Genre: Supernatural Mystery
Premise: An infamous investigator of the unexplained phenomena and a highly skilled audio repair engineer work together to solve a perplexing cold case murder mystery.
About: This UK director has directed four episodes of Doctor Who. More recently, he’s been mastering the podcast mystery space, with series such as The Lovecraft Investigations, Who is Aldrich Kemp, and Temporal. This script ended up on last year’s Black List. Julian Simpson is managed by Kaplan/Perrone.
Writer: Julian Simpson
Details: 110 pages

Ghost story told in a unique way.

CHECK.

If you can do that one thing – come at your genre in a unique way – you are ahead of 99% of other screenwriters. No doubt, that’s the main reason this writer got noticed with this script.

In Bad Memories, sound technician Rachel Weir is tasked with looking into a cold case mystery. An attractive man named Jim comes to her with an old SD card that contains a number of corrupted sound files.

Eight years ago, the Blakes, a family of three, disappeared. Recently, some kids were playing on the now abandoned lot of the Blake house and fell into a basement that, it turns out, was the basement to a much older building that was there before. The Blakes’ dead bodies were found in that basement (and this SD card in the pocket of one of them).

But there are a couple of twists. One, there are two extra unidentified bodies that were also found in this secondary basement. And, also, the decomposition of the bodies is dated back to 1935. Which, of course, doesn’t make sense. So Jim is hoping that Rachel can fix the corrupt sound files on this SD card and figure out what happened.

Rachel doesn’t believe in ghosts or aliens but she can’t deny that the situation is intriguing. She fixes the files and the two start listening to them. They follow an occultist named Phillip Gibson, who’s staying at the Blakes’ home and looking into supernatural activity. The mother, Imogen, believes in this activity. The father, Jonathan, does not.

The issue centers around their child, Matthew, who seems to be able to talk with someone named Mary. But the parents can’t hear Mary. However, Mary does appear on the SD card. She can be heard chatting away with Matthew and saying creepy things. As they dig deeper, they learn that Mary was the daughter of a family that used to live on this land in 1935 and she slaughtered her family while they slept.

The deeper into the files Rachel dives, the harder it is to explain this away. As her worldview begins to collapse, she starts to go a little crazy. She even starts seeing Mary in her own home. Eventually, Jim tells her that Mary is still alive. She’s an old woman now. So they go to visit her to see if they can glean any new information.

Mary also learns, through one of the sound recordings, that Phillip Gibson may have dropped a video file card at the home while being attacked by Mary. So Rachel goes to the Blake home to see if she can find the video card. This puts her, unwittingly, face to face with Mary, where she will finally, once and for all, learn how all of this insanity went down.

Whenever you write a screenplay and give it to other people to read, there is an unavoidable gap between what you know and what the reader knows. You might know that your protagonist lost his best friend to a drug overdose in high school. That history may shape how you understand the character. But if it’s not relevant to the story, it never appears in the script. As a result, you are carrying around more information about the world and the characters than the reader.

This gap will always exist. You will always know more about the people and situations you created than the reader does.

The problem is that this gap is where many writers lose their audience. Because the writer understands so much about the world of the story, the movie playing in their head is rich, layered, and emotionally coherent. But the version that exists on the page often contains only a fraction of that information. What feels full and alive to the writer can feel thin or confusing to the reader.

A major part of being a strong screenwriter is recognizing that disparity and compensating for it. You must supply the reader with the specific pieces of information they need in order to experience the story the way you intended. If you fail to do that, the reader can’t see the movie you’re seeing.

Mastering this skill requires understanding what the audience actually needs to know. Not every detail of a character’s life needs to be on the page. For example, we never needed to see Luke Skywalker bullseye womp rats in his T-16 to understand that he was a capable pilot. Those scenes were written and even filmed for Star Wars, but they were ultimately removed because the story worked without them.

However, there are other kinds of information that absolutely must be shared with the reader. If those pieces are missing, the script collapses. This is especially true in supernatural mysteries, where the rules of the world and the mechanics of the mystery are not optional. They’re the foundation of the entire narrative. If the reader doesn’t understand those rules, they can’t follow the story.

This is one of the most common mistakes I encounter in these scripts. Writers become so afraid of revealing too much that they withold critical information. They worry that if the audience learns something too early, the mystery will disappear. So they hold things back. Then they hold back more. And then even more. Eventually, so much essential information has been withheld that the reader has no idea what’s happening or how the world works. At that point the mystery doesn’t feel intriguing. It simply feels confusing.

This was my experience reading the aptly titled, “Bad Memories.” There are about six layers to this highly intricate mystery so when and how much each piece of information is disseminated is critical. That information seems to come at us either too late, or when it does reach us, without enough detail. This makes it hard to understand what, exactly, is happening.

