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Patience is an increasingly challenging value to apply in screenwriting. It might be even more challenging in writing for television. With the viewing audience increasingly fractured, and suffering from a shorter attention span than ever, it can be tempting to dive straight into action, whatever the “action” of your narrative is. The newest incarnation of “The Punisher” character would seem to lean into this type of instant gratification storytelling. Frank Castle aka “The Punisher”, at face value, might appear to be a pretty superficial character. He’s here to drink beer and kick ass, and he’s all out of beer. But...

Non-spoiler alert – you don’t need to have seen Starz’s acclaimed series COUNTERPART, which just premiered its second season recently on December 9th, to read this article. The show is a great example of writing roles that challenge your actors. 

JK Simmons plays two parts, Howard Silk and Howard Prime (Howard Silk’s doppelganger from a parallel dimension). Howard Silk is kind, self-effacing, responsible, and openly loving, especially towards his wife, whom he reads to every night in the hospital (where she’s in a coma). Howard Prime is arrogant, demanding, selfish, and has alienated his wife and daughter in the Prime dimension.

What’s the lesson here? Should we all write screenplays featuring identical twins? No. The most interesting part of the show is how both men also express similarities to each other, and how their different traits are benefits or drawbacks, depending on the situation. 

For screenwriters looking to imbue their scripts with universal thematic depth, there’s a great example to look to. As the clock winds down on 2018, the number one movie of the year at the domestic box office in the USA is BLACK PANTHER.

BLACK PANTHER grossed 700 million dollars domestically. It grossed another 646 million in foreign markets. The film made well north of a literal billion dollars. It’s a smash hit by any possible definition. And it was a smash everywhere. The film made 100 million dollars in China. It made 28 million in Mexico. It made 42 million in South Korea.

What’s so impressive about BLACK PANTHER is that its themes are both universal and specific. For African-American audience members, certain elements of the story may hold greater weight, like the backstory of Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger, or the visitation of T’Challa at the end of the film to open an outreach center. But anyone can appreciate the themes of this film.

SPOILER ALERT – do not read this article if you haven’t yet seen the entire first season of THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE. 

SECOND SPOILER ALERT – seriously, don’t do it. Are you still reading this? Have you seen the whole first season? Okay, let’s get into it.

Haunted house movies are a dime a dozen. If you look through a list of haunted house films (there aren’t that many haunted house TV shows, by contrast) they follow a similar template (people move into a haunted house, spooky things happen to them, repeat).

Yet, somehow THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE takes this template and endows it with powerful human drama. 

Hooking the audience is the most important thing any story can do. Your story can be wildly unconventional in every way, as long as it keeps the audience’s attention from start to finish. But sometimes, it can feel like doing something dazzlingly bold and original is the only way to capture an audience.

The recent Netflix Original Series BODYGUARD is a show that’s garnered a lot of attention recently. It’s not reinventing the wheel, but it serves up a classic, meat and potatoes narrative with rock solid story and character fundamentals.