The 3-Part Act 1 and the Inciting Incident.
Sometimes the needs of Act 1 do not lend themselves to an early inciting incident. For those unique stories, you have the 3-Part Act 1.
Stop trying to sell your screenplay.
It’s not your job to sell your screenplay. That is for others. Your job is to give them something to sell.
The three deadly sins of the pre-outline phase.
Early on, I managed to overcome my self-sabotage with resilience and some wildly good luck. But when the luck ran out, the resilience started to look a lot more like stubbornness.
Mind the flow on the page.
We