Cause I thought the setup to Bad Memories was good. Dead bodies from 8 years ago. But the bodies have been decomposing for 90 years. Found in a previously undiscovered basement. And two extra bodies that haven’t been identified? There’s a lot to play with. And the way in which we’re exploring this mystery – through a series of sound files – feels unique and refreshing.

But the script just starts getting soooooo confusing in the third act. It turns out Mary isn’t dead. She’s still alive (as an old woman). No matter how hard the script tried to explain this, it could not convey how Mary could both be alive and a ghost at the same time.

Which brings me back to my original point. The writer has constructed an elaborate mythology in their head that neatly connects all the dots and makes the paradox feel logical. But much of the critical information required for us to understand that logic never makes it onto the page. Without those pieces, the reader is left struggling to keep their head above water in a fast-moving current of mystery.

This brings me to another screenwriting note I end up hammering home hundreds of times a year. The more moving parts you build into your mystery, the harder the script becomes to execute. Every additional element raises the degree of difficulty. It’s not that it can’t be done! It certainly can. But to pull it off, you either have to a) be an advanced screenwriter, b) be willing to write 10-20 more drafts than usual, or c) drop the number of variables in your mystery.

You have the power to lower the degree of difficulty at any point by simply dropping plot elements. If you’re going to keep those elements for pride alone, well then you’re going to pay the price when someone reads your script. They’re going to give you that side-eyed look before asking, “Well, I kinda liked the first part but what was happening with Mary? How did they time travel again? How did the video card transfer Rachel to the past exactly?” That isn’t stuff you can just drop in there and sorta explain and hope for the best. No no no no no. For that to work it needs to be flawlessly set up. And it just wasn’t here. Probably because there was too much going on to begin with.

I only recommend complicated time-jumping concepts to advanced screenwriters who are also willing to do the extra work that these scripts require. Cause they ALWAYS REQUIRE extra work. Always. For an advanced screenwriter, at least 5 more drafts than a normal script would require. For an intermediate, 10-20. And fuggetaboutit if you’re a beginner. You could spend 50 drafts and never figure it out. These screenplays are not for the faint of heart.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I believe that in intricate mysteries like this, you need to know the ending before you write the script. Because if you try to figure the ending out through a bunch of drafts, what often ends up happening is that we just see you trying to figure the story out on the page. We can see you grasping at explanations and surprise reveals and, in doing so, we know you didn’t figure it out. But when you know the ending ahead of time, you end up writing these scripts with so much more confidence, especially in that last lap of the script, where it’s crucial that the writer write with certainty and purpose.

Character Development gone wrong

Genre: Action/Sci-fi
Premise: A group of Rangers trainees on their final mission encounter an alien machine that seems to have been programmed to destroy them.
About: Director Patrick Hughes became obsessed with high-class military operations and wanted to tell a story about one, which is how he settled on the Rangers. He combined that with a nightmare he once had about a towering machine hunting people down through a forest. The result was War Machine, starring Alan Ritchson, which you can now watch on Netflix.
Writer: Patrick Hughes and James Beaufort
Details: 105 minutes

One of the more common concerns writers have when sending me a script for notes is, “Are my characters well developed?” “Did I do a good job creating characters with flaws that you care about?” These are good questions to ask. If we don’t like your characters, if we don’t want to root for them, the rest of the script doesn’t matter. It’s hard to get engaged in anything if we’re not swept up in the characters who are taking us on the journey.

However, every so often, someone writes a script that focuses TOO MUCH on character development, to the detriment of the story. This usually occurs in scripts like these – action scripts where the audience isn’t pressing play because they want to feel a giant swell of emotion. But because they want to have fun. And if you impede on that fun by turning your script into an indie character piece, the audience rebels against you.

The first mistake War Machine makes is having 81’s struggle be an internal one. 81 is struggling with grief, with not doing enough to save his bro, and he holds it all inside, masking it behind a stone face. These are INCREDIBLY risky characters to write because while the character might be going through a million fascinating feelings inside, all the audience sees is a blank frustrated face. It’s nearly impossible to connect with characters like that and the only exception to this issue tends to be because we like the actor playing the part and just want him (the actor) to succeed.

That mistake alone put War Machine behind the 8 ball. So it sucked that that wasn’t even its biggest character development issue. The giant mistake the writer of War Machine made was he whiffed on the character arc. In order to explain what went wrong, we should discuss the beginner, intermediate, and advanced tiers of character development.

For beginner screenwriting character development, the writer doesn’t even care about development. So they won’t give the character anything going on. In the rare case where they do, they give the character something simplistic, like “they do drugs.” These characters feel empty because there’s no real depth in that.

Next you have intermediate character development, which is how I’d classify War Machine. Often, intermediate character development FEELS like character development, but if you probe it with even the tiniest stick, you see that it’s only mildly effective. 81 had this traumatic experience where he tried to save his brother and failed. And now he’s trying to get over it by doing what his brother would’ve wanted – cross the finish line and become a Ranger.

