vent. The script pissed me off that much. This is also an examination of what made the end of this script so damn infuriating. Conveniently, it ties in with my last post.
Last things first: What a disappointing ending. I was loving the script until the moment at the airstrip. It was all down hill from there, spiraling into an eternal darkness with weeping and gnashing of teeth and flames that burn and worms that devour flesh where one pleads for death but never finds it.
For the most part, I really liked the way the script was written (despite the massive blocks of text, typos/grammatical errors and constant use of progressive “ing” verbs). It was compelling enough that my “rule nazi” instincts took a back seat for the ride. Karczynski really drew me in with the mystery of it all.
That said, there were some lines that made me want to stab my eyes out. Example:
INT. CAR - DRIVING - DAY
David looking around.
DAVID
This is good.
Really? “Looking” around?
How about looks, Karczynski? David LOOKS around! “David looking around” isn’t even a proper sentence!
For the majority of the script, he used progressive verbs in proper context and active verbs for the important stuff. Then in the third act he just got lazy (with story as well as his writing). Only one sentence of action in this entire scene, and it’s a fragment with a progressive verb. Seriously, I can’t get past it. Thank God someone was there to grab the spoon from my hand before I shoved it behind my eyeball and popped it out of the socket, only to repeat the process on its twin. Fuck.
But I will try to move on. Now about the ending…
****SPOILERS****SPOILERS****
The whole girl/paper/names thing:
The girl was his ex-gf. The paper was a list of baby names. She was preggers with his baby (apparently a girl). That’s what he “wasn’t ready” for. From what I gather, both the gf and the baby died in labor.
Karczynski should really have played this better, and made it more clear than,
The Supervisor reads it. Not concerned. Seems to know what this is.
It’s great that the supervisor knows, Steven, but how about you let us know, too? lol. I hope Karczynski’s inability to close doesn’t filter into other areas of his life…
As for the rest of the ending… utter bullshit. Homeboy threw so much terminology at us without explaining it (granulocyte macrophage, anyone?), which leads me to believe dude had no idea what he was talking about. He probably stumbled across some Wikipedia articles and though it would make him sound smart (not if you don’t explain it, jerk).
That’s the thing that paralyzed David with fear, made him weep like an infant, vomit on the floor and pass out?
“They were being… disposed of”??
Disposed of?
THAT’S FUCKING IT????
That is not a fucking ending. It’s a piece of demon shit wrapped around molten lava shoved down the throat of everyone who has the unfortunate chance to read your script.
I don’t have a problem with us never seeing what David sees (the row of humans waiting to be “disposed of”). I have a problem with the “solution” to this great mystery. It’s not a fucking solution. At all. Karczynski tries to pass it off as some kind of crazy, awesome, mind-blowing, world-altering revelation… but it’s really just a flaming bag of shit.
****END SPOILERS****END SPOILERS****
See, the problem was that Karczynski didn’t leave us with enough mystery. Nothing in this world could live up to the hype of this script’s first half. We’re talking the most devastating secret the world has ever known. Not only is that far too subjective to really pay off for the viewers, but it’s something you will never figure out. It’s too big. Too illusive.
The sad thing is, Karczynski didn’t even bother to pull off a Da Vinci Code level reveal (which wasn’t even that earth-shattering). He just took a dump in the middle of the room and called it dessert.
You see, it is sometimes necessary to embrace the beauty and terror of mystery. It would be far more chilling to leave the theater never knowing what the fuck those alien things were doing.
Here’s an anecdote to emphasize my point:
When I was a kid - real young - I went on the “Great Movie Ride” at the Disney/MGM Studios @ Disney World in Orlando. There’s a segment where you find yourself on the Nostromo “with the cast of Alien“, as the announcer would proclaim like some joyous harbinger of death. My parents had me cover my eyes (since I was a youngin’). See, the ride had a few animatronic aliens that would pop out of random places and freak everyone out. My parents didn’t want me having nightmares…
In the dark, hidden “safe” behind my hands, I heard the gnashing and chomping of teeth (and what I swore was the cracking of bones and ripping of flesh), felt the alien’s warm saliva drip on me from up above, felt its breath on the back of my neck…
I never actually saw the alien that night, but I carried the fear of that moment home with me. It lingered in my room for months, possibly even years. We would go back to the park and I would ride the ride again. For years I couldn’t bare to uncover my eyes on the Nostromo. The terror of that mystery - the places my mind went imagining the horrors that waited just beyond my clenched fingers - was just too overwhelming.
