13 Reasons Why: Side 2 - an overly contrived premise can present a challenge

Side 1: The Setting

13 Reasons Why gets away with a stunt that would be a crippling blow for most other shows - it has a premise that smacks of contrivance just to ensure the show exists.

We're asked to believe that a suicidal girl would record 6.5 tapes (13 sides) detailing her slide into suicide, meticulously structured so each side targets a specific participant one-by-one, then arranged a convoluted scheme to have those tapes passed to the targets one-by-one as a final "fuck you." Further, she claims to have a contingency that will be implemented if the tapes aren't listened to or passed on. If people shirk their responsibilities, a second copies of the tapes go public, destroying the reputations of all involved.

When I first heard this hook, I joked that it sounded like THE RING in reverse. Instead of watching the tape and dying, you listen to the tapes or face punishment. It feels way too contrived just to force Clay, our lead character, to endure each tape in episodic fashion, thus providing the series writers with a convenient structure upon which to hang the series. (Impressively, the fact that 13 reasons fits into the typical 13-episode order is a neat coincidence, considering the series began life as a book)

You have to think about the character who would conceive this suicide revenge scheme. She has to be in such despair that going on is painful, but she engineers a plot so complex that it should be the work of a Bond villain (or a screenwriter.) Here's every step you have to buy into:

- That Hannah would record an overlong suicide note... (Verdict: Credible on its face, and even more credible when the series casts it as her final effort to make sense of everything and even suggests that letting it all out was briefly cathartic enough that she reconsidered her plan. It was only after her conversation with the school counselor that she made the final decision to end it.)

- ...on cassette tapes... (Verdict: Sloppy. Never mind the trick of having to get equipment to record them, how could Hannah be sure that her targets would have tape players of their own? We see that Clay has to resort to stealing his friend's walkman in order to hear the tapes, which means he might not be the only one with such a problem. It might have worked better if Hannah had included a walkman inside the box of tapes. I mean, the girl plans for everything else and not THAT?)

- ...to be passed one by one or else they get released. (Verdict: Contrivance, but a necessary one. Tony is all but stated to be the accomplice who will execute that last part of the plan, as by the time the final episodes roll around, he seems to be the only person in a position with the means to do so. Early on he leaves Clay with the impression that he's ignorant of the mechanics of how the tapes would come out, but it's easier for me to believe Tony is telling a convenient lie than imagine Hannah somehow trusted another off-screen player to carry out this part of the plan.)

The writers were smart to be somewhat vague on the execution of that final clause. The only reason to dig deep into how that works is if the threat was a Chekhov's Gun to be fired in the latter episodes. Since things never deteriorate to that point, I'm comfortable assuming it was part-bluff, part-Tony's responsibility. But that's a perspective you only get with hindsight. When we're asked to swallow it right away, it sound pretty far-fetched.

The simple fact is that without this contrived hook, there would be no series. That makes this what we call the "buy-in." It's one of those things where the show all but says outright "These are the roles we're playing under. Take them or leave them." I feel like you can get away with silly notions - but only if they're introduced early. As the writer, you have a window of only so long before the audience's conception of the world's rules solidifies. At that point, if you suddenly hit them with a giant contrivance, you won't have the benefit of the doubt.

I wouldn't blame someone if they felt the set-up was overly complicated. Also, when you're asking for that big a buy-in, you have to earn it. 13 Reasons Why pays that mortgage through stellar acting and really well-written characters. But if you make me choke down a ridiculous concept and you don't even have the decency to make it good? You will earn my wrath.

Side 3: Hannah Baker
Side 4: Clay, an outsider who isn't an outcast
Side 5: Clay's tape leads to one of this year's most heartbreaking episodes
Side 6: Mr. Porter - Terrible Counselor or Worst Counselor?
Side 7: Do depictions of suicide provoke imitation?
Side 8: Generating tension that stokes viewer intensity
Side 9: Keeping storytelling clarity in non-linear structure
Side 10: Alex's storyline hides parallels in plain sight
Side 11: Fleshed out parents help deepen the other characters
Side 12: Episodic structure makes a comeback
Side 13: Thoughts on Season 2

Why THE PURGE can teach you so much about what not to do

Some of you might remember that last year I took on THE PURGE in a post talking about how certain concepts require a higher suspension of disbelief than others. As much as we'd like to think that an audience will accept our premises and go with them (and to a certain degree, I think that's reasonable.)  In general, an audience (and yes, even the dreaded readers) will be rather forgiving of certain elements if they are necessary to set up the story.

