Authoring & Playwriting

Debra Holland hope he turns up to take your offer seriously.

That's very nice of you to be so persistent with following up. Debra Holland I hope he finds you and thank you for being such an amazing person!

Hey, Alex Tur. Thanks for doing this Q&A! I'm looking forward to watching Hotel on the Edge! What's one of the biggest issues you've encountered while adapting your novel into a TV series?

Zaid, thanks man!

Thanks Maurice! Biggest issue?.. It's translation Past Simple in the novel into Present Tense in scripts throughout the novel. LOL

You're welcome, Alex Tur. Thanks for the answer. I know what you mean. I had the same issue when I wrote a short story years ago. I've written short stories, but at that point, I was so used to writing scripts.

I see, Maurice, But the "short story" I'm working on is 217,000 words long... ))

Ashley Renee Smith I hope I don’t give away too much sauce here :)

As a data guy and someone with an unhealthy appetite for analytics, spreadsheets are just something I can’t quite get enough of.

The spreadsheets were particularly useful when writing the first season of the recent crime/thriller TV series I completed. When writing, I always consider production, so one of the ways to ensure we had 15 solid episodes that could fit neatly into a 45-minute window was to track everything in Excel. We logged every scene, including how each one fit into a specific plot point. We actually timed each scene to make sure the total added up to roughly 45 minutes.

This proved especially handy when the question came up: What if we had to produce in the UK and specifically for the UK market? That meant carving out 60-minute episodes from the same material and ensuring we had at least 8 to 10 episodes for the UK format.

We also tracked character appearances per scene, which gave us an estimate of total character time per episode. From a casting standpoint, we know roughly the estimated screen time for each major character. So as a producer, director or anyone in charge of hiring the cast, you know upfront the average screen time of your protagonist, antagonist, or any major character. All of this data gets exported into a database where we can run various queries and perform analysis to answer whatever questions might come up.

Most of this might feel odd or excessive :) but, in a weird sort of way, it feels almost inevitable for us. We’re big on process, and some of the coverage reports we’ve received suggest that we could, if not rival, at least come close to dethroning a show like Breaking Bad — which, for some reason, is a weird personal mission :).

My process varies from idea to idea. Sometimes I have a few thoughts and write them down to embellish them at a later point. Mostly I will write up a basic treatment of the story, characters, and find a unexpected twist ending. I then send it to my writing partner and sometimes he doesn't see the idea like I do, so I end up writing more. I recently pitched an idea I liked based on our conversations but since he was out of the country I ended up writing a rough draft for him to review. Other times when I have an idea and my writing partner is tied up on other projects I just figure out as much of the story as I see in my head, then step back for a while to think it over, and then go back to it later with some fresher additions to the story. I prefer when my partner and work together but when that doesn't happen I write alone and credit the story to both of us with the hopes we get a finished product with both of us adding our touches. We have managed to have a singular voice in our process. In addition, I keep writing ideas and thoughts and look back on my notes from time to time to see if anything grabs me in that moment to pursue further.

My ideas always begin with a question, a memory, a personal moment of pain or light. I first write my films in my head, from the very beginning to the end, before putting anything down on paper. Then I create a kind of “spine,” a structure to keep track of the story, even if I rarely forget my ideas.

I couldn’t explain exactly how they come to life so naturally and quickly, but they always do. For me, the ultimate goal is emotion, to leave behind a trace, whether sweet or bitter.

Each of my projects carries a strong symbol at its core, but that symbol extends into a wide spectrum of emotions. Some of my films are born from inner wounds, others from the outside world, from observing life, or from the stories of others. Inspiration often comes from what I’ve lived, seen, heard, or felt, from the films I watched as a child, or the music I listened to alone in my room with a small mp3 player.

When I imagine my films, I live through my characters. I feel as if I can see through their eyes, and since childhood, I’ve had the impression that cameras were coming out of my own eyes, framing the world like a film. Even music, I hear it as if it already belongs to the scenes.

If you’d like to understand more, I invite you to explore my projects on my Stage 32 page, each one is both deeply personal and universal.

Ashley Renee Smith That’s true — there are always discoveries along the way. I often think of myself as a kind of geologist of hidden stories. The master-flow can hint at where to dig and what layers might lie beneath, but the digging still has to be done word by word.

Sometimes you strike familiar ground — sandstone, expected, almost predictable. Other times, you split a vein and find something luminous, a seam of myth or emotion you didn’t know was buried there. The master-flow doesn’t hand you the treasure, it only whispers where the earth might be softer, where the ground hums with possibility.

For me, that’s the thrill of it: the draft becomes an excavation site where memory and imagination press against one another, and if you’re patient enough with the dust and stone, you uncover artifacts you didn’t set out to find.

When I'm writing a book or short story it really depends on the genre. For something that needs a lot of world building - like fantasy/sci-fi - then I plan meticulously. I find that if I have all the knowledge of how, for example, the magic system works, then I don't need a huge amount of exposition. Alternatively, if I find that I'm needing to explain or justify how the world works when I'm writing actual story, then usually that means I haven't spent the time on it myself (in real life we don't need to know the physics of gravity to know that gravity works, and I like my fantasy worlds to feel that frictionless). I have lever arch files full of worlds and magic systems and the many ways in which dragons can work, but a lot of that doesn't actually need to be explicitly on the page to be there in vibe.

For more real life based stories I'll scribble as I write just to keep track of continuity, essentially, but I can just write and let it all hang together. I feel pretty secure that I'll be able to pick up the pieces in editing and redrafting.

With scriptwriting, though, planning the actual story out is so much more important for me and I'm not sure why. To be honest, I have some kind of fear of facing 100 pages of script that I don't have with facing 60,000 words of a novel. I feel like that's a noob problem to admit to, though :D

You're right, Elmare Hendricks. You can achieve everything you set your mind out to do. Thanks for the reminder. I'm looking forward to watching your film!

Maurice Vaughan Thank you so much

You're welcome, Elmare Hendricks. Have you been surprised by anything while writing your script or making your film?

Hey, Lauren Hackney. The way I usually add human connection is asking a question(s) that makes the person I'm pitching to lean in and think.

For me, I always try to lead with why I wrote the story. What was the emotional spark? What personal truth or question was I wrestling with that led me to this story? Even a single vulnerable sentence about the story’s deeper purpose can create a bridge between you and the reader or listener on the other end of the pitch.

Hopefully if I have time more of the companion novel to the animated series I'm trying to start.

Kat Spencer Usually, when there's a major blockbuster boxing or UFC event — like the one Netflix is hosting today (Canelo vs. Crawford) — it tends to run until around midnight. Honestly, I don't think I'll be doing any writing until after, maybe :)

Writing about the cool kids and how they impacted the ones that truly trusted them.

I'm am learning more about pitching and marketing my scripts this weekend. :)

I've been doing another pass on my book 4 outline. I do multiple passes, each one adding more layers and detail until I feel really confident in it.

Awesome!!

This is an incredible opportunity for writers, Geoffroy Faugerolas!

I absolutely love this, Geoffroy Faugerolas!

The 13 year old in me is losing her s$%t right about now! This feels right - The Baby-Sitters Club Is Becoming a Musical!

Hi Ashley, the baby sitters club, wow it's been many many years

I didn't know that, I grew up in France and the influence was different, or even I was too young...

Hahaha, love your excitement, Lauren Hackney!!

First, nothing says nostalgia like singing old songs together... but after the intro, "making up" new verses reflecting their current lives. Everything that made Brady Bunch family reunion popular is going for you.. Have fun!