Eventually I hit puberty. I felt stronger, braver, more awkward… so I decided it was time to take this monster head on. Like Alex in that infamous chair, I dug my nails into my knees and braced myself for the horror I was about to face with wide, frightened eyes.
Then I saw it: the rubber, animatronic alien popped out of the wall - its little mini-mouth snapping in my general direction…
…and I laughed.
That was it? That is what I was so scared of all these years? It’s just a fucking ROBOT! Then I looked at it closer and realized it was pretty fucking cool. I went home no longer afraid the alien would burst from my AC vent and chomp through my skull. I watched the movies, read the books (and comic books)… it just wasn’t scary anymore (though the movies were still hella suspenseful).
If I had gone my whole life without ever opening my eyes, I could very well be walking around today with that same paralyzing fear burdening my shoulders. Instead, the mystery was shattered and I knew there was really nothing to fear.
The end of Umbra is that rubber alien. Fake, disappointing, fear-shattering. And let me tell you, I was on fucking EDGE the first half of this script.
On. Fucking. Edge.
But… if you can’t live up to the hype then perhaps the solution is to leave it alone. Leave us with the mystery.
The biggest mistake the team behind The House on Haunted Hill made was “showing” the “spirit” (that stupid black mass of smoke in the trailer). It was cheesy, disappointing and ruined the movie. Karczynski’s ending for Umbra does the same thing.
It’s a shame Karczynski didn’t embrace the mystery as much as he should have.
Of course, there is also too much mystery. The trick is finding that sweet spot. There is a healthy ratio of “what the fucks” to “oh shits”. Fuck with that ratio and you risk alienating or disappointing your audience.
It is here that I will answer a mystery with a deeper mystery.
One wrapped in plastic.
Why was Twin Peaks so popular when it rolled onto ABC’s programming schedule in 1990? What could possibly make it so popular that it was referenced by the likes of The Simpsons and Sesame Street?
To be more relevant, what made a show like Lost catch on so heavily fourteen years later? Why is Lost running for a full six seasons, when Twin Peaks tanked after the second season? What makes Lost resonate so much deeper with its audience than a show like Twin Peaks or the recently canceled Pushing Daisies
More importantly, what does any of that have to do with screenwriting? What could this possibly have to do with the spec market, or feature writing in general?
Ay, there’s the mystery.
In the past few years, I have come to notice something about the modern audience (whether that audience is in a theater watching a movie, at home watching television, or in an office reading your script) that is absolutely integral to our understanding of how to write a great script.
It is something I have never heard any of the gurus discuss. At all.
I feel like there are a number of elements that are necessary for one to write a great screenplay. I am in agreement with most of the gurus in that sense. The first, of course, is ability (or talent, but I’m not about to get into that discussion). Once ability is in tow, there remains the elements of character, structure, theme and concept. All of these are discussed in great detail by one guru or another, and each are integral to writing a great script.
However, one can have each of those elements on fucking point and still write a script that is simply… missing something.
You see, there are two elements no one seems to be talking about. I would suggest here that these elements are of equal importance, despite the fact that no one seems to mention them.
The elements I refer to are the elements of mystery and revelation. Or, as I like to call them, the “what the fuck” moment and the “oh shit” moment. These two elements march hand-in-hand, and no script should be without them.
Allow me to define these further. The WTF moment is the question or the mystery posed by an event in your story.
Don’t confuse the definition of “event” here. An event could be anything. The event is not the point of this discussion.
The mystery is the point, because it is the mystery from your WTF moment that will pull your reader forward like a sixteen-year-old guy is pulled to his girlfriend’s vagina.
And that proverbial vagina is your “oh shit” moment. It’s the reveal.
To properly illustrate this, I’m going to go back to Twin Peaks.
The pilot for Twin Peaks was the most-watched movie of the entire 89-90 TV season, and the show drew in massive numbers for the duration of its first season. The pilot had a number of small WTF moments, but the final scene was the clincher. Not since “Who shot JR” had network television seen such a massive WTF moment. It left everyone dying to find out what the reveal was.
