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Hello everyone.

These were the notes I received for the categories Dig Down was judged on when I submitted my script to the Santa Barbara Screenplay Competition:

Comments:
Concept/Originality
DIG DOWN is a bold and pulse-pounding take on the last-man-standing crime subgenre.
With its cast of reprehensible characters trying to annihilate one another, it could appeal
to audiences that enjoy films like City on Fire and Reservoir Dogs. However, for the
script to really stand out it will need an extra dash of style and idiosyncrasy.

Structure
The dual time frame structure works well. The tension remains tight in the present-tense
manhunt story while the audience learns, through flashbacks, how the protagonist got into
this mess in the first place. The flashbacks themselves could use more structure. The
scenes that focus on the father and son unpacking the past are less energetic than the
scenes that show the younger Rob in action. The scene with Rob in the club, for example
(page 20), works well. We see that he’s striking out, down on himself, and susceptible to
Axel’s seduction. More flashbacks of Rob playing Faust to Axel’s devil, getting in deeper
and deeper, and finally being unable to stop the machine he has set in motion, would give
the story a stronger spine.

Plot
The plot is carefully constructed, with two bracingly unpredictable twists. The
denouement is satisfying and all the setups of the first two acts pay off enjoyably at the
end. This is one of those rare screenplays in which there are no significant plot holes that
need repairing. However, the plot sometimes takes center stage, with detailed
explanations of what happened and what’s supposed to happen next. Some of this can be
scaled back, and more emphasis added to the relationships. In particular, Rob’s
relationships with the women in his life should be more fully developed.

Pacing
The high-octane action sequences are tightly paced and suspenseful. The momentum
stalls during some of the standoffs, when the characters have guns trained on each other
and we’re waiting for the balance of power to shift. These scenes could be condensed or
leavened with humor and character quirks. The pace needs to accelerate somewhat in the
last 10 pages. Once we learn that Rob has murdered his own father, the audience will no
longer be rooting for him. We’ll want him to get his comeuppance. It’s time to wrap it up.

Characters
Rob is a compelling, ambiguous main character, but his personality needs to be fleshed
out more fully. Antiheroes are tricky. The audience needs to perversely identify with
them. If we really see the younger Rob at his lowest moment, we’d follow his rise and
demise with more empathy (Arthur Fleck in Joker is a good example). Or if he were truly
an evil genius, he would earn the admiration, if not the moral approval, of the audience.
For example, in the scene where he murders his father with a blunt instrument. Preston is
already in failing health, and Rob could find a way to dispatch him and make it look
natural. The parade of violent antagonists is fun to watch, and the action descriptions are
effective at conveying their scariness. They could be even more memorable with some
oddities or comical character quirks of the kind found in Tarantino and Martin
McDonagh’s dark comedies.

Tone
The mix of suspense, action, and fish-out-of-water comedy makes the script highly
entertaining. The darkening of the tone in the last act works well, with unexpected but
believable twists driving the finale. One thing the writer can do to enhance the tone
would be to give a clearer sense of the locale. Tempe, Arizona is an inspired choice for a
film noir, and the action descriptions could evoke the feeling of desert nights, suburban
developments, rock formations, etc. Much of this will be decided during the filming, but
a screenplay can convey the visual style of the film. Breaking Bad is a good example.
The Southwest setting helps bolster the show’s neo-Western tone.

Conflict
The basic conflict keeps the story moving. Rob is constantly in danger and repeatedly
thwarted in his efforts to escape. The father-son conflict feels less focused. They go back
and forth, each blaming the other for what went wrong. A stronger choice would be to
show how powerful an influence Preston had on young Rob. A colder or more imposing
father figure (Vito Corleone, Logan Roy in Succession) would help explain why Rob
seeks approval while at the same time seething with resentment. Tension is at its highest
when Rob is active and staying one step ahead of his enemies. The shopping mall scene,
for example, is very well executed. Some of this tension could also be enhanced in some
of the fight sequences. Rob mostly gets beaten down unrelentingly until someone
intervenes. If he were to find some way to turn the tables, only to see them turn again, the
tussles would be more suspenseful.

Emotional Response/Investment
In the first two acts, Rob’s non-stop fight for survival keeps the audience involved.
However, even before the twist ending the audience will stop rooting for Rob. He’s
unsympathetic in the sense that he’s only trying to save his own skin. He never thinks
about putting things right or redeeming himself. He plans to take Vicky with him but
seems not to trust her or have much respect for her. The stakes would be raised if he and
Vicky were head over heels in love. They may be at odds with society but will do
anything for each other (Mickey and Mallory in the original Natural Born Killers
screenplay is a good example of this).

