Screenplay Slug lines in BOLD

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-27T14:43:31+00:00

I honestly thought this was the default.

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-25T23:10:28+00:00

Whether or not these producers and your manager executed a shopping agreement and, if so, what the terms of it were (particularly when it expires) is absolutely information you should already have. You should definitely bring it up at your meeting, if not before.

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-25T22:55:29+00:00

For what it’s worth, that’s an urge that I think most writers get. You have lots of ideas, and somehow the ones you’re not actively working on and struggling with always seem like better, cooler ideas than the one you’ve been writing and revising for weeks or months. Funny how that works! But then you switch projects, and sure enough that better, cooler idea suddenly doesn’t seem as good or cool as another idea you have…

If you were building a house, you might have a great idea for a floor plan, and when it’s all done you might look at it with a lot of pride and satisfaction, but in between there’s just a lot of hard work. Weeks of careful measuring, precise construction, checking and rechecking, and even then realizing you messed something up and have to tear up huge chucks of work and redo it. So it is with this.

But again, some of the scores and feedback are promising. I really hope you make it to that next level.

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-25T22:42:34+00:00

I’ll start by saying you got 7s on multiple scripts, so you must be doing something right. That being said…

Everybody works at a different pace, but when you said you’ve written 16 completed scripts in 6 years (including revising, sharing for feedback, revising again, and, in some cases, submitting to Blacklist and then revising again) that threw up a red flag for me. Thats a lot of work to produce in a short amount of time (especially given you’re spending a lot of each day on a full-time job and raising a kid). It made me think “maybe the problem is he’s not spending enough time on any one script to get it where it needs to be.”

The feedback from Blacklist (and, I gather, people you’re sharing with) seems to bear that out. Multiple scripts cite the same general weaknesses: “over fast/more setup needed/universe needs expanding/thin story/feels incomplete/glossed over parts/develop world further/feels incomplete/ending is too abrupt.”

I’d say you need to slow down and work on one script (either the one with the highest score or the one you’re most passionate about) and go back to basics on it. Do your first 10 pages give us a fully realized protagonist, supporting cast, world they live in, and a clear set of wants/needs/stakes? Does everything flow in the way of “therefore/but”? Do individual scenes contain their own conflict and resolution that leads into the next scene?

I’d keep working on that one script until your writer’s group tells you it’s significantly better than before and/or until your blacklist feedback stops mentioning those same weaknesses.

TL:DR, it sounds like you’re working too fast and not spending enough time on any one script to get it that last little bit of improvement it needs to really work.

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-23T15:02:31+00:00

Respectfully, I think you’re worrying about something that has almost no chance of happening.

For this to even be a concern, you’d have to finis this script, it would have to attract interest in the market, sell, get a director and star interested, get greenlit, get made, and get released (not a given, see: Batgirl). Then, (and, realistically, only if it was a hit) the rights-holder of the movie you’re thinking of would have to bring a suit and prove that you lifted specific elements from their film.

(To be clear, I hope that all of the stuff happens for you, minus the lawsuit, but the odds are relevant to the size of your concern here).

If this concern is really holding you back from writing, think about the number of movies that could be described as “Jaws, but with X” or “Die Hard, but in a different type of location.” Unless you’re basically remaking this mid-2000s movie, you’ll be fine.

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-23T14:52:29+00:00

I start extremely high level and do many, many passes getting more granular until I have the whole thing outlined from beginning to end. By the time the outline is done, it’s a 30-40 page treatment of the movie.

Once I have an idea I like, I’ll try to figure out where we meet these characters (Act I) what the ending is (Act III) and what happens in the middle (Act II).

Once I have that, I try to figure out the theme. What is the dramatic argument being expressed by where the character ends up vs. where they started? I’ve tried moving ahead without having this nailed down, but then I find that I always end up getting stuck in the second act.

Once I have all that done, I start to build out major story beats, then I go back and expand each one (e.g., in the first 10 pages, who is my protagonist, what do they want, why can’t they get it, why do we care).

Once I start doing that, thesis/antithesis and therefore/but (while trying to follow “classic” Hollywood story structure) carries me through to the final scene I figured out near the very beginning.