It left everyone hungry for the oh shit moment.
However, that reveal didn’t come for the entire first season. The first season was just one WTF moment after another with very little oh shit. Consequently, ratings dropped shortly into the second season. Thus ABC demanded Lynch and Frost reveal Laura Palmer’s murderer halfway through season two. Immediately following this revelation, the show’s ratings tanked horribly.
Do you see the pattern?
A question (wtf) births curiosity and intrigue in the audience. However, this intrigue is fickle at best. If it is not titillated soon after its conception, it will wear thin.
At the same time, a single question can only have a single revelation. The question of who killed Laura Palmer can only have one answer…
…the killer.
You thought I was gonna spoil the whole fucking show, didn’t you? lol.
Seriously though, once that question has been answered, where can you possibly go?
That’s where the “oh shit” comes in.
X-Files did a pretty good job for a while, though it lost its touch after a few seasons. Lost has done a stand-up job. Fringe has as well. That says something about J.J. Abrams. Hell, even sitcoms like How I Met Your Mother have been jumping on board.
Okay. Enough with the suspense. What the fuck am I talking about? What the fuck is a proper “oh shit” moment?
The proper oh shit moment - the proper reveal - will answer the original question with even more questions. The audience will get a satisfying answer, but that answer will reveal another layer that the audience had seen all along yet simplymissed.
That’s why I have named these elements as I did.
The moment that sparks the questions in your reader’s mind should make them say “What the FUCK?” - preferably literally. Out loud.
Your reveal, if executed properly, should make your reader exclaim “Oh SHIT!” as they jump out of their chair and grab their head to make sure their mind isn’t totally blown - then suck them back into that seat craving to read more because that one “oh shit” spawned three more “what the fucks”.
Are you tracking with me here? lol.
You see, the trick is to have one overarching question that remains unanswered until the end. For Lost, it’s “what the fuck is going on?” For the X-Files, it was “are there really aliens, and what the fuck is this government conspiracy?” For Twin Peaks, it was “who is Laura’s killer?”
Wait, but I said Twin Peaks saw its ratings drop because they took so long to answer that question, didn’t I?
Yes. Yes I did.
You see, the great shows do masterful jobs of giving you a dozen other what the fucks with their own oh shits to titillate your intrigue and keep stringing you along until the very end.
So, bringing this back to screenwriting, your script should be laced with what the fucks and oh shits. To the fucking nines. In fact, here’s a breakdown of the oh shits and what the fucks you should have in your script:
Inciting incident = What the fuck.
Break into act 2 = Oh shit which spawns more what the fucks.
“Pinch” 1 = An oh shit moment that does not tie up any significant what the fucks. If anything, it should make your character’s inner conflict (or their conflict with another character) clear, but merely add another what the fuck or two on top of the already growing WTF pile.
Midpoint = MASSIVE oh shit moment. It should answer a pretty large WTF from act 1, while spawning the most what the fucks yet.
“Pinch” 2 = An oh shit that is usually a false reveal for the audience. They think they are getting one thing, but they wind up being given a reveal they weren’t expecting at all. This, of course, simply piles on more what the fucks.
Break into act 3 = Biggest oh shit yet, which does all but tie all the what the fucks into a neat little package.
Conclusion = The final oh shit, which ties up everything into a beautiful, neat, concluded package that (if you do it just right) leaves the audience with the faintest sense of mystery that will bring them back for more.
So in summation, fill your script with mystery and revelation. Most importantly, make sure the revelations do not reveal something out of the blue. The foundations must be there, no matter how subtle. Also, a script without some sense of mystery (even comedies and dramas) make for boring reads. We need to wonder what’s going to happen - and actually CARE. The questions raised in your script are what will keep the reader intrigued by your script, but only if you throw them a bone every once and a while. Learn how to do that well, and you are well on your way to writing killer fucking scripts.
A quick heads up: I will be posting a new article on Monday. I’m not going to tell you what it’s about, but I will say it’s going to challenge much of what you assume you know about screenwriting.
I’ll give you a hint. It has something to do with this:
I promise, you do not want to miss this. Monday. 12pm PST sharp.