But like I said last year, when the characters or the premise act counter to basic human nature that threatens the suspension of disbelief. This is particularly dangerous when the setting is recognizable and familiar to the audience. They know human nature and they have a pretty good idea what a normal person would do in a situation that feels like their daily life. But if you have a seemingly normal person in a setting that's almost normal except for one MAJOR difference - the audience might perceive phoniness in the conceit and that often leads to an outright rejection of it.

I cited the trailer of THE PURGE as an example of where the buy-in appeared too great.  The film is set a mere ten years in the future, where all of American society has set aside one night where all laws are suspended for 12 hours.  You name it, it's legal, including murder.  The film tries to convince us that this one night of total indulgence is enough to get all the bad impulses out for the rest of the year.  As a result, crime has plummeted.

At the time, I allowed for the fact that I was only basing this off of seeing the trailer and that it was possible that the movie itself made a more convincing case for this occurrence.  Here's what I said at the time:

"The hurdle for me is that I can't wrap my brain around a society that would say, "Hey, for one night a year, anything goes! Murder, rape, robbery... and then come sun-up, we're all cool with it." I reject the idea that a functional society would even attempt such a thing.

"And then, to put forth the notion that somehow this one night of blood lust apparently gets all of this out of everyone's systems so much that the rest of the year is a utopia? It's hard to imagine human nature working that way. So I don't buy that people would be on board for this, and even if I did, I don't buy that it would work."

Well, I finally watched the movie last week and I have to say that there was nothing else in the film that nullified these issues.  I could probably spend 10,000 just tearing apart the foundation of the premise, but I don't want to waste all that time because I can't see anyone trying to mount an intelligent defense of this hook.

Part of the problem is that this world looks too much like our own world. It's not far enough removed where we accept that the mores of the time will have changed that much.  If I was writing this I'd have pushed it at least fifty years into the future, probably further.  There needs to be room for society to evolve so that basic human values could have been corrupted on such a massive level.

Amazingly, the film really screws the pooch in the attitudes of a lot of its characters towards the Purge.  Guess who the ONE character is who thinks this practice is brutal and barbaric?  The ten year-old kid.  Honestly, if ANYONE should be the most corrupted by the values of this world, it would be the kid who hasn't known anything else.  Ethan Hawke, his wife, their neighbors... they all are old enough to have come of age long before the Purge.  Hawke is about ten years older than me, which means that since this film is set ten years in the future, his character would have been in my classes all through school.  Do we really buy that someone who was in his 30s when the Purge was adopted wouldn't have ANY moral compunctions about it?  And their neighbors are even older!

But the 10 year-old kid who's probably sat through years of classroom lectures about the glory of the Purge, whose seen it held up as society's crowning achievement... HE's the one to have moral misgivings about it.  I don't buy it. At all.  The youngest generation would be the ones mostly likely to accept the progression of society for what it was.

It would also help if the people extolling the virtues of the Purge didn't all speak like some sort of brainwashed cult members.  Rhys Wakefield plays the leader of a group trying to break into Hawke's house and I'd call his performance cartoonish if it didn't make me think Daffy Duck might have made a more nuanced choice for the part.

Later, Hawke's family is saved from the home invaders by his own neighbors.  The twist is that the neighbors decided that once that family's home security was breached, they had an opportunity to "cleanse ourselves" by slaughtering the family for... well... basically just "thinking you're so perfect."  The performance of the actress called upon to sell this speech is mind-numblingly bad. You can't totally blame her, though because she's been tasked with selling a plot twist about as bad as any I've seen in a long time.

And this again makes me doubt the basic premise. If you live in a neighborhood where your neighbors butched an entire family basically out of envy, are you REALLY going to trust those people for the next 364 days until the next Purge comes?  And during the next Purge, won't you be tempted to get in a preemptive strike on them, thus perpetuating the cycle of violence?