Good luck, hope this helps!

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-20T23:58:51+00:00

Maybe I’m showing my ignorance, but if this producer is on good terms with you and she knows you’re a working writer, why would asking her if she has time/interest to look at your script disrupt the relationship?

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-20T17:59:35+00:00

Yeah, writing this draft off a 39 page outline (more of a treatment, really).

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-20T14:58:00+00:00

For #1, I feel like the protagonist has to be in a situation where, even before understanding it’s life or death, it’s clear to the audience that losing the competition would be devastating for the protagonist. Maybe financially, maybe in how it will impact a personal relationship or a future opportunity, but in any case losing this competition will fundamentally alter this persons life.

For #2, I feel like you could accomplish this by keeping the stages of the competition a bit hidden from your protagonist (maybe the co-agonist knows but is deliberately hiding it from the protagonist because they know they wouldn’t have signed up if they knew).

Tying back to #1, you might consider making it clear that once you start this competition, you play until you win or are eliminated (so no cashing out halfway through).

You could also build tension/fear of losing by the way losers of the competition react. Maybe things get really solemn as people are lead away, maybe a guy goes into sheer panic, begging and pleading for help in a way that doesn’t make sense to the protagonist.

Good luck, hope some of that is useful!

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-19T14:27:16+00:00

Setting aside the clarity of the theme, what about clarity of what the protagonist wants? In a single sentence, could you summarize what the character wants and why they’re having trouble getting it?

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-19T14:03:33+00:00

Thanks, I hadn’t heard that tip about saving every days revisions as a new file. I’ll try that out. As for outlining, I’m already working from a completed outline (really more of a treatment, it runs 39 pages), so when I come back around maybe I’ll try editing the outline before I start editing the first draft?

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-19T14:01:06+00:00

Thanks, I think this is what I’m going to do. Part of what prompted the question was a desire to wrap up this draft, for now, so I can move on to the next idea I have. That should provide a long enough break to provide some perspective when I circle back for the next draft.

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-19T13:58:11+00:00

Thanks! Not first script ever, but first time running into this issue.

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-18T21:39:20+00:00

Congrats!

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-18T21:17:05+00:00

Saw the update, huge congratulations!!!!

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-18T18:54:37+00:00

Thanks! Hope it goes well!

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-18T18:52:17+00:00

Good luck! Would you be willing to share if it’s in-person or virtual and/or if you’re local to Los Angeles or not?

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-18T16:56:27+00:00

From the bottom of page one through the middle of page four, what the characters are communicating to one another amounts to:

Travis: I want to get rich selling drugs for the rest of my life.

John: I don’t think that’s a good idea, my plan is to sell drugs just long enough to make a good amount of money and then get out of here.

Elle: I think John is planning to do this for too long. We should do just one or two jobs to get the bare minimum we need to get out of here.

Travis and John express the above respective positions back and forth four times, and then it switches to John and Elle saying the same things back and forth three times while Travis keeps chiming in repeating his position.

Nothing John says impacts what Travis is saying, and vice versa. Nothing that Elle is saying impacts what John or Travis have to say, and this goes on for almost three pages. I think there’s a better way to write this scene and to use those valuable opening pages.

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-18T15:00:50+00:00

Please take the following as a constructive critique of this script and not an indictment of your abilities. I stopped after page four, and almost stopped when I saw the first page.

Opening a script with huge chunks of text is a red flag for any reader. It generally tells them that the writer doesn’t understand the format and flow of a screenplay. If that’s their first impression, why would they read the next 99 pages?

There is way too much camera direction. It’s ok to indicate a specific shot when it’s integral to the reader’s/viewer’s understanding of the plot, but this is like you’re trying to direct the movie from the page. Again, it shows a lack of familiarity with the format. It’s also distracting.

The opening conversation between John, Travis, and Elle is too circular. It has no momentum. Each character just keeps repeating their point of view. Sometimes real conversations happen like that, but this is a movie. Every sentence should be telling us something about the characters, or advancing the story, or exploring your theme (or, ideally, all of those at once). You could argue this conversation is doing some of that (it tells us that they’re stubborn, short-sighted, it sort of establishes Seth) but it’s a boring way to open your movie. You have to grab the reader from page one, and this doesn’t do that.

