I’m now in
full swing in my reading for various screenplay competitions and various
coverage services, including my own, and I thought I would occasionally share
some observations I have made.
I have
noticed that the genre, themes and plots that most interest me are mysteries of
some sort. At the same time, simply
because they hold my interest the most, that doesn’t seem to be helping the
screenplays do any better than any others and the reason they fall short falls
into a couple of categories:
1. The author hasn’t shown their scripts to
experts in law authority or the legal profession and the story isn’t
particularly believable.
2. The fact that it is a genre that interests me
most can ironically make it harder to make an impact since it may be harder to
find a way to make this particular story stand out from all the hundreds of
others I’ve read.
3. Usually the area where a genre stands out is
in characters, but though these screenplays often have an interesting plot or
hook, the characters often take second place and aren’t very compelling. Writers often don’t understand that it
doesn’t matter how well structured or clever a plot is, without original and
vibrant characters, the screenplay is almost never going to go anyplace.
Check out my consultation page
http://howardcasner.blogspot.com/2009/02/screenplay-consultation-philosophy-and.html
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