Film Courage: What's a good test to see if something is missing from your story,
whether there's not enough intrigue, the suspects don't seem real, the stakes aren't high enough?
Jennifer Dornbush, Screenwriter, Author, Speaker, Consultant, and Forensic Science Specialist: It's
very common problem especially in first couple drafts to have things not as suspenseful or
falling flat or not making things as challenging on your investigator as you should it's very
common so first of all give yourself some Grace, take a breath. I like to workshop my
work I always workshop my work because even if I think maybe there's enough suspension challenge
and mystery and authenticity my writer's group will definitely point out if there's
not and it's good to have that accountability so I'm a big proponent of writers groups and
community in in writing because once you find the right community you'll start to well your work
will get a lot stronger because and you don't have to rely so much on your yourself because they'll
point things out for you and that's really helpful although sometimes painful but really helpful
so then the question becomes how do I fix this all right it's falling flat things aren't as
suspenseful I like to make sure that there are obstacles intention in every scene and so when I'm
going back through to edit second or third draft or more that's one of my checklists I want to
see if there's something like a tension happening at the end of each scene like a little baby even
if it's just a little baby cliffhanger we're just or a little baby mystery you're leaving us
with something unresolved in almost every scene it could be an emotional element right between
characters or a relational element it could be more something to do with the case at hand
when in order to make sure that's not happening with the case or like to make sure your eye I
again this is why I love making a case file because I can clock I'm going to clock that
trail of evidence from the beginning to the end and I'm going to before I even get to the
script or the page I'm going to make go through and as if I'm the criminal committing the crime
and then I'm the investigator investigating the crime and I want to make sure that the trails
of evidence make sense and that they have a lot of tension and I want to make sure that
my criminal smart and my investigator is really smart so it's for me it's a lot of pre-work
to see that that's all happening and it really just kind of takes practice too you
kind of write a lot of limp things before things start to really sing and then sort of innately
you get a sense like oh this is if your gut's kind of telling you like yeah this is just isn't
there's just not enough tension here there's just nothing really happening there's not enough
suspense I think it's important to listen to that as well because 10 times out of 10 that there's a
problem there I rely a lot on my instinct and the more you write the sharper Your Instinct
becomes I think if you're serious about it I mean it's such a great question because I'm trying
to think over the 20 years I've been doing this how did I learn that and it was really a lot of
it wasn't a book learning it really wasn't a thing that I read in a book or watched in a
video or took a class on it was very much just practicing the craft knowing first of all what
goes into a great Crime Story what makes it sing what makes it pop what makes it binge-worthy and
then testing it out on my writer group and then just in using my instinct your story Instinct
really I guess I wouldn't call it that's good that could be a book too stories that's good I
like that good you put the crossbones yeah the case File that you begin is this a metaphorical
file where you'll do it on your computer or do you actually have like a manila folder where you
create like your own sheet with different pieces of evidence and log things and that
would be super fun I've never done that but that would be really fun I yeah I usually just start
everything by hand I'll write notes and notes and notes by hand and then it ends up on my computer
and just becomes a computer file where I've sort of done all the exercise of the case so
but I kind of like yeah creating an actual case file that'd be fun create your own evidence pieces
yeah there's your interactive game yeah so you're doing this as if you are the investigator from the
POV of the investigator first the investigator then the criminal or vice versa I mean you can
do either way but I try to take both points of view like okay if I'm the criminal and I want
to create a crime I'm going to commit a crime I'm going to walk myself through it from the
beginning to post and then what did I do how did that happen and then as an investigator I
can't say oh I'm coming I've just been thrown into this I have to investigate this crime
what from the beginning to the end of solving it what am I coming across
because right we in the real world a detective or a investigator may not find everything
which is really I think good we want we don't want our main we don't want our heroes to find
everything either but I need to know both I as the creators the goddess of this world I need to know
both I don't always use everything it's probably not wise to use everything because otherwise it'd
be just like a game of matching right it'd be too easy but I need to know what I need to know
from both points of view what happened so that I can successfully play that cat and mouse game
it's like a chess game it does and speaking of which you mentioned the the investigator doesn't
always have everything in real life when a case turns cold quote unquote is it because there's
not enough evidence there's not enough funding what's the usual reason why a case is sort of
tucked away right there's a lot of reasons a case officially becomes cold after 12 months
so then it goes into that designation so during that first 12 months it gets a lot of attention
it could be because there's just not enough evidence that leads to a particular person
of interest a lot of times there's not enough person power to investigate there's
not enough funds these police departments are severely underfunded there's not enough people
there's yeah it's all of these things that happen there's a lot of cold cases in our in our