The way the conclusion plays out, Hawke's wife, played by Lena Heady, decides there's been enough kiling this night and once she has the upper hand on her attacking neighbors, she forces them to all sit in silence and wait out the Purge.  On one hand, yay for her for not getting her hands dirty.  On the other... are you really going to continue to live next door to these people who were salivating at the free pass of taking your life?

Basically, the Purge should turn everyone into George Zimmerman, carrying a gun everywhere ready to use it on anyone who looks like they "don't belong." Honestly, if the film really confronted that head-on, it might have had some real meat to chew on.  Let's say an Archie Bunker-esque neighbor has been bothering a Middle Eastern family that moved into his neighborhood.  What if during the Purge, they decide to kill him as pre-emptive self-defense?  And how does THAT impact how their neighbors react to them even after the Purge is over?

The wide acceptance of the Purge just doesn't hold water on a macro or a micro level.  I'm sure there are some defenders who will argue the film was merely attempting to be satire, and then mutter some vague statements about how it's a commentary on classism.  First, I don't think the tone is pitched right to pass as satire.  There are certainly moments that feel like it's trying for that sort of theme.  However, they happen in isolated pockets and while some actors are playing the satire, others are playing it straight.

Many reviews lamented that this film sets up a wild premise only to waste it all on a home invasion story.  I take exception to two points of that statement, which actually makes the film sound a lot better than it is.  As we've discussed, this actually is a pretty terrible premise.  It's laughably bad.  MANOS THE HANDS OF FATE has firmer internal logic behind it than this.

The second point is that this film is really a home invasion story.  Sure, but can you still call it that if it takes until minute 58 of an 85-minute film for the invaders to actually breach the place?  That's basically the end of the second act.  Up to that point, there's a lot of time-killing, mostly involving a homeless man whom the young boy has let enter the house.

This needn't have been a fatal mistake.  The tension could have been raised had the characters been fleshed out and actually had some internal conflicts amongst each other that came out as a result of being trapped in this pressure cooker for 12 hours while Rome burns outside.  Gene Hackman supposedly once said, "The best acting takes place in confined spaces."  Vivid characters. Conflict. Tension.  Bottle that up in a room and let the characters bounce off of each other.  Build up enough real drama among the cast that it alone could have sustained the film. THEN you add the home invaders as the icing on that cake.  Because now you've got a movie that's about something.

I'll give the filmmakers one "thumbs up" - in a film where all manner of violence is on the table, I was shocked that at no point did the movie become "rapey."  This is no small feat in a feature that includes a teenage girl who spends the entirety of her screentime in a schoolgirl outfit.  I've seen many a horror thriller that played that card gratuitously and so I spent much of the film dreading the inevitable scene that would have her at the mercy of one of the invading guys.  I figure that's worth about half-a-star out of a possible four stars.

That point aside, it's easily the worst movie I saw from 2013.  If I was a film professor, I think I could conduct a multi-day lecture on everything wrong with this film.  Maybe I should start with the fact that it made $89 million worldwide, which also relates to the question "How did this shit get made?" Easy - it only cost $3 million.

Parallel development or "There's no such thing as a unique idea"

Why is it so hard to get someone to read your script? Why do I get so pissed when someone emails me their screenplay unasked?  (And we've covered this before, if you send me a script unsolicited and your response is anything other than "I'm sorry" after I tell you why that's an unwelcome thing to do, YOU are the asshole in the situation.)

Short answer: legal reasons.  I don't want to get sued down the line should I have some connection to a project that bears any resemblance to your idea.  This is the same reason that most companies demand that you sign a release before submitting your script.  One of the clauses in a standard release is that you waive your right to sue should the company eventually release a project similar to yours.

Not that this stops the wave of lawsuits.  There are plenty of successful films that have to contend with nuisance lawsuits claiming the original idea was stolen from them.  Less than two months ago, James Cameron fended off yet another lawsuit containing such allegations.  I almost never believe the allegations of theft. True theft of ideas is a lot rarer than parallel development.

I should know. This week I had at least my third instance of a project being announced that bore similarities to something I had been working on for a while.  I'm not going to name the project, but the concept is disturbingly similar to a pilot I've been working on with a friend of mine.  There's no obvious link between us and them, nor do I think that the other writers could have seen our work through anyone we gave it to.  This just happens to be one of those cases where someone else happened on the same idea we did.

