WHY SPEC SCRIPTS FAIL: Cautionary Advice for Writers – Avoidables

Stewart Farquhar provides a list of cautionary advice for writers to heed if they want to prevent outright rejection. Consider them a way to survive the first cut of any Hollywood executive or screenwriting contest.

Stewart Farquhar holds Screenwriting and Advanced Screenwriting certificates from the Professional Program at The UCLA School of Theatre Film and Television. Stewart has analyzed over 6,500 scripts for private and studio clients. Follow Stewart on Twitter @stewartfarquhar.

Click to tweet this article to your friends and followers!

In numerous articles, blogs, books and high-priced lectures / seminars there exists a plethora of “Lists of Requirements” to follow when a scribe sits down to write. Many are just plain drivel, a select few of these lists are excellent cautionary advice to the emerging writer. I call this cautionary advice AVOIDABLES.

These are not personal preferences. These avoidables are a few of the reasons overworked editors, readers and analysts use to toss a scrivener’s months or even years of work. Argue, if you must. Don’t shoot the messenger.

If a top tier contest, a credentialed producer, an ‘A’ list actor or an established publisher provides any of this cautionary advice (see the below list) it is in the scribe’s best interest to pay attention to the “AVOIDABLES” if he or she wants to prevent outright rejection. Consider them a way to survive the first cut.

Ignore at your own peril.

Script EXTRA: Random Notes from a Screenwriting Contest Judge

As a final and semi-final judge for three of the top ten English language screenplay competitions, I recently completed a tortuous read of 95 scripts in six weeks. If not for my contract to read, I would have tossed about sixty percent of them by page five, and of that percentage, twenty-five percent by page one. I continued to read because to get past the earlier readers there must have been a gem somewhere. A few were a delight to read.

Why the toss? Not the nit-picky this happens on page xx or even fancy fonts; preface quotations (not as a crawl) or even pictures (all of which scream AMATEUR). What causes the angst and many times immediate rejection, in a contest’s final round or from a production entity, is the writer’s blatant incursion into another craft’s responsibility, the use of NON-Spec script format and the inability to craft a story that engages from page 1. From this year’s batch, it seems that many of the writers had forgotten their sole responsibility.

A writer’s ONLY job is as a succinct and effective STORYTELLER.

There are several “How To” books, articles and blogs that purport to tell the writer how to format and what to include in a SPEC script. Dave Trottier’s The Screenwriter’s Bible is the seminal authority. Trottier helps the emerging writer write vs. direct. I don’t receive any fee, consideration or compensation for this shout-out.

I have compiled a list (ugh) of the more egregious “violations”. These are not rules. What they represent is a collection of violations to the tacit “Just Tell A Story” contract the SPEC scribe has with the reader.

Yet Another List To Consider
The “Just Tell A Story” Contract Violations
(In The Avoidable Alphabetical Order)

Among those not included in “The List” is the failure to think and format short descriptive / declarative significant action sequences as “shots.”

Script EXTRA: FREE Download of Screenwriting Format Tips

For example

As Written (Submitted):

As the Cashier starts to count the bills, Jared looks out
the glass doors and spots another homeless man with a sign
that says "HELP ME. FOOD, MONEY, ANYTHING."

A bystander goes by and gives him a half eaten apple. Jared
watches the man scavenges the apple, barriered by the doors.

His concentration is amazing. Is he studying this man eating
the apple? Or is he figuring out how he is going to have his
next meal?

Reduced To:

The cashier counts the bills.
Through the glass door,
Jared spots a homeless man with a sign.

INSERT SIGN:

"HELP ME. FOOD, MONEY, ANYTHING."

A pedestrian tosses him a half-eaten apple.
Jared stares as the man devours it.

His concentration is amazing. Is he studying this man eating
the apple? Or is he figuring out how he is going to have his
next meal?

Seventy-seven words reduced to thirty-eight.

This style sets up each line as a shot.

Extraneous words eliminated.

Can’t film thoughts.

Reads faster.

This scriptwriting technique creates a present tense picture in the minds of the other professionals. It doesn’t TELL them how to do their job. In all but a very few cases this method eliminates the need to insert ”CLOSE-UPs”, “POVs”, “CUT TOs”, multiple “FADE INs” and “FADE OUTs”, “SMASH CUTs” or any other non-screenwriter responsibility.

The first audience is an overworked and underpaid or unpaid first level reader. He or she can only imagine, from individual memories, a picture that each scene and character you create invokes. This gatekeeper can only experience your artful character, action and reaction creations when you paint a memorable image with words. They hear, see, think or feel nothing except their emotive reaction to what you create ON THE PAGE. In a spec script it’s the scribe’s responsibility to place as few distractions as possible to this emotional journey. Anything that interrupts or slows down the pace or is not an active story element has to go. Does that mean never use any Avoidable? NO. Use sparingly if at all.

A screenwriter’s sole responsibility is to concentrate on the creative art of storytelling. Leave everything else to the other collaborators of the cinematic arts.

Script EXTRA: Tips for Making Your Script a Fast Read

Now, there will be those pseudo intellectuals who grouse - “Well Tarantino does it in Pulp Fiction”, or “Zach Helm does it in Stranger Than Fiction” or Lars Von Trier does it in Melancholia. Why can’t I do it? Or, this script or that movie is an example of this technique or that formula or has this element. Valid questions.

My answer. When you have their contacts, their experience, and their caché, plus your story is a page turner, you can handwrite in a composition book, scribble on old scripts or compose on tissue paper and someone will buy. Until that time, create a work that drives the entry level reader to your last page without distraction. In all writing, formula works for a novice when they start out. Use it, then graduate. A unique structure, with multiple creative variations therein, is what works for an established writer.

There are also those who claim to have been at “this studio script department” or that they have “written and sold on spec or assignment” without adhering to any of the “List Of Requirements.” These purveyors of mostly piffle also claim that “very few differences actually exist at the professional level of spec and on-assignment writing.” It’s true that all writers should strive to produce a professional product.

But, note the caveat, “professional”. Their advice is from the inside looking out vs. a struggling writer fighting to get in. A spec writer needs advice on how to write vs. advice from an insider on how to direct other crafts.

For the majority of today’s writers that have yet to reach this professional level, if you create a memorable story that’s a fast read and with the avoidables in mind it will be easier for you to get your foot in the door. Instructions, advice or direction for each craft will be added by others after your script is bought.

To rise above the tens of thousands of scripts registered by aspiring writers with the WGAw in Hollywood each year, it’s important to stand out in some positive way. The easiest method to accomplish this is the most obvious. Tell a great story in the most direct way without inappropriate instructions or superfluous distractions. Do your job well and invite the other crafts to do theirs. Establish yourself first as a storyteller. Innovation comes after you have proven yourself as a “Go-To Player.”

More articles by Stewart Farquhar