CS Weekly Archive > The Big Picture > 4/10/09

You Will Be Judged:
Seven Common Contest Problems

By peter clines

With contest season in full swing, a CS writer who's read for several screenplay competitions over the years offers some tips on the things that make first-round readers groan.

It's an amazing thing to read for a screenplay contest. Oh, it's tiring, stressful, and may drive you to drink (or drink much more), but it also offers a unique perspective on the kinds of things people write and how that writing is received. I've been lucky enough to speak with dozens of contest directors, read for a number of contests, and talk with several other contest readers, and it always amazes me to see the same complaints and critiques come up again and again.

Two important things to keep in mind as we go into this list:

First, reading scripts is not about mining for gold. It's a weeding-out process. For most first-round readers, the job is not to find the best of the best, but to clean away the worst, the barely adequate, and the mediocre for the higher-paid people above them.

Second, readers are human. They generally have to read five or six scripts every day, and they're usually only making fair to average pay doing it. Contest readers get frustrated, bored, and will make snap judgments even when they're trying to be as fair and impartial as possible. Every time the writer makes it easier for them to render that judgment—one way or the other —they're doing the readers a favor.

So, all that being said, here are a few things which can make a contest reader put a screenplay in the large pile on the left rather than the small pile on the right.

Typos
When speaking with contest directors over the years, the overwhelming first tip every one of them gave for aspiring entrants was spelling and grammar. A random typo will not sink a script's chances. Everyone makes mistakes, and readers know that. If there's a typo on every page, though, there is no faster way to convince a reader that a manuscript is a waste of time. Heck, I've read a few screenplays where 30 pages in I'd lost count of the typos.

Pay special attention to apostrophe S. Misusing an apostrophe S will stand out on the page like a flare. Again, we all make mistakes, but it's obvious when a writer is just throwing down random apostrophes and getting a few right by sheer chance. Knowing the difference between a plural, a possessive, and a contraction is a basic part of the English language.

It's also important to remember that writers can't depend on the spell-check program to make everything prefect for them, because smell-chick con only till if a ward is spilled rite, knot if it's the write work two used in this particle instants. Case in point—everything in that last sentence is spelled correctly, but our beloved CS Weekly editor physically flinched when he read it. [This is true.—Ed.]

Whenever a writer hands off a screenplay to a contest, he or she is trying to convince the readers and judges it's the work of an expert, and the absolute, bare-bones fundamental tools of writing are spelling and grammar. A writer has to be a master of the basics to convince anyone his or her material is superlative.

Excess Title Info
Our publisher sent out a helpful email about this a few weeks back. It's stunning how many scripts get submitted with things like Lizard Men—crap draft right on the first page (one I saw didn't use crap, but a more vernacular form). Sometimes they're in the file name with electronic submissions, which is also a bad time to see Lizard Men—(other contest's name) Submission. Even just plain old Lizard Men—1st draft, which implies this script hasn't been edited, checked, or polished.

Writers shouldn't give a contest reader any reason to prejudge a screenplay. Strip off any and all draft numbers or extraneous comments before sending a script out. The reader has at least half a dozen screenplays to read today, and if someone is going to say right up front theirs is crap…well, it's going to save time.

The Director's Draft
Every now and then a writer submits a script littered with stage direction, camera angles, editing notes, and so on. We've all seen "that guy" on a message board, the one furious he's been told to eliminate such things. As he sees it, he's planning to shoot this film with his friends, so not only are these notes in the screenplay acceptable—they are necessary!

Alas, they are not, and like parentheticals, they have no business in a script unless they're absolutely vital to telling the story. There's nothing wrong with someone writing a screenplay to direct themselves, but that's a different type of script than what should be sent to a competition. It's like the difference between a spec draft and an actual shooting script.

When a script goes into a contest, it's just a script. It isn't the screenplay I'm going to make with my friends and it certainly isn't the screenplay I'm going to direct. It's just a screenplay, one standing up all on its own against all the others in the contest. And if one is filled with camera angles and parentheticals, that's probably why it's going into the large pile on the left.

Confusing Names
This may sound a little foolish and obvious, but if a screenplay has characters named Alex, Andy, Angie, and Anna it's going to be very difficult for a reader to keep track of who's who. Confusing as all hell, to be honest. If you look at most films, you'll see it's rare to get multiple characters whose names start with the same letter—it just makes for an easy mnemonic. The Matrix had Neo, Morpheus, Smith, Trinity, and Cypher. Casablanca has Rick, Elsa, Victor, Louis, and Sam. Raiders of the Lost Ark had Indy, Marion, Belloq, Sallah, and Toht. Even with the huge platoon of Colonial Marines in Aliens, the only double-up is Hicks and Hudson (and Lieutenant Gorman gets them confused on-screen).

On a somewhat similar note, if a screenplay has a grease-covered female auto mechanic named Charlie, it needs to be very obvious she's a woman. Likewise, if Pat the wedding planner is a man, it should be clear up front he's a man, with no ambiguity at all. Nothing frustrates readers more than to get 10 pages in and realize they've mentally assigned the wrong gender to a character, because it means they have to go back over everything they just read. Always be careful with gender-vague names such as Chris, Sam, Alex, and so on.

Crowd Scenes
I once read a script that introduced 12 characters in the first 10 pages, plus a handful of minor ones. The record was 17 in the first five pages. This is like pouring out a truckload of gravel and asking someone to keep track of what color stones they see. It's confusing and it brings the story to a crashing halt.

Writers can pace the introduction of characters. If 10 people walk into a room, the screenplay doesn't need to give all their names, genders, physical descriptions, and character quirks at once. Again, look back at Aliens. Trust that we can get to know them as individual situations arise and keep the story moving forward.

Focus
Many writers submit multiple works to the same contest, and in my experience it's usually a quantity-over-quality decision when this is done. Which only makes sense if the given competition selects their winner with a raffle.

It's always better to send one polished script to a contest than half a dozen rough ones. Writers need to focus their efforts on producing an iron-clad work that's as close to perfect as they can manage. No one is going to win anything with the first draft of a script. Or even the second draft.

Yes, Paul Haggis writes almost flawless first-draft scripts. Crash was a first draft. So was Flags of Our Fathers. Paul Haggis has also been writing screenplays professionally for over 30 years. He was a writer on Diff'rent Strokes, believe it or not. Anyone with a writing resume that long and so many Oscars they're being used to prop up crooked tables in the kitchen, feel free to send a first draft off to a contest just for kicks.

Otherwise, go do another draft.

The Script Is About a Writer
It's honestly stunning the percentage of scripts that are about novelists or wannabe screenwriters. Out of 150 screenplays I read for one contest, 19 of them had writers as a main character. That's more than one out of every eight scripts—over 12% of them! More than all the stories about vampires, serial killers, and WWII put together.

Alas, few things will make a script reader roll their eyes faster or harder. This is probably the one and only time when "write what you know" does not apply. Not to sound harsh, but no one cares about the thinly fictionalized day-to-day struggles someone goes through as a writer. Most of the contest readers already go through that in their own lives. They also don't care about the sheer joy of the creative process; the way impossibly beautiful women and handsome men are drawn to artistic types; or the eccentric, outgoing nature all writers have. And for God's sake, there is no worse ending than when the character sells their screenplay or book, everything is now perfect in the world, and they win the Oscar/Pulitzer/whatever…

If a story is about a writer, it needs to be the best screenplay in the contest, no questions asked, and the fact he or she is a writer needs to be absolutely integral to the story. If not, make the character a sheet-metal worker and save the script a few glares from the reader.

And just for fun, here's a freebie on top of those seven. This one sounds stupid, and it really shouldn't have anything to do with how a screenplay is received, but…

Few things are more annoying for a reader than having a hard-copy script constantly fall apart while they're trying to read it. They turn the page, the tiny little brass brads bend, and suddenly they're holding a pile of fanned-out papers. The last thing a writer should want is for a reader to be going through their screenplay in a constant state of annoyance.

If you're already investing 40 or 50 bucks to enter a contest, walk the extra few feet and get the right brads. Feature scripts call for the beefy #6 ones that are an inch and a half long—enough to go through 120 sheets of paper and have plenty left over to bend back. They can even be ordered online from the Writer's Store.

Again, no one thing here will kill your chances in a screenwriting contest. It would probably be easy to find a script that went against these suggestions and still flew on to victory. In a competition where you're going up against hundreds, possibly thousands of other competitors, though, it's best to make sure you're not going in with two or three handicaps right from the start.

Peter Clines grew up in the Stephen King fallout zone of Maine and made his first writing sale at age 17 to a local newspaper. He currently lives somewhere in southern California, and can often be found ranting on his cleverly named blog, Writer on Writing. His first novel, Ex-Heroes, will be released in fall 2009.



Adaptation courtesy Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Aliens courtesy 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Crash courtesy Lions Gate Home Entertainment

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