My hope is that our script might still be alive and viable if this other project fails to get traction.  If I'm really lucky, in a year or so, few will remember it.  If they do, it might hamper the project, or worse, they might assume WE swiped the concept.  Having said that, you can't copyright ideas and I have a feeling that our particular expression of this idea is already different from where the other creators have gone.  Just because our concept can't go out now, it doesn't mean it will never have its day.

Case in point: in 2007 I wrote a spec screenplay that was a sequel to The Wizard of Oz. I cast it as a sequel to the original book (which was in the public domain) not the movie.  I made it a bit darker and more mature.  Not brutal, though.  Think of it as being more in the tone of the Harry Potter films.  In this way, it's a bit similar to what was eventually done with OZ: The Great & Powerful, though they went the prequel route.  The week I started sending it to people also happened to be the week that Warner Bros announced they were developing a "revisionist take" on The Wizard of Oz that would be "a dark, edgy and muscular PG-13, without a singing Munchkin in sight.”

An agency friend revealed to me that another studio was quietly developing their own Oz take, but I opted to send this out to a few management contacts as well as query a few other possible reps. Let me give you an idea how long ago 2007 was - I actually had to explain to more than one rep that The Wizard of Oz was in the public domain and that there were no rights issues so long as everything was derived from the books.  And even then - get this - a couple of them were STILL dubious that any studio would want to risk competing with the memory of such a beloved classic.

Yes, just six years ago, the idea of strip-mining every fairy tale in public domain was so novel that fairy solid reps were ignorant of some of the legal loopholes.  Those days seem quite far away now that we're in a pilot season that has seen Oz-inspired projects developed at CBS, NBC, CW and SyFy. 

Gee, those earlier Oz efforts sure killed the market for L. Frank Baum's material, didn't they? I sometimes wonder if I should have tried reviving my script but by the time fairy-tale adaptations became bigger, I was focusing on using my contacts for scripts that I felt were stronger and more likely to hook representation.

The most painful instance of a similar project came relatively recently.  My senior year in college, I made a short film about a teenage girl who finds out she had been cloned as a child.  In a story exploring nature vs. nurture, she comes face-to-face with her own clone, a very different person from her.  I wasn't happy with how the idea came out, largely because it was a pretty big idea to squeeze into eight minutes.  I spent some time trying to reimagine it as a feature, but even that wasn't working.

And then the idea hit me - do it as a series! That would give me the breathing room to explore the mythology and more importantly, it would really allow me to explore the lead character and her clones in depth.  It could be a fantastic acting showcase for the lead actress - sort of like how Alias and Dollhouse demanded their leads take on multiple personalities.  I brought on a friend to co-write it with me and it became a project we worked on in between our other screenplays.

For various reasons, this pilot became a lesser priority for a while.  We'd gotten a few drafts done and had plans to revise further.

And then I learned about the show Orphan Black.  Dammit.

I have very specifically NOT watched Orphan Black. All I know of it is the basic premise, which gets uncomfortably close to my idea.  For all I know, the execution and tone could be completely different from what we planned.  The mythology is almost certainly different.  Still, my basic problem remains that I can't pitch the show to anyone without them saying, "Oh, like Orphan Black."

I hear it's a great show. I just can't bring myself to watch it.

But because this has happened to me three times, I'm well aware that there's no such thing as a completely unique idea.  The important things to take from this are: Work hard to develop your ideas quickly, know that today's hard-sell can quickly become tomorrow's trend, and hope that the fact a similar premise has been done before doesn't necessarily mean that it can't still be useful.

Oh yeah - and your idea isn't as unique as you think it is.

"Will a spec with similarities to mine hurt my script?"

Rochee asks:

I'm a regular reader of your wonderful blog, and I have a question that is keeping me up late at night. I have developed a pilot for a tv show that I think is pretty awesome, but I just learned that one of the primary relationship dynamics in my teleplay is very similar to a relationship dynamic that is at the center of a feature script that is in development (Father Daughter Time). 

Although my overall concept is very different from Father Daughter Time, my protagonist is also an unemployed recovering alcoholic with a complicated relationship with his ex-wife and his 11-year old daughter. My protagonist is also involved in illegal activities. Every other aspect of my pilot is different, but will these parallels hurt the reception of my pilot?

