Add TEARS to a Family Dinner
Week 3 Secret Sauce Writing Challenge. Food Fights. Fancy Sauce. How to Craft a Scene using the TEARS Method.
In this post:
New perspectives on adding secret sauce to your story
Week 3 Writing Challenge: Add TEARS to a Family Dinner-Turned Food Feud
Study STEP BROTHERS “Fancy Sauce” dinner scene video
Gain insights into Will Ferrell’s style of adding secret sauce to storytelling
Download the 5-Steps of Dramatic Action + TEARS Method to craft scenes
Download my 3-page family dinner sample scene/script
Download your FREE Premise and Secret Sauce Templates
Our 4-Week Challenge: Add Your Story's Secret Sauce
The act of “adding the secret sauce” as a secret weapon is used in film and TV, storytelling, product development, and even mission statements to show an audience you’ve got something special that no one else has.
In a story, adding secret sauce is a mission in itself, and this ingredient can easily be added to food. So, one effective method of adding secret sauce to your story is crafting a “family food” scene that fulfills the promise of the premise, characters, and conflict.
What I learned about pitching my feature script to Will Ferrell
Back in 2021, when I pitched to one of Will Ferrell’s “execs” at Gloria Sanchez Productions (BOOKSMART (2019), MAY DECEMBER (2023), I learned Will Ferrell’s special technique of adding secret sauce to his stories.
Will Ferrell and his production team pride themselves on slowing down the story's pacing and letting his characters “be.”
I got the inside scoop on a few of Will’s techniques, and the main one is to craft a funny and dramatic family dinner scene that shakes up the status quo and adds fire to the flame of conflict.
Add TEARS to a Family Dinner Scene
It’s time to write a family dinner scene!
To model the family dinner scene, we use STEP BROTHERS (2008), the feature comedy film written by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay and directed by Adam McKay.
Study the STEP BROTHERS “Fancy Sauce” dinner scene. It models a family meal that turns into a food feud, revealing the story’s premise, central conflict, and character relationships, plus it reveals the brothers' status.
How do you accomplish all of the story elements in one scene?
You can do it effectively by following The 5-Steps of Dramatic Action and combining it with the TEARS method to write page-turning scenes.
Download The 5-Steps of Dramatic Action + TEARS method template below.
TEARS Method
Take us deeper emotionally.
Elevate the stakes.
Advance the story.
Reverse the expectations.
Set up the next scene.
Week 3 Writing Challenge - The Family Dinner Scene
In this week’s writing challenge, write a family dinner that centers around a dish that fuels the feud and the fight.
Using the family dinner writing technique, feature a special dish your characters can “fight over.” This will cause your story’s conflict to flare. It will also reveal your character relationships and the status quo.
Ultimately, this secret sauce writing device will infuse your story with spice and heat so that audiences will fall in love with your story’s premise, character, and conflict by making them root for your underdog hero/heroine, even if the argument is only about who gets to eat the “fancy sauce.”
Write a Family Dinner Scene Turned Food Fight to Add Secret Sauce:
Review Week 3’s Secret Sauce Writing Challenge: Craft a Family Dinner
Study the STEP BROTHERS “Fancy Sauce” dinner scene and sequence video
Gain insights on Will Ferrell’s keys to his secret sauce based on a pitch meeting I had with one of his “execs” at his Gloria Sanchez production company
Download your 5-Step Dramatic Action + TEARS Method for crafting scenes
Download your Premise and Secret Sauce Recipe Template
Post your family dinner scene in the comments or email me
Start Your Secret Sauce: Craft a Family Dinner
Week 3—Writing Challenge Goal: Reveal the secret sauce ingredients to your protagonist's character and story development by writing a family dinner scene in which you reveal a heated conflict over a “special dish” as you elevate the stakes and stir up your characters' status quo, ultimately changing them by the end of the scene.
Scroll to read my family dinner scene script PDF example below.
MASTERWORK: View the video of the family dinner scene and sequence in the STEP BROTHER’S setup, which stars Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly.
STEP BROTHERS’s “Fancy Sauce” scene is an example of secret sauce as an external reaction (the sauce) followed by an internal reflection (the character’s psychology) as symbolic representations that reflect the premise.
WHAT TO WRITE: Write your story's family dinner scene in 200 words (narrative summary), stating the name of the dish, the conflict, the narrative summary, or the scene.
Or you can write a 3-page scene.
HOW: In the comments, write your “family dinner” turned “food feud” scene, naming the following:
DISH
CENTRAL CONFLICT
FAMILY DINNER SCENARIO
YOU: Invoke your writer's conviction using your spirit animal in the kitchen and post your two 200-word heated family dinner scenes in the comments.
ME: I will post my challenge in the comments. And, to engage with our writers, I will support them with feedback, posting compliments, and answering questions.
Use The 5-Steps of Dramatic Action + TEARS for Scenes
Download this scene structure template and follow The 5-Steps of Dramatic Action sequence combined with the TEARS method. Use it as a powerful framework for structuring page-turning scenes in a screenplay or novel.
Craft page-turning scenes with the 5-Step Dramatic Action + TEARS Method :
Sample Family Dinner Scene Outline + Script
Scroll for the PDF script of my family dinner scene using the TEARS method.
