Last fall, my husband stumbled upon a YouTuber that he greatly enjoys. His name is Ryan George, and he makes short Pitch Meeting videos for the Screen Rant YouTube channel that make fun of the plots of popular movies. You should check them out sometime. You’ll probably get hooked.

Our whole family has started watching these Pitch Meetings and they are quite entertaining. In fact my husband and I bought each other T-shirts for Christmas with the same one of Ryan’s catchphrases on it. We both thought we were being SO CLEVER! Ha ha.

Ryan starts all his Pitch Meets pretty much the same. The “screenwriter” is meeting with a “Hollywood executive” to pitch a movie. The executive says, “You have a movie for me?” And the screenwriter says, “Yes, sir, I do.” And the pitch begins.

One of my favorite Pitch Meetings is the one Ryan did of the original Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Keep in mind, Ryan is primarily a comedian, but his act is based on pointing out the flaws in movies. To give you an example, I’ve embedded the Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory episode below. The clip I’m about to use as an example happens at 1:35 when Charlie finds the golden ticket. I’ve typed out a transcript of that passage below the video so you can read it. This will give you an idea of how Ryan likes to point out character or plot problems that are “Unclear!” and don’t make a lot of sense.

Screenwriter: “Eventually Charlie ends up finding the ticket, and he gets to being somebody with him.”
Hollywood Executive: “So, who does he bring with him? His hard-working mom?”
Screenwriter: “Nope. He’s going to bring his grandpa Joe.”
Hollywood Executive: “Haven’t all his grandparents been bedridden for two decades?”
Screenwriter: “They sure have, but Grandpa Joe is going to be so excited, he’s going to get out of bed and start dancing around.”
Hollywood Executive: “What?”
Screenwriter: “Yeah, he’s so excited. He can’t wait to go.”
Hollywood Executive: “You’re saying all it took for him to get out of bed was the opportunity to go eat some free candy?”
Screenwriter: “That’s right.”
Hollywood Executive: “What about when Charlie was born and the mom had to raise a child by herself?”
Screenwriter: “Nope, he didn’t. That wasn’t enough for him to get out of bed.”
Hollywood Executive: “What about trying to get a job so they don’t have to eat cabbage soup all the time?”
Screenwriter: “So, he’s going to dance around. He’s going to sing a song about how he has a golden ticket.”
Hollywood Executive: “He doesn’t–Charlie has the golden ticket!”
Screenwriter: “Well, that’s Grandpa Joe for you.”
Hollywood Executive: “Ugh, Grandpa Joe’s a monster! Is he the bad guy or something?”
Screenwriter: “No, he’s one of the good guys.”
Hollywood Executive: “Uhh, if you say so.”
Screenwriter: “Anyway, so then they head to the Wonka factory.”

~Ryan George, Screen Rant

You get the idea.

Ryan has several catchphrases he uses over and over in his videos. I watched so many of these videos that his catchphrases are now in the back of my brain when I’m watching TV or reading a book. I’ll see these flaws he’s continually pointed out and I’ll say, “Super easy! Barely and inconvenience!” Then my family will nod in agreement, since they know exactly what I’m talking about.

So what am I talking about? Well, here are three of Ryan’s catchphrases that can help you find the flaws in your own story.

Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.

This is a line the Hollywood executive often says after hearing the initial pitch. If you’re writing a story, you want to have a premise that wows the reader. Editors and agents are readers too, so you’ll likely be pitching your idea to them at some point. Practice on your friends. Does your pitch have a wow factor? If not, practice writing it until it does.

If your story just doesn’t have the elements to make a reader say “Wow!” then work on that plot until it does. What can you do to make things worse or more difficult for your main character? How can you raise the stakes? Here are two links to posts that can help you craft a strong pitch for your story:

What is a High Concept Pitch and How Do You Write One?

What is a Logline and How Do You Write One?

Unclear.

This catchphrase is uttered by the screenwriter whenever the Hollywood executive asks a good question about the character’s motivation, behavior, or the plot. The screenwriter says, “Unclear!” then keeps going with the pitch. Sometimes the screenwriter will even add, “How about you get up off my back about that?” if the executive continues asking about something particularly unbelievable.

Don’t have things in your story that are unbelievable. I’m not talking about a high concept like magic or a world with no gravity. Storyworld elements fall under the realm of suspension of disbelief, and readers will give you a lot of grace in this area. I’m talking about the times where the characters do something they would never do because you need that thing to happen or you need them to get from Point A to Point B. I’m talking about contrived plot devices that you just haven’t put enough thought into.

If you have anything in your story that causes your beta readers to ask questions that you don’t have any answers to, either figure out an answer that makes perfect sense, or change what happens so that it makes sense. When things happen in your story that are unclear to the reader, the reader is flipping pages, going back to try and see if they missed something. The reader is lost. And when the reader realizes there is no answer–that the author has plot holes in the story or wrote a character behaving in a way that is opposite to who the author set up that character to be–the reader is annoyed.

Don’t annoy your reader.

Super easy. Barely an inconvenience.

This one is my favorite. It’s the one that is on the T-shirt that I bought my husband and my husband bought me. It’s the one I’m wearing in the picture. Super easy. Barely an inconvenience.

There comes a point in every Pitch Meeting where the screenwriter is explaining the “impossible situation” part of the story. The part where you’d think there is no way the characters could possible succeed. The Hollywood executive will say something like, “Wow. It’s going to be tough for the characters to get out of that situation.”

Then the screenwriter will say, “Nope. It’s going to be super easy. Barely an inconvenience.” And then he’ll explain how the characters in the movie got through that impossible situation in a simple way. He’s mocking the movie. The characters are in a plot situation that should be terribly difficult to get out of, yet somehow it just all magically works.

Don’t do this!

If you have a situation in your book that should be difficult for your character to get through, make it difficult for your character to get through it. Add difficulty, if you must. Ask yourself, “What could make this worse?” Then do that.

Another part of this is that you need to make sure that you take the time to set up the things your characters are going to need to make it through a crisis in a believable way. If they know karate and karate is going to be a way they get through that major difficulty in the story, show them doing karate a couple times previously in the story. This is what my first editor Jeff Gerke called the Plant and Payoff. If your character is going to need something later on in the story, plant it early on so we know it’s there. This can be an object, a skill, or information.

How about you?

So those are three catchphrases that stuck out to me from Ryan George’s Pitch Meetings after watching, like, 100 of them. He seriously beat into my head some places where Hollywood takes shortcuts when telling stories. Which one of these three is the hardest for you? Which one annoys you the most when you’re watching a movie or reading a book? 1) A lame or too outlandish premise? 2) Things that are completely unbelievable? 3) Or that horrible, no-win situation that the characters magically get through without a bead of sweat dampening their brow? Or so you have a different pet peeve that drives you crazy about books or movies?

Share in the comments. I’m curious what you think. Oh, and be sure to watch more of Ryan’s videos too. They’re not only funny, they’ll get your story flaw radar on high alert.