The lure of character development like this is that it *feels* really intense and like character development is happening. I mean, gosh, the guy couldn’t save his brother! How can that not be character development!?

Let me explain why.

Because 81 did all that he could. 81 tried with every ounce of his being to save his brother and then his brother died. So then where is the growth needed from that? If you already did everything you could then where is there space for growth?

You see, for character development to resonate with readers, there must be growth. And, in this case, 81 already did everything he could to save his brother. Which means internally, from a character development perspective, he’s just spinning his wheels. There’s nothing more we need to see this character do.

Now, if you want to get technical, you could argue that 81 trying to cross the finish line in honor of his brother’s death is development. But is it? I guess in a tiny way it is. He feels a little better about fulfilling the promise to his brother of becoming a ranger. But, again, 81 isn’t actually overcoming anything. I mean, seriously, who the hell cares if he gets across the line or not? I was more interested in whether he was going to destroy this machine.

Okay, let’s move on to the main attraction. If we know what beginner character development looks like and we know what intermediate character development looks like, what does ADVANCED character development look like? All it takes is another Netflix movie that aced it in this category to teach us the lesson.

Remember The Ritual? That’s advanced character development. Why? BECAUSE THE MAIN CHARACTER’S FLAW BEGAN WITH A CHOICE.

I want you to remember that word when it comes to character development: CHOICE

If your character has a choice to do something, and they make THE WRONG CHOICE, that means they have room to grow. The rest of your movie is about them growing so that, in the end, they can make the RIGHT CHOICE. The ability to make the right choice in the end is how you show them grow, and when done well, creates truly memorable character development.

So, if you didn’t see The Ritual, the beginning of the movie has our main character go to a convenience store with his buddy, go to buy something in the back, when a robber comes in. The robber starts threatening the checker and his friend, while our hero hides. In this moment, our hero has a choice. The robber doesn’t know he’s there. He could sneak up on him and try and save his friend. It would be dangerous though. He could get hurt or killed. So he decides to stay hidden. And, as a result, his friend is killed.

By making the wrong choice it opens the door for our character to grow over the course of the story. The movie jumps forward one year with our hero joining his friends on a camping trip and they gradually stumble into a dangerous coven, which will eventually force our hero to make a similar choice. That choice will show us whether he’s grown (developed) or not. If he has, we will feel a swell of emotion due to the fact that the writer properly set up his journey to get to a point where he can change.

Getting back to War Machine, the one-two punch of an interior (and therefore inaccessible) character and a character arc that doesn’t require any development, leaves the emotional side of the movie feeling empty. Which must’ve come as a hard pill to swallow for the writer and director, who clearly put a ton of work into the character side of the script.

But welcome to the evils of screenwriting. Effort doesn’t always equal execution. Especially if you only kind of know what you’re doing as a screenwriter.

And here’s what must really hurt about putting all of this work into the main character only for it to give back nothing. By spending all that time developing 81, the writer didn’t have any time to set up all these other characters in the regiment!!  I mean, we didn’t know ANNNNNYYYYBODDDDY in this group. There was one guy who I maybe could’ve classified “Funny Guy.” But that was the extent of the character development for the rest of the characters. Which made this an extremely empty experience. We didn’t care about anybody else here.

Obviously, they were trying to make a modern-day Predator. In doing so, they should’ve studied that movie more closely. Because one of the many brilliant things about that movie is that they knew they didn’t have time to set up all these characters. So they leaned into archetypes and stereotypes.

Those are often seen as bad words in screenwriting but when you’re writing action, adventure, or horror movies, the extended cast should be archetypes and stereotypes because that’s all you have time to set up. Lean into one guy being a big oaf who thinks that guns solve everything. Lean into the guy who breaks down psychologically because his mind can’t handle what’s happening. Lean into “the mystic.” The 80s were the greatest decade of mastering the two-dimensional character. And I know that sounds like a back-handed compliment but there’s a time and a place for two-dimensional characters. Even if you don’t like the sound of that, I promise you it’s better than what War Machine did, which was give us a group of zero-dimensional characters.

The thing that sucks is that despite all of these character problems, the movie still could’ve been enjoyable had they nailed the war machine. But the war machine sucked! It only had one move. To identify you with its red beam and then shoot at you with its little sparkler bullets. And that was it! It was so lame!

As a sci-fi writer, one of your big jobs is to utilize your imagination so that you give us stuff we couldn’t have come up with ourselves. If you would’ve asked 50 million random people to come up with how this war machine attacked people, nearly all of them would’ve come up with this exact same idea that this writer did. Which is how you know you’re not doing enough. This machine needed to evolve. It needed to do cooler things as the story went on. It did none of that. And when you combine that with a total whiff on the character development, you get a bummer of a movie that wasn’t even worth the time it took to watch it.