I doubt it. Frankly, for such a grounded, character-based story, I wouldn't be worried even if there was a passing similarity conceptually.  There have been a lot of scripts, movies and TV shows over the years that have dealt with a recovering alcoholic who has a complicated relationship with his family.  A broad character outline that bears some resemblance to another pre-existing character is hardly cause for concern.

How many lawyers have we seen on TV over the years who are zealous in pursuit of winning cases, even to the point where it leads them to skirt ethical and professional guidelines.  How many young doctors have we seen who get emotionally involved in their cases?  (And how often are these people depicted as brilliant in their professional lives, but struggling to maintain their personal relationships, be they marriages or friendships?)

Honestly, "recovering alcoholic who has complicated relationships with his family" probably describes at least half the alcoholic characters out there. I wouldn't worry about it.  A parallel that broad won't hurt you, especially since FATHER-DAUGHTER TIME hasn't even been produced yet.

Webshow - "Writing with copyright-protected concepts"

I suspect this week's video will get some discussion going.  The Bitter puppet discusses why it's a bad idea to write a spec based on characters and concepts that one does not own.


Don't forget to subscribe by going to the YouTube page!

Is it all or nothing? And what makes a script generic?

Dennis wrote in with a question:

Do you get rocked by an amazing character and say "The plot sucks, but I'd like to spend more time with that character?" 

Or do you occasionally say "What a grab f-ing story. We could spice up the characters?" 

Or do you only let the whole pizza, with all the toppings get by?

This is kind of a case-by-case basis. I've certainly written up coverage that says something along the lines of "The main character is fun, but the premise and the plot are garbage."  Just as surely I've written, "The concept is very clever and marketable, but the script is marred by some cardboard characters and leaden plotting."

As to how much a bad lead character can hurt an awesome concept, that's something that depends on the degree of the "badness" and the ingenuity of the script's virtues.  Some scripts are fixer-uppers that can easily be flipped, while others are money pits.  For the most part, you can tell the difference between the two, and that can also be influenced by a host of other elements like: who's attached to the script, how similar films like it have done recently, what sort of project are we looking to do, and so on.

The takeaway from the writer's perspective should be that you can't count on any single aspect of the script to save your ass.  Write the best damn script you can, the best damn characters you can, and have a unique plot that we haven't seen before.

Along those lines, Jeffrey asks:


I came across your blog and wanted to ask you something (not to read my screenplay though) - I presume that you spend your time head in hand (for possibly only the first ten pages) that you're reading a generic screenplay. And that's what I want to ask about. If one isn't populating the fictional world with Pynchonian weird characters, or writing Diablo Cody swearing couplets - what are some of the signs of dreaded genericism. 

I realize that this is a very open ended question, and I'm just some idiot (probably one of many) emailing you with (inane) questions, but if you'd indulge ms with a little of your wisdom, that would be great.

 It's a hard question to answer.  For me, it's if I can tell where the script is going to go long before it gets there.  Some things are obvious - if this is a romantic comedy, the couple introduced at the start is probably going to end up together.  That's a gimmie. My beef starts if the road to getting there is predictable.

Does the couple bicker and deny their feelings for a long time?
Do they get together on a contrived date that strains to be wacky?
Is there a misunderstanding that causes one member of the couple to believe the other has cheated on them?
Does said misunderstanding somehow involve a slutty friend/co-worker/rival who has been set-up as promiscuous from the start?
If a workplace romantic comedy, is someone up for promotion?

In horror films you could make a similar list that details the sorts of characters along for the ride (the good girl, the jock, the geek, the slut, the stoner and the fat guy/wacky comedy relief), the order of the kills, the pacing of the kills, the fact that someone WILL be killed in a state of undress, the liklihood that at somepoint, someone will run through the woods and another person will probably take a shower or skinny dip....

I think you get my point.  It's when the same familiar beats get executed without any irony or self-awareness.  Cabin in the Woods works because it takes all those horror cliches and puts them in a context where the people pulling the strings know that they're cliches and NEED those cliches to play out.  In doing so, the film says something about the nature of horror films and our love of the genre.

A generic film has nothing to say. It simply is. It's like a mynah bird - it can talk, but only by repeating what it's already heard.

"Any chance they just want to buy my idea and have someone else rewrite it?"

