2018 BLACK LIST - BROODMARE

This script landed in the top ten of the 2018 blacklist. I have no idea why. This is not a great script. Let's look at why, and how to make sure we don't make the same mistakes.

PLOT SUMMARY

Rory is up to step 9 of the 12 step alcoholics anonymous program. This step says you need to speak with those you have wronged and apologise for what you did to them while you were an alcoholic. 

This takes Rory and his girlfriend Maxine to a horse breeding farm where Kelly (his girlfriend from high school) lives with a strange alpha-male called Todd. 

Rory is somewhat of a weak-spirited person. Maxine is the alpha in their relationship and she is also Rory's sponsor. Rory isn't sure he even wants to confront Kelly and confess that he cheated on her. They were dating when they were 16 years old. He thinks it's better that he not hurt her. But Maxine wears the pants and she insists that they travel to this remote horse breeding farm so he can tell Kelly he cheated on her when they were 16. 

When they get there everything is fine at first. Kelly is really pleased to see Rory. They meet Kelly's partner Todd - an alpha male who is really strange. 

Rory really doesn't want to confess to cheating on Kelly when he was 16, as it's going to cause her more pain than it's worth, but Maxine forces him into it when they're having dinner. 

Kelly is hurt, and Todd gets pissed off. There's an argument, but for some unknown reason, rather than just leaving after that, Maxine and Rory create really weak excuses to hang around at the farm. 

No one forces them to stay. No one. This is where this script starts to fall apart. 

The next 60 pages of the story involves Rory and Todd vying against each other, each trying to prove to the other they are the alpha. 

Maxine has an argument with Kelly and Rory and she threatens to leave but she doesn't. She just goes for a walk. 

Rory is worried that Kelly really wants to leave the farm but Todd is forcing her to stay. Even though he isn't really trying to do that. 

It seems like Rory is more interested in staying around to rekindle his flame with Kelly. 

The story works towards a culmination of sorts where there are a life and death scenarios, without getting into spoilers.

CONCEPT

Do the concept test with your script. Does it make sense? I don't even know what this film is about. If I had to summarise it in one sentence I'd say, A man tries to complete step 9 of AA but discovers a weird horse worshiping cult, sort of. 

This story fails from the word go. The motivation for your story must be strong. The motivation here isn't strong at all.

Rory drives out into the middle of nowhere to tell his ex that he cheated on her when they were 16. 

That's not a strong foundation for a film. 

The sinking of the Titanic is a strong backbone for a film. This premise is not. 

CONCEPT RATING 2/10

CONCEPT TIP

Make sure that the catalyst for your story, the REASON why this story is happening is strong and well motivated. Audiences don't connect well with story concepts that are weakly motivated. 

FORM

The writing here is ok. But the writer does use the F-bomb regularly. To use the F-bomb in dialogue is fine, as it may be natural for your character to swear a lot. But when you swear in your descriptions it comes across as weak writing. 

Other than the swearing factor, this script was well written and well formatted. It was a little overwritten, but most scripts are. It could handle a 10% trim easily.  

FORM RATING 7/10

FORM TIP

Don't swear in your descriptions. It's fine to write your descriptions with sprite and personality, but try to do that without gratuitous swearing. 

POV

This story started out as Rory's story. But when we get to the farm we have a bunch of scenes that are told entirely from Todd or Kelly's point of view. 

It is ok to switch POV when writing for TV. 

It doesn't work well to switch POV when writing a feature film. 

For whatever reason, multiple POV films never seem to do very well at the box office. If they do it's an exception, not the rule. 

If you want your film to have the best chance for success make sure you tell your story from your hero's POV at all times. 

STRUCTURE

The structure was way off here. 

I don't think there was actually an inciting incident. They set out to go to this farm so Rory could confess to Kelly he cheated on her. He gets there. Doesn't want to. But does anyway. Does his confession test his flaw? 

I feel like Rory's flaw is not that he was an alcoholic, as this story isn't about someone trying to beat alcohol, I'm not even really sure what this story is about. 

Rory and Maxine go to this horse breeding farm and some weird stuff happens. That's pretty much the entire story here. 

When you don't have a clear FLAW for your hero, it's hard to identify what your inciting incident is. 

