Screenwriting

Thanks, Sandra Isabel Correia. Hope you're having a great week! "And no one ever has to “cook” alone, we build these stories together" You're right. I prefer to "cook" alone, but I like "cooking" with other writers.

I finished rewriting an old short script today for Stage 32's November Write Club, and the draft definitely surprised me.

Novelise the pilot at the very least - novelisations usually act as a form of insurance. That way, you have some degree of control over how your work is used.

I've registered a series bible with the U.S. Copyright Office, David Miller. I've heard of writers registering a pilot script and series bible. Maybe with the "Group of Unpublished Works" option. www.copyright.gov/registration/performing-arts I suggest contacting the Copyright Office to be sure. Their contact info is at the bottom of their website.

If you register a series bible, don't put any copyrighted material in it (like pictures). The Copyright Office will reject your application. I made that mistake.

Happy Thanksgiving, E Langley!

“Cut to” is not necessary because it is understood. For all other transitions, put in when you feel it is important for storytelling purposes. Don’t overthink it.

I believe CJ was indicating that slug lines and transitions are two different things.

Mike's spot on. Don't overthink it.

If you go on the likes of Reddit and Facebook, you'll see people saying you should never use a single transition - that it looks amateurish, that it makes you look like you're trying to be the director, and that you'll anger and offend the director. It's amateurs coming out with this nonsense. They'll be upvoted by other amateurs who want to believe the same.

SMASH CUT is a great example of a transition that screenwriters can use to convey impact, pace, and comic effect. FADE TO BLACK can be another.

Using transitions for every scene does look amateurish, but that's an extreme.

Absolutely nobody in the world that matters cares if you do or don't use FADE IN and FADE OUT.

No director worth their salt is getting their fee fees hurt by one too many transitions. That goes for formatting in general. If there's a good story there, they are going to take it and do what they feel is right with it.

Same goes for producers. They are digging for content.

A lot of this paranoia and subsequent dogma comes from obsessing over readers, and the lowest tier readers (competition readers, low-rent consultants, assistants, etc) are the ones that will come into communities and give away just how judgemental and superficial they are. They have got nothing better to obsess over. The crap they come out with is unbelievable and there's good reason why their entire careers are getting paid $5ph off Craigslist gigs (if they're lucky). They are the ones telling people your bold slug lines matter, that using "we see" is a criminal offence, and that more than four lines of dialogue makes your script unproduceable. They have nothing to do with the industry and next to zero insight.

I use transitions like "FADE TO BLACK" or "DISSOLVE TO" to signal a larger than expected time skip which is pretty much standard from what I've seen and read. Other than that "CUT TO" is understood to before each new slugline.

For TV spec pilots: I don't really care if you use FADE IN / FADE OUT, though it does take up precious page space. CUT TO between scenes is not needed as it's obvious, and also takes up tons of unnecessary space, making your script artificially longer. Act break indicators with page breaks are only needed for a pilot indended for broadcast. But when I'm working with a writer on any pilot we put it in (without the page break) as an internal way to keep track of where we are in the script and be sure we're hitting proper structure, which you need for streaming as well. If you do this as a tool just for yourself, remember to take them out before sending out the script! Some elegant transitions between scenes such as match cut, prelap, smash cut, or just dialogue or action transitions that make scenes flow into each other or juxtapose key scenes are the sign of a sophisticated writer, provided they're done with story intention and not too frequently. But this is a tone thing - some writers have a staccato tone with short scenes and fast pacing that doesn't lend itself to transitions, some writers prefer lingering reactions or button lines to end scenes, some prefer some sort of visual device to transition between storylines / locations / timelines - as long as all this is intentional to give the "reader" the same specific emotional experience your viewer will have. TV is a writer's medium, if you're leaving choices up to a "director," such a person does not exist, or at least often not till long after your pilot is sold.

