Question:  What’s refreshing about a movie like “Notes on a Scandal,” in which three absolutely insane people  (and one kid with down syndrome) clash on a suburban road, all screaming, all with desperate and conflicting agendas, and all headed for self destruction because of this very encounter? Answer:  The writing.

Many disagree.  Critics praised the actors (for great reason) but shunned the script for being a verbose vulgarization of a great novel.  Then they jumped on the score, calling it overdone.  But the thing is, if you whip up a really good story which is driven by the characters – I mean the story happens only because these characters are who they are – and motivations are real; if you dish up a story like that…Well, you can go ahead and cast it with great actors, throw in a Phillip Glass score, and you still can’t screw it up.  A good story is a good story.

Or take another 2006 movie like “Firewall,” which seems to have everything a profitable movie would need:  Harrison Ford being irritated because dangerous thugs have his family at gunpoint, lots of high-tech visuals, a great supporting cast, action, effects, high stakes, a killer pace…  And nobody cares.  I saw it on an airplane and I still wanted my money back.  The plot is driven not by characters but by big budget action movie conventions.  You see, we already know that if you try motivating Harrison Ford by holding his family at gunpoint, he’ll get you in the end.  It’s a done deal.  If he doesn’t, if he fails in some way, he’ll lose his standing as a big budget movie hero.  There’s no real surprise, no new thrill, no reason to drive to the mall and pay to park when you can stay home and watch “24” for free. 

Even though we’re looking at a summer full of blockbusters ending in the Roman Numeral Three, believe it or not, the old formulas are wearing thin.  If you’re trying to sell your first screenplay, make sure it’s packed full of surprises.  The studios can always buy the old stuff, but there’s a list of the same five names they’ll buy it from.  They don’t need more of what they’ve already got from a new writer.  What they need is the new, the unpredictable, the compelling, and the surprising.  That’s what you want to be selling.

If you’re uncertain how to end your story, let your characters decide.  If you create the kind of characters that make story happen, don’t drag them around with a paint-by-numbers plot.  Let them tell you the plot.  And let your main character’s own self-directed destiny determine the third act.  If you feel compelled to have a last minute save, make sure it comes not from out of the blue but from some quality your main character has as an individual, different from anyone else, which you the writer have already set up in the first or second act in the form of behavior.  Your main character has habits, those habits become destiny, and that destiny is different from anybody else’s.  Get to page 98 and hand the steering wheel over to your main character.  If you’ve built him right with motivations, quirks, virtues, and flaws, he’ll find his own way home.