[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the stream
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Hughes made a classic mistake here. He fell in love with this idea of a guy trying to get across the “finish line” of a special ops military trainee session. He then retroactively built everything around that storyline. You can feel that in the final product. All the focus was on that storyline whereas the actual hook of the movie – the War Machine – got very little attention. As I pointed out, it did one boring move the whole movie. As the development of your screenplay evolves, you need to evolve the focus so that it takes advantage of the coolest thing about your movie. The coolest thing about this movie is not a guy crossing the Rangers trainee finish line. It’s the fucking War Machine. So make the War Machine a lot fucking cooler.

Make sure to grab a feature screenplay consultation or logline consultation over the weekend!

When they announced this new Jurassic Park movie seemingly minutes after the latest trilogy had ended, I threw up my arms in frustration, went out on my balcony, screamed at the Hollywood sign, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”, and proceeded to get a visit from the police 15 minutes later telling me that some of my neighbors were “scared.” I explained to them that, yeah, they should be scared! Typically it takes five years before rebooting a franchise. Jurassic Park just did it in five minutes!!

You see Mr. Officer, one of Hollywood’s biggest mistakes is that they don’t build movies around scripts. They build scripts around movies. This is despite the fact that the best movies we’ve ever seen have come from building the movie around the script. It RARELY works the other way around. To be frank, it only works when they get lucky!

So when they don’t even PRETEND that they’re going to sit down and take a bunch of pitches and find the best one and have the writer write it, I say go F yourself. Cause that means you don’t care about us. Okay officer?

I’m happy to report that I’m now on a special list for LA County titled, “Suspicious People to Look Out For.” Whatever. Here I am trying to save the movie industry. If I have to publicly humiliate myself on that hill to do the job, then by gosh, I’m going to do it!

However, as I began collecting data on the movie’s performance, I was shocked to watch it climb up the box office charts, finishing as the number 2 live action movie of 2025. And I was pissssssed about it. Because it meant audiences were willing to show up for a bad movie, reinforcing this toxic belief studios have that you can just keep feeding the masses crap and they’ll buy it. This would surely lead to more quickly produced franchise entries that sucked.

I eventually forgot about Jurassic World Rebirth and went on with my life but then last week it showed up on Netflix and I thought, “Well, it’s free now. And there are literally no other movies streaming at the moment. Let’s check it out.” I crossed my arms, fired up the Roku, and dared the movie to entertain me.

You know what?

It did.

Mikey likes it! (Bonus Scriptshadow points if you know that reference)

How in the world did this happen?

As per usual in these parts, I sat in silence while listening to the gentle sounds of Youtube-generated waves for twenty minutes before the answer emerged.

Universal made one big change with this film. They decided to make one awesome Jurassic Park movie and who the hell gives a shit about a franchise that comes after it. I realized that the second they took that path, it freed them up to explore all sorts of cool story possibilities that weren’t available to them had they designed a trilogy.

They essentially made their version of “Aliens meets Jurassic Park.” A bunch of mercenary types go to the Jurassic equator, which houses the last of the dinosaurs, to collect some blood samples in the hopes of turning the result into a miracle life extension. Their plan goes astray when a family on a boat throws up a mayday signal.

You might be saying, “But Carson, that plot isn’t anything special.” It isn’t. It’s actually quite simple. And that’s the point. You want simple plots in these movies. These films fall apart fast once you start stacking plotlines one on top of the other. Plot overload creates fuzzy story engines.

Let me explain something to you about screenwriting when it comes to big concepts. Your plot’s only purpose is to become a vessel that allows you to explore what’s unique about your premise as easily as possible.

In other words, the plot’s job here is to make it as easy as possible to get our characters into as many cool dinosaur-led set-pieces as possible. And that’s exactly what it did.

Our first dino set piece is a giant dinosaur fish-thing attacking a small sailboat. And it’s great! What I loved about it was how simple it was. So many of these set pieces these days are big and busy and convoluted. You don’t know what’s going on half the time. Here, it’s simple! Big fish try to knock over boat. That’s it! So it keeps swimming around and bumping the boat. And it keeps getting worse and worse for the family on the boat. And it’s riveting! I was on the edge of my seat.

The second set piece is just as good. Even though it ups the complexity, it still keeps things simple enough that we understand the scenario. That’s the trick here. You can get more complex with a set piece AS LONG AS YOU EXPLAIN TO US WHAT’S HAPPENING AND WE ARE CRYSTAL CLEAR ABOUT IT. If we’re only 80% there when it comes to understanding the scene, that means the maximum we can enjoy the set piece is at 80% of what you’ve created.

So here, we’ve moved to the mercenary boat. The family has been saved by the mercs. And these five semi-big dinosaurs start swimming around the boat in a menacing way. And the dinosaur expert quickly explains that these are special dinosaurs that actually team-up with other species of dinosaurs to hunt. And so they’re helping that big scary fish hunt this ship. And that’s it! That’s the scene.