Here's my example of adding secret sauce to my mermaid body swap story through a family dinner scene. It focuses on the central conflict of a food item that turns into a “food" fight, changing the main character at the end.
TITLE: SWISH, family/animated feature, FREAKY FRIDAY meets THE LITTLE MERMAID
LOGLINE: When a rejected 13-year-old wannabe songstress makes a wish to sing like a mermaid, she magically swaps bodies with a mischievous mermaid who wants to be human and save the humpback whales. With only 48 hours before her new tail is permanent and her legs are lost for good, the girl must find her true voice with the help of the humpbacks to battle the mermaid to switch back, or she’s stuck as a mermaid forever.
Dish: Fish Stick Fridays
Central Conflict: Mistaken Identity
Family Dinner Scenario (193 words): In a family dinner scene, LOLA, a mermaid trapped in 13-year-old Chelsea's body, struggles with her moral dilemma over eating fish sticks because, secretly, she’s vegan and only eats seaweed. MOM and 10-year-old DANNY try to understand her divergent behavior. They both want the truth about why Lola has a complete aversion to the fish sticks. This sparks a feud about Chelsea's absent father, a fisherman out at sea, and his relationship with his family and job. At first, Mom suspects her teen daughter’s recent behavior change is due to the fact that she fell off of a whale watch, but then concludes her daughter’s strangeness is because she’s being influenced by social media to be vegan, which Mom thinks isn’t healthy for a growing girl. But Lola the mermaid (who’s inside the teen’s body) protests, claiming she's focused on saving the whales. As the stakes rise regarding why the teen won’t eat the fish sticks, Lola must keep her identity hidden and reluctantly eats the fish sticks to prove she's still Chelsea. The family shares a moment of laughter, and the teen prepares for a music performance later that night.
Sample Script
Family Dinner Scene Using The 5-Steps of Dramatic Action + TEARS Method :
Put my 3-page script to the “Secret Sauce” test.
Does my scene hit the story beats I describe in The 5-Steps of Dramatic Action + the TEARS Method?
Download my family dinner scene in screenplay format here:
Photo credit: Vulture Magazine
How STEP BROTHER’s Fancy Sauce Hooked the Audience
In the movie STEP BROTHERS, “FANCY SAUCE” is a perfect Secret Sauce comedy bit (and sequence) in the setup of the film. The actual scene is set at the family dinner table, centering around a fancy sauce that encapsulates and flavors the story’s premise, characters, and conflict.
The movie's secret sauce is literally a scene called "Fancy Sauce," where the two brothers fight over the fancy sauce at a family dinner. The "Fancy Sauce" scene is central to the story. It oozes the story's premise and colors the characters by escalating the conflict in an unforgettable way.
STEP BROTHER’S SECRET SAUCE IS THE ‘FANCY SAUCE’
Revisiting our Secret Sauce Recipe, it’s important to note how the ingredients were added to STEP BROTHERS famous “Fancy Sauce” scene:
FAT: Will pads the fat in the backstory. Prior to the family dinner, we learn that the two brothers do not want to change their living status, nor are they open to sharing their parents with each other.
CREAM: He serves a dollop of cream (the mother story) into the premise. The stepbrothers and family fight and argue over the significance of Will’s mom’s “fancy sauce” and who gets to eat it.
SUGAR: Will sticks sugar into the character arc. The “fancy sauce” shows that Will has the super status of brothers, launching their antagonistic relationship. We question who will be more special at the family dinner and afterward.
SALT: Will pours it on when the two brothers share moments of comparison and despair. Fancy Sauce also sets up an “I’m better than you” fighting scenario at the dinner table, which accelerates to an obscene singing contest, hurts Will’s feelings (TEARS), and leads to the two brothers having to sleep in the same room.
Ferrell’s Films Are Covered in Slow-Cooked Secret Sauce
Will Ferrell is willing to slow down the pacing and stop the locomotive train long enough to spend moments lingering in the character’s shadows so that we can see, feel, smell, and taste the universal human ugly truths that connect us.
Conclusion From My Pitch Meeting with Gloria Sanchez Productions
To become famous and commercially successful like a Will Ferrell film, a story or script must strive to slow down and let the character ‘be', and that will add secret sauce to your story.
Unfortunately, the pacing for my mermaid body swap spec feature that I pitched was too fast for Will’s “exec.” I needed to slow down my pacing and add secret sauce scenes of “compare and despair” and “solo” moments of character self-awareness to connect to the audience as Will Ferrell does in his films so well.
Slowing down to ‘be’ with the character is known as adding the secret sauce.
My main takeaway from this meeting is that true filmmakers and TV showrunners don’t care about pacing as much as they do showing off their chops that are covered with secret sauce.
Use Secret Sauce to hook the audience into falling in love with your main character.
Download your Premise and Secret Sauce templates
What to do next?
Write your Challenge and show us (or me) your character’s family dinner scene centered around a “special dish” that causes conflict and shows relationship status. Pull ideas from your premise and secret sauce ingredients.
If you’d like to email it to me, hit reply!
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Happy writing,
Kelly E. Keough