What every writer can learn from the mystery genre.
Today I want to tell you about a reoccurring issue I find in a lot of scripts and share an easy fix that makes a massive difference.
I recently watched the series RUN (which I unfortunately didn’t realize was cancelled already when I started watching it) and they do a phenomenal job at this. So much so that what is essentially a road-trip rom-com (we’ve seen that a thousand times before) becomes an edge-of-your-seat mystery. It’s really a remarkable mix of genres that is all character-driven.
Every murder mystery is just a crime story that keeps information from you. The more info that is kept from the audience, the more the audience is involved. They want to try to “figure it out.” But this applies no matter your genre.
If you want your audience to be involved in your characters, there must be a sense of mystery.
There must be something they are trying to “figure out.” Tease these reveals out… make an audience member go “Oh, that’s weird. Why did they act that way?” Ask the questions before you give the answers.
When you’re in the outlining phase, try breaking your script down into 8 segments and at the end of each segment, make it a big reveal about your protagonist. Like an old serial cliffhanger, but character-driven. Take those 8 most interesting things that you might be tempted to drop up front to make the character “interesting” and spread those throughout the script.
Of course, these interesting things have to also be relevant to your story. The reveals should have repercussions within the film. The reveals should set up new mysteries. The reveals should make it harder for your protagonist to reach their goal. The reveals should cause tension with other characters. The reveals should change the way the audience looks at the story.
Do you have any good examples of these kind of reveals in films you’ve seen recently?
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