And it’s great! Cause it’s so clear. The mercs are trying to outrun the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are whizzing around the boat and try to snatch up the humans in their mouths. Guardrails are broken, humans are holding on for their lives. Hungry dinosaurs get closer and closer. It’s good old fashioned set piece storytelling without all the excess nonsense that has destroyed the Marvel Universe with their abysmally over-constructed fuzzy set pieces.

And I have to give props to David Koepp, who came up with the concept and wrote the script. I’ve always seen Koepp as a glorified studio stenographer. He’s never written anything that’s had any major impact on me. But he kicks ass here. Because he understands what I said earlier. Which is that these huge concept movies are not about anything other than building a story that creates great set pieces.

The T-Rex set piece here is a show-stopper. It’s better than the T-Rex jeep scene in the original movie. And again – I know I’m beating a dead dinohippus here – but it’s because it’s so simple. It’s just a T-Rex stalking the family on an inflatable raft down the stream. So the T-Rex is sort of dancing around from side to side on the stream as it picks at this strange contraption full of potential hors d’oeuvres. It’s actually quite brilliant spatially. The T-Rex is on the right side, then the left side, at one point when the water gets deep, it swims under them.

But the point is, it’s such a simple setup. And that creates clear GSU. If you do that for your set pieces, you’re winning most of the time.

Another thing Koepp did that impressed me was he created two different groups of people to follow on the island. This allowed him to create twice as many set pieces.

I think what Koepp realized, possibly in early drafts, was that if he only followed a team of mercs, that they would be able to stand their ground against the dinosaurs. I mean they have giant guns and weapons. By creating a family as well, he could place characters into situations that the audience genuinely didn’t think they could survive. Like that T-Rex scene. You’re sitting there thinking, “There is literally no way they can survive against this thing.”

So, let’s ask the most important question of all here. Or, at least the most important question in my Universe. What does this mean for Star Wars? Cause I want to save Star Wars. And when a big franchise does a good job, I ask if the same approach might be able to resuscitate my favorite dying franchise.

The big “what I learned” from Jurassic World Rebirth is that when you don’t have to worry about trilogies, you can just create a good singular story concept. And that’s when I realized, this is the same track that Star Wars is already taking. Both Mandalorian & Grogu and Starfighter are standalone movies. So, maybe I’ve been too hard on them. Maybe they did the same thing as Koepp – just figure out what the best story to tell is and tell it.

If that happens and those movies are awesome, I’ll be the first to cheer, just like I’m cheering this movie on now. I suggest all of you do the same. Fire up Netflix and enjoy yourself a heck of a well-written action-adventure film.

Genre: Indie/Drama/Horror/Thriller/Sci-Fi
Premise: A server shows up for her Waffle House shift only to find that one of the customers is a threatening scary man with a list of rules for the evening.
About: There’s a lot to unpack here so stick with me. I created this review BEFORE I looked up the details about the script. All I knew is that it was a Black List script and that it was being made by Plan B, Brad Pitt’s company. However, after I read the script and did the research to find out more about the project, I could not find anything regarding this script getting purchased by Plan B. The only indication that Plan B was involved was in the Black List listing. However, I learned that there really is a Waffle House Index. It was created by FEMA and used to gauge disaster severity. If Waffle House closes or serves a limited menu, damage is extreme. So, I guess that was the genesis of the idea. But here’s where I think the Black List got mixed up. Within the real Waffle House Index, there’s a real “Plan B.” Plan B refers to emergency backup response plans activated when conditions overwhelm normal operations. In other words, I think the Black List thought that meant Brad Pitt’s Plan B production house bought this script. Maybe they did. So I’m still not positive. But it was probably a mistake. Anyway, that will provide context when you read this review, which I wrote before I knew any of this.
Writer: Andrew Nunnelly
Details: 105 pages

The Waffle House contains one of the funniest, and also most transformative, memories of my life.  Heck, it might have even turned me into an adult.

My college tennis team was traveling through the south playing a bunch of schools. One night, while staying at a motel, we were all starving, as we often were. And there was this Waffle House across the street that stated on its billboard: “All you can eat – $5.99.” I’m not sure even the words “tons of beautiful naked ladies” would’ve had more power over us in that moment. So we scuttled across the highway to engorge ourselves.

Keep in mind it’s almost midnight. And we’re in the middle of nowhere. But we might as well have been walking into Times Square on New Years Eve when we opened the door to this place. I’m talking wall to wall people. We had to wait twenty minutes just to sit down.

Giddy at anticipating my first Waffle House experience, I looked around and noticed something interesting. There was only one waiter for the entire diner. There had to be 200 people in here. The waiter was a big tall black gentleman who somehow looked like he was having a blast in spite of the chaos he’d been thrown into.

Now, because there was only one waiter, we had to wait a long time to order. How long, you ask? You’re probably thinking half an hour, right? No. An hour? Yeah, I wish. Come on, it couldn’t have been more than 90 minutes? We had to wait TWO HOURS just for the waiter to come to us.