Marketplace Potential
There’s always an audience for crime dramas with plenty of action and colorful,
desperate characters. Again, enhancing the particular quirks of the characters and the
writer’s sense of humor and style will enhance the film’s cult-audience potential.

I have included the feedback I received on all of the categories except Dialogue. While there were fair points made in all of the categories, there was one note that I need to address, and rather than include the comment and my response in an already long post, I have instead separated it for now but will include the feedback, as well as my thoughts, next time.

The feedback and notes came in one big wave. After submitting to three different competitions at roughly the same time, in a two to three day span, the timetables for responses lined up relatively the same. I was still riding the high of the great phone call I had for my first ever script consultation for Dig Down, so I was eager to see if yet another outside source had a similar positive response to my script.

Unlike the other contests, this actually broke down the analysis into categories and provided a score. Below is how the initial draft I submitted fared:

Scores:
Concept/Originality (6)
Structure (8)
Plot (8)
Pacing (9)
Characters (7)
Dialogue (7)
Tone (8)
Conflict (8)
Emotional Response/Investment (7)
Marketplace Potential (8)

There were notes that went along with these scores, but because there is a lot to unpack with the comments, I will share the contents of the feedback next time.

I was beyond thrilled after getting off the line of my first ever script consultation. So much so I couldn’t sit still and stay cooped up inside.

It was still early March, and upstate New York, but I needed to get outside for a walk. I don’t know if I even put on a coat, or if I even needed one. The overflow of positivity and all the ideas that I had taken away from the consultation was all I could focus on – and was more than enough to keep me warm.

Not only had the consultation been an absolute success, I felt my whole plan to use the screenplay competitions to hone in on areas that needed improvement was coming to fruition. Both contests had identified some weaknesses in my script, and although I had already been brainstorming ideas based on the notes from Finish Line Competition, the consultation with Page Turners had reinforced those thoughts, and had planted the seeds for all new ones.

After a quick breather away from my script, my first order of business was going to be to print it out and make notes on every point we had gone over during the phone call. I was just so energized from the call I couldn’t believe that it was already evening, and that the sun would be going down soon.

This was just such a high point in my writing career.

And while I was on this walk, I checked my email…

In my inbox was the notes from the final screenplay competition I had entered.

The consultation lasted for over two and a half hours before it started to wind down. I could feel we had started to reach the end of the key areas to address, though I also felt we could have kept talking about the script for Dig Down even more without it feeling forced. It was such a great experience from my side, a great first interaction at this level, and I believed the judge when he said it had been a pleasure on his end as well, telling me that most scripts aren’t in the shape or at the level mine was, and that some of these consultations devolved into covering the basics of scripts and story telling.

The judge said he had to take time to prepare for another phone consultation, and I felt we had reached a really good stopping point anyway. He also reminded me that I could the notes and feedback before and during this consultation, apply it to my script, and could still re-submit my work before the deadline.

This was great…but also gave me pause.

The stories I’d published thus far are all novellas, but I still spent at least three months just outlining them. That’s not to mention the months I was brainstorming ideas for them prior, or the months I spent with drafts and re-writes, and this is all before I even brought it to my editor to do even more re-writes. While I’m no stranger to making tweaks and adding polish to my work, I also know how long it takes me to implement these edits.

Small ones, sure, no problem, I can rattle them off in no time. But with the feedback I had gotten from this consultation, as well as the other contest I’d already gotten notes back on, even with the overlap in some of the areas they addressed, I wasn’t so sure 17 days would be enough to make these changes in a way that brought the best out of the story.

I did share this concern with the judge…and I actually like that he gave me some tough love and told me I could get it done. There was only the faintest traces of sternness in his tone, like a parent whose having none of their kid’s shenanigans about trying to take the easy path.

What’s more, he ended the call in the best way possible: “I look forward to reading it again with your re-writes.”

What a vote of confidence. How can you not think you can take the world head on after that?

While my first ever script consultation for Dig Down was overwhelmingly positive, that’s not to say it was perfect. There were a few areas of improvement that were brought up during the phone call.

The first was the issue of Ruth. While I will avoid getting into it here, especially for people who haven’t read the book yet (and if you haven’t, what are you waiting for? Go get on that), but her character plays a vital role in the plot, even though she’s not really featured much in the story, only referenced through most of it. This was something that worked in the book, but that I freely admit was something that needed to be revised for the screenplay.

