One of the things I’ve been enjoying about the Instagram Q&A channel is the variety of questions that come in.

Some are about big storytelling problems, while others are about smaller decisions we make while writing. Things like what job a character should have, how to format something on the page, or whether we’re relying too much on dialogue.

And having spent years teaching screenwriting, there’s something I recognise in a lot of these questions.

We writers have a tendency to overthink things. Sometimes we get so caught up in trying to make the correct decision that we forget we can always go back and change it.

This week’s questions are a good example of that. Hopefully, the answers will help you spend a little less time worrying and a little more time writing.

As always, these questions come from my Instagram Q&A channel, where you can ask me about anything related to screenwriting.

QUESTION 1

How to decide a character’s most suitable job? Like, is he a chef, singer or politician? How do you decide? Give some practical advice.

I think this comes down to essentially one question: Is it important to the story?

If it’s important to the story, the plot and the logic of the whole thing, choose what fits the character and what they have to do in the screenplay. Their job might give them a special skill they need.

If it’s not important to the story, and it’s just background, then for the time being it’s not super important.

But I would focus on something that tells us something about the character and just move forward with the story.

If later you need that character to have connections or a skill that makes sense with their job, then just go back and change it.

QUESTION 2

How do I format superimposed text in a screenplay? Like ‘SAMUEL ARRIVES IN L.A.’ appearing bottom left, fading in and out over five seconds.

It’s either CHYRON, followed by the text.

Or just:

TEXT ON SCREEN: SAMUEL ARRIVES IN L.A.

Then, if it’s important for the story, write in the action that it disappears.

But likely it’s enough to have TEXT ON SCREEN. We understand it will fade away.

QUESTION 3

Is this a correct way to format an intercut scene?

This writer sent me an example of a phone conversation between Mike and Emma.

Scene heading 1: Mike is in his garage and dials a number.
Scene heading 2: Emma answers in her kitchen.
Scene heading 3: Then the writer uses an INTERCUT scene heading with both locations and we see their conversation.

Yes, it’s correct.

But you can also just skip having the INTERCUT scene heading. We will understand that it’s two scenes being cut between.

I would also suggest adding a touch more to Emma’s description when you start that scene. What is she doing when she answers the phone?

QUESTION 4

How do I write showing in my scripts? I’ve written dialogue in my script, but a lot of it could be done through the actors and shots.

My suggestion, if you don’t have an idea for how to show it, is to just write it in dialogue.

Then, when you’re doing the second draft, look at the scenes and think about how you could replace some of that dialogue with action.

Just the way people answer, or don’t answer, questions can tell us a lot.

For example, someone comes home and finds their spouse doing the dishes.

They say hi, but the spouse says nothing.

They ask if everything is okay. The spouse says yes, then keeps washing the dishes without looking at the other person.

We know they’re clearly not fine.

It’s also helpful to remember that humans don’t really say what they mean most of the time. If the responses are too on the nose, it can make the dialogue feel robotic.

One thing I hope comes across from these answers is that you don’t need to solve every problem before you move forward.

That’s something I try to stress when teaching screenwriting. A first draft isn’t about getting everything right. It’s about giving yourself something to work with.

You can change the character’s profession, rewrite the dialogue, and fix the formatting later.

But you can’t rewrite a screenplay you haven’t written.

I started an Instagram account mostly to advertise the newsletter.

That was the plan, anyway.

The account has since taken on a life of its own, and I’ve started a channel there where I answer screenwriting questions every day — partly because it’s useful, partly because it gives me something productive to do while I procrastinate.

As that has grown, fewer questions have been coming in here.

So I’ll still answer any questions you send me through the newsletter. But to keep this as useful as possible, I’m also going to do a weekly round-up of the best questions and answers from the Instagram channel.

Which means more questions, more answers, and hopefully more useful stuff in your inbox.

QUESTION 1

I have these ideas that I think are great. But they would work better for a feature than a short. So I get lost when writing my short.

So I can for sure see that.

And I think features, shouldn’t be shorts. Or even try to change them into one.

So I think it depends on what you are trying to achieve with the short. 

If you don’t have an idea for short, and will shot it yourself, I would always suggest.

1) Try looking at the resources you already have, like interesting locations you have access to, actor you know, or whatever it is. Then figure out, what type of story can I make with this.

2) If you have trouble coming up with ideas, I find it super helpful to come up with 3 ideas instead of 1. that takes the pressure of having a great idea.

If that makes sense?

QUESTION 2

What is the screenplay standard way to put in a action line in the middle of dialogue?

So what you do here, is on the moment he stands up, in the dialogue you let the action line cut the dialogue.

Mother:

She’s talking

Action line

Mother:

She keeps talking.

If she’s still talking, non interrupted flow, you can end the line before the action line likes this “Talking--” and then when she starts the 2nd dialogue “--continues talking” 

(I am using talking instead of the dialogue)

the purpose is to best get the feeling like we would see it on the screen. 

and up you cut the mother line.

QUESTION 3

What makes writing and dialogue human? How do you make it not sound artificial?

I think dialogue doesn’t really sound human, rather it’s a form of it’s own. Try to think of it more like, Sorkin does, it’s like a dance between two characters.

I find that writing the conversation sideways, helps, character A asks a question, but character B attacks the question itself, talks about something else, or asks their own question. So not a ping pong. The ping pong makes it unnatural I feel.

I also find, if the characters want different things from the scene, it makes the dialogue much easier to come up with.

QUESTION 4

I am struggling with character introductions. How to not break the flow of the scene but give necessary context for the characters?

1)      I think of it what is clear for the reader, and actor. So personality more than look. I think of how we read the dialogue after this context.

BJÖRGVIN, 10, everything he’s wearing belonged to someone bigger first - stands at a fence in a lopapeysa, a bucket dangling from one hand.

2)      I usually go for an visual, then the character, like this supporting one

He sits against a dumpster, sharing a cigarette with a GOTH GIRL, 16, with a permanent bored expression.

In big scenes, or many at characters at once, I tend say things like, we see the whole family around the dinner table. Then instead of doing a whole block of introductions, I introduce each one as they speak. So not everyone at the same time, that creates a flow – and kind of the experience you get watching it.

One of the reasons I do this newsletter is that I miss teaching after moving back into the industry. What I especially miss is discussing short films, because short films are such a great art form in themselves.

As a working screenwriter, almost all of my projects are features or television. Short films tend to be director-driven. They’re how filmmakers prove themselves, experiment and find their voice.

So while I spend my days writing longer-form stories, I don’t often get the chance to dive into the unique challenges of the short film.

That’s one of the reasons I loved teaching. Helping students crack a short-film idea was always one of my favorite parts of the job.

So I was particularly happy when this week’s question landed in my inbox.

QUESTION 1

Rohan from India asks: Sir, I am in film school and have to write a short film, but I don’t have any good ideas. I saw your video on Instagram on short films, and want to ask, do you have any tips to get ideas for short films.

First of all, thank you for watching the Instagram reel.

Getting in front of a camera has been an unexpected adventure. As a middle-aged man, recording myself talking to my phone wasn’t exactly on my career plan. I started out absolutely terrified. Now it’s becoming one of the most enjoyable creative challenges I’ve taken on.

As for your question...

I heard it constantly when I ran a film school. Students usually fell into one of two camps. Some had been carrying around the same short-film idea for years. They knew exactly what they wanted to make.

Others had plenty of talent but no idea what their film should actually be about.

Then there was a third group: the students whose original idea turned out to be far too ambitious, forcing them to find something entirely new just weeks before production.

Over the years, I noticed a few patterns. Here are the three pieces of advice I found myself giving again and again.

Instead of coming up with the plot and story first, make a list of the resources you already have available.

Do you have access to a great, lived-in location? A cabin, a workplace or your aunt’s strangely decorated house?

If you do, that gives you instant production value.

Or perhaps you have access to actors with a specific look, age or skill. Start with what you have, and then figure out what stories could work with those resources.

That is often more useful than creating a story first and then trying to find everything you need to tell it.

Instead of trying to think of subjects, which can immediately push you towards plot and story, write down the things you care about deeply.

Things you have strong opinions about. Viewpoints that are unique to you. Things about the world that make you angry, curious or excited.

Then look at the list and ask yourself: Which of these could make a compelling story?

I have found this to be one of the best ways to come up with ideas, and it works for every format. When you only have to come up with one idea, you put far too much pressure on it.

A better way to free your mind is to come up with three ideas. That way, two of them can be duds and it doesn’t matter. You only need one of them to work.

I hope that helped, and good luck with your short.

There was no question last week.

Not because nobody sent one. I simply forgot to send the newsletter.

I wish I had a more impressive explanation, but the week got away from me and I realised too late that the day I normally send this had already passed.

So, we are back with a question about loglines, which are also one of those things writers know they should do but often avoid for much longer than they intended.

There is a moment when you tell someone about an idea and they ask, “What’s the logline?”