Now, the good thing about waiting that long was that we all had TONS OF TIME to look through the endless Waffle House menu. Each of us had carefully memorized our complex orders of eggs and biscuits and toast and burgers, all of which were smothered in various ingredients specific to the Waffle House universe. Dare I say waiting that long made the process of ordering almost euphoric, seeing as we were finally going to eat like kings.

So, when the waiter finally came to us, I found it odd that he didn’t actually have a notepad with him. There were eight of us on the team. How was he going to memorize all our orders?? Maybe this is how The Waffle House worked? The waiters all had ‘A Beautiful Mind’ level brain recollection?

Well, we laboriously began giving him our “all you can eat” orders one by one. Each of us had picked like five things on the menu. And being stupid college students, we’re adding and subtracting certain things from each item (“Oh, and no pickles on the burger…”).

I have to give it to this waiter. He was so patient in the way he listened to every single word – for an order, mind you, that probably took as long for us to say as the length of time we’d been waiting for him to finally get to us.

And after we were finally finished, he looked all of us in the eyes, smiled, and without pretense said, “You got it. 10 waffles.” And walked off.

Now, in this younger version of myself, I had never experienced anything like this. That a place could promise something and just totally lie. The shock of realizing that I would not be eating all I could eat that night for $5.99 was devastating. So I was baffled. I was frozen. I was confused. And then I looked around and I noticed that every single customer in this establishment had a single waffle on their plate.

That’s when I noticed the most shocking detail of all. I had to peer back at an awkward angle to see it but my eyes followed our waiter into the back area where I then watched him begin cooking our waffles. That is correct. This man was the waiter AND THE COOK for the entire restaurant full of 200 people.

For those who don’t understand what the Waffle House legend is about. That sums it up.

Jane is a late 20-something server at a North Carolina Waffle House. We’re told in the description of the screenplay that this will be the worst day of Jane’s life. In fact, she’s already struggling not to cry.

She shows up on her night shift where she says hi to her gay co-server, Tommy. Tommy senses something is off with Jane but she doesn’t want to talk about it. Jane starts her shift where she mostly deals with regulars.

There are two stoner dudes and a stoner girl. There’s an Amazon guy with his young daughter. There’s the town drunk. Oh, and there’s “Scrubs Guy” who has been trying to drum up the courage to ask Jane out forever. Jane already knows he likes her and she might even like him but right now she’s just trying to get through her shift.

Her shift gets considerably more difficult, though, when a dude in a poncho pulls a gun on her and says that he’s got ten rules. The rules are weird. Jane must call herself “the helper.” If the helper doesn’t act normal, everyone dies. Eggs must always be runny. The guy basically threatens to kill everyone if Jane doesn’t do what he says.

But the guy is oddly laid back about the whole thing and when Amazon Guy gets a chance, he pulls out his own weapon and shoots Poncho. In his dying breaths, Poncho tells Jane that there’s a secret magical bunker underneath the freezer in the back and everybody needs to get in there right away because the end of times are coming.

After he dies, a nuclear explosion happens in the far off distance. This is followed by flooding and crocodiles coming up and snatching customers away. Jane, meanwhile, is all up in her feelings as we learn that, earlier that day, her mom died after a long bout with cancer. So Jane is really super depressed about it.

Jane and Scrubs guy work together to stay alive amongst all this madness (spoilers) only for a spaceship to eventually arrive and Scrubs Guy to say he’s some sort of alien and the time has come for Jane to move into the next realm or something. Because she’s special. Will she do it? Do you care? Grab that script to find out!

The script doesn’t work.

I actually spent a long time sitting around and trying to figure out why it didn’t work. After an elongated period of chilling, I finally figured it out. The script is built as this really wild ride. I mean you’ve got mass shooters, the New World Order, people predicting the future, nuclear explosions, secret Waffle House bunkers, mass flooding, giant crocodiles, spaceships.

I actually like all those things. And, if they were built into the right movie, I’d love it.

The problem is that the main character here is written like she’s starring in Manchester By The Sea. Her mom died earlier that day. She can’t stop talking about the cancer and what it did to her. Almost everybody else in the story is super serious and/or depressed as well. Which completely sours all the fun that could’ve come from these wild plot developments.

This is the rare time I would tell a writer: TOO MUCH CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.

How can you possibly have too much character development? THIS IS HOW. When your wacky, fun premise is contrasted against a “For Your Consideration” campaign for the lead character.

The two worlds just never meshed. In fact, they were always at odds. And that’s what I was feeling during each scene but couldn’t put my finger on at the time. Good scenes are supposed to flow. They should feel effortless to the reader. That’s not to say there shouldn’t be conflict or bumps in the road. But they should feel intentional and purposefully constructed. These scenes always felt like they were battling themselves. And the character vs. plot issue is probably why. Maybe there was some other stuff going on too but that was the main reason.

“But Carson: Plan B liked it.”

