The Quarter-Billion Dollar Script Secret

I have maybe…MAYBE…expanded the outline for my new screenplay to about 15 pages (started as a single page) and as expected, as it unpacks some characters are starting to talk to me. That is a good sign.

While behavior is our closest view of character, words are a powerful secondary source of characterization, and it is quite possible that the very BEST is the “gap” between what people say (indicating what they think, or what they want you to believe they think) and observable reality. This is where “playing in the negative space” becomes entertaining AF.

The next step is a trick learned from Jordan Peele: I’m going to write the trailer. That’s right, I’m going to write the trailer for a movie that doesn’t exist, and a script that hasn’t been written yet.

Why? Because a trailer demands that I understand my story enough to sell the experience to an audience. What is it about, in terms of the initiating event? The trailer has to establish characters (who is the story about?) and the thing that motivates them to act (what do they want? What stands in their way?) the dynamics of the first act, leading to an implied initiating event (you can “trick” the audience here, and they’ll love you for it if you pull it off) leading the second act, which is the longest. I’d say not to tell them anything important beyond the mid-act climax, and it is fun to scramble the order of snippets so that they don’t understand what is really happening…but it still engages them.