Your Script Needs... Something · The Writer's Forge

Your Script Needs... Something

On The Rugrats Movie there was a Russian director named Igor.

His English wasn't great. He'd read our latest draft, find me and my writing partner in the hallway, and deliver the same review every time.

Imagine this in thick Russian accent: "I read script. Script needs... something."

That was it. He never said what the something was.

It pissed me off. It felt unfair. But he was absolutely right. It did need something. And he wasn't a writer, so pointing to it wasn't his job. Finding it was ours. The same way it's an actor's job to bring a character to life, or an art director's job to bring a set to life. Your job as a writer is to find the something.

I used to think the something was plot. Things happen, and characters happen to be standing in them. So I'd rearrange events, punch up scenes, and Igor would find me in the hallway again. Script needs something.

After a long series of beating my head against the wall, I found it. The something is what your character is hiding. Or is in deep denial of.

Rugrats turned around when we leaned into Tommy's denial. Suddenly there was comic juxtaposition between the scene Tommy insisted was happening and the scene his friends could plainly see.

Same engine in Shrek. Shrek at dinner with Fiona's parents is funny because he's in denial about how obviously they hate him. But look closer. The King is in denial too. He's hiding that he was the frog a princess kissed. He believes that part of him is unlovable. Rewatch the movie and you'll see it: everything that happens in that kingdom happens not because the father hates Shrek, but because he hates the frog in himself.

All of us hide parts of ourselves from the world. Including from the people closest to us. So when a character on screen does it, we don't watch them. We recognize ourselves.

Here's the truth nobody tells you.

The audience doesn't care about you. They don't care about your story. They don't even care about your characters. They care about themselves. That's why they bought the ticket.

Woody is terrified of being abandoned by someone he loves. So are all of us. Walter White did everything society asked of him his whole life, then learned he was going to die and leave his family broke. We go through life not saying the things we need to say to the people closest to us. It's how we're wired.

Your story exists to force your character to face the thing they've been avoiding. And when they finally face it, when they say the thing that's been buried the whole movie, there is nothing more satisfying an audience can watch.

I used to think plots were about things that happened, and characters happened to be in them.

Now I know it's the reverse. The plot happens because the character is who they are.

That's what we're building around here.

So be Igor for a minute. Read your own script and say it out loud: script needs... something. Then ask what your character is hiding. What do the NOT want to see about themselves or their world.

Drip it below. This is how we learn here. And if you're reading this, you're here to learn. So let's hear it!

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Your Script Needs... Something