Until then, you may have felt confident. You know the character, the world and the feeling of the film. Maybe you know the opening scene and the final image.

Then you are asked to reduce the whole thing to one perfect sentence.

It has to be short, clear, exciting and original. It has to make someone want to read a script that may not even exist yet. You start moving words around, trying to make the idea sound commercial, and eventually convince yourself that the reason the logline is not brilliant is that the idea itself must be weak.

But usually, the idea is not the problem.

You are trying to sell something before you have finished building it.

This week’s question is about whether you should write the logline before or after the script.

QUESTION 1

Jonas from Denmark asks: Do you write the logline before or after you write the script?

Both.

But they are not the same kind of logline.

Before I write the script, I need a private logline that helps me understand the story. After I have developed or written it, I create the polished version that helps me sell it.

The problem is that writers often try to write the second version first.

In my mind, there are two kinds of loglines: the Showhorse and the Workhorse.

The Showhorse is the public version. It is short, polished and designed to charm someone who may have very little time. It is the logline you use in a pitch deck, a funding application, an email to a producer or a conversation about what you are working on.

You will need that version eventually.

But not yet.

The Workhorse is the private logline.

It does not need to impress anybody or sound like marketing copy. Its job is to help you understand what you are writing.

Think of it as a note from present-you to future-you. At some point, future-you will be halfway through the outline or on page sixty of the script, surrounded by characters and subplots, wondering what the film was originally supposed to be about.

The private logline gives you somewhere to look.

It should answer four simple questions:

Who is the story about?

What do they want?

What is standing in their way?

What makes the story move now?

That is enough. You are not trying to sell the film. You are trying to decide what the film is.

This version may be longer and clunkier than a traditional logline, but it gives you much more to work with. It contains the protagonist, their goal, the opposition and the pressure that keeps the story moving.

It exposes the machinery.

That is what you want before writing the script.

Not beautiful. Solid.

Use it as a compass for the story. If you cannot answer one of those four questions, that may reveal where the idea is still weak.

If you do not know who the story is about, you may not have chosen the protagonist. If you do not know what they want, you may have a situation rather than a story. If you do not know what is standing in their way, you may not have enough conflict. If you do not know what makes the story move now, you may not have an engine.

I am careful not to make the logline too polished at this stage. That is usually just procrastination—my old foe—trying to stop me from doing the actual work.

Describe the protagonist, what they want, what is pressing against them and what makes them act now.

Your first version may sound boring. A private logline often sounds boring because it is doing an honest day’s work. It lays the parts of the story on the table so you can see them.

Later, after you have developed the story or written the script, return to the logline. By then, you will know what the film really is. You will know which relationship matters most, what the strongest hook is and what makes it different from other films in the same genre.

That is when you write the Showhorse.

You make it shorter, sharper and easier to repeat. That version is for other people.

Write the private Workhorse before the script.

Write the public Showhorse once you understand the story.

The first helps you build it. The second helps you sell it.

When your private version is finished, ask yourself:

Do I know what this story is?

Do I know why I want to write it?

If the answer is yes, stop.

You have found the centre of the idea. That is enough for now.

Good luck.

There is a kind of idea that can live with you for years.

Not because it’s the best thing ever.

Because it has never been tested against the cold hard reality of a word document.

It lives in your head, where it can stay beautiful and vague and full of promise. You can think about the best scene. The final image. The actor you would love to cast. The feeling of the finished film. And because none of it has been forced into actual sentences yet, none of it has had the chance to disappoint you.

I’ve seen this with students, with professional writers, and with myself.

Someone tells me an idea, and while they are talking, you can feel how much they love it. Their whole body changes. They know the world. They know why it matters.

Then I ask the cruel question.

“Can I read it?”

And very often, the answer is no. Because they haven’t written it.

Not because they are lazy.But because the moment the idea hits the page, it stops being perfect. It becomes more ordinary. Suddenly the brilliant film in your head has turned into a bad paragraph in a document called “new idea maybe.”

That’s a horrible feeling.

But it is also the beginning of writing.

This week’s question is about that exact moment: when an idea you love is still safe inside your head, and you’re afraid that writing it down will ruin it.

QUESTION 1

Marta from Portugal asks: I’ve had an idea for a film in my head for years, and I still really love it. But every time I try to write it down, it suddenly feels not as good as I imagined. How do I start writing it without ruining it?

This is incredibly common, and it is also one of the traps that keeps writers stuck for years.

Right now, your idea is safe because it only exists in your head. And in your head, it can feel perfect. It has a mood. Maybe it has an ending that excites you. It has the feeling of a film.

But feelings are not a script.

The minute you write the idea down, you u realise some of it is only vibes. The characters are not clear yet. The plot doens’t really work. The brilliant ending has no beginning attached to it. And because that feels disappointing, the temptation is to close the document and say: maybe it’s not ready yet.

But that is the lie.

It is not supposed to be ready yet.

The first job is not to write a good version. The first job is to get the idea out of your head and onto the page. That’s it. It can be full of half-sentences, contradictions, bad logic, missing pieces, and things you are not sure about.

In fact, it probably should be.

Because a messy idea on the page can be worked on. A perfect idea in your head is useless.

So do this very simply. Open a normal document. Not screenplay software. Not Final Draft. Not anything that makes it feel official. Just Word, Google Docs, Notes, whatever works best for you.

Set a timer for ten or fifteen minutes.

Then dump the idea out as badly as you need to. Write things like, “I think this is about…” or “There’s maybe a character who…” or “I don’t know what happens at the end, but…” Keep going. Do not edit. Do not polish. Resist the temptation to be clever.

If you reach for the delete key… don’t. That is editing. Editing comes later. Right now, you are only trying to get the material where you can see it.

And while you are dumping it out, look for one thing: the spark.

The spark is the reason you wanted to write the idea in the first place. It might be an image, a situation, a wound, a question, a character, a contrast, or a feeling you want the audience to leave with. The plot can change. The genre can change. Characters can disappear. The ending can be replaced. But the spark is the thing you keep checking against when you start writing it.

When the timer is done, stop. Close the document. Go make coffee. Walk around. Come back ten minutes later.

You will probably be disappointed.

Not a great feeling. But… this means the idea has become real.

Read it again and look for the part that still has life in it. Maybe it is only one sentence. Maybe everything else is garbage. Fine. You are not looking for the finished story yet. You are looking for the part that makes you say, “That. That’s why I wanted to write this.”

Also, keep this document private.

Do not ask someone if they think it is good. The second someone else reads it, you will start defending it or apologising for it. And this document is not there to impress anyone.

It is a thinking tool.

You are done with this step when the idea exists outside your head, and you can point to the part that still excites you. Out of a hundred people who have an idea, will maybe do this step.

You are one of the 20. You are now ahead of all of them.

And then let’s make sure you ahead of the next 10 out of those list who till stop here, and start working on it.

Good luck.

So, there was no question sent this week.

Which leaves me to come up with something to write. You would think that’s easy, being that I make my living writing. Or as I like to say, make shit up.

But it’s surprisingly often not, especially when doubt enters the equation.

Like when there’s no question to answer, you think, will this be the last time I ever get questions? Which is a similar doubt when I hand in a screenplay, will this be the last time?

To write well, you have to connect the writing to yourself. And because of that, it makes it personal. And then, if it doesn’t connect, you take it personally.

I think that’s one of the reasons, that people give up on this writing thing.

Like anything, you have to do a lot of it, to get good - and until you are good, you will suck at it. But even if you suck at it, you cringe at your own writing, the only way to get better is to get it out there, let people see it so you can discover what works and what doesn’t.

And a lot of it won’t work.

And when it doesn’t it’s going to be painful.

But you have to stick with it, until that magical day when it isn’t painful.

You just have to put yourself out there, say fuck it and learn as you go. And imagine a nice future, when you actually get ok, or dare I say good at it. When you can leave that beginner’s feeling behind.

Unless that is, you do something stupid, like I did this week and tried learning something new. Something new that’s creative, but inherently public.

So this is a weird, bleak announcement.

I have now become one of those people you see walking in circles in a parking lot, recording themselves talking. Yes…

I have joined Instagram.

Where you can now go, click this link, and see me trying to learn something new. And for sure sucking at it most of the time. The Insecure Screenwriter’s Instagram

But hopefully, there’s going to be some good stuff there too.

For most of this week the pilot adaptation refused to work. I’d sit down, push at it, and walk away with nothing. The strange part is that I was also writing a book about my workflow at the same time. So I was carefully documenting the exact method I wasn’t using. Once I went back to the full process, no shortcuts, the script finally came together.

Sometimes it’s best to follow your own advice.

One question this week. Let’s get to it.

QUESTION 1

Andrew from the UK: I see the new thing everyone is talking about is verticals. What is the difference between writing TV/films and verticals? Is that a good way to break in?

Now you’ve hit on a weak spot for me, in the sense that I don’t really know. And what’s more, I don’t know anyone with the authority to answer it for me either.

