Our weekly-ish newsletter about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.
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"I can't believe you haven't seen (x)!" In Scriptnotes episode 713, Danya Jimenez & Hannah McMechan talked briefly with John about how one element of film school is how it forces you to watch a lot of things you wouldn't necessarily seek
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While it's a long way from large language models to generalized artificial intelligence in the real world, there are plenty of stories where artificially sentient beings question their humanity (and if they really need any). Frequently stories about artificial life, whether created by science or magic, focus on
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Earlier this week we did a close reading of the sequence in Ted Lasso where Roy Kent quits his TV job and rushes back to Nelson Road to give coaching a chance. Let's pull back a little bit to talk about the overall impact of a climactic run
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It’s easy to come up with quick setups for when a character needs to run away from something. All it takes is showing them in a place with someone or something they don’t want to be near. But what about when a character needs to run toward something
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Sometimes the leftovers are the best part of the meal. Yes, on their own you can have yourself a microwaved portion of the same meal for several days, but because you can get creative. Just like how Monica Gellar invented the Moist Maker sandwich out of food from Thanksgiving dinner,
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The blog Sketchplanations does a pretty concise job describing this week's topic. What happens when stress and anger become contagious? The 30 Rock episode "Chain Reaction of Mental Anguish" shapes its story around the same concept. Liz needs somebody to unload her problems on since she&
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We're looking at the family tree of narratives stretching from two different stories about an unnatural creation of life. Dr. Frankenstein defied medical science and the forces of nature to turn dead flesh into a living being. As a result, the Doctor is punished and his creation acts
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Generic epithets can be hurtful, but a real cutting insult feels like a scalpel, delicately wielded with an intimate knowledge of what's just under the skin. Take the recent example where Joyce Carol Oates reads Elon Musk to filth: So curious that such a wealthy man never posts
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Characters make choices throughout a story, then deal with the consequences of those new actions. But what if they were allowed to choose differently? This is different from the structure of The Muppet Christmas Carol, which allows the protagonist to see the impact of their past choices in an effort
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The why of their lie Everybody who pretends to be someone they’re not has a reason. As people, we may not agree with their reason. As writers, understanding their justification and method for splitting their identity helps keep the burden of living a double life believable (or at least
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Some writers and gurus would tell you not to write dream sequences. That they lack stakes, never actually feel like real dreams, or just that they waste the audience's time. You might even hear the argument that nobody wants to listen to somebody else's dreams: On
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Do you ship it? Character-driven fiction involves managing relationships. Not just romantic relationships, but the dynamic between any two characters who share space in a story. When you’re writing, defining those fictional relationships helps give a sense of where two characters are at in the story, and what feels