country a lot and oh it really just they're yeah really kind of fizzles out because of sort of a
combination of all those things and it doesn't mean that it won't ever get solved
but it it needs at some point a little boost of something whether it's a person just going further
into investigating to make those connections money for that person to do that and then of course when
a crime happens that's not the end like then crimes keep happening so then the workload right
there's a constant workload coming in every day it's not like you can just stop solve that crime
well and put a pause on the world pause everybody no more crimes a second I gotta solve this one
there's constantly more and more stacking up so it's it's a workload problem as well
and are there some non-profits that you can kind of different people can sort of
crowdsource their efforts to solve cold cases there are there are and
different there's all there's actually probably lots lots of them I got involved with the
Cold Case Foundation they are a national organization that's a non-profit and they
really solved the hardest to solve cases they it's it's free they're all but funded through
donations and not any sort of outside other agency money or anything like that and and
so there are organizations like that like them that will help people they are awesome and they
are growing and they rely a lot on retired law enforcement and retired investigators to come
in and volunteer their time too which I think is awesome because you have people coming in
who have decades of of information knowledge about how to do this and the time so and the
intuition and the intuition right yeah interesting what's better a victim we can root for in a story
or a villain we can love to hate depends on the story type of the 11 crime story types that I talk
about and teach there's one crime story type that's different than all the rest and that's
called the caper and this is a very very popular fun crime story type because in that crime story
type We are rooting for the villain the villain is our hero the villain is the bad guy and we love to
root for the villain because typically the villain has been wronged in their past and now they're
taking Justice into their own hands and we're like yes right because how many times have maybe we've
been wronged and we couldn't do anything about it and we just would have loved to take justice in
our own hands and like avenge our our crime or our Injustice or and so this we love this crime story
type so I don't think it's an either or situation I think there's just sometimes we love this
we love this crime story type of rooting for the villain Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid classic
example Thelma and Louise classic example we just write like one of my favorites Hell or High Water
which came out a few years ago because quickly be and was kind of quiet like just kind of came
and went but it's brilliant caper about familial love rooted in familial love about two brothers
who commit crimes in order to avenge their mothers wrong something that bad that happened to their
mother right who's not going to root for that even though they're they're doing terrible things
all of the oceans movies are caper Italian Job and that and those villains it's more of a team
right it's more of a multiple it's a obviously it's a team sport but a character team care of
characters and they're just kind of fun I don't I think there's maybe some avenging
that goes on definitely in the Italian job but in the Oceans 11 when like it's
it's really just fun to watch them get away with this big crime and sort of mess with the system so
that is I think in its own just the story type that we love separate from but not necessarily
unequal from the stories where we get very invested in the victims and we want to see
them it's just a different story type where you're focusing more on the victim's story and how does
that get resolved and redeemed and so I just think they're very they're just kind of different but
not necessarily when it's better than the other I guess so yeah what makes a satisfying ending
I believe that a satisfying ending does not necessarily have to be a closed happy
everything gets wrapped up in a little bow but it needs to be cathartic in that
whatever on injustice was set up at the beginning needs to be righted whatever chaos happened to
this person at the beginning needs to somehow be ordered there has to be an element of redemption
ins even if it's just a little bit we can see that the world is just a little bit brighter for that
person that hero or that victim I think that's the catharsis we're all looking for in this genre and
that we're all looking for in ourselves our our own worlds and would it depend you said earlier
like cozy Mysteries okay that's more maybe light-hearted and in the end the the sun'll
shine again and and there's the harmony restored to the neighborhood but maybe girl with a dragon
tattoo not so much right right right right right I mean you have the Hallmark Mysteries which are
Super popular right and they're great and like could binge watch those the whole day those in
the Christmas movies and that's there's definitely a place for that it's lovely
and then you have something more like what happens on lifetime which is definitely the more the genre
of women's stories and women wanting to be event like wanting to have right right restored because
think bad things have happened to them and so there's that sort of a little bit darker level
of story yeah and then we can go Silence of the Lambs or what did you just say Girl With
The Dragon Tattoo yes where which I love Swedish Noir I love North that that Nordic Noir love it
it's because it's you're right it doesn't there is a a satisfying ending in that she helps them
catch this horrible person who's been trafficking women it's horrifying kind of really dark and
grisly but she does help avenge all that and so it's extremely satisfying ending but you could
you kind of get money getting there getting to the end of that and the writer has his own interesting
story too and mystery behind his death oh I didn't read about that well there's different theories
but anyway yeah I have no opinion on either one but yeah there's been mystery behind it.