Also, to CJ Walley 's point, I think pretty much all pros don't care about formatting so long as it's not so bad that we don't understand what you want us to see & feel. When I comment on formatting, it's because it's so bad that the script becomes difficult to read and in some places I literally don't get what the writer is trying to communicate.

That's a good idea Maurice Vaughan, I did that for a smaller story that wasn't strong enough to survive on its own, so I made it an in-universe novel in my third life's work What Separates Us.

That's also me Pat Alexander. I've found I also have to cut ideas that give so much they risk overtaking the initial main plot (ie, kudzu plot)--it's not always the weak ones that are a problem!

Banafsheh Esmailzadeh A good way I’ve managed the “too many ideas at once” problem is by figuring out what format each idea actually belongs to, whether it is a movie idea, a TV series seed, a single scene, or just a cool moment.

Anything that feels like a full movie, I immediately put into a document with a quick outline and a logline. That way, it is saved, organized, and ready for easy use later.

For action ideas, stunts, fighting beats, weapons, or utility mechanics, I separate those into images or small reference files I can pull up anytime. Categorizing them lets me drop them into new projects whenever they fit naturally.

It is the same way I used to work when songwriting. I would keep extra lyrics and plug them into the right song when the moment came. Keeping everything sorted makes creativity much smoother.

That is a great system Dwayne Williams 2, I've pretty much adopted that with the ideas that stick out to me the most. Sometimes they belong in other stories as details or one-offs.

Focus on the strongest one of them and draw inspiration from the others to make your choice even stronger.

I would network/build relationships with the IP owners, Julie Lamont. It might lead to them listening to your pitch and reading your script. And check out The Stunt List (www.officialstuntlist.com/submit-2025).

Definitely spend some time networking and letting people see you. It's the single biggest thing you can do for yourself in the beginning.

The way I've seen reboots from unknown writers work is this: go into the universe of the story and tell the events from the completely opposite angle. flip the story on its head and present a totally new perspective.

The obvious example is Wicked. The guy who wrote the novel wicked, which was later adapted into a musical, then adapted into a 2-part mega feature, realized there was a story in the Wicked Witch's villain character that hadn't been told and wrote his book. That book was read and enjoyed by the musical writers (who were fairly established at the time) and the rest is history

Another great example is Ratched. An unknown MFA grad student writer at Loyola Marymount University took his favorite movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and re-imagined the story from Nurse Ratched's point of view. The pilot was sharp and had a great vision for a series. The writer Evan Romansky pitched it at a student pitch fest and a manager liked it enough to check out the script. Then after reading and liking the writing, the manager signed Evan and went to work eventually getting studios bidding against each other to make it, eventually ending up with Ryan Murphy for Netflix.

Other examples are Maleficent and Tangled, which were both reverse engineered by Disney Animation's internal teams after they saw the success of the Wicked musical.

So step 1, if you don't own the IP - first reimagine the IP as something totally new. Use the universe and world, but be original and do something totally different with it. Be wary of just writing the same story in the same world as it becomes harder to distinguish your work. Find a new angle and attack it. Villain as hero/anti-hero is a super convenient one to use.

Step 2, find a champion. For Evan Romansky (Ratched), that champion was a random manager at a random pitch fest, who didn't have to read Evan's work by any means, but the idea impressed him in a 10 minute pitch, so he did. For the Wicked writer, he just published his book and it became a word of mouth success. Two established musical writers took notice, saw it's potential, and ran with it.

If you've written your pilot already, my advice would be pitch managers on the idea. Studios likely won't hear writers out on the IP they own, but if you can find a champion in a manager, they will be able to bring it to the IP-owners on your behalf or have a realistic discussion with you about it.

thanks Pat! that’s really helpful.

I haven’t gone all out making it totally different. Although I very much put my own spin on it. The original is a tiny IP where the concept was good but the actual idea was very badly executed onscreen. And like a lot of media from that era in the genre it’s set in, the original was racist, sexist and a lot of other “ists”.

