March 22, 2009: Week 6
I’m excited to announce that we have our first international Cowrite winner. Australian Tim Roberts is the week 5 winner. Congrats to Tim on his fun pages that definitely left us wondering what will happen next. The original lofty goal behind Cowrite was to have aspiring writers everywhere contribute, so we are very excited about Tim’s participation. I’ve said it before but I think it bears repeating just what a triumph it would be to sell a screenplay co-written by aspiring writers throughout the world.

I also want to mention it’s been noted that the overall quality of the writing has improved as we’ve progressed. With the Pro’s Take and other elements, one of the goals of Cowrite was to serve as an online screenwriting classroom so we are pleased to see the writing continue to get stronger -- hopefully as a result of the contest!

The next 10 pages are extremely important because they will bring us to the midpoint of the script and should conclude with an important story turn. This is Jonas’s story so at or around page 60 Jonas should be inextricably linked to the plot. By that I mean he won’t be able to just walk away and return to his former life because there will be too much at stake. He must continue on and work to achieve his goals or else suffer the consequences.

Given the story elements thus far, the next 10 pages must bring Nora back into the fray. Perhaps at page 60 she is kidnapped and Jonas is the only one who can save her? Or perhaps Cable’s men have taken Freddie and Jonas and Nora must work together to save him and protect national security? Or maybe all three work together? The key is just to have the story necessitate her involvement and utilize her character in interesting ways.

Ava’s fate should also be dealt with or illuminated in the next entry. She can play as little or as big a role as you think is integral to the plot, but your entry should at least check in on her storyline. Perhaps she was with Walters in the hospital or perhaps she’s off on her own recuperating or working to protect the kids or stop Cable? Or maybe she didn’t even make it out alive after the explosion?

Tim’s pages left Walters and Cable together so there’s a great of opportunity to do something interesting there, especially since Cable now knows Jonas is up to something at McMann’s and that Ava was at Walter’s house. Of course the major focus of your next entry should be continuing the Raul and Freddie sequence and keeping Jonas involved. What is Jonas going to do and what, perhaps, is going to clue him in that something was amiss with Freddie? It seems like the trite thing to do would be to have Bobo just attack Raul so try to stay away from anything predictable. Finally, what role, if any, will Julian and Helen play? Tim left us some room to further define Julian and his capabilities if you think that’s worth exploring.

A couple other quick ideas you may want to consider for your next entry: 1) Open up the story a little. Right now it’s been fairly contained in the D.C. suburbs so perhaps widening the scope to Washington D.C. or China (given Cable’s buyers) could be interesting. 2) Up the stakes for Cable…why does he need to sell this device to the Chinese. Just money? Power? Why is it so important to him? What happens if he fails? And who else might be involved and/or counting on Cable? 3) Up the stakes for Jonas/Walters/Ava…why do they need to prevent the Chinese from getting this obsidian bar…it’s bad if they get it, but perhaps it’s worse if the Chinese just became a staunch ally of Iran or another US enemy. This could be another opportunity to widen the scope of the story. 4) The dichotomy of Jonas being in high school and being involved in a plot concerning national security could still be used in interesting ways. 5) Perhaps an attempt to go to the police, FBI or CIA backfires on Jonas and there really is no one to stop Cable but himself? 6)Continue to think about both the end of Act 2 and the end of the screenplay to help give your entry direction. What do you see as the endgame to this journey for Jonas?

As always feel free to consider these suggestions or ignore them completely. The best submission will win out regardless.

Lastly, we’ve received a bunch emails and also read posts from people who’ve had trouble participating because they didn’t have enough time to write. As the ever-important midpoint of the contest and script approaches we thought this would be a good time to give writers an extra week to catch up on the script and get some good writing done. The first deadline for the next ten pages will be April 5th and the extended deadline April 8th.

Thanks to those who have offered feedback. If you have any additional suggestions please feel free to email them to info@cowritescript.com. As this is a community-sourced project we want to hear all your input and suggestions. We encourage you to help mold this project and make it your own. Thanks and good luck!



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