There is no doubt that this film, written by Mark Boal and directed by Kathryn Bigelow, is a very tense thriller. Your heart is racing from the first scene to almost the last. The direction is terrific, the performances equally as meritorious. So what happened? Why didn’t it make a ton of money? Total US box office, $16.7 million.

Because it was ultimately unsatisfying as a film experience for the average film goer.

Yes, it did have a strong protagonist (Jeremy Renner as Staff Sgt. James) with a single minded goal – to disarm as many bombs as he could without blowing himself up. But he cares about nothing else – even his family at home gets short shrift until the very end, and then he abandons them to return to the action. He doesn’t develop any goals, he doesn’t really develop much of a relationship with his immediate subordinate Sgt. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie deserves an Oscar nod for this one), and he doesn’t change.

In other words, he starts out as a adrenaline junky willing to endanger his platoon to get his fix, and he ends up that way as well. And that’s why the film is unsatisfying – he’s the same person he was at the start. A cowboy (How many rules breakers have we seen in this type of movie?) whose only redeeming value is that he is good in war.

And since Sgt. James is not moving towards a goal, not moving towards change, not moving towards repairing his relationship with his wife, the scenes are repetitive. They encounter a situation, usually a roadside bomb. He defuses it with great difficulty. He walks away happy. Repeat until ten or fifteen times with variations.

Now, it may be that Boal and Bigelow meant to comment on the Iraqi war which, judging from this movie, was a difficult, urban war where the population didn’t want to be liberated and the US soldiers didn’t want to be there. Fine. Point taken. Anti-war movies are great, especially if the central character moves from one position to another (either direction is fine). But when the end is a repeat of the beginning, what is really the point? No journey, no story. Great scenes, but no actual movie. It’s not a satisfying experience unless you’re an adrenaline junky, too, in which case, you’re fine. It’s flashy film making, and worthy of a look. It will win awards, but not the box office of a movie that works for the public as well as the critics. What kind of movie do you want to make?

I’ve always written in whatever genre I wanted to write in at the time, so my career has caromed from reality tv to sitcoms to science fiction to kids’ movies to one hour dramas and back again. With my experience in so many fields, people often ask me what the difference is between them. The answer is… very little. They all depend on human emotion and conflict, flaws and goals, victory and defeat. Even science fiction.

So, could I just leave it at that? That science fiction is the same as comedy or drama or commercials for Alpha Bits (Yes, I was the one who wrote the “Swirlpool” ad. Sorry.)? No. There are some things to keep in mind when you write science fiction (or sci-fi or speculative fiction or whatever you’d like to call it). There are no rules, but there are guidelines. Here are some of the things we used to tell prospective writers for The New Twilight Zone mixed in with a few additions of my own.

1. There has to be a reason your central character is involved in this. So you have to answer the same questions that you ask of any protagonist: Why him? Why now? Your hero has an issue. He’s going to have to deal with that one day. Why today? So, know your hero’s issue and know why it’s reached a boiling point. Obviously, this goes for any type of screenwriting, too.
2. Get to the magic as soon as possible. In TZ, that meant the weirdness, the special condition, the situation that set this episode off from others. In a sci-fi film, it could be the setting, the time, the technology, whatever is the speculative part of the story.
3. Have the special rules of your world clearly defined in your mind and don’t violate them. You can have any rules you want to – people can become invisible, they can live on pills, they can fly at light speed – so long as you’re consistent. If there’s no gravity, things can’t fall. You can’t suddenly have something fall for no reason. But if something must fall, make it clear why the rules have been broken. Nothing is worse for a sci-fi devotee than an inconsistency in the rules you have set up.
4. Don’t let the technology overcome the story. Yes, tech stuff in sci-fi movies is great, but we go to see the human story. Of course, the light sabers are fun, but the original Star Wars is about a boy becoming a man, finding his inner strength and his place in the world. That’s why we went to see it so many times, though we did have fun with those light sabers.
5. Have an emotional relationship feature prominently. Humanize the science. Make it personal. Make sure your protagonist becomes involved in an important emotional relationship. It doesn’t have to be a romance; it could be father and son, brother and sister, two buddies. Whatever. It will make your script deeper and help bring in a wider audience.
6. Write your protagonist with flaws, especially one that he has to overcome in order to mend or cement the central emotional relationship and prevail in the final challenge (For definition of terms, see my book, REWRITE: A Step-by-Step Guide to Strengthen Structure, Characters, and Drama in Your Screenplay.)
7. Don’t forget humor. Some of the best moments of science fiction films are the funny ones. And even some of the best science fictions films are comedies. (Galaxy Quest is one of my favorites.)
8. Have conflict in every scene. Yes, you already know this. Yes, it applies to science fiction. Especially to technology. When it fails, it’s always a tense moment. Make it fail. Make your hero work hard to reach his/her goal.

Of course, most of this applies to any kind of screenwriting. That’s the idea. Good science fiction has to be good on the science and good on the fiction. Do that, and I’ll be lining up to get a ticket to see your film.