A writer calling themselves "Inconsolable Cat" sent me the following question:


How likely are you to pass up the line a script that has a great concept, but which is merely competently executed? Have you ever written, "The only good thing here is the idea. But what a great idea!"? How likely is a studio to buy a script just to own the concept, opting to send it to an established pro for a re-write?

I've been asked variations on this question before, and usually with a specific subtext to the query.  I'm not saying "Inconsolable" is guilty of this motivation, but this seems like a good opportunity to address those who are.

When I'm asked, "If the idea is great, would the studio buy that and get someone else to rewrite it?" my first thought is that I'm dealing with a writer who doesn't have confidence that their writing is up to the level of other professionals.  But somehow, they're convinced their idea is wildly original, so original that they can cash in by selling that and banking on someone else to get hired to do all the hard work.

I hate this sort of attitude.

It smacks of the laziest sort of writer, the kind of writer who's just in it to "cash in."  A real writer with a brilliant idea shouldn't want to give it up.  A true writer resists someone else coming in to work on his baby.

If you want to be a writer and you have an idea you believe in, they should have to pry that script out of your cold dead hands.  The only reason you should ask the question above is out of the fear that you won't get to complete the project on your own.

If  you welcome the idea of someone just tossing a nominal fee at you to buy the idea and then do what they want with it, just get the fuck out right now.

I mean it.  This isn't a profession for dilettantes.  When you treat screenwriting in that manner, it's disrespectful to the people who work hard to develop their craft and better their product.  If you don't show respect to the profession, I'm under no obligation to show respect to you.

As I said, Inconsolable Cat might not be coming at the question from the motivations I ascribe above, but I know that there are people out there who DO think like that.

To cover the rest of the questions, yes, there have been plenty of coverages where I've said, "Good concept, terrible execution."  It's somewhat rare to find an EXCELLENT concept and terrible execution, only because the work of a weak writer might end up undermining anything good about the script.

A weak writer also is less likely to conceive with an entirely unique concept.  If it's an idea they came up with, odds are someone ELSE has thought of something similar, and they might have done it even better.  So while readers like me can always champion the concept while slamming the script, a sub-par writing sample does no one any favors.

The decisions about that kind of purchase are made above my paygrade.  While it might happen now and then that a concept is SO impressive that it merits immediate purchase, I can't say I've ever seen that scenario happen at any of the companies I've worked for.  In other words, don't bank on it.

I'd say it's more likely that a script would sell if it's by written by a writer just short of professional level.  That writer would then get their guild-obligated rewrite and then the script would get passed on to another pro only after it was decided the original writer couldn't get the script to where it needed to be.  That kind of thing is probably more common than the concept being bought and the original writer being immediately removed.

Your goal should to sell that script, and be strong enough to be hired on even after the requisite rewrite.  Strive to be a writer, not a concept farmer.

12-Step Screenwriting: Week One - Idea, Concept and Story

I'm pleased to introduce the first regular episode of the Bitter Script Reader YouTube series!

This is the first chapter of a 12-part series designed to guide and motivate a writer to complete a screenplay within three months.  Recognizing that I had an opportunity to reach a new audience via YouTube, I decided to start with the basics.

This week's video covers the difference between idea, concept and story.  You wouldn't believe how those simple distinctions seem to elude many new writers.  You shouldn't start writing a script until you can say that what you're working on is a story.



As you can see, this is back-to-basics information, but hopefully some of you will take up the challenge of completing a screenplay alongside the weekly lessons in this series.  I've done my best to minimize the jargon here.  So later on we'll be talking things like Act Breaks and Climaxes, but I won't ask you to commit things like "Fun & Games" to memory.

I also won't pull the Writers Boot Camp stunt of introducing a lot of vocabulary that isn't common to the business.  The good news is that since I'm not charging for any of this, I don't have to go to ridiculous lengths to make it seem like the basics of screenwriting can only be understood by unlocking a Sphinx-like riddle.

As always, it really helps me out to see some engagement with these videos, so please click through to the YouTube page, Subscribe and leave a few comments there.  Feel free to embed these on your blogs, and if you find the tips useful, tweet about them or put the videos on your Facebook page.

I hope that in three months time, a lot of you will be reporting back with completed screenplays.