The 10-Page Torture Test

Next up for your inspection I have 10 pages written by Bill Heller.  (Pages used by permission of the author.)

Bill wrote a script called THE MINISTRY OF MEAT.  It's a horror-thriller about an ambitious female bureaucrat who transfers to the Food Regulation and Compliance Division and falls for the brilliant but mad (and madly handsome) chief scientist who breeds miniature Angus cattle the size of hamsters with a hundred times the per-gram protein of their fullsize bovine brethren, which sounds awesome but these 'pocket cows' — his consumer-friendly name for the critters, narrowly beating out 'moo chews' — are more delicious and habit forming than crack cocaine, so she's equal parts horrified and hot-in-the-pants for this charismatic gene therapist, and we don't know if she'll blow the whistle on his morally repugnant yet venture-capital-worthy experiments or if she'll join him to save humanity by eradicating the twin global evils of world hunger and livestock methane emission...

I got all that from the title.  I'm probably wrong.

What I have for you instead is Bill's Slamdance Screenwriting Competition 2011 (http://slamdance.com/Writing-Competition-Finalists) quarterfinalist script: A HARRY DICK APOCALYPSE.

Logline: A timid poker player must become America's ace in the hole during a zombie apocalypse.

I like it.  The sparse logline promises an interesting protagonist with a special skill facing a familiar conflict (zombies) but hopefully in a fresh way.  Put the title and the logline together and that script lands on my TO READ pile.

I sneak a peak at the first couple pages.  My brow furrows.  Right away I'm confused.  Is the author telling his story in a deliberately hyper-stylistic way, or is he demonstrating unintentionally what happens when style goes wild during Spring Break?

I confess I don't get it.  I really don't.  Either I'm blind to the funky-clever moves these pages are busting or this is posterchild overblown writing.

I can't convince myself it's the former.  To me, reading these pages is like shouting "Needs more cowbell!" at the Museum of Cowbell during Cowbell Appreciation Week in Cowbell Corners, New Hampshire — and not being ironic but sincerely meaning it.

The dense, abstract, and at times bizarre style confused the narrative to the point where I often looped back to make sense of what I just read.  That should never happen.  Writing should be transparent.  It's the soon-forgotten pane of glass in a window to another world.  It's the itchy shag pile in the magic carpet no longer prickling your butt because your brain's busy tweeting your body WE ARE FLYING HOLEEE SHEEEEEEEET!

So, no.  I don't get it.  I don't understand why this script would be on anyone's Finalist list — not based on the first 10 pages, anyway.  Not with every paragraph dialed up to 11.  But... I do glimpse something delightful struggling to escape from under the thick, gaudy verbiage.  Something deliciously wacky.  Something that wouldn't look out of place on the shelf beside, say, your copy of BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE FOURTH DIMENSION.

But alas, the script's hyper-style chokes the life from the pages with the cruel efficiency of an anaconda coiled head to toe around a swimsuit model.

I began dissecting the first ten for A HARRY DICK APOCALYPSE.  I stopped after one page.  It's futile me making minor corrections when the overall style is thoroughly killing my enjoyment.  I'll include my notes for the first page, and that'll give you some clues to my thinking.  After that, the plain pages follow for you to read and decide yourself about the style.  If you like it, post a comment saying why.  If you dislike it, try to pinpoint specifically what irks you.

Bill, thanks again for graciously submitting your pages.  I hope my words don't come across as mean.  I aim to be honest.  I'm bummed I didn't have the positive reaction I expected based on the logline and title.  Obviously, as with Slamdance, others did have a good reaction.
 

----- PAGE ONE -----

1.  "Dark shanties tilt in the earth..."

That is a potent, portentious sentence.  It signals immediately this story will be told in a dense literary style with heavy use of metaphor and abstract imagery.  Okay.  Not what I was expecting, but let's see if the style suits the story.

2. "... in the earth, they bury broken streets in shadow."

We're missing a conjunction.  These are 'run-on' sentences: two independent clauses, both complete grammatical parts able to stand alone, but they've been welded together with non-terminating punctuation -- in this case, a comma.  We can fix this one of four ways: insert a suitable conjunction, split into two sentences, make the second part a dependent clause ("... in the earth, burying broken streets in shadow"), or lose 'they' ("... in the earth, bury broken streets in shadow.")

As we'll see, run-on sentences will be a problem from now on.

3. I'll be pedantic here. Don't use 'as' when you mean 'and' or 'then.'  In this context (time) 'as' means 'at the same time.'  Flip the original sentence and the misuse becomes clearer: "Two dirty hands clean the windshield as a car pulls up."  Technically that can be done: the thugs can rush the moving car and begin swabbing the windshield while the car slows to a halt.  But would these bored thugs be so enthusiastic?  No.  They're on autopilot, expecting no resistance and getting none.  Their scam is part of neighborhood daily life.

I'm not fond of "Another set offers a crowbar, an empty palm."  I get it, but it's too lean and disconnected for my taste.

4. Just as "two dirty hands clean the windshield" give us no clue HOW the thug goes about it -- does he do an earnest job or is it entirely shakedown theatre? -- so too does "driver forks out a few bucks" tell us nothing about the driver's attitude.  Is the driver resigned to this daily ritual?  Scared (first timer)?  Angry?  It's a small matter but it builds context. This is the first page and already I'm struggling to find the visual and narrative connective tissue that's supposed to lead me confidently from thought to thought.