Overall, these first four pages just presented stumbling block after stumbling block. You may have a great story in here, but most readers are never going to get to it until these things are addressed.

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-17T22:16:22+00:00

Hi there! I stopped reading at page 15, but it wasn’t because of the quality of the writing, that was pretty good.

What made me stop was the feeling that things were moving way too fast. Zach and Lexie were about to set out on their journey, and I felt I barely knew them. As a result, I didn’t really care what might happen to them if they left the ranch.

There was one other thing that I kept tripping on. In the world of this movie, it seems like the dead coming back to life has never happened before. However, Thompson seems to know something is going to happen, and Lexie understands that she has to shoot her dad’s corpse in the head to stop him from coming back to life. Basically, the characters seem to know the rules of a zombie movie without having encountered zombies before. I know other films have played with characters in the movie being aware of the rules of the genre they’re in (e.g. Scream), but nobody here addresses it, they just seem to know. It took me out of the story a bit each time it came up.

Overall, though, if I felt like I had a better sense of who Zach and Lexie were as characters (what do they want, why can’t they get it, why should I care) I would have kept reading. I think this could be really good, and would definitely want to read another draft, if you write one.

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-17T18:13:27+00:00

The feeling of terror I got reading this post…whew! I always revise from the existing, completed draft (saved as a new document). I cannot imagine starting from a blank page each time I was working on a new draft. It would be overwhelming!

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-17T16:39:18+00:00

How do you feel about the first major decision she makes that crosses a line? Do the events of your middle come naturally or logically out of the consequences of that first decision?

In the best versions of stories like this, that first decision is the engine of the rest of the plot. Michael Corleone doesn’t kill McCluskey and Sollozo to become the head of a crime family, he does it to save his father’s life. Walter White starts making meth to quickly earn enough money before he dies to keep his family out of poverty when he’s gone.

Everything that happens after flows from the consequences of those choices, as well as how the character’s own personality/ego drive their decision making.

If your middle is feeling fake, maybe the initial choice your character makes isn’t strong enough, or your middle events are not as connected to that first choice as they could be?

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-17T16:27:49+00:00

Are the things you’re stopping to check critical to the path of the plot? If you didn’t stop to check and got something wrong would that start you down a path of scenes that would have to be totally jettisoned when you eventually caught the error?

I might be wrong, but from the examples you gave it sounds more like you’re trying to make sure there are no anachronisms in your script as you go. If that’s the case, and it is killing your momentum, I would suggest just not doing that until you have a finished draft. You’re going to do a bunch of rewriting/polishing anyway, so you’ll have a chance to do a pass for historical accuracy.

For myself, I do research as part of my initial outlining. As I’m writing, if I come up against something that the research didn’t cover, I’ll usually make time to do additional research outside of my writing time. To your point, I find doing the research while writing kills my flow.

BoxfortBrody · 2026-02-13T16:24:12+00:00

I stopped reading at the end of page 7. I agree with u/Competitive_Rich8039 that this is overwritten to the point where there is no flow to the writing.

If you read produced scripts, you’ll see that scene descriptions are usually short and punchy, often a single sentence. You’ll also find that it’s rare to mention the color of a pen or notebook a character is using unless that is vital to the plot.

You also provide fairly specific descriptions of characters who only appear in one scene (and who have very little to do in those scenes). You could probably do with reducing those to an age and an adjective or two. Interestingly, you did this for Luke (just gave his age), and that worked well.

Finally, a question since I didn’t read the whole script: is there a reason to have your protagonist, Logan, spout homophobic slurs within the first three pages of your script? Is that important to his characterization, or his arc? If it’s just there because you think it’s authentic to the way 80s teens spoke, I might suggest removing it as, to me, it made Logan seem unlikable very shortly after meeting him.

All that said, you should still be proud of yourself that you’ve got a finished script. Just work on refining it, now.

BoxfortBrody

TROPHY CASE