Speaker 1: In this video, we're going to talk about how to hook your reader. Very important. This is true for your whole screenplay, it should never be boring, but especially true for your first 10 pages. We have a special treat in this video. We have viewer pages we're going to look at and see how we could maybe better hook the reader. We also have a special guest, my little dog, Charlie. Is Charlie going to teach us about screenwriting? Stay tuned and find out. Our pages today were submitted by a writer who wishes to remain anonymous. That's totally okay. You get that choice when I come to your pages. If I'm making a video, you can either get credit by giving your name or not. To all of you, be sure in the comments to say thank you to A. Anonymous from the United States. Here are the first seven pages of The Fractured Man. Exterior Cafe Day. Kalen Case, 38, a physically fit man, sits at a table outside a cafe writing a script on a laptop. He has a Bluetooth device in one ear. His laptop screen shows the first lines of a screenplay entitled Shift by Kalen Case. Only one line of the script has been written. The words fade in. Kalen, really? I thought it was mandatory. Logic off screen. It's a matter of choice. Save the line. He deletes the only line of his script. He frowns at the blank page. Kalen, ah, yes, that's better. Maybe I can just say the whole script is written in invisible ink. He begins typing and almost immediately stops and backspaces it away. Creativity off stage. Start outside, sunny and warm. Kalen, no, the first scene has to be in the doctor's office. He's just had a tragic event and is seeking help. Creativity off screen. But his life should start sunny for the audience. Kalen, no, this is normal life. That's what we need to show so we can change it later. Creativity off screen. Oh, we should get that girl for that show for the romantic interest. Kalen, stop making casting suggestions for characters that don't even have descriptions yet, let alone dialogue or, you know, a story. Creativity off screen. We have a great argument scene, though. Start there. Kalen, we're on page one. You're talking about stuff that happens on page 90. He growls in frustration. Kalen, never mind, we'll do this later. He shuts the laptop and takes a drink from his coffee. Barbara off screen. Your agent? Kalen turns to see Barbara, 30, sitting at a table behind him reading something on a tablet. He looks frightened. Fear off screen. Shit, it's her. It's actually her. Logic off screen. Act normal. Barbara, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. Kalen shakes off his shock and smiles. Kalen, you didn't startle me. I mean, you did, but it's OK. Barbara, I was just overhearing half your conversation. Figured you were on the phone with your agent. Kalen, phone. Logic off screen. Idiot, focus. Barbara points to her ear and Kalen pulls his Bluetooth out and puts it away. Kalen, oh, yeah, I forgot that thing is there. No, that wasn't my agent. Just a group of friends that help me write sometimes. Barbara, you conference call with friends when you're writing? Kalen, almost always. Better than a crowded writer's room. Barbara, I imagine. So what are you writing? Kalen, just a science fiction story. A guy gets lost in another world and has to cope with the change. That sort of thing. Barbara, sounds interesting. Kalen, no, it doesn't. It sounds generic. Barbara smiles. Barbara. Barbara. Kalen. Cow. Kalen case. Sorry, my mind is a little busy most of the time. Fear off screen. Lie. Fear off screen. Now she's going to remember us. Barbara new to Gotham? Kalen, no, grew up here. In the Narrows. You? Barbara, same, but in Old Gotham. Fear off screen. She's testing us to see if we're lying. Logic off screen. Don't lie. Just don't tell all the truth. This is just a random encounter. Kalen, why did you think I was new to the city? Barbara. The cafe has famously great sandwiches, but lousy coffee. Kalen looks at his empty plate and bottled water on her table and looks to his coffee and frowns. Barbara, I would expect someone from the Garden District to know that, but I guess a Narrows kid wouldn't. Kalen, in the Narrows, this would be considered top shelf. They both grin. Kalen, okay, it's awful, but this way I don't blow through it in two minutes. Barbara laughs. Picking a place with terrible coffee so you don't drink too much. That's a new one on me. But you really should try the sandwiches if you haven't yet. The Almost Reuben is heaven on earth. Almost Reuben? Barbara. Has coleslaw instead of sauerkraut. Creativity off screen. We're getting some of those. Logic off screen. That sounds pretty good, actually. Kalen smiles. Kalen, I'll have to try that. A buzzing sound causes Barbara to jump. She whips out her phone and checks a message. Barbara. Damn work. I have to run. But it was nice meeting you, Kal. Kalen. Kalen case. Kalen. Maybe just Kal. Barbara stands. Creativity off screen. She doesn't recognize us. Creativity off screen. Oh, get her number. Kalen. And maybe I'll see you here again, Barbara. Barbara. Maybe. And tell your friends. I think your story's fantastic. Kalen. You haven't even heard my story. He watches her walk away. Still in earshot, she looks back over her shoulder at him. Barbara. Then you can tell me about it tomorrow. I'll need another sandwich by then and this is the only supplier in town. Kalen. Same time? Barbara waves a hand and holds up two fingers. She disappears around the corner. Kalen is now surrounded by three imaginary people only he can see and hear. Fear. 30s. Constantly looks uncomfortable. Creativity. 30s. Is the most colorful personality. Logic. 30s. Is formally dressed. Clothes neat and pressed. Logic. Did that mean peace out or 2 p.m. tomorrow? She could have been a little less vague. Fear. Peace out. Creativity. 