5. 'sees' is an ambiguous word in this sentence.  Did Harry only now spot the thugs as they take payment for their scam or did Harry observe the whole show? 'Watches' suggests the latter, but the author could've intend the former.

"A GUY decked in black..." -- and nothing more describing Harry and his appearance.  Not much to go on.  Is he wearing a black suit or a black body-hugging lycra zentai costume?

6. Why does Harry 'nod' at his reflection in the briefcase?  Is he simply admiring his reflection?  The nod suggests vanity or maybe putting a plan in motion.

7. "Beer signs in a bar window reel Harry in."  Without a doubt, for me this is where the writing jumps the shark.  I can't sugar coat it: that sentence is preposterous.  It's up there with "His eyes slid down her body and landed at her feet."  Yes, an advertising sign can 'reel' a customer in, or 'hook' or 'land' or 'snag' or otherwise attract a customer. But what's this bombastic sentence doing in a screenplay?  Does it add mood and tone to the narrative?  Yes it does: way too much.  The sentence drips with melodrama in a moment that requires none.  By treating this minor sentence as worthy of the most florid grammar, the writer devalues all other moments that might justify such grandiose literary treatment.  In Spinal Tap terms, the author dialled his amp to 11 on the first song and now he's got nowhere to go. Meanwhile the audience scrambles for the exit with hands clamped over ears, having realized the volume's staying at shrieking level for the duration.

Now, I don't know if this is Bill's regular writing style or if he chose this hyper-stylized narrative approach to match an intended hyper-stylized film look.  I'm guessing it's all deliberate, that Bill's trying to evoke a certain tone to complement what's happening on the page.  Neither conclusion changes my reaction.  The overblown writing isn't just killing my enjoyment, it's killing my basic understanding of what's going on.

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With some time and distance now between me and Harry Dick, I'm compelled to add a coda to this topic.

I remain perplexed by the bombastic, dutch-angle writing style.  That hasn't changed.

But the more I think on it the more I want to focus on what Bill did here, and not whether it works or fails for me.

I can express what I'm thinking in an image.

Grab a thick black pen and mark this down on an index card.  Pin it to your corkboard today, because the older I get the more important it seems:

WRITING: FEARLESS
FUCKS GIVEN: ZERO

Because it's the fearless writing you remember.  Good and bad.

Those are your choices: don't give a fuck or wallow in mediocrity.

Yeah I'm a little baffled.  Does Heller's effort offer clear visuals with an engaging story?  Or is the story just a confused mish-mash of visuals with a convoluted narrative?  I think the answer lies somewhere in between.

The story itself isn't bad.  And you know what?  I actually wanted to continue reading.  However, the framework of visuals isn't nearly as artistic or clean as Heller must have thought -- and, with each successive page, becomes increasingly awkward.

Does that make sense?

I mean... I really don't think you would've had a problem with the style if the geography was clearer and transitions smoother.  It's all very abrupt and jarring.  Sometimes that's a desired effect to put the reader in the shoes of the character -- but this is just too jarring and inconsistent and unclear to think that was the intent.

Just look at that first line on the first page.

Whew...     Fuck me.

That was a doozy.

Your script is essentially the first grouping of cinematic ideas, the first shot across the bow about how to render this particular story cinematically -- and that's how you open it up?  With a swift kick in the nuts?  LOL.  I mean, c'mon man.  That shit left me staggering painfully through the rest of the story.

But anyway, the use of secondary headings would've really cleared up a lot of this -- especially with the jumping around that happens in the bar.

I can sum up in two words: too abstract.

Here's how our brain processes the shots during the first-page read:

* Wide, a shanty town comprised of high and tilted buildings

'High buildings' because it's daytime yet the place is hugely shadowed.  'High buildings' clashes with the idea of 'shanties,' which imply small, low dwellings.

* Wide, two young thugs in the street.

* Wide, car pulls up

* Tight on hands swabbing the windshield

* Tight on other hands demanding payment

* Close on driver paying the toll

Note, we have no idea  how the driver reacts.  A complete blank there.

* Wide on Harry watching the scam.

Again, no indication how he's reacting to it.

* Close on Harry's reflection in the briefcase

It's not clear, but I think the nod at his reflection in his briefcase is a "It's go time" kind of nod.  I can only guess.

* Insert stenciling on briefcase: "Aces in all the right places"

* Close on beer sign

* Wider as Harry's about to enter pub

* Tight on Harry as fists drop him to the ground.  He pulls his phone and does his cop act

This attack comes out of the blue.  There's no indication the two thugs consider Harry a threat, let alone even notice him!

* Wide on briefcase cartwheeling into the street, and a glimpse of the thugs bolting.

We were never told the thugs grabbed it.  But we presume they did and are now tossing the evidence in their escape.

I champion the Pixar approach of "Give 'em 2 + 2, not 4," but this is more like "Give 'em 1 + ? + nihilism"

* Wide on Harry getting up, pleased with himself

* Tight on security grill protecting window.  Push focus (I suppose) from bars to the neon sign behind: "Die Rich Pub"

* Wide establishing inside the pub

* Close on Misty, the mural, and Harry studying it

Wait, where's the briefcase?  Is Harry carrying it now, having retrieved it, or is that briefcase still sitting in the street?

"It's all very abrupt and jarring."  I'm glad I wasn't alone thinking that, Jawbreaker.

But like I said, even though it's a beautiful mess, I admire Bill for going all-in with this style.  These are memorable pages, but for the wrong reasons.