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.”
~Ryan George, Screen Rant
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.”
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.
Awesome post!!! I think the “super easy – barely an inconvenience” is probably the hardest one for me. I’m not sure I ever make my characters get out of the situation right. And I don’t know if my difficulty is difficult enough.
Things that happen that are unbelievable is probably the thing that annoys me most in movies.?
Thank you for the great advice!!!!!
I totally understand this, Katherine. That’s what revisions are for! Add that to the top of your list to see if you can up the stakes when you’re rewriting.
Yeah, I think that one bothers me the most too. It’s just so lazy. And I feel like, if you have $100 million to invest in a movie, invest in a screenwriter who knows what he’s doing. OR leave the screenplay alone and don’t meddle! (Because I know the director/producers and others can change things and often make things worse–though sometimes make things better, so… *shrugs*)
I actually subscribe to Screen Rant! And now you are asking me to see flaws in my own story? What? It’s perfect! (Jk, my story is NOT perfect.)
Ha ha. Yeeahhh, it’s easy to do it to movies and TV shows we’re watching and books we’re reading. It’s much harder to analyze our own stories the same way, mostly because we’re so close to them, it’s hard to see the flaws. It takes a lot of practice, and even then, beta readers will catch things we missed.
HA! I LOVE Ryan George! I never thought about using his way to find flaws in my own story. I have a bad habit of putting huge plot holes that I completely miss. Thanks for the post.
(I was actually watching the Home Alone pitch when I saw the post, so LOL)
The Home Alone one cracks me up! Though I will always love Home Alone anyway. <3
Oh my goodness I think I’ll now go binge his videos! Lol that was great! And super eye opening in ways I need to think through my own stories. Thank you!
You’re welcome! Have fun binge-watching! 😉
When my family watches movies, I love to point out the things that don’y make sense, or debate which character is better with my siblings. At my house, we also have tendency to come of with the weirdest, most far-fetched and hilarious theories as we watch.
I think that in a book, the thing that would bother me the most is the ending being too easy. They’ve built up the story, and then the next thing you know, it’s over, without any struggle. I like to see that what the character worked for actually pays off, and see the growth.
YES, Riya. That is such a letdown when that happens. Also, I totally annoy my husband with how noisy of a movie watcher I am. But it’s hard not to be all, “Oh, come on!” 😀
I do the same thing! Sometimes if we watch a movie with friends, I warn them that I have a tendency to yell at the TV. ?
One time, some friends introduced me and my siblings to one of their favorite movies, and there’s a pert where this 10-year-old kid flips a Jeep, and my cousin was sitting there and non-chalantly says: “He died.” (He didn’t die actually.) Watching a movie with my family makes pretty much any movie into a comedy. I could go on about the weird things we’ve come up with, but I’d be here all night….
Funny you should post this now. My friend (also a writer) just introduced me to Pitch Meeting videos. The first time I saw them, I had two thoughts: 1- Ha ha! This is hilarious! and 2- I’m gonna hear this guy’s voice as I’m writing now, aren’t I? You make a great point though. Even though these videos are made with comedic purposes in mind, they are a great tool for writers to root out problems in their own work.
One Pitch Meeting moment that I loved was during the “It” pitch, where the writer said something along the lines of, “This is based on a book, so we don’t actually need to explain everything. There’s always a guy on the internet who says ‘Should have read the book!'”
Yes! I love when Ryan does book adaptations. Have you seen the one for Artemis Fowl? At the beginning he says something like, “We just decided to completely ignore the book.” And I was like, “Yes, you did, to your own great failure.” LOL
I haven’t read Artemis Fowl, so I can’t compare the movie to the book, but I think that’s EXACTLY what they did with the Percy Jackson movies.
Oh my goodness, I am ADDICTED to Ryan George’s Pitch Meeting videos. They are just too great! And I’ve also discovered they help immensely with my own stories. YES! He definitely starts getting into your thought-process while watching, reading, or creating stories for sure. XD
Yay! Yeah, he’s so fun. 😉
These videos sound interesting. I’ll have to check them out! I have read a lot of books and watched a lot of movies with endings that absolutely do NOT make sense. The writer builds up the story and plot with so much feeling…and then the ending is like “Wait. It’s over?”
I don’t want to make that mistake when I’m writing (although I almost always do!). It really helps me to hand my story over to someone else to read. I know what I’m trying to say, but they can let me know if something’s missing. Also, now I’m kind of afraid if I don’t really, really, really check over my work, my plot could be one of Ryan George’s next victims!
Thanks for this post!
Aww, I don’t think I’d mind being one of Ryan George’s victims. I would probably laugh and laugh and laugh, because he would have nailed it! And then I’d cry a little too. LOL
You’re right, Tracy. It’s so important to get some beta readers and some critique partners and sometimes even a paid editor too. You need those other sets of eyes to reflect what you can’t see.
I watched the video. Funny. I never thought about it, but yeah, what IS with Wonka’s… creepiness?
There’s actually another movie version of Willy Wonka called “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, (starring Johnny Depp) and at the end, it’s alot clearer about what happened to the other 4 kids. And even goes into detail about the backstory of the Oompa-Loompas. (But everything is alot more creepy-looking on the Johnny Depp Willy Wonka. Even Willy Wonka himself is unsettling-looking…)
I’ll have to watch out for those in my stories! Now that I think about it, I can think of some slight “Super easy, barely an inconvenience!” moments. Oof.
Also: How come all the Pitch Meeting videos give the characters on the video-picture thing super huge bug-eyes? It’s slightly creeping my out. Just a bit. ??
There’s a book I just finished reading, and there’s a part where the MC’s mentor gets stabbed through, and reading it, it’s like, “Heh, there is absolutely NO WAY Dazai’s gonna live after that, guys.” But he ends up living. (They do all have superpowers and stuff, but still, I can’t help but think, “How in the name of the king did he live?!”)
So, as a result my answer is…. “Super easy, barely an inconvenience!”