Some of my students are having a lot of trouble and may be suffering from the Imposter Syndrome, or IS. Yes, we get to that point in the film where we suddenly lose faith in the characters, the story, in our own abilities to write. Normal. For all writers, professionals and otherwise. We just don’t know if it’s good anymore, if the idea ever was good, or if we have any clue at all about how to write it.
Welcome to the club.
And what made us think we could ever be writers, anyway?
Let me tell you, there are plenty of executives who will browbeat you on this one, too. One told me and my writing partner at the time that the freelance episode we had done for his syndicated comedy was the best script he’d ever seen for the show. In front of his staff! He gave us another assignment. When we got notes, it started out like this: “Guys, guys, guys. What made you think you were professional writers?” Later, the staff told us it was his mind game. (BTW, he gave us a contract for three more episodes after that! Unheard of.)
So don’t play the mind game on yourselves. Yes, you may be in a hole, but you’ll get out of there. It may take a little while, but writing doesn’t pay by the hour (even when it pays). If you’ve lost your way, go back to the character study, go to the flaw, go to the premise, go to the 7 points and refresh your memory. What’s making me write this? What do I want to say? How is the protagonist going to get herself out of this fix?
And ask me questions until you get the answer (I’ll probably turn around and ask you questions).
You’ll get there, believe me.
PC

Just got back from the villa in Cortona. I’m still suffering a little bit of jet lag, but the overall euphoria of the experience is getting me through it. The whole thing exceeded my expectations: the people, the food, the villa, the countryside, the small towns in Tuscany. Our first two days were consumed by reworking our stories, and we discovered that this group of people was able to communicate ideas and stories at a professional level. It was exhausting mental work, but so very, very fruitful.

As is usually the case in a rewrite, some people practically abandoned their old stories and rewrote their scripts from the ground up. And they were greatly improved! Others reworked extensively the scripts they came with and also made them sing. Lots of work to be proud of.

Everyone vowed to come back next year, but we may add another seminar either at the villa or in Spain or France. Start thinking about it. One participant called it a life changing experience. Another said it was the best money she’d ever spent. It was referred to as a religious experience by more than one. All I know is, we were focused and we produced!

One more note: Our cook, Tina, who lives on a farm down the road, made the best lasagna I have ever tasted. Then, the next night, brought in a vegetarian lasagna - even better! Then a truffle lasagna. And let’s not get started on the tiramisu…

It’s often said that the key to life is balance, and I know that I’ve certainly tried to live that way. Too much partying leads to a desire to do good in society to balance things out. And it works the other way, too: Too much doing good means it’s time to party!

Balance also applies to your screenplay. A student of mine recently asked if it was okay to have a 30 page first act, a 30 page second act, and a 60 page third act. In a word, no. Of course, there are no rules in making movies. But there is a guideline here that is very important to follow. In a 100 page script, you should have about 30 pages to set up the character and what s/he is going to do (the first act), and about 40 pages in the second act where the movie really gets going (i.e., your character goes after his/her goal). The third act is when your character faces himself and his final challenge, and it should be about 25-30 minutes (all figures are fudgeable and are kept in proportion for longer stories). If you keep the audience waiting, they’ll get impatient. This is usually the shortest act, and audiences expect that once your character pulls out of the funk he found himself in at the end of act II, he’s going to do some ass kicking. You want to get to that, the most exciting part of your story, the one with the most tension and the most riding on it, as soon as you can and you want to make the final challenge the best and biggest scene of your film.

Does that apply to romantic comedies? Biographies? Action/adventure? Yes. It’s when the central character has to eat dirt and run across Manhattan and beg for forgiveness in a romcom; it’s when the biopic protagonist faces his greatest challenge; it’s when the action hero faces down the villain and the big fight takes place. If you keep your audience waiting for 60 minutes, you might as well kiss your word of mouth goodbye. The story will drag. It’s impossible to sustain a 60 minute final act. If you don’t think I’m right, go see “Artificial Intelligence” again.

If you find that you have too much in the last act, the likelihood is that much of that material should have occurred before the low point. Move it to the second act. If that doesn’t do it, cut like mad. Keep the balance.

One of my students instant messaged me this morning to check if her page count was right. She said she was only 20 pages past the midpoint when she reached the low point, and was worried that that wasn’t long enough. So what are the signposts along the way for your major story points?

First of all, there are no rules; it’s not like there’s a speed limit your must stick to or your script will be pulled over and you’ll be given a ticket. It’s all about balance and what’s really necessary to get your point across. Yes, there are guidelines. It usually takes 15 or so pages for you to introduce the protagonist and his condition, so the inciting incident comes around page 15, give or take a few pages. It takes him another 15 pages or so to decide what to do about it. He works towards his goal for about 20; the goal shifts and so does he and he strives towards his new goal until he hits his low point about another 20 pages into it. The third act is another 25-30 pages and you’re outta there!

But that would be a short script. Not too short, but short. Feel free to adjust in proportion to the length of your script, but remember, too, it’s better to write it right than to write to a specific number of pages. It’s good to keep the script in balance, but many good movies have been made outside those exact parameters. What’s best for your movie? Only you can decide; but use the guidelines to help you.

This is an new experiment for me who learned how to type on a manual typewriter. The way we write movies, the physical way, has come a long way since then. But good movies still rely on the basics - structure, characters, action, and dialogue. I’ll be occasionally posting mini-lectures as issues come up. Feel free to email me a question at paul@rewritementor.com, and if it’s of interest to all, I’ll answer it here. Thanks for participating.

PC

Question: I’m stuck in the middle of the second act. My protagonist seems to be wandering without focus. What should I do?

Answer: Most problems at that stage can be solved by figuring out what the protagonist’s goal is and then having him pursue it. By the middle of the second act (the middle of your movie), your protagonist will probably change his goal from something he wants (his exterior goal) to something he really needs. Once you discover what his goal is, have him pursue it in every scene. That will drive your story.

Do you have a question for the Rewrite Mentor?
Email it to paul@rewritementor.com