flying wrestler

Sluglines (a/k/a Scene Headings) are boring to read. Most people skim past them quickly. And yet they have to be there, in every single scene we...

The Elephant in the Room is a feature film I wrote and directed. Released in 2025 and starring Alyssa Limperis, Dominic Burgess and Sean Kleier,...

One of the toughest things about screenwriting is including the audience. By that I mean "letting them in on what they need to know." You can't just...

You start off with an idea. You're excited by it. You want to write it. So you start. Then you get bogged down. Lost. Stuck. All enthusiasm gone. ...

We writers often get hung up on conflicting advice about what to write. On the one hand, there's "write what you know" and "write what only you...

Writing a short film can be a great way to see your work actually produced. Whether you raise the money and direct it yourself or hand it off to...

Is the world of your project different from the one we live in? Or that people ever lived in? Are there special beings, powers, fantasy elements or...

One thing I encourage all writers to do, with every scene, regardless of genre, is this: Make sure each scene has some central tension to it that...

If you've been writing screenplays for any length of time, you've probably heard of The Black List. Chances are you might also not really understand...

The movie that first made me think of "screenwriting" as a future career pursuit was The World According to Garp, adapted by Steve Tesich from the...

"The main character is the one who changes." I've heard this many times over the years, early in my education as a writer and then from others who...

When in doubt, make your main character a lovable loser. That's the lesson that was driven home to me by the new FX/Hulu comedy series Adults. In...