The I.Q. Test

Here's a question I wanted to pose to a writer today: Does the place your lead works require the rest of their staff to be slightly dumb? Or is it that you require all characters that orbit around your lead to be dumb so that we can all understand how smart he is?

The I.Q. test. It isn't applied to your lead, it's applied to secondary characters. Making them dumber does not make the lead smarter. It makes the script vapid.

Audiences like smart characters but they don't grade on a curve.

Pathos != Comedy

Here's a type of script I get about once a week:

The lead is selfless. Noble. Does everything for her husband/wife/boss even though they don't even notice. All around the lead friends say 'Be more selfish! Steal their money! Ditch work! You deserve it!'

The lead then leaves said spouse/boss, struggles without much struggle for about an act, meets someone awesome (awesome in these script always equals noticing that the lead is really the awesome one) and then leads the life to which they were entitled. Awesome.

Can you spot the comedy is this set-up? Neither can I, and I've looked.

I think it has something to do with how everyone who isn't the author-insert is an amoral shrew or lying, weapons-grade sack o' scum. Or perhaps the hilarity is in the first act where the lead is stepped on by everyone other than a two-dimensional buddy character that exists for no reason other than to have less morals than the lead and/or give them someone to talk to.

The love interest/new boss is the exception but still isn't much more than a sock puppet. They get to share the lead's claim on good behavior but only to show how 'good people' love the lead.

If this is your kind of script I probably can't talk you off the ledge. Just don't label it a comedy. I haven't laughed yet.

How to Make 10 Mistakes on the First Page

Hard to believe, but I just found a script with 10 no-no's on page one:

1. Slug line did not specify setting of first scene, just the building

2. Scene moved between four rooms/locations w/o scene changes

3. Action lines filled with multiple, separate, actions. Fine for a novel, but not a script

4. Action lines tell us info we could not possibly see

5. Lead character's name in caps twice instead of just at first sight

6. Other character's name not in caps at first sight

7. Upcoming plot point is something we could see in a few pages, but the lead tells us about it instead (killing the mystery and breaking the 'show, don't tell' rule)

8. Dialogue states the same point twice

9. Specific song was mentioned as playing on radio

10. Lots of 'we see's in action lines

And one to grow on in case any of the above are up for debate:

11. No description given on meeting any of the characters

Art has few rules, but screenwriting is an art that has quite a few. I recommend scripts that break a few here and there, but ten in the first page? No reader could recommend this without risking their job.

Help us help you. Master the rules. Then, whether you follow all of them or not, your mastery will show in your work.

This Next Bit is Awesome....

Remember I asked you not to write novels in 'action lines?' That maybe we don't call them 'action lines' just because calling them 'unpublished novel lines' would be too many syllables? I have an addendum...

Also avoid using your action lines to tell us how awesome, or deep, or metaphorical your next bit of dialogue is.

If it is good, you just undercut it with a spoiler. If it isn't... I don't need to explain the downside to that.

Cover Story

Newsflash: Cover stories are hardly ever about how awesome someone is. One person rarely appears on many simultaneously. You hardly ever see one face broadcast all over Times Square, especially over the word 'Messiah?'

If you want your lead to look like Captain Awesome McSuck My Balls you have to try harder. Like, original 'State of Play' harder, where the bright young hope of his party was not introduced during an interview in which a flirty reporter asked him to comment on the rumors God was stepping down next year to let him the take over. That is not what State of Play did.

This is what they did: In what looked like a dry committee hearing he personally reamed an oil company shill a new one with his team's own investigative research.

He earned respect.

Earned.

Stop telling us your lead is so damn cool and show us something.


(Show, don't tell. Didn't I read that in a screenwriting book somewhere?)

No Weather-Controlling Device for You

Stop telling me how full the moon is. Full moons are expensive. And you never use them for plot. You're just trying to have your own 'Truman Show.'

No, you can't 'cue the sun.' A little weather now and then doesn't hurt if it's plot related. Break-ups happen during storms, sunlight breaks through with new hope, rain equals rebirth... Fine.

But 'Because it's cool' is not plot related.


PS: I know I've said this, but stop giving resumes in character descriptions! Remember: If the audience can't see or hear it, it doesn't exist.

Wake with a... STOP

"She wakes with a start." "He jolts awake. IT WAS JUST A DREAM!" "They sit bolt upright in bed..."

I could go on but I won't. Nor should you.

Waking startled is a trope. Proceed at your own risk.

They Don't Sell Pretty at the Wal-Mart?

Yes, describing a happy, nice-looking person who lives in a poor part of town with the phrase 'she clearly doesn't belong here' is insulting. There are good looking people in lower-income families. *SHOCK* some of them even laugh from time to time.

If this is a newsflash you should really get out more. There's, like, trees and sunlight and stuff out there. You could enjoy it.

Even if you're not middle class.

Neither Seen Nor Heard

A screenwriter who mentions the camera is like a magician who mentions the strings.

/the more you know

Title by Claude Rains

True: In my job, I can't know the author of a script. If I know them it might bias my coverage.

True: Your script does not need a cover page for our purposes.

BUT... You should not put this together to equal a cover page that is blank.

Unless you're writing "Snow White in a Snowstorm." And even then you better hope I like puns.