Understanding Spec Scripts

BY CHARLES DEEMER

August 4th, 2004

A number of readers responded to my last column on Verticality and raised several interesting issues, most of which relate to a confusion about the nature of spec scripts.

For example, several readers asked this: if verticality is so important, why are so many published screenplays without it? Indeed many published scripts contain the very "literary" and "verbose" qualities screenwriting teachers are always warning against. If the pros write this way, why shouldn't beginners?

Excellent questions. Indeed an observant screenwriting student should be confused by what appears to be conflicting information such as the above, teachers saying one thing, the "evidence" suggesting another. Several things are operating here that lead to the confusion.

First, screenwriting format and style have evolved over the past several decades in major ways. For example, CUT TO: no longer is used in a spec script. However, if you read a recent script by William Goldman, you will find dozens, maybe hundreds, of CUT TO: What gives?

What gives is that William Goldman is William Goldman. An established professional screenwriter learns the craft at a given moment in time and changing fashion is unlikely to sway him into another writing style. Goldman and other established pros write the way they learned to write when they learned the craft -- and in many cases, this format and style are very different from what is considered "proper" today.

Moreover, Goldman and virtually all pros differ in their relationship to readers. Pros get paid first and write second. That is, they sell an idea, a story concept, get a check and start writing. This means they are already an investment by the time a reader enters the equation. If I pay you fifty grand to write something for me, I am going to read what you deliver no matter what style it is written in! The writer-reader relationship for the pro is far different from the writer-reader relationship when a spec script arrives in the mail.

Spec script writers are far from being an investment. On the contrary, they are merely one of hundreds of similar writers competing for attention and trying to attract limited resources. There is no vested interest in play. In fact, a reader risks more by liking a spec script than by disliking one! If a reader rejects a spec script, the boss doesn't know the difference; the script is returned. But if a reader approves a script, it works its way up the power structure and the boss may read it. If the boss hates a script approved with enthusiasm by a reader, then the reader's judgment comes into question and s/he may be looking for a job.

The reason spec scripts are written with great economy, which includes the technique of verticality, is to make the reading easy in a very competitive marketplace. I tell my students your script has to be understood by a reader who is "reading" while having lunch, having one conversation on the phone and another across the desk, all at the same time. Your script is skimmed before it is read carefully, and if the story doesn't grab the reader in this pressure cooker, you may not get another chance. This is the reality of the writer-reader relationship for spec scripts.

Other readers pointed out that adding verticality to a script would increase pagination, perhaps changing a 110 page screenplay to a 130 pager. Yes, it would. Which means, get out the chain saw and make your story even more efficient. David Mamet has written eloquently about the moment when his transition from playwriting to screenwriting was complete: he turned a good five page scene into an excellent two page scene. Remember, "the chain saw is your friend."

If you start writing vertically from the start, you'll be able to track your pagination. But beginning screenwriters almost always write more than they should. I'll have more to say about this in future columns.

Charles Deemer teaches graduate and undergraduate screenwriting at Portland State University. He is the author of the electronic screenwriting tutorial, Screenwright: the craft of screenwriting. His book Seven Plays was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. His new book, Practical Screenwriting, is due in 2005. Deemer maintains two websites: