A blog about screenwriting and things that are useful for screenwriters.
Inneresting
Should we pooh-pooh the idea of Spooky Season? Is it better to have a big tent for stories about death, grief, and fear? And yes, Pumpkin Spice plays a role, too.
We take a deep dive into the character motivations of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves to look at what happens when a protagonist keeps chasing the same MacGuffin, but changes why they pursue it.
Inneresting
You don't need a serial killer or a nuclear crisis to force characters to spend time stuck in a room. We're setting the table for dinner party storytelling in this week's Inneresting.
A writer can't insert a bully getting their comeuppance into a story and expect the audience to immediately cheer for the underdog. When does fighting back help satisfy a larger character goal, and when does it cause more complications to overcome?
Inneresting
What makes a bully believable to an audience? What responsibility do writers have to their audience when telling a story about bullying? We have an Inneresting think about this, and more, this week!
Scriptnotes Recap
What inspires me most about Ryan Condal’s path to showrunning? Well, he really put in the work. And now, he’s at the helm of one of the most successful franchises ever: the Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon. While Ryan was trying to break into the
Inneresting
What happens to the brain of someone who becomes famous, and how can writers use that to create more believable fictional famous characters?
Is there a wrong way to eat an Oreo cookie? Is there a specific order of operations for cleaning your bathroom? Why do some characters demand others agree with their opinions as if they were objective facts?
Inneresting
Crushes, obsessions, insecurities: Inneresting looks at things that pretend to be love in stories.
Useful Things for Writers
Courtney Kemp has the life, man. She created Power, one of TV's biggest franchises that solidified her as one of the industry's premiere showrunners. She co-created and ran Nemesis as part of her overall deal with Netflix, and now has a newer, shinier overall deal
Sometimes writers struggle to name their characters. This week's Inneresting collects some ideas that might make the job easier (from a certain point of view).
Looking for an example of characters surviving horrific monsters through making good choices? Attack the Block offers up an example.
Your audience deserves a better class of horror victim. How do we write smarter characters that can still find themselves on the business end of a machete?
David E. Kelley likes a courtroom. Who can blame him? He went to law school, his first writing job was on LA Law, and he created (among twenty other legendary TV series) The Practice, Boston Legal, Harry's Law, Presumed Innocent, The Lincoln Lawyer, and Ally McBeal. Even when
At what point does a monster become frightening for what they do instead of what they represent? Can writers find sympathy in a slasher?
Don't reach for that pitchfork! We're talking about writing sympathetic monsters, and how offending the delicate sensibilities of a community is enough to set off an angry mob.
In Hollywood, when one of your best friends works on a movie, you're gonna hear about it a lot. You get all the details, from their excitement when it gets the green light, venting through the craziness of production, and surviving the carnival of releasing it out into
What does it feel like to live in a dystopia? What's the street level view of this broken society you're writing a story in? We have examples to talk about in this week's Inneresting.
It's like Hemingway said: "Boys, Shakespeare got there first and better, so relax and start writing."
The screenplay format is exacting and regimented. It can intimidate new writers and old pros alike because at some point all of your wonderful ideas need to be transformed into sluglines and action lines and dialogue. But, before you start worrying about translating all of your ideas into screenplay format,
In some stories the future isn't bright, but you gotta wear mirrored shades. We're talking dystopian storytelling and the discomfort of when far-flung futures start to feel all too real.