As I understand it, it’s all about hooks and cliffhangers, very soapy in that way. The structure is in the design: you need a cliffhanger every 80 to 90 seconds, so the pacing has to come at you at breakneck speed.

It’s similar to what we see in TV, where the more act breaks you put in, the more the pace speeds up. You can see this in an example I’ve talked about before, Cheers and Friends. They are the same show in essence, but because Cheers had only two act breaks while Friends had three, the pacing on Friends is faster. Watch Cheers now (and please do, it’s still great) and notice how slow it feels.

I wrote more about that here if your are interested:

If I have advice for people starting out, I’d absolutely suggest looking at verticals. Now, some people may say, “but Hrafnkell, they all suck.”

And that’s the point.

It’s a genre, so you have to deliver what the audience expects from it. That’s something you’ve got to respect. But because it’s so new, the bar for quality is lower.

If you do a TV drama, you’re competing with The Sopranos, The Wire, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

If you do verticals, you’re competing with “I Married a Werewolf Mafia Boss.”

There’s infinite possibility here: taking a format that clearly has an audience and doing something interesting within its limits. So if verticals interest you, by all means explore and try innovating within the genre. Make something great in a platform and format audiences clearly want.

I wish I had more concrete advice, but I’d suggest checking out something I saw on my feed the other day. Sundance has a course on this called From Script to Screens: Writing Your Micro Series.

https://collab.sundance.org/catalog/writing-micro-series

The application deadline is the 2nd of July. You can definitely learn something there.

And perhaps I should follow my own advice and sign up as well.

Good luck exploring the new frontier.

So that’s it for this week, if you got a question - why not send one now?

Here’s something true about me. Every time I send a piece of work out into the world, I become completely convinced it’s terrible. Not “could be sharper.” Terrible. And that conviction is strong enough that I’ll put off sending it for weeks.

The only thing that reliably overrides it is a deadline with someone’s money attached. Funny how quickly the fear shrinks when there’s an invoice involved.

Underneath it is the same thing it’s always been: the fear that I’m not actually good enough. I assumed that one would fade with experience. A few credits, a bit of a track record, and surely it packs a bag and leaves.

It hasn’t. Still here. Says hi.

So this week’s first question landed close to home, because it’s that exact loop. And the second is the flip side: once you do decide to put the messy modern world on the page, how do you do it without the page falling apart?

Two questions. Let’s get into them.

QUESTION 1

Keith from Australia:

How do I write phone calls, texts, or videos on screen? It looks confusing or like a lot of text when I try?

This is a great question, and honestly it’s something I’ve had to grapple with myself recently.

Because phones are now just part of normal life. Text messages, videos, voice notes, Instagram feeds, TikToks, screenshots, comments, FaceTime calls, all of it. It is just how people communicate now. So of course it is going to end up in scripts as well.

But it can be difficult.

Because the second you start putting all that stuff on the page, the script can very quickly become slow to read. Suddenly you are not writing a scene anymore. You are describing an app.

And that is usually not what we want.

With formatting, my general advice is always the same: find scripts that do something similar and steal what you like.

Look for a produced script that has text messages. Or a video call. Or a news clip. Or social media on screen. Look at how they handled it. If it reads well, learn from it. Most formatting is not about finding the one correct answer. It is about making the page clear for the reader.

But with social media, that can sometimes be harder, because it changes so quickly. A script from ten years ago is probably not going to help you format TikTok comments very well… and trying to understand TikTok makes me feel my age.

Not ancient, but old enough to be super excited by seeing He-Man on the big screen.

So for me, the main thing is to keep it visual and keep it simple.

If it is a video, I usually like to give it a very simple heading. Something like:

VIDEO or INSTAGRAM FEED or TIKTOK:

You get the point. Something clean and obvious.

I don’t think we always need INT. or EXT. for that, because we are not really in a normal physical location. We are looking at something on a screen. And we probably don’t need DAY or NIGHT. If the video itself takes place at night, then yes, include that in the description. But don’t over-format it.

Then describe what we actually see.

Not the whole interface. Not every button. Not the profile picture, the little heart icon, the share arrow, the username, the battery percentage, and the Wi-Fi signal. Unless one of those things matters to the story, leave it alone.

Just pick a style and stay consistent, so the reader learns how to read it.

Where I think writers get into trouble is when they try to include too much. If there are fifty comments under a video, you probably don’t need to write fifty comments. You just need to give us the feeling of what is happening.

Then, if one comment is important, pull it out and give it its own line.

That way, the reader gets both things. They get the chaos of the feed, but they also see the important story detail.

Here’s a quick example:

That is probably enough.

We know it is a video. We know what we are seeing. We know why it matters.

With text messages, I would do the same thing. Keep it clear. If one message matters, give it space.

PHONE or TEXT MESSAGE:

“You should have stayed quiet.”

That reads easily. The reader gets it immediately.

Some writers prefer to handle a single important message like a line of dialogue instead, with a quick cue:

Because that is really the question you should ask yourself: what does the audience need to understand?

If the story needs us to know a video is going viral, show the comments flooding in. If the story needs us to see one threatening message, isolate that message. If the story needs us to understand someone is doom-scrolling through their own public humiliation, describe that feeling visually.

But don’t let the formatting become the scene.

There is not one correct way to do this. Anyone who tells you there is one official sacred format for Instagram comments (or anything else for that matter) is probably full of shit, or has spent too much time on reddit or twitter. (I know it’s called X but does anyone really call it that?)

So as with everything script. It’s always:

Is it clear?

Is it easy to read?

Does the reader understand what they are looking at?

If yes, you’re fine.

QUESTION 2

Clara from Luxemburg:

I finished film school recently, and I have a script I started there that I’m still really excited about. I want to send it to producers and apply for funding, but whenever I’m about to do it, I find something else I could improve. How do you know when a script is ready enough to send out?

This is a very familiar place to be.

And I think most writers know this feeling. You finish something. Or you almost finish something. You get close to sending it out, and then suddenly your brain becomes very helpful.

Too helpful.

It finds a scene that could be better. A line that could be sharper. A character who could maybe have a stronger entrance. A midpoint that maybe should move three pages earlier. A typo on page 47. A slightly weak button on a scene. A title you are no longer sure about. And suddenly you are not sending it out anymore. You are doing another pass.

And then another one.

And then another one.

And the problem is, there is always something you can make better.

The script can always be improved. You can always find a sentence to sharpen. You can always make a scene cleaner. You can always discover something that bothers you, especially if you keep staring at the same pages for weeks and months.

So the question is not really, “Is the script perfect?”

Because no.

It isn’t.

The question is: is the script ready enough to represent you?

Before we get into the fear part of this, because I do think fear is probably part of this, let’s be practical first. The script does need to be ready. You don’t want to send out a lazy draft. You don’t want to send out something full of typos, half-fixed scenes, formatting chaos, and a third act that has tripped and fallen on its ass.

So first, make sure it has had a real read from people who are willing to hurt your feelings.

And since you have just finished film school, you probably have something very valuable: other writers and filmmakers around you. Use them.

Send it to a few people from film school. People you trust. People who understand scripts. People who can be kind, but honest. Because your mum might love it, and that is nice, but your mum may not be the best person to tell you if the second act is boring.

Ask simple questions.

Where were you bored?

Where were you confused?

Did you understand what the main character wanted?

Did the ending feel earned?

What stayed with you?

What did you stop caring about?

If one person gives you a strange note, maybe it is just one person’s taste. That happens. But if three people point to the same problem, listen. That is probably not random. That is the script waving a little red flag at you.

There is also a flip side worth watching for, and it is good news. When the notes start moving away from big structural problems and toward small, subjective things, and when your readers start contradicting each other about preference rather than agreeing on a fault, that usually means something. Contradictory notes often mean you have moved past fixable problems and into personal taste. At that point you are probably closer to ready than the nervous part of your brain is telling you.

Then do one serious pass. One proper pass based on the useful notes.

Then send it.

Because at some point, rewriting becomes hiding.

And I say that with sympathy, because I understand it completely. Every time I send something out, my brain starts preparing for disaster.

They will hate it.

They will think I’m terrible.

They will wonder how I have tricked anyone into ever paying me for this.

None of this is rational. But writers are not always rational people. We are people who sit alone inventing imaginary people and then get our feelings hurt when someone says the imaginary people should talk less.

It’s terrifying to send something out.

Because once the script is on your computer, it still has perfect potential. It could be brilliant. It could be the thing that changes everything. It could be the script that proves you are the writer you hope you are.

But when you send it out, the world may say no.

In fact, the world will say no a lot.

You will get no from producers. No from funds. No from competitions. And you will also get the silent no, which is the most annoying no of all.

But a lot of no is still better than sitting on the script forever.

Because no can at least lead somewhere. Sometimes a no means not this project. Sometimes it means not right now. Sometimes it means not for us, but we like your voice. Sometimes it means this isn’t ready, but send us the next one. Sometimes it means come in for a coffee.

Come in for coffee was my first big break.