The notes I got on this were similar to the feedback I got for her character for the Finish Line Screenplay Competition as well, so at least this wasn’t something that caught me off guard. In fact, this was technically something I was looking for when I had submitted Dig Down to multiple competitions to get notes, commonality in areas to improve.

The next note of something to work on was working on differentiating the characters better. This was something I was already looking into heading into the consultation, based off of the character layers template the judge had sent me in preparation of the meeting, but it was still something I hadn’t implemented. This was once again something I feel I had overlooked a little when I was adapting the story to a screenplay, and it was evidenced by a comment like the sicarios both sounded the same. This I felt was pretty fair, and the idea I had for future revisions was for one to exclusively speak Spanish, as though he refused to speak anything else. I also wanted this character to come across as more sadistic and a hothead, so that Javy, the other sicario, would feel more reasonable.

The last remark surprised me however: the judge said the end fell a little flat for him. I thought this had to do with the video he had wanted me to watch prior to our meeting, about endings concluding conflicts on three different levels: external, internal, and philosophical. As it turned out though, the judge felt that I was really pulling my punches at the end. This seemed rather shocking to me, as I feel it would be for everyone whose finished Dig Down.

The judge’s suggestion was to real lean into the seedy nature of the characters at the end, even to the point of calling out all of the horrible things that they’ve done in the story. That explanation at least made some sense to me, and while I didn’t really like the suggestion of exposition at the end, I could at least tell where he was coming from. The good thing here was that during our discussion about it, I actually came away with some ideas of how to implement his notes.

These ideas are something I’ll get into, next time.

After the initial near blunder, the rest of the consultation for my script of Dig Down went smoothly. It also went about as good as I ever could have expected, let alone ask for.

The judge who I was on the call with told me it was a real pleasure reading my script, and that one of the biggest problems he had with it was that in doing these competitions, screenplays like this only came along once every month or so, so he jokingly blamed me that it would be another month before he read something so solid.

He also relayed that this was going to be a different type of call than what he was used to for these consultations. They are pricey, but they are open to anyone who doesn’t mind spending the cash for them. The high cost, theoretically, should weed out scripts that aren’t polished, as you could get the feedback from this very competition for much cheaper. Apparently that isn’t typical, at least for this contest’s judge, as he stated that for some calls, they’re going over the basics of formatting.

That still blows me away. I get wanting feedback on your screenplay, that’s why I entered this contest, but again, they offered a variety of services, many much cheaper than this alternative. Yes, you wouldn’t get a phone consultation in those meetings, but why not get a sense of where you stood before plunking down this kind of cash.

I know the answer though – most people don’t know what they don’t know. They might not realize how far off target they are from where they need to be. And from the judge’s comment that sometimes he’s spending time arguing with them about formatting basics, it sounds like people don’t always want to believe they’re that far off, even when they’re told.

Another positive was that the judge said my script had everything. As I alluded to in earlier posts, the reason it was taking so long to get the notes turned out to be because they really liked it. That didn’t mean that there still wasn’t areas to improve (I’ll get into that in the next post), but that any notes needed to be thought out beyond the surface level (like formatting) to really elevate the screenplay to the next level. The judge said that all the elements were there for what people were looking for in a movie, now it was just about bringing them out in the best way.

With the focus on positive feedback, I found myself more and more relaxed as the phone call went on, which helped me feel comfortable in discussing points about the script. The concern I had going into the consultation that I wouldn’t be able to thoughtful responses to questions – that evaporated within moments after the early near faux paus, as I felt at ease the rest of the meeting.

A great example of this was his question about the name of the script, and whether it should be changed. While I didn’t necessarily have the sales at that time to insist that the story had name recognition, I went into the different layers that the title held for me, and this actually helped shape an idea to give it a film noir element (more on this in the coming posts). The conversation went for two and a half hours before it started to wind down, and at no point was there a shortage of discussion on ideas to improve the script further.

I think we could have kept talking longer, but he did have another consultation to prepare for. And to be honest, as much as he may have enjoyed my story, even I can see there’s only so long someone else can have the interest to discuss it. But as we were wrapping up the call, he did reiterate that because of this level of feedback and consultation, I had the ability to make revisions as I saw fit (another great thing about this contest, and working with editors, they’ve never tried to mold the story into what they want, they’ve always just made suggestions for what they feel could help improve the story I want to tell) and resubmit, up to the contests deadline, and ended the call with something that conveyed he had faith in me as a writer.

“I’m looking forward to reading the revisions.”