Writing for competitions – you have to make something new and interesting happen immediately.
Not difficult with this one crazy trick.
Make sameness WORK FOR YOU. Take that opening scene that’s so common and obvious and overused and MAKE IT END IN A COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED WAY.
Instead of killing that pretty young woman, chase her through the woods with a handheld camera until we’re seething, then have her turn around and blow a motherfucker away by opening her mouth and disgorging a swarm of weaponized nano-wasps.
Flip the same over. You will get the reader’s attention.
Question: what’s the maximum number of pages you can take to get to that flip? It seems like it’s got to happen pretty quickly to keep a reader interested, but you have to take a little time to set up expectations, y/n?
That’s a good question. The example I used is a third of a page.
This useful confession is about opening scenes, so that’s under two pages. Any visual juxtaposition that is a riff on your theme will do, you do not have to cram a plot point reveal onto page one.
The object is to surprise and delight the reader by showing them you know how to manipulate their expectations. Most spec scripts take the reader by the hand and walk them along, pointing out and carefully explaining everything that they can already see and deduce. It’s boring.
Taking time to set up expectations is a matter of showing a familiar thing and then showing that it’s not what you think, which takes very little page space and zero dialogue.