In 2012, former Scriptnotes Producer Stuart Friedel wrote up a set of lessons gathered from prepping episodes featuring a Three Page Challenge. Check out these evergreen tips!
First I want to say thank you to everyone who entered the Three Page Challenge. Iâve genuinely enjoyed reading your work, and the bite-sized, three-pages-at-a-time format is perfect for someone with my generationâs attention span.
With more than 500 submissions, itâs difficult to comment on the content in any general group sense. There were no oft-repeated themes, no heavily skewed genre distributions, nothing to be gleaned about the zeitgeist as perceived by aspiring screenwriters. Vampire and zombie submissions numbers were exactly where youâd expect.
But thereâs plenty to talk about regarding presentation.
Aside from the Three Page Challenge, I donât read submissions for John. But I have been a reader in the past, mostly reading newly represented writers looking to get hired for assignments, often their first.
So thatâs the basis of comparison here: not established writersâ screenplays, but other young writersâ.
In general, these all looked fine. But there were a few issues common enough that they are worth pointing out.
Content
Floweriness
Itâs good when your writing is interesting, but itâs too much when flowery description obscures the intent of the sentence.
JIM, 23, floats along the sidewalk, effortless.
Wait â is he literally floating? Better might be:
JIM, 23, jogs along the sidewalk effortlessly, as if floating.
Remember: your goal is not to write pretty words; itâs to write words that clearly express a pretty scene. Colorfulness should clarify your intent, not confuse the reader.
Clumping
Pages need room to breathe. Break up long description into multiple paragraphs. Break up long runs of dialogue with short description. Use sluglines.
Write your screenplay in a way that encourages it to be read at the same pace as the movie thatâs playing in your head. If the words on the page are shoved together, or if paragraphs run on too long, thatâs how the reader will read the scene.
Formatting
Charactersâ names should be written in UPPERCASE the first time we meet them, and only the first time we meet them
Most of you got the first-time-we-meet-them part of this correct, but a lot of the samples continued to put charactersâ names in all caps, sometimes inconsistently.1
Important sounds should also be in UPPERCASE
When sneakers crunch gravel, âCRUNCHâ should be in caps, not âsneakers.â2 Uppercase should be used whenever something deserves special attention, from the reader and/or from a specific department3: an important sound, detail, or effect, a vital prop, a newly introduced character that will need to be cast, a noteworthy piece of wardrobe, etc.
Presenting characters and content
When we meet a named character, their age should be mentioned
This can be done naturally in the character description, or can simply be put in parentheses after the characterâs name. Itâs fine to say (late-20s) rather than (28).
Even a seemingly-detailed description can create an ambiguous picture if there is no mention of age. When your salt-and-pepper haired businessman flirts with the girl at the bar as heâs done at a million other bars with a million other girls, is the reader seeing a prematurely graying recent college grad who is no stranger to a night out? Or a single fifty-something who is still going through the motions but is wishing he had someone waiting for him at home?
Vary character names
As much as possible, donât use the same first letter for multiple characters. Readers donât sound out every word, especially words that repeat often, like character names. You canât casually breeze past âAlvinâ and âArwyn;â every time either of them is mentioned you have to pause, interrupt your flow, and take special note of which one is speaking. Donât make readers do this.
Give minor characters descriptive names
âLanky Copâ and âStuttering Copâ are more interesting, more visual and easier to differentiate than âCop #1â and âCop #2.â You want me to be imagining the scene as Iâm reading; make it easy for me.
If something is held back from the audience, hold it back from the reader
Donât spoil your big reveal by clueing us in early. And similarly, donât falsely convince yourself youâve given your audience information just because youâve given it to the reader.
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Youâll find exceptions to this rule, particularly in some TV formats that use uppercase every time. But for screenplays, the first-time-rule is almost gospel.
Although, to be fair, there are instances where âSNEAKERSâ should be in caps, too. Like if those specific sneakers later turn out to be the detail that gets the bad guy caught.
Itâs almost always both. If somethingâs important enough that you want to call the readerâs attention to it, itâs important enough that it will be someoneâs job to make sure it makes it into the film.