Over at The GITS Club, our peer review site launched by long-time GITS reader Jeff Messerman, a former script reader halberlin posted “6 Theses about Spec Scripts”. To date, it’s been read over 150 times and much commented on. I contacted its author to ask permission to re-post it here because I think it is important reading.

This post attempts to codify and continue some remarks made on a recent thread. They come out of two unhappy years of working in development: take them more as instigations than reasoned arguments.

1. Forget formatting.

During my time working in development, I read somewhere beyond 500 scripts. I passed on 95% of them. Did I reject a single one because of a mis-shappen slugs, use of VO where OS was needed, wrongly formatted supertitles? Absolutely not. Never. Never. Never.

Did anyone else in development that I knew ever reject any script because of formatting? Absolutely not.

Here’s how you should think of formatting and style in specs: you’re writing a very elaborate advertisement for yourself. You have to do two things. First is to show that you can write clear and punchy english. Second is to distinguish yourself from the slop.

Everything you do – from formatting to dialog to story to character descriptions – needs to accomplish these two things. Correct formatting doesn’t matter. Convicting the reader that you can write, and write differently from all the other assholes does.

Now, if you send in a script peppered with typos and incoherent slugs, it suggests you can’t write. Doesn’t seal the deal, but suggests that you can’t write. But the problem isn’t that you didn’t follow the rules, it’s that you appear to be illiterate or sloppy. And that’s what you need to avoid.

2. Remember to stand out

Do whatever you can to get the readers attention WITHIN the script itself. Printing the script in pink pages in papyrus font and perfuming the pages with cheap wal-mart perfume will almost certainly get you laughed at.

But starting the script with “NOTE: THE FOLLOWING IS A WORK OF FICTION. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO PERSONS LIVING OR DEAD IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL” — “ESPECIALLY YOU JENNY BECKMAN” — “YOU BITCH” — will get your script bought and made. Even if the script is (like 500 days of summer) crypto-sappy pseudo-sophisticated shallow tripe!

So go crazy. But in the right places.

3. Make it flow

Imagine that you have a stack of 10 different screenplays to read over the weekend.

You’re not happy. You’d much rather be doing something else: reading Hegel, going to a sex party, whatever.

You’re in your early 20s. You want to be doing something fun — whether that be anonymous sex or german idealism.

Not reading bad screenplays.

So which bad screenplay are you going to like more:

(1) one dense with heavy description, teeming with clauses, ripe with vivid description of interiors, honing in on the complexion of your heroine, lovingly detailing the cut of her dress, her curves, her eye color (butternut, with flecks of gold), her gait, her politics (feminist-socialist), her reebok sneakers.

(2)
or the one which feels
like a ninety page haiku;
light as the june wind!

Your choice.

4. Grab them by the throat.

The first page is the most important part of your script. The first half page is even more important. And the first two lines are still even more important.

If you don’t compel interest and display mastery from the start, the rest of the script doesn’t matter. At all.

5. Make it personal.

Why are you writing this script? Why does it matter? A cool idea isn’t enough, because (1) usually your idea isn’t as cool as you think (2) it’s probably already been written.

What matters is that you care about the subject matter. That the content matters to you. That it’s something important and you think I should be interested.

Listen, I hate sports and would very much like to see them abolished. But if you can somehow convince me in your script about table tennis that ping-pong means something, I would’ve recommended it. Easier said than done. Especially with ping pong.

There’s a running cliche that you shouldn’t send messages with stories. Send them with western union instead. Maybe. But I’d err on the side of intense politicization. Send messages, just make them exciting and confident messages.

6. Read more books, watch more (interesting) movies.

If every wannabe screenwriter had to read Anna Karenina and watched Andrei Rublev as a prereq, I can guarantee you that my job would’ve been more fun. So stop reading Blake Synder and start reading Tolstoy. You’ll learn more, become a better writer, and lead a richer life.

As we’ve discussed before, script readers are the threshold guardians of Hwood’s script development system. No script goes to anyone in the acquisition food chain without coverage — which means that in a very practical sense, the audience you are writing your spec script for is a script reader. Therefore it behooves you to try to understand their collective mindset.

Rather than steer reaction to these “6 Theses” one way or the other, I invite GITS readers to weigh in with your comments first. At some point, I’ll post an update with my thoughts.

On a side note, if you haven’t checked out The GITS Club, you should. As of this moment, there are 151 members. And in my forays onto the boards, I have been impressed both by the quality of the feedback and the tenor of the environment. Jeff M, as the site’s official moderator, and some other key members have done a terrific job creating an honest and supportive environment. If you haven’t signed up yet, definitely worth exploring.