Correct. So what does that mean? How can we learn from this, because despite me disliking the script, it IS a success story in the script world. A huge production company snatched it up. So, what’s going on there?

My guess is that they liked the character development aspect. Because that’s what they’re known for. They like making intimate character explorations. And maybe they thought, this is the first time we can do that and turn it into something bigger.

But they’re wrong. The movie’s never going to work. How do I know? Because I’m right 99% of the time when I read a script about whether it will turn into a good movie or not. The collision of a deep independent character piece and a wacky invasion movie just aren’t going to come together in holy matrimony. They’re both going to leave each other at the altar.

The only thing that can save this movie is if they embrace how weird and fun it is. I mean, if you’ve got nuclear explosions and crocodiles and aliens and you’re asking me to watch a super serious cry-fest about a mom who died of cancer? You haven’t executed your script properly.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: If the tone of your characters is too far away from the tone of your plot, your script will be at odds with itself in every scene.

Does anybody really know why Scream 7 made 60 million bucks? The answer is no. So instead of focusing on that, I’m going to focus on the success of a certain underdog show, Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Some people are saying this is already the show of the year. Cancel all voting. The decision has been made. With scores like 9.5 and 9.6 for episodes on IMDB, it’s a hard case to argue against.

A few weeks ago, I talked about how risky this show was. It took this giant franchise and eliminated almost all of its giant variables. You’re never going to see a dragon on Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. What’s funny about the success of the show is that this is exactly what the people at Lucasfilm originally said they were going to do with Star Wars on TV. They could finally tell these small intimate character-driven stories. And then they just completely freaked out and went in the opposite direction. Meanwhile, the entire budget of Knight could fit into the cost of one episode of Andor.

Why is this relevant? The answer to that is something it’s taken me 30 something years to figure out. Which is that franchises are built on characters, not on spectacle. And the mistake that 99% of them make is they never restock the character cabinet. Don’t get me wrong. They try. But they try in the same way that I try and cook fish for dinner. I put in solid effort. But am I determined to make the best fish dinner ever? No. And when it comes to billion dollar franchises, you have to try and create the best characters ever. That’s not an exaggeration. Great characters are part and parcel with the best franchises of all time.

This is the first time in a long time that I’ve seen a big franchise truly say “screw everything else. we’re going to build a story on character alone.” But that approach is a blessing in disguise. Because when you know that no spectacle is coming to save you, you have no choice but to build characters who can carry a show all on their own. It really makes you think: What kind of characters do audiences truly fall in love with?

And the most time-tested archetype is the underdog. So Knight of the Seven Kingdoms built two of them. The giant teddy bear of a man, Dunk, and the defiant undersized boy, Egg.

A common question I ask writers in my screenplay consultations is: Would we still want to watch your protagonist even if you stripped away this story that was happening around him? And, with these two, the answer is a resounding yes. The world kicks them around so much that we’re determined to see them overcome that adversity.

This is why I think, if Lucasfilm were smart, they’d hire twenty writers, shut down for two years, and come up with 200 characters. Really draw out who these characters are, what makes them likable or interesting, what flaws are holding them back. And then, at the end of the process, vote on the Top 10. I GUARANTEE YOU if they did that, they’d come up with characters ten times as good as any characters they’ve created in the last decade.

Cause Lucasfilm has lost sight of the fact that Star Wars was not built on spectacle. It was built on character. And until they refill the character coffers, they’re deluding themselves that they’re going to make another good Star Wars movie.

Getting back to Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, I suggest everybody here watch it. It’s only 6 episodes long. Which is another great creative choice the show made. It knew how long its story was and wasn’t going to artificially stretch it out and dilute things for more episodes (cough cough, Andor).

But what you’re watching the show for is to get to those final two episodes. Cause the final two episodes are really special, each in their own way. Unfortunately, there’s no way around giving you these screenwriting tips without discussing the specifics of the episodes. So major spoilers follow.

In the 4th episode, Dunk beats up one of the members of royalty, I think a Targaryen (I’m not a Game of Thrones nerd so bear with me). So he’s slotted to be executed. However, he can challenge the guy to a duel, which he does. But the Targaryen kid he attacked is a wuss, so he invokes the Rule of 7. What that means is that the kid and six other Targaryens will take on Dunk and six other fighters he recruits.

The situation is a joke. The Targaryens are far superior fighters, of course. So destruction is a formality. But Dunk isn’t a guy who gives up (yet another likable trait about him) and he goes around town, trying to recruit fighters. The writing cleverly pays off many of the people Dunk met along his journey since the first episode, and he’s able to get five other fighters together.

Unfortunately, the rules state that you must have seven fighters. Any less and you forfeit. So, here’s where the major screenwriting lessons begin. We’re on the day of the fight. We’ve reached the battlefield. Dunk has minutes left to somehow find another fighter.