And sometimes that is how it works. You send something out. It does not become the thing you hoped it would become, but someone remembers you. Or they remember the voice. Or they remember that you were serious. And then, three years later, something else comes up, and suddenly that old no was not as useless as it felt at the time.

But none of that can happen if the script never leaves your computer.

So how do you know when it is ready enough?

For me, it is ready enough when the story is clear, the main emotional journey works, the remaining problems are no longer fatal, you can say what it is about in a sentence or two without panicking, and a few trusted readers have responded to it in a way that suggests the script is doing what you intended.

Ready enough to send does not mean there is nothing left to improve. It means this is your best serious version right now. It means you have done the work. It means you are not sending it out just to get rid of it, and you are not holding it back just because you are afraid of being judged.

And once it reaches that point, send it.

Apply for the funding.

Send it to the producer.

Ask someone to read it.

Be ready for no.

Be ready for silence.

Then keep going anyway.

Because that is the job too. Not just writing the script. Putting yourself in the path of opportunity. Letting people react. Letting them say no. Letting them maybe say yes. Letting them maybe say, not this, but what else do you have?

And when an opportunity does come, because if you keep going long enough, it probably will…

Then become the hardest-working person in the room.

And please, be easy to work with.

Talent may get you noticed. But being good, prepared, generous, and not a nightmare to collaborate with is how you get invited back.

So yes, improve the script.

But don’t polish it into oblivion.

At some point, send the thing out.

So that’s it for this week, if you got a question - why not send one now?

Most of last week was writing. But once I’d hit my deadline, I got to go and see some film school grad screenings.

They were all good. Only a few were great.

And by the third or fourth, I could tell which would be which within about two minutes. Not the budget, not the camera, not the acting.

It was simpler than that. The great ones told me what to want, fast. They made it clear what the character was after, or planted a question I needed answered, and then I couldn’t look away.

The good ones made me wait to find out why I should care.

Funny how that’s the same problem everywhere. On the page, on the screen, and - as this week’s question reminded me - on the stage too.

So, on to it.

QUESTION 1

EMMA from UK:

I’ve written a couple of scripts. I’m thinking about trying to write a play. Have you tried that? And what’s the biggest things to consider when writing a play.

Now this is a great questions, but a little outside my range of expertise. I have written a play in my early career but did that with very little knowledge of how to do it.

So to answer this, I have asked one of my friends, a colleague who taught at the Icelandic Film School while I was there, to field it.

Heiðar Sumarliðason

This is a very very interesting question that I have been dealing with for quite a long time. There are quite a few differences. Mostly:

A screenplay is a blueprint for a film or television production. The writer is not the final storyteller; directors, actors, cinematographers, editors, composers, and designers all contribute to shaping the finished work. As a result, screenwriting places a heavy emphasis on visual storytelling. Internal thoughts are usually minimised, the prose is lean and economical, and dialogue must sound natural when spoken aloud. a screenplay usually expresses emotion through observable behaviour.

Playwriting is different because a play is written for live performance in front of an audience. Unlike film, theatre cannot easily cut between locations, zoom in on a face, or rely on editing. The audience experiences events continuously and physically, sharing the same space and time as the performers. As a result, plays are generally more dialogue-driven, place a strong emphasis on character dynamics, often operate within limited settings and time periods, and generate tension through real-time interaction. Language frequently carries more weight than visuals.

But the trickiest thing about coming from screenwriting and going into playwriting has to do with choosing what is the best vehicle for an idea that you have and find one that fits into the mechanics of theatre rather than the silver screen.

Most of us are raised on reading novels and watching filmed stories, exposure to theatre being a distant third. This makes it all the more difficult for those who wish to write for theatre to gauge exactly how and what they should be writing about and the form it should take; theatre can be both the most constrictive and the most freeing form to work with. Two chairs can be a car, then turn into a plane or a space ship. But in a way that also works against you. There are certain ideas that work very well within that set up but others would be silly, so in a way that freedom can also work against you. There are certain ideas that work very well with you changing a simple chair set up from one thing to another, because the audience accepts the metaphor and participates in creating the world with you. However, there are also ideas that resist this kind of abstraction. Certain stories depend too heavily on realism, scale, constant location changes, or visual specificity. Some ideas lose tension if the audience has to imagine too much of the world rather than experience it directly.

A story built around spectacle, for example, may struggle in theatre unless the spectacle itself is transformed into something symbolic or theatrical.

Theatricality often involves making metaphor physical and visible. Rather than simply describing an emotion or idea, theatre can embody it through movement, space, objects, and performance. It frequently transforms space, allowing a simple stage to become multiple locations through suggestion and imagination. Language is often heightened, not necessarily in a poetic sense, but in the sense that speech carries dramatic weight and rhythm beyond everyday conversation. Meaning is also communicated through symbolic actions that resonate on an emotional or thematic level rather than a purely realistic one. Theatre can engage the audience directly, inviting them to become active participants in the creation of the story, and it is often comfortable acknowledging that a performance is taking place rather than attempting to hide its own artifice. In this way, theatricality emerges when the tools of the stage themselves become part of how meaning is created.

Likewise, stories that rely heavily on internal narration or psychological detail may naturally lean more towards the novel form, where thought itself can become action. Theatre tends to work best when the energy comes from presence, conflict, language, and transformation happening in real time before an audience.

The difficulty is learning to recognise when an idea is asking for metaphor and limitation, and when it is asking for immersion and realism. Not every idea benefits from theatrical minimalism. Some concepts become more powerful through suggestion and simplicity, while others require the full visual and spatial possibilities that film or prose can provide.

So if you want to write for theatre try to find an idea that can survive being stripped down to its essence, because theatre is often at its most powerful when very little is needed beyond actors, language, tension, and the audience’s imagination.

Looking at a play like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf, it works brilliantly as theatre because it is fundamentally about verbal combat. The tension comes from people trapped in a room dismantling one another psychologically through language.

A film adaptation exists, but the material’s true power comes from: sustained confrontation, live emotional escalation, claustrophobia, dialogue as action. In theatre, there is nowhere to escape. The audience becomes almost complicit.

Most enduring plays are not built around spectacle, massive world-building, or realism alone.

Instead, they are built around human tension, transformation, language, ritual, confinement, presence, ambiguity, emotional immediacy.

Theatre is strongest when the audience’s imagination becomes part of the machinery of the story. A play often works best when it could almost only happen in a room full of people watching other people breathe, hesitate, lie, unravel, confess, or collide in real time.

You must also think about the venue. A certain play can work in a tight space, watched by very few people, but will be lost on a large stage. Some plays depend entirely on intimacy the audience hearing every hesitation, feeling trapped in the room with the actors, almost becoming participants in the conversation. Others require scale, distance, movement, and visual composition. Theatre is not only shaped by the text itself, but by the physical relationship between performer and audience. A line whispered in a black box theatre may carry enormous weight, while the same moment in a thousand-seat auditorium may disappear completely.

In many ways theatre is the art form most aware of its own boundaries. But those boundaries often create the conditions for its greatest inventiveness. If you do not appreciate boundaries as a writer, theatre is definitely not for you. Discussing the differences in minutiae can be endless, but I hope this helps some. But the best way to get a feeling of what works for theatre can only be brought about by watching a lot of it and trying to compare it to the more common form of film.

I hope that was useful answer to your questions. This did answer some of my questions I had on the topic.

Hope you decide to try writing that play.

So that’s it for this week, if you got a question - why not send one now?

Hello everyone,

This newsletter is arriving a day late again, which, as someone who likes to think of himself as an absolute stickler for deadlines, is quite awkward.

But here we are.

Better late than never he told himself, and didn’t buy it for one second.

I’ve been juggling a rewrite and rebuild of a pilot this week. It’s going slowly, but I think it’s going well, which is a pretty decent place to be mid-draft.

Mostly I’ve been ping-ponging between: this could work, this absolutely sucks, and no, wait, maybe this could work after all.

So, you know. Writing.

How about you? Did you get any writing done this week?

We have a simple but important question this week, about structure, page count, and whether your story beats really need to land exactly where the books tell you they should.

Let’s get to it.

QUESTION 1

Arne from SWEDEN:

I’ve been worrying about page count. The writing is going well, but my major beats aren’t landing where they’re “supposed” to. How closely should I stick to structure in terms of page count?

First of all, great that the words are flowing… and that you are delivering pages.

That may sound like the boring answer, but honestly, it is not nothing. A lot of writers spend so much time worrying about whether they are doing it right that they never actually get the thing written.

So if the writing is going well, that is a very good sign.

When I’m writing a feature, I tend to feel that page-count structure is more useful in theory than it is in practice.

Not useless.

But also not something I would obsess over while writing.

And not something that should stop the writing.

Yes, we can say the first act should end around page 25. The midpoint should land somewhere around the middle. The second act break should happen somewhere around page 75.

And that can be helpful. Especially when you are starting out.

It’s like a security blanket. You have a sense that you are, for the most part, doing this thing correctly.

