Your Screenplay, I'll Believe Anything Once

    Your Screenplay, I’ll Believe Anything Once

    Movies are about the suspension of belief.
    The audience enters into a willing contract with the storyteller. This contract states
that they will believe absolutely anything that you tell them, once.
    I repeat ONCE.
    Do not go beyond that unless you are writing a comedy.  Comedy is the art of
the ridiculous.   All else requires that the once rule be put into place.  Test this rule
out on almost any and all bad movies that you have seen.
    Why didn’t you like the movie Insidious.  They broke the one thing rule.
Yes they did hint at what was to come, but it was too much all at once and it took
the movie in a completely different direction. You had a really solid and creepy
horror film going and the whole astro projection thing was a bit too much that came
along much too late in the movie.
    Let us look at the anything once rule in full effect.
    I see dead people, The Sixth Sense.  You are told that and the movie never looks
away or turns away from that premise.
    The devil is in this elevator with us, The Devil.  Simple and easy to follow.  Well
done little movie.
    My child is possessed by a demon and needs an Exorcism, The Exorcist.  Greatest
horror film ever made and yes there is a bit more to the story than that, but the basic
concept is followed through without blinking or looking away.
    Killer shark has selected an island community as its feeding territory, Jaws.  The
big shark is not genetically engineered.  It is not from outer space.  It was not
bullied in school.  It is just a big bad eating machine and it likes the taste of people.
    Keep it simple.
    If your story is a spy thriller or a mystery you are allowed and encouraged to
make it complicated.  Those are puzzles and are meant to be studied and reworked by
the viewer.  While if you are doing an action or horror, or suspense or drama story I
am telling you that simple and straight forward without grand twist are the best
way to go.
    Imagine that your script is an arrow that you have just shot from a bow.  Do you
want this arrow to fly straight and true toward its target or do you want it to twist
and turn and do loops like in a looney tunes cartoon?
    Anything once will be believed, trust me on this.
    Any one thing.  If you want to hold your audience one shot is all you will get. If
this was good enough for Dickens and Shakespeare then it should be good enough
for me and you.