So he makes a plea to the galley. In a Braveheart-like speech, he begs someone to be brave and join him. And after this emotional speech, this giant man stands up. Dunk’s plea actually worked. He’s got his seventh guy. And then this giant man lets out a giant fart. The whole galley laughs. The man was fucking with him. Dunk will have to forfeit.

What the writers do so well here is they make you believe that our hero is safe, that he’s found his solution. And then they rip that solution away from us. And what we feel is, “Oh my god, what now?” I cannot emphasize how powerful that question is. When you have a reader asking, “Oh my god, what now?” They genuinely have no idea how your hero is going to survive. That’s storytelling gold right there. That’s when you have the reader in the palm of your hand.

But it gets better.

One of Dunk’s fighters shows up and he’s acting strange. As he’s getting his battle armor prepared, Dunk asks him a question about how he’s going to fight. And the guy says, ‘that’s not relevant anymore.’ And then he takes his horse to the other side of the battlefield. He’s switched sides to the Targaryens!

This is true excellence in writing.

“Oh my god, what now?” has just turned into “Holy shit, how the fuck is he going to get out of this??”

So many writers are TERRIFIED of doing this because it means extra work. They’re already unsure of how they’re going to solve the “one knight down” problem. Now they’ve got to find TWO KNIGHTS in five minutes! Writers don’t want to do all that work. So they never create that level of doubt, despite the fact that that level of doubt turns drama into super-drama.

But it gets better.

I don’t want to make this post 5000 words long so we’ll jump ahead. Against all odds, Dunk is able to get his two extra knights.

So, when the battle starts, the very first thing that happens is Dunk gets slammed off his horse. I mean he gets obliterated. The man doesn’t even get in one good swing. And then, as he’s stumbling to get up, he gets whacked in his helmet by a mace, tumbling to the ground again. And then he gets hit again. And then he gets hit again. AND THEN HE GETS HIT AGAIN.

Every time he’s hit, he becomes more and more injured. More unable to move.

And now we’ve taken “Holy shit, how the fuck is he going to get out of this??” and turned it into, “Holy Christ, this man is done for, there is no way in any scenario even with plot armor that he can get out of this.”

Keep in mind, I don’t know anything about the actual book covering these characters so I don’t know if Dunk dies in the book. I was genuinely convinced he was toast. Cause there was absolutely nothing he was doing that indicated he could survive.

But it gets better.

Dunk finally stumbles into a showdown with the Targaryen kid. And this kid just wallops him. He stabs him in the leg. He stabs him in the stomach. He stabs him in the eye. If Dunk’s situation was abysmal before? It had now turned calamitous.

I’ve never been so sure that someone was a goner.

And again: THAT IS STORYTELLING NIRVANA. It is the place where you most want your reader – convinced that there is no way out.

The crazy thing is, the writers add SIX TO SEVEN more moments that make Dunk’s situation EVEN WORSE. So it keeps getting worse for him. I haven’t seen a writer create that level of uncertainty for the hero since Osculum Infame, which is why I fell in love with that script.

Since there’s no way for me to cover the next screenwriting tip without spoiling the episode’s ending, I’ll just say that, against all odds, somehow, Dunk succeeds. But like any well-written story, there are scars that will live on forever in his life. Good people in the seven die. It’s not all ponies and roses by any means.

It’s a great example of how to push your hero to the limit and convince the reader that they won’t survive, so that when they finally do, it’s the best feeling in the world.

Look man, there aren’t many movies or shows these days that can truly make me feel something. Only because whenever I read a script, I’m always aware of the screenwriting matrix as I’m reading. I know what the writer is doing at all times and am judging whether they’re succeeding or failing.

But this battle? I was completely and utterly lost inside of it. I was so worried for Dunk and convinced he was toast. I was just hoping he somehow someway would find a way to survive.

Okay, moving on to the final episode. I’ve never seen a final episode like this! It was short. It had almost zero story to it. It only existed to wrap things up because ending the show after the Rule of 7 battle would’ve been too abrupt.

As a result, I’m watching this final episode with a lot of curiosity. Basically, Dunk just goes around and says bye and thank you to everyone he met on his journey. I was trying to identify some sort of structure that was holding the episode together.

And then I finally realized what the episode was about. It was about: Are Dunk and Egg going to end up together or is this it for them? It’s a powerful question. But there’s no doubt that it’s a tiny story engine to build your season finale around. I would go so far as to say, this is the tiniest story engine I’ve ever seen for a season finale.

But then it clicked. This was a show built on character, always had been, and so of course it ended on character. What’s remarkable is that it pulled that off inside a franchise the size of Game of Thrones, where audiences show up expecting spectacle, shock, something enormous. And yet the finale asked nothing more than a simple question about who these two people are to each other, and it was enough. More than enough. That only works if you’ve done the foundational work first, if you’ve built characters so vivid and so specific that the audience is genuinely invested in the answer. Do that well enough, and you can get away with the impossible.

Did you guys watch Knight of the Seven Kingdoms? What did you think?