But the real question is not whether something happens on the “correct” page.

The real question is whether the story is turning.

Is the reader still engaged?

Are they curious enough to turn the page?

Is the story revealing character?

Is it creating pressure?

Is it surprising the reader?

Is it making us feel that the situation is changing, deepening, complicating, or becoming harder for the character to escape?

And is it forcing us, the reader, to keep going even though it’s our bedtime and we should really finish reading this thing tomorrow?

Because that is what structure is really doing.

It is not there to make sure page 25 performs its destined function.

So my advice would be: don’t stop.

Keep writing.

Especially if you feel the writing is going well. Do not interrupt that momentum just because some theoretical structure chart says you are doing it wrong and your midpoint should really be on page 55.

If it’s on page 67?

Fuck it.

Finish the draft.

Then give it an honest read.

Ask yourself honestly: is this engaging? Does it move? Do the turns feel like turns? Does the story keep creating new questions and new complications?

And if you think it does, give it to a few people you trust and see if they agree.

They will probably point out places where the film is not working on all cylinders, and you can adjust from there.

So yes, you can use page count as a metric to feel out whether the story is moving too fast or too slowly.

But please don’t treat it as divine law.

If your midpoint lands a few pages late, but the story is still cracking, that is not a problem at all.

The problem is not that the beat is late.

The problem is if the story has gone dead.

So my advice is simple:

Don’t stop writing because of the page count.

Just keep writing.

So that’s it for this week, if you got a question - why not send one now?

Hello everyone,

I have had the champagne problems of being swamped with writing assignments and apologise for this coming in a day late.

So without further ado, here’s this week’s question.

QUESTION 1

Amanda from the UK:

From your writing I see that you are doing a lot of TV. I want to write TV and have read a lot of pilots and episodes I found online, which is great resource but they are using 4 acts or 5 act structures. But with streaming TV seems to be different, so the question is: Should I use these structures when writing TV?

Thank you Amanda for a great question,

As with most things writing there is no should.

There is only could.

That is to say… as long as the length makes sense, and the format is what we expect and the text is clear —

You are good to go.

So TV in my mind is very much an american art form.

Or at least feels like they invented the modern TV show format.

In my experience the pacing of TV has a lot to do with these acts breaks.

So a tad of history as I understand it.

For the longest time TV was a vehicle to sell ad space.

This is the time of network TV in America.

And to sell those ads, and make sure you the audience would sit through them, shows had act breaks, exciting parts of the story to make sure you were excited about what was happening and wouldn’t change the channel.

So to do that, each act ended with the mini cliffhangers.

Now this means the story has to change every 7-8 minutes or so.

And that of course affects pacing.

If you look at for example two shows from different eras Cheers and then Friends you will notice they are quite similar.

But the pacing is wildly different.

And that is because, Cheers has 2 acts (and a Cold open and Tag) but Friends has 3 acts (and of course cold open and Tag)

If you watch both shows you can see how slow Cheers feels. And that’s because they only needed one major shift in the story, whereas Friends has two major shifts.

It’s then similar with drama.

If you have a show with 4 acts (Teaser and maybe Tag) or a show with 5 acts, that will affect the pacing.

This is of course different from acts in films, since in TV the acts are all sort of equal length. The more acts, the more major shifts in the story, the more major shifts, the faster the pacing will feel.

Here I come back to TV being an American art form and a huge export.

In my view, american TV with their act breaks has had a huge influence on the european TV space as well.

Even though in some places here, we don’t have ad breaks, or we have fewer ad breaks we have all gotten used to the pacing of American TV.

So an episode of TV, feels like the episode of TV because of that specific pacing.

Change it because you don’t have ad break, to me at least, it feels a bit weird. There’s something off, it feels less like a TV episode.

I also feel this about streaming as well. That traditionally has not had ad breaks, but still without that very specific pacing, still feels off.

And then of course, streaming is now ever more introducing ads.

So even if you are in a different market or space, I think the act breaks still serve a vital function of keeping the pace pleasing to the audience.

No.

But should you?

I can only speak for myself but I still think the act breaks are an incredibly helpful, in structuring episodes of TV to make sure the pacing is on point.

It’s very easy to get stuck in writing things that drag on to long - or writing sequence that fall too short and don’t have a proper buildup.

It’s like working with a set of constraints.

I always feel like that is a creativity booster not a damper.

And you don’t need to have your act breaks in the script itself, unless you prefer it (which I totally do though - keeps me on point) but I would suggest using them in your structure.

Hope that helped and good luck with your pilot.

So that’s it for this week, if you got a question - why not send one now?

Hello everyone,

Hope you’ve had a good week of writing. I was very happy to see the subscriber count reach 130 this week.

I’m sending this email a day late from beautiful Dún Laoghaire in Ireland, where I’ve had the pleasure of serving as external examiner for the National Film School at IADT.

I saw some great films and met a lot of talented students.

I did get one question this week about the difference between playwriting and screenwriting, but since that’s a little outside my area of expertise, I’ve asked a colleague of mine to answer it in next week’s newsletter.

So we can look forward to that.

So without a question, there is a topic important to writing, but more about the social dynamic of being a screenwriter.

What is the most overlooked skill for screenwriters?

So here is the thing,

I have often been asked for advice on becoming a screenwriter, and of course the first thing that comes to mind is: keep writing. Keep practicing until your skill level is good enough that you can start sharing your work.

Which I think is the obvious advice.

And it is 100% true.

But there is another skill that I think is hugely overlooked.

And this is maybe not sexy advice.

It’s not romantic.

It is not the kind of advice that makes people sit back and go, ah yes, that is the secret to screenwriting.

But I think this skill can make a huge difference. And that is…

Because filmmaking is collaborative at its heart.

The amount of effort from a whole bunch of talented people that is needed to get something made is huge. Even on a small project, people are bringing time, energy, patience, skill, problem-solving. All of it.

So even if your script is brilliant, and even if you are brilliant - or at least have those occasional moments in between the impostor syndrome where you seem brilliant - you still have to be able to work with other people.

And those people are good at what they do too.

They have opinions. Experience. Taste. Ideas. Pressure coming from every direction.

And all of these people have to somehow work together.

Usually for quite a long time.

And life is short.

You do not want to spend your days with difficult people.

Even if they happen to be brilliant.

And I think this is the part some writers miss.

You can write an amazing script and still make yourself much harder to hire again.

Because once a script gets traction, once people start responding to it, once meetings start happening and notes start coming in, writing is no longer the only skill in play.

Now collaboration matters.

Now attitude matters.

Now people are not just asking, is this person talented?

They are also asking, do I want to spend the next year of my life working with this person?

Being easy to work with does not mean being weak.

It does not mean agreeing with every note.

It does not mean smiling politely while people slowly murder your script.

You should absolutely stand up for the things that matter.

But pick your battles.

Not every minor change is the hill you die on.

And sometimes the note itself is bad, but the problem underneath it is real.

That happens all the time.

Someone gives a clumsy note, or suggests the complete wrong fix, but what they are actually reacting to is something in the story not landing.

And if you are too defensive, too precious, or too focused on protecting your ego, you can miss that.

Then you are not really helping the script.

And you’re not helping yourself.

You are just fighting for the feeling of being right.

And also, if you working with talented people… sometimes you are just wrong.

And filmmaking is also full of problems.

There’s always something.

Schedules change. Budgets shrink. Actors drop out. Locations disappear. Scenes that worked on the page suddenly do not work anymore. Something always goes wrong.

So be the person who helps solve problems.

Be the person who does not turn one problem into three more.

That goes for the practical stuff too.

If you say you are going to deliver something on Friday, deliver it on Friday.

If it turns out you cannot, say so before Friday.

People can deal with delays.

What they hate is silence. Having to chase someone.

Being reliable is not a small thing.

It is a huge thing.

And then there is the most boring advice of all, which is maybe also the most useful.

Be nice.

Not fake nice.

Not networking nice.

Just actually nice.

Because this industry is built on relationships. People remember who made the work better, and they also remember who made the whole process miserable.

And the truth is, talent is not always what gets people hired again.

Sometimes it is that they were talented and sane.

Talented and reliable.

Talented and open.

Talented and pleasant to spend long stressful days with.

That counts for a lot.

I think a lot of young writers imagine the job is about protecting the purity of their vision at all costs.

And yes, your vision matters.

But filmmaking is not done by one person.

You are making things with other people.

And the people around you are not obstacles between you and your genius. They are the reason the thing might exist at all.

So yes, get better at writing.

But also get better at listening. At adjusting. At communicating. At being accountable. At not making yourself exhausting to deal with.

Because being easy to work with is not some side quality.

It is part of the job.

So that’s it for this week, if you got a question - why not send one now?

Hello everyone,

I hope you’ve had a fruitful week of writing.

Lately, I’ve been bouncing between projects more than ever, and I’m finding it surprisingly useful. The moment I hit a wall on one thing, I move to something else, and somehow the solution to the first problem starts bubbling up from the subconscious while I’m away from it.

So if you’re stuck, and you don’t have another project to jump to, I’d honestly suggest inventing one.

This week’s question is about one of my favorite things: outlining.

QUESTION 1

Daniel from Canada:

I love outlining and building my script from there, but every time I’m about to start I think of something new to add. It’s like I’m addicted to the outlining process. How do you know when the outline is done enough and you just need to start writing?

If you’ve read this newsletter for any length of time, you know how much I love outlining.

I really do.

I love a solid outline. It’s my security blanket.

I need to know what the story is doing before I write it.

I need to understand cause and effect before I dive in.

I love being able to look at a structure, see where the engine is, and tinker with it until it’s running at maximum performance.

So when I say this, I say it as a man who is very much pro-outline:

At a certain point, outlining stops being preparation and starts becoming a very sophisticated way of avoiding the writing.

Because outlining is safe.

In the outline, everything still works.

In theory.

The dialogue is still brilliant because you haven’t had to write it yet.

The characters are still layered because they haven’t had the chance to become flat on the page.

The emotional moments still land because nobody has actually had to say them out loud.

The outline protects the fantasy of the script.

The draft is where that fantasy meets reality.

And that is exactly why it’s so easy to get stuck in preparation mode.

Because you’ve reached the point where the next step involves risk.

Real risk.

The risk of writing a scene and realizing it sucks. The risk of discovering that the brilliant thing in your head is a little less brilliant on the page.

That is not failure.

That is writing.

Now, to be fair, I am not one of those people who says, “Just start writing and see what happens.” I know that works for some writers, but not for me.

So yes, outline.

Absolutely.

But the outline has one job: to get you far enough that you can write the draft.

It’s your guide for writing the script.

That’s all.

At some point, you have to stop preparing the thing and start writing the thing.

Because once you start writing scenes, the script begins telling you the truth.

It tells you where the energy drops.

It tells you whether that lovely act break in your outline is actually earned, or whether you just liked the sound of it.

It tells you whether your protagonist is active, whether your conflict escalates, whether one scene truly causes the next, or whether you’ve quietly started leaning on “and then.”

The draft exposes all of that.

Are you still outlining because the story is unclear?

Or are you still outlining because you are afraid of writing pages?

Because if the big story questions are answered - what the protagonist wants, what stands in the way, what the major turns are, and how it ends - then you probably do not need another outline pass.

You probably need to start writing.

And accept that the first version will probably suck.

Or at the very least, not yet be the thing you imagined in your head.

You will replace that elegant screenplay you’ve been carrying around in your imagination with a clunky one that doesn’t quite work.

But the good news is...

That’s the one you can fix.

A draft forces you to confront what is actually there.

And that confrontation is what leads to progress.

So yes, outline.

But when you find yourself thinking, I’ll just add a little of this, a little of that...

Start writing the script.

For a little while, the thing you’ve spent so much time building will feel worse than it did before.

That’s normal.

Then one day you hit the glorious words:

The End.

And now, for the first time, you can really see what works and what doesn’t.

And that means you can finally get to the next step.

Making the script into the brilliant thing you hoped it could be when you started.

Good luck.

And start writing.

So that’s it for this week, if you got a question - why not send one now?

Happy writing.

Hello everyone,

I’ve been moving between a few different projects this week, which reminded me of something I actually like about juggling work. When one project gets stuck, I can shift to another, let a different part of my brain take over, and often come back with more energy than I had before.

It’s not always elegant, but I find it works for me.

One question this week. But an important one. Let’s get straight to it.

QUESTION 1

Paul from the USA:

I have been querying producers with my script, and one of them who has a decent imdb and says he has a lot of contacts has offered to develop my script with me before he takes it out. But he wants me to pay him for his work? This sounds exciting, but still feels weird. Should I take him up on his offer?

It’s always exciting when you get a signal back after sending out something into the big void but…

In this case I’m sorry to say.

RUN!

Put on your running shoes, tie the laces tight, and run away.

Do not pay a producer to “develop” your script so they can take it out.

If this producer was genuinely interested in producing the project, the conversation would usually be about optioning the script, attaching themselves to it, giving you notes, or discussing what changes might make it stronger before they take it to people.

But asking you to pay them for that work?

That sets off every alarm bell in the building.

You say this producer has some decent credits, and that may very well be true. But decent credits do not automatically make this a good deal. Someone can have real credits and still be offering something that is not in your best interest.

To me, this sounds less like a producer investing in a project and more like someone selling hope to a writer who badly wants a door to open.

This sounds like a big fat scam to me.

It sound exploitative.

There is a whole market out there built around exploiting the hopes and dreams of writers. It comes in many forms. Sometimes it’s “pay me and I’ll get your script to the right people.” Sometimes it’s “pay me and I’ll guarantee meetings.” Sometimes it’s “pay me and I’ll help you get produced.”

Every time I see that kind of promise, I smell bullshit.

Now, to be clear, there are absolutely people worth paying.

There are great teachers, coaches, script editors, and consultants who can help you get better. They can help you develop your craft, strengthen your script, and see problems you’re too close to notice. That has value.

Just like an athlete can benefit from a great coach, a writer can benefit from someone who knows what they’re doing.

But the good ones won’t promise you an easy way into the industry.

They won’t say, “Pay me and I’ll get you access.”

They’ll say something more honest:

“I can help you make the script better. But you still have to do the work.”

That’s fair.

I love writing screenplays.

I also love helping people up their skills and make their scripts better.

Both these things are honest professions.

You pay these people for their time.

That’s fair

What is not fair is someone presenting themselves as a producer, dangling contacts and access, and then asking the writer to fund their involvement.

A producer who believes in your script should be bringing value to the project, not charging you for the privilege of maybe helping you.

I know it’s tough. You send your work out into a void that usually doesn’t answer. So when someone does answer, it’s tempting to lean toward the hope.

But hope is exactly what makes writers vulnerable.

So no, I would not take him up on it.

Keep querying. Keep improving the script. Keep looking for the producer who is interested in your story, interested in you, and sees the value in working with you.

Without hitting you up for money first.

So that’s it for this week, if you got a question - why not send one now?

Happy writing.

Hello everyone,

And once again, the newsletter comes a day late. Sorry about that.

So let’s not waste anytime, and get straight to this week’s question.

QUESTION 1

JAN from Germany:

Do you ever lose momentum when writing yoru scripts? I feel like every time I go into the second act, I start to drift.

Of course I do!

All the time.

I think it’s actually pretty inevitable to start to drift.

For me it’s mostly… procrastination drift. Losing momentum when I can’t figure out a scene or a plot point.

You know that thing, where you brain goes, are you sure you can actually do this?

And that insecurity starts to drain your momentum.

But if you look at the place where you say that you start to lose your momentum, I think that’s a pretty normal place for that too happen.

That is usually the place where I would find myself lost when I was starting out.

The first act was easy (or as easy as writing gets) because your are setting yourself up for this great idea you are going to explore in the 2nd act.

Then when you get there… it’s twice as long as the other acts.

And this great idea starts to feel dull and repetitive. Almost episodic.

For me, the realisation was this:

As soon as I stopped treating the 2nd act as one long sequence…

And instead started to think of it as 2 separate parts, the momentum drain disappeared.

The midpoint meant I had to turn the plot on it’s head, and set the script off in a new direction.

That meant it was only 25-30 pages to explore my original idea.

Instead of 55-60 pages

It’s so simple, but felt like a god send at the time.

This is of course, what you will find in almost every screenwriting book out there.

That said, I do think of it less in these terms anymore, but have done so was incredibly useful to internalise the act structure.

What I do now instead…

I consider what the audience is desperate to know at any given time.

What is the primal question they want answered?

And instead of focusing on what act I am in, what plot beat to hit next…

I think of were the attention of the audience is.

And use that, to figure out to keep the momentum going.

If I know I have the audiences attention, I can put in all sorts of scenes and keep up the momentum in the script.

And the momentum for myself.

What I also find useful is to look at the core clash at the center of the idea.

Is is purely external, forces pulling your protagonist ahead?

Because then I feel you can stall, and have to invent more and more external factor to keep the plot going.

Feels like adding. Not expanding or exploring.

Then things start to feel episodic.

But if the clash is thematic, I feel it’s easier to always expand, creating new conflicts naturally from that.

I hope that helps.

If there’s one thing more to add, the only way to deal with this is then really…

Keep writing.

So that’s it for this week, if you got a question - why not send one now?

Happy writing.

Hello everyone,

I apologise for the newsletter coming in a day late, well, if anyone cares that it does :)

I planned on getting to it last night, but ended up taking my child to the emergency room (everyone is fine)

I hope you had a productive week writing, I had pretty good week, think I (mostly) cracked the pilot I was outlining. Small win, but I’ll take it.

We have 1 question this week… so let’s get to it.

