Unique isn't easy

Ok, so I've read a few scripts through my new service (see link on the right), and the last one gave me one of those "I wish I'd thought of that" moments as it had something unique in it. I won't name the writer as I don't want to embarrass, but he (or she) has a blog in my blogroll.

Everything has been done before, be it horror, action (on land, in the air, on the water, under the water), romance, the romcom, mobster, western, the buddy movie (this list went on but I shortened it). It has all been done before.

You can mix them up to an extent (Shaun of the Dead - comedy/horror), but what we have to do as writers is pick one of those and make it unique. Horror seems to be the thing to write at the moment in this country. As a result, if you write bog standard horror and submit it you can probably guarantee that yours will sit in a pile of others that are exactly the same. You have to pull it up out of the pile. Imagine a movie exec dangling a uniqueness magnet over a pile of scripts. Will yours be the one that is fished out?

How do you make it unique? Well I can't do it for you (unless you give me a credit), but just take a look at the 'standard' features of your chosen genre. In horror I guess there are standard (or perhaps famous) situations. The shower scene where you can see through the shower curtain and a shadow is approaching. Take that and give the audience something unexpected with it (I've got a twist on that but I'm not sharing it :p ).

Read your last script and pick out the main points. Have you given the reader something never seen before? Give it some thought and see what you come up with.