2 p.m. Logic. We have accomplished nothing today. Creativity. Not true. We met Barbara. Fear. We met Barbara. I want you to think that you're always playing the skunk game with your audience. You cannot be predictable, so you want some mystery, then surprise. You want to thwart audience expectation. They think the scene is going to go one way, and then nope, it goes completely in a different direction. Play with the audience. This already has some playing with the skunk, so let me step back from this and talk about a situation that would not have any playing with the skunk so you can better understand what I am talking about. I read a lot of scripts that are basically like a dramatization of a Wikipedia page. It's like, in 1421, the person was born, so we see a scene of the person being born. Then they grew up in such-and-such town. We see a scene of them growing up in such-and-such town. That would be handing the skunk story-wise, like overall story-wise, because everything has no surprise. It's just a straight line. It's flat. But you can also have scenes that are just handing the skunk. So let's say in that story, someone showed the first scene the character was born. A handing the skunk scene would be, you see his mom in labor. Someone runs and says, the baby's coming, and then she goes, oh, oh, oh, oh, and then she gives birth, and there's the baby. It's straight as can be. There was no twist, no turn, no shift in audience expectation. So if you want to play with the skunk, that means you have to make the audience think that the scene is going in one direction, and then you, oh, nope, it's going in the other direction, so you're thwarting audience expectation. You can do it in so many different ways. You could just have something going on, and a woman faints, and you think, oh, she fainted because such and such happened, and then all of a sudden they hear a baby crying, and they're trying to find the baby, and they find it under her skirt. It's like, oh, she just gave birth. Or if you had a scene where a woman was giving birth, and the baby is born stillborn, and maybe one of the maids picks it up, says, no, no, no, I can fix it. We'll just put it in the cold river. The cold will revive it. Please let me do this. And she races the baby out to get it into the cold river to shock it back to life, and so she puts the baby in the river to revive it, and then she just lets the baby sink to the bottom of the river, and you're like, oh, she was supposed to save the baby. What happened there? And then she leaves the baby in the river. We watch it sail downstream, and then she goes into some reeds nearby where there's a five-year-old girl with a little tiny baby, and she grabs it and says, I love you enough to give you a better life. And she races back with her own baby and hands it back and says, there you go. Not what you were expecting. Thwart audience expectation. So taking that idea, play with the skunk, okay? So every time you have a beat, think of how can you make the audience think the opposite thing is going to happen and then surprise them with the real way that the scene is going to go. Because if in the very beginning you broadcast what the end is going to be, we're handing the skunk instead of playing with the skunk, okay? Make them think it's going this way, and then it goes the other way, and they don't know, oh, we almost just broke all the lights in the YouTube studio with the skunk. Like who knows what's going to happen? So we have some playing with the skunk here when we do not see the imaginary voices that are going to be part of the script later on, and we hear these voices and don't really know what's happening. So that's awesome. How could we play with the skunk even more? In the very beginning, we see Kalen typing, and we know he's typing a screenplay. We could play with the skunk even more with holding that information and start the whole movie seeing the film that he's writing. This would be like the beginning of Romancing the Stone. So we could have Kalen in this movie within a movie, and we could also have Barbara. There were hints here that she's an investigator. She could be an investigator in this movie that he's writing that we're seeing, and it could also be a little bit sexy. I talked in the video, The Key to Great Screenwriting, that the acting teacher, Tom Todoroff, had so many wisdom bombs. I believe one of them, and I'm paraphrasing, so I might be getting this wrong, but it was something like when you're acting, you want to hit the audience either in the head, the heart, or the hips a little bit sexy. So if we saw an opening scene that was from the movie that Kalen is writing, let's say he does a twist on basic instinct. He's in the chair, and she's interviewing him, so we would get more that she's an investigator that we're going to get later, and then we could hear the voices, and the voices could start to change the scene, and that could be really fun, but we as the audience don't know what's going on. We don't know what this is that's hiding the skunk, that's playing with the skunk, and then we could then reveal that this is him writing, and he's writing this. Then from there on, we get them getting to know each other, and it seems like he likes her, but I don't really know. One possible way we could play with the skunk is if he likes her, make the audience at first think he doesn't like her so that we can twist it, and it's a surprise that he actually does. So she shows up and says, you know, this isn't work for this movie because I think I'm not putting the characters in the right situations, but if she comes up and says, you parked over the line in your spot again, and I couldn't get out of my car, this bruise on my head is from my rear view mirror because I had to try to get out my passenger door. You need to learn how to park, and he says, no, you have an SUV in a compact spot. You need to get a smaller car, buy a Jetta, or just back in. She says, I shouldn't have to back in. Maybe you don't know how to back in. I know how to back in. So if they fight, and then if she leaves, if the voices say, why don't we just ask her out on a date? No, that's too easy. Just keep parking in her parking spot. Make her come to you. That's playing hard to get. That will win her over. If he acts like he doesn't like her, but then we find out really he really does, again, we're playing with the skunk. We're thwarting audience expectations. So if the scene is going to end one way, how can you tease the audience and then flip it and twist it? So again, I don't think that scene I just described works for this because they don't work together. They aren't parking together, but something like that. Now we would need more pages to start talking about things like character arc, central question, his goal, the stakes. But for just these pages to really try to hook the reader, I want a little more playing with the skunk, surprise, reversals, conflict, all kinds of fun, skunky business. We got some here, and I like it so much, I want more. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to Anonymous for submitting these pages. Everybody write in the comments, thank you, Anonymous, because it is huge for all of you to be sharing your work for everyone to learn from. 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