QUESTION 1

Rahesh from the INDIA:

Thank you so much for the newsletter. Truly, every time I complete a screenplay and sit down for a reading, I start hating it. I just see so many flaws and mistakes everywhere that I simply cannot stand to look at it further.

Thank you for the compliment on the newsletter, Rahesh.

And let’s begin with the most important detail of your question.

You finished a script.

And not only one, but multiple if I am reading your question correctly.

That’s huge.

So even if the finished script is getting you down… you did finish it.

That’s a whole lot more than a bunch of other people can claim.

Now when I finish a script, I do get a huge dopamine rush of accomplishment.

Which I use to propel me forward in other projects… or the same one if i have a tight deadline.

My preferred option is too rest the project as soon as I finish a draft.

Use the momentum for something new.

Finish that.

Then come back to the original project.

Then two things have happened.

1. I have a fresher perspective on the original project…

and in case the needs a lot of work

2. I now have a new project that I have finished.

Which means that even if I think the first one sucks, which can happen (I find it to be either or; I feel it sucks or it’s the most brilliant thing ever)

This would be my main advice to you.

Let’s have multiple eggs in that basket.

That way, some of them are allowed to suck.

I would also suggest, using that wonderful dopamine hit from finishing a new project, to give you energy for your previous one and the re-writes that will follow.

Okay.

That’s my take on this.

But let’s say, you never find a light point in any of your scripts.

And they really suck (they probably don’t though)

Then we need to look at your methods.

Are you just sitting down and writing without a net (outline)

That works for some… but requires extensives re-writes.

Which is difficult if you are feeling down.

Then I would suggest a preparation process, synopsis, outline,ect.

Here’s how I like to do it:

I find that with this kind of prep, your first drafts will be much stronger.

Maybe that gets you away from this sucks.

But even if it doesn’t, my final piece of advice is this:

Remember you are ahead of the game… because you are finishing.

It’s gonna take a lot of scripts to get you to the level you want to be.

So keep going.

So that’s it for this week, if you got a question - why not send one now?

Happy writing.

Hello everyone,

Hope you had a nice easter break. I had a quick re-write to do, but besides that I managed to just hang out with my family and not do work.

Feels great to have a little break, and for me, energizing to then get back to it.

How was your easter?

QUESTION 1

Andrew from the US:

With A.I. seemingly entering every field, how do you feel about it as a screenwriter? Do you use it, or do you try to just ignore it?

To be honest…

I’m not entirely sure how I feel.

On one hand, it’s an incredible technology, that I use everyday in my life… for example for tasks that I used to google, I now just ask my preferred A.I.

On the other hand, I do know about it’s energy consumption, it’s effect on the environment and the danger of a handful of large companies owning the future of this new tech.

But all of that, is kind a normal as a consumer of things.

Something you know, but kind of ignore cause you are busy with the day to day life.

But then it comes to my passion and career as a screenwriter.

Here things get a little tricky.

Because it’s both great… and terrifying.

And when question came up as A.I. started to be everywhere…

Should I use it, or should I just ignore it?

I choose…

Use it.

And the reason I decided to use it was simply:

At least for my taste, A.I. kind of sucks at everything that I am good at.

It’s bad at the actual skills that I use everyday.

1. When it comes up with stories, those are average and vague.

2. Finding story solutions, those are always very typical and boring.

3. Giving feedback, very generalised and not creative.

4. The actual writing, feels a bit flat and not as engaging.

And I think the reason it’s not good at this, is that stories are about people…

And people are very random.

And also, it’s just creating an average middle ground from what it know already, that’s never going to get you anywhere creatively.

But even if it’s bad at so many creative things, it can be very useful for a working screenwriter.

Because essentially, even though you work with people, being a screenwriter means that you are a one man band.

So we can use the A.I. to do all sorts of busy work, to free up more time to be creative.

I find that since using A.I. it has given me more time to work creatively.

Here are some examples where is can be very useful

Writing Applications for funding

This is more an european thing, but here you frequently have write long applications for example script grant funding. This requires a lot of reppetition, you hand in a logline, synopsis, treatment, ect, ect.

Using A.I. I can feed it a master treatment, and get a rough draft of my story in all other document types I need. Saving me maybe 1-2 weeks.

Research

Also quite handy, instead of googling, you can just ask. Then you can use things like NOTEBOOKLM which does not train on your data, and only pulls from your sources, to create a notebook of your research to chat to.

Pitch Decks

So I wish I did have the funding to pay an artist to do a deck for me… but I do not. But my job is often to sell my idea, and the ability to create images that look like the project I want is extremely beneficial.

What I would do before this, is collect images from the internet to build this type of thing. And obviously creating the images takes much less time.

Analysing

I mentioned above that I find A.I. bad at feedback. But you can still use it to improve your work. I have found, that instead of asking for straight feedback you can feed it your work (press the don’t train on this tab) and then ask questions like:

Detail every moment where the character motivation shifts, and why.

It will often get most moments right, but in early drafts it will miss something. That tells my that my subtext is not striking through… and will require a re-wrote.

This is just a couple of things I use it for - if you want a more detailed list, for sure ask away and i’ll get deeper into it.

Of course there is always a fear that this will take over the creative aspects in the end.

But for the time being, I don’t believe it will.

And even if it did…

Using it now, won’t really change that fact.

Besides I really believe, like any tool, it’s usability will depend on the user.

You bring your skills to any tool you use.

And in that way…

I think core skills are becoming more important than ever.

I can control it better for my writing, cause I know the fundamentals.

A cinematographer will prompt better images, because they understand lighting, framing, lenses, ect, ect.

So if you want to get better at A.I.

Get better at your core skills.

This creative venture has always been about those skills….

And I don’t think that’s changing.

So at the moment, I am quite comfortable in this new world.

Except for the damn em-dash…

The horrible tell tale sign of A.I. written text!

Which also happens to be one of my favorite tools in my writing toolbox.

Should I just use it like I always have, and hope people don’t think I am using A.I.

Or should I stop it all together.

I can’t decide.

What’s your take on that?

So that’s it for this week, if you got a question - why not send one now?

Happy writing.

Hello everyone,

Hope your writing was strong this week. If not… well, there’s always next week.

I spent mine in beautiful west Ireland, doing a short screenwriting workshop with some great students. I always find that teaching gives you great energy to take back to your writing when you’re done. Connects you back to that place where you started.

Also - I learned this week, that one of my former students, was chosen as a Nicholl fellow this year. Which is very cool and congratulation to her.

We got 2 questions this week and as always…

QUESTION 1

Laurie from the Canada:

I am fairly new to writing screenplays. There is a lot of information out there on do’s and dont’s which can be very confusing. The thing that’s most confusing to me is whether I can put camera directions in the script. Is that okay? Or is that a big no?

This is great question,

I remember struggling with this exact thing when I was starting out.

And if you are visitors of reddit, x.com or other places where you find screenwriting discourse…

You’ll quickly find that you are not the only one that come up against this.

And people have very very strong opinions, for and against.

When I was starting out, I also had a pretty strong opinion on it…

Which was, you should not do it. Almost to the point of going it’s against the rules to do it.

I felt that it brought me out of the script if I started to write camera directions in.

And bent almost out of shape sometimes to make sure the text included no camera, or suggested camera moves.

But now with more experience I have learned that…

It doesn’t matter.

Really.

What matters is that you put words on the page that is engaging to read.

That when the script is read, it feels like watching a movie.

If camera directions help that… put it in.

No one is going to be offened or throw away your script if it’s in there - if the script is good.

With that said, I personally prefer using descriptive words to imply the angle. For example:

• Instead of “WIDE SHOT - DESERT,” I’d use: “The desert stretches on forever.”

• Instead of “CLOSE UP - SWEATY FACE,” I’d use: “Sweat drips from the forehead.”

And if the camera has to move along… I’m totally happy with a nice little we see.

So if I boil down the advice to something very simple.

Don’t worry too much about it.

You can always re-write anyway.

So just do whatever makes your script pop.

QUESTION 2

Lee from the Australia:

I have a fulltime job and family, and my dream is to write screenplays. I know I have to put in the work, but I’m finding it hard to find time to do it, with my other responsobilities. How was if for you when you started out? Any tips you can share?

This is a situation, I feel many of us when starting out find ourselves in.

In almost any creative endevour.

And first of all,

I am very happy that you acknowledge that it’s going to take a lot of hard work to get where you want to go.

Because I believe, that is the biggest indicator of sucess.

More than talent actually.

But finding time to build the experience you need, and juggle that against your responsibilities can be tough.

After I finished film school, I needed to like you find that space to write.

For the first two years, before things picked up, I found a job as a night guard at a retirement home.

Which was like 6 nights work, 6 nights off.

And the only real skill needed for the job was to be nice to old people when they woke up and get them back to bed.

But for most of the time, the job was just to be there if someone woke up.

Which means that most nights I would get paid… and could write.

So for people just getting started, a job like this, where you are paid to be somewhere but have time to kill is perfect.

But of course, that’s not always an option.

And if that’s not an option…

You need to make a schedule that works for you and stick to it.

Try to get some writing done every day, or every weekday.

Even if it’s just 15 minutes.

I believe if you do a little every day, it trumps one long session weekly.

Because you do 15 minutes, then your subconscious is going to do work until the next day you do another 15.

And if you manage to do maybe half a page every day….

In 200 days you will have a 100 page script.

If you have a little more time every day, and manage to 1 page a day…

You will have 100 pages in 100 days.

So try to find that space every day, when you can that writing in.

Is it the first 15 minutes after the kids go to sleep?

Or is it waking up 15 minutes before everyone else, get those pages in then?

Or 15 minutes of your lunchbreak?

Whatever works for you, getting that time in, will pay off.

Hope you find the time and good luck with it.

Happy writing.

Hello everyone,

Hope you got some writing done this week and are ready for the coming week.

I’m writing this from a plane to Ireland, as I’ll be spending the week doing a screenwriting workshop in a school west Ireland. Always great to get the energy of a classroom – which you can then feed back to your writing.

We one question this week, but a super important one I think – about feedback.

Anyways, we one question this week - let’s get to it.

And as always - If you have got a question why not send it right now?

Send your question

And if that link doesn’t work: Questions@theinsecurescreenwriter.com

QUESTION 1

James from the UK:

I’ve followed advice online to find peers to give and share feedback, which is turning out great for the most part. There however a script I read, that is frankly not good. I am not sure, how honest I should be, I worry that writer will give up entirely if tell it to him honestly. A long way to ask, what is the best way to give feedback, and how to do it, if it’s bad?

This is a great question, James.

And it’s some really good advice you found there—finding a group of peers that you can trust and grow with as a writer is fantastic. If the group is good, you will both get valuable feedback and learn to give good feedback as well.

Learning to analyze and give good feedback will make you a better writer.

You’ll start looking for things in your own writing that you see in others.

You’ll begin to recognize patterns—where scenes lose energy, where characters become passive, where something feels false even if you can’t immediately explain why.

That instinct is incredibly valuable.

You’ll also learn to communicate better, which will help you down the road when it comes to pitching.

Being able to clearly articulate why something works or doesn’t work is not just useful in a feedback session, it’s the same skill you use when defending your own choices.

As for your question, let’s split it into two parts.

Here are my metrics for feedback.

First of all, let’s remember you are not a film critic. Your job is to help the writer achieve what they are trying to do, not what you would do with the material.

Well, unless they specifically asked you too.

So the first thing I consider is: what is the writer trying to do?

What is the genre? What kind of experience are they aiming for? Where am I bored? Where am I confused? Does the work connect with me emotionally?

A useful shift is to move away from judging and towards observing your own experience. Instead of saying “this doesn’t work,” try to understand why it didn’t work for you. Were you unclear about the character’s intention? Did the stakes feel low? Did the scene arrive too late or leave too early?

Those are things the writer can actually use.

I also prefer giving feedback in person, because I can just ask the writer these questions and then respond with how I feel about each section.

It becomes a conversation rather than a verdict.

But when you have to do it in writing, I try asking myself these questions, putting myself in the shoes of the writer. Figure out the intention behind the work, find the passion in it, and approach your notes from there.

If I have specific ideas, I do throw them in, but only if I believe they fit the writer’s vision.

And even then, I try to present them as possibilities, not solutions.

Another thing that helps is being specific. “I liked this” is nice, but “I liked this because…” is useful. It tells the writer what to hold onto. The same goes for problems, clarity is more helpful than general negativity.

When delivering feedback, try to also talk about what works, what you liked.

This gives the writer something solid to build on. But when giving notes about what’s not working, or what could be working better, try to frame it with a sense of possibility.

Be excited for the rewrite.

If these parts already work, then there’s something real here, and that’s worth developing. That energy matters more than people think.

And one more thing: timing.

Sometimes a writer isn’t ready to hear certain notes yet. You can feel that. In those cases, it can be better to focus on the biggest, clearest issues rather than everything at once.

Overloading someone rarely helps.

There are times when you read something that is barely salvageable, and you have to let the writer know.

It’s tempting to be vague about it, especially if it’s someone you like, and let them down easy. But if you do that, you’re doing them a disservice.

You have to be honest.

If they are digging themselves into a hole, your feedback could be the thing that stops them from spending months going in the wrong direction.

In that sense, honesty is a form of respect.

That said, how you say it matters.

Try not to be mean, but don’t hide the truth either. Be concise, clear, and very simple in why you think it doesn’t work. Focus on the fundamentals, character, clarity, stakes, engagement.

Here, brevity is your friend.

It’s always going to feel like an attack, and it doesn’t need too many details if the script is really that bad.

Too many notes can actually confuse the core issue.

If possible, try to point them toward a way forward. Not a full solution, but a direction.

Sometimes that’s as simple as: “I don’t think this version is working yet, but the core idea might be if you rethink X.”

That gives them something to do, instead of just something to feel.

And accept that you can’t control how it lands.

Some people will appreciate the honesty now. Some later. Some won’t. That’s part of it. Your responsibility is to be useful, not to be liked in that moment.

Hope that helped. Good luck with it.

So that’s it for this week, if you got a question - why not send one now?

Remember there are no stupid questions - it could be about story structure, dialogue, breaking in, or even overcoming writer’s block. Whatever’s on your min

Send your question

And if that link doesn’t work: Questions@theinsecurescreenwriter.com

Happy writing.

Hello everyone,

I hope you had a great writing week.

I spent mine doing re-writes on a episodic scripts (managed to get the worst scene in the episode from not great to at least ok) trying to break an adaptation into a workable pilot and…

Went to a production meeting for my next film “The ghost in the house” which officially starts shooting next Monday!

I try to remember to enjoy it when I have a good week, to save up for when you have one of those nothing I write is good weeks.

Anyways, we’ve got one question this week - let’s get to it.

And as always - If you have got a question why not send it right now?

Send your question

And if that link doesn’t work: Questions@theinsecurescreenwriter.com

QUESTION 1

Reggie from USA:

I am wondering how you approach writing treatments. I feel that when I write treatments, they come out like dry boring document, and I wonder if I should just write a screenplay instead?

So you may be on the same page as me regarding treatments.

I find them to be the most boring part of the job.

I much more prefer going

1. Logline

2. One page Synopsis

3. Outline

4. Script

If you are curious on my normal way of working, you can check out:

However there are times when you have to write a treatment.

In the european space it’s mostly for film funding bodies / and of course in the US system my understanding of it at least - then it’s much more of a document you can sell.

I used to dread having to do a treatment because it was so dry - which for me meant it was a chore to write and then quite boring to read.

That is until I started thinking about it a little differently.

I found that when I was writing the treatment that the scenes tended to go long, because I had to explain all the characters actions I felt necessary to properly convey the subtext and intention of the scene.

But not as detailed and lively as a full scene.

That’s why it felt flat when written out as a treatment.

It was enough to understand intention - but too much to be a quick read.

I was following the show, don’t tell principle I use in screenplays.

So what I now do instead…

Just straight up say what the scene is supposed to do.

Or just - character A does this because of this.

Let’s say John is interested in Emily but is nervous to tell her. I used to then try to write bits of a conversation, a moment, where we would understand that John is interested in Emily, but fumbles it because he was nervous.

John walks into the breakroom and sees Emily by the coffee machine. He stops for a second, adjusting his tie and taking a deep breath to settle his racing heart. He approaches her and starts say hello, but instead, he points at the coffee she’s holding. He starts talking about the specific region the coffee is from are from, going into detail about the elevation of the farm and the roasting process, hoping she sees how knowledgeable he is. Emily nods, looking a bit confused, but she tries to engage. She mentions that she doesn’t have any plans for the upcoming Saturday and was looking for something fun to do. John opens his mouth to ask her out —the question is right on the tip of his tongue—but he catches her eye and loses his nerve. He looks down at his shoes. To fill the silence, he tells her she should look up a documentary about soil irrigation because it’s actually very fascinating. Emily looks at her watch, says “Oh, okay,” and walks out of the room.

Wasn’t that overly long a boring?

Now in script this could be a decent scene.

But in a treatment I feel it slows it down way to much.

So instead, I just try to say out loud the intention of the characters and scene.

John sees Emily in the breakroom and decides to finally make his move. He approaches her nervous and starts rattling on about types of coffee. Emily finds it charming, and tries to help him out by giving him a wide-open invitation to ask her out. John misses the opening entirely and continues on talking about coffee beans until she gives up trying and excuses herself back to work.

I think the latter scene gives you enough information on what the scene is - without slowing down in details and subtext.

Making for a much faster and easier read.

Good luck, and hope that helped

So that’s it for this week, if you got a question - why not send one now?

Remember there are no stupid questions - it could be about story structure, dialogue, breaking in, or even overcoming writer’s block. Whatever’s on your min

Send your question

And if that link doesn’t work: Questions@theinsecurescreenwriter.com

Happy writing.