The Inciting Incident tests the hero's flaw. It is an event that starts a journey. Both inner and outer. 

I might guess that Rory's flaw is that he allows Maxine to bully him into doing things he doesn't want to do. But it seems like he is fine with that. And that her presence in his life is actually a good thing. She is helping him get through the 12 steps after all. 

So, yeah, very hard to lock down the structure beats here. 

It felt like it was a really long second act. 

Then suddenly in the final 10pages of the film, there was a life and death scenario that could have been avoided really easily if Rory and Maxine had just left the farm earlier on when they had a chance. 

But no, they stayed at the farm for really weak reasons. 

CHARACTERS AND DIALOGUE 

The characters are actually well enough drawn here. Todd really stands out from the pack. Rory, Maxine, and Kelly all speak with a similar cadence and style, while Todd really has a very different way of speaking. 

The trick to writing successful character and dialogue is to make sure that not one of your characters are too similar. Give each character their own personality, and make sure they have their own distinct way of speaking. 

It's hard, and it's something you have to work on, but the first step is understanding that you need to differentiate your characters for them to feel real. Once you understand that, it's just a matter of working each character until they feel different enough to feel real.

The very worst kind of characters are the vanilla ones. Characters that don't stand out at all. The instantly forgettable characters. Don't write these.

LOGIC

Make sure your story beats are logical within the world you create. I see the opposite happening far too often in scripts. 

Writers NEED a beat to happen so the story can proceed where they want it to. So they force a beat in just to make sure the NEXT beat can happen. 

It is always weak writing to force a story point just for the sake of guiding the story where it needs to go. 

Here, Rory and Maxine had ample opportunities to leave the farm. No one was forcing them to stay. But if they left the farm the story would end. To avoid this the writer came up with really weak reasons for them to stay on the farm. 

Have you ever watched a film where you wanted to shout at the characters, 'What are you doing? Don't do that, get out of there, now!' 

Don't write a story where illogical beats happen just for the sake of the story. 

EMPATHY

I didn't like one of the characters here. Why? I wasn't given a reason to like any of them. 

Rory is weak-willed. He lets his GF walk all over him. Maxine is a controlling bitch. Nothing to like about her here. 

Todd is far too alpha male for ANYONE to like him.

Kelly is sweet, there's nothing wrong with Kelly, but there's nothing right about her either. 

Remember, audiences don't like characters just because they're on the screen, we like them for the acts of EMPATHY they enact. 

When NONE of your characters are doing positive acts of active empathy then your audience will have no reason to like any of your characters. 

GOAL

The goal of the story was for Rory to confess to Kelly he cheated on her. That happens at around page 30. 

Goal one achieved. Rory is then worried that Kelly is in trouble somehow. He wants to stay on the farm to make sure she is ok. 

This goal is an example of an open-ended goal. Rory is going to hang around and see if things are ok. 

Audiences respond well to closed-ended goals. So, say, Rory had to get into a room where he thought he saw something really bad, or he has to get video footage for proof of something really bad happening so he can save Kelly. That's an example of a closed-ended goal. 

Give your hero something tangible to achieve.

The audience can latch onto closed-ended goals more easily than open-ended goals. 

STAKES

For the first 90 pages of this film I never really felt concerned that Rory or Maxine's life was in danger. 

They had 90 pages to leave the farm.

They chose not to.

So, for 90 pages there wasn't really anything at stake. 

When your story has low stakes, your audience tends to check out.

Take the film TAKEN for example - can you imagine how dull that film would be if his daughter hadn't been abducted until page 90? 

No life or death stakes for 90% of the film?

The higher your stakes the more engaging your film. 

URGENCY

There was no ticking clock here. At all. 

There was nothing pulling the story forward. We were simply watching Todd, Maxine and Rory argue for 90 pages. 

Firstly, the goal was open-ended, so the story was unfocused, but secondly, there was no urgency to the story. Nothing had to be done in a set time frame.

When there is no ticking clock in your story, it will tend to languish. 

SUMMARY

A weakly motivated story with an open-ended goal, low stakes and no sense of urgency. I would not invest money into this script, and I sincerely doubt it would make money at the box office.