I l’ve looked at it from the view of “what if, instead of having it all about a bunch of sexist dudes, we added a couple of strong female characters, made the tone a lot darker, and explored deep themes not just superficial action and tropes”.

My favourite tv shows to watch all tend to be ones with “expanded universes”, whether it be ones like Andor (although Star Wars generally is a bit and miss), 80s/90s era Star Trek, and the “Bellisarioverse/ Lenkoverse” (eg JAG/NCIS and Hawaii 5-0/Magnum PI etc). oh and current ones like Elsbeth (spinoff) and Matlock (reboot).

I actually quite like how different the Matlock reboot is to the original (I’m probably giving away my age by saying I watched some of the original when it first aired). it really shows how you can take a concept and totally change it while keeping the spirit of the original.

What's the best way to make contact with a specific producer a person has in mind when you're sure they'd be interested in your project but you don't have representation?

Hi Jon!As a new writer with an emotionally intense romantic drama trilogy (similar in tone to Culpa Mía), what is the best first step to get a manager’s attention, and why do strong positive reactions often still lead to passes — and if a major company currently has my script, should I still query others or wait?

Thank you for doing this, Jon! For screenwriters whose specs or samples are less commercial (not necessarily "easy sells"), should they prioritize finding reps or connecting directly with producers?

Hey Jon! Thank you for taking the time to spend with this AMA and for doing all that you do to work with the Stage 32 community. My question is as a literary manager, what are some of the key takeaways that you can share from some of your most successful partnerships and what is your best advice that you can give to a writer that's green in the industry to prepare themselves and their work for the marketplace?

Hi Jon. As a writer who has a rich and varied background (from cutting reels at APA to songwriter/touring musician to actor) how important is my profile? I still consider myself a writer first because I’ve been writing stories since I was a kid.

Great why, Ray Fontenault! It's personal. I agree. If you're going to write, you need to understand what makes it matter. I used to figure that out after finishing the script, but it's easier to figure it out in the outline in my experience.

WOW! That's A LOT of requests!!! Congratulations, everyone! I hope the requests turn into sales and more!

To all the writers who gained those script requests and meeting requests, here's wishing you plenty of success!

Woooo Hooo! Congratulations!

Bravo!

Your "why" is beautiful. Writing that makes people laugh, find hope, and rethink attitudes is exactly the kind of storytelling the world needs more of, especially when after all you've been through, you could've gone dark instead.

For me, screenwriting is all about creative expression. I've got a lot of things I need to say and get off my chest. In everyday life, people don't always listen to me or care about my input when I share it. However, when I write I get to process the feelings I have towards all those people who constantly let me down or don't let me express myself fully. On some level I get to be in control and explore the nuance of the things that bother or excite me on my terms, while not having to deal with those who play games or refuse to collaborate on even terms. In that process, I can explore feelings deeply and craft discussions about the things that matter to me.

On a more macro level, I aspire to create communal moments where strangers laugh or feel something like I did in expressing it. There's magic in giving audiences a specific shared experience-- whether that's excitement or melancholy.

The years of writing are never wasted if your movie never gets made because you created something that matters to you and you were able to express yourself on your terms which is valuable.

Most writers I know write because NOT writing feels worse than the struggle of writing. It's compulsion disguised as choice. We'd do it even if no one ever read a word, but knowing our stories could potentially reach people? That's the fuel that sustains us through the rejections.

Congratulations on the bestselling book, Debbie Seagle! I wrote my feature script to sell it and because of the theme (sticking your neck out for others). It's the script I'm rewriting for November Write Club. The script started as a short script.

I'm with you Debbie! As a songwriter turned into a scriptwriter the key to me is make someone feel. It could be laughter, joy sorrow etc...but make them feel. I'm often asked what makes a good song, same thing goes. Songs can make you feel the same things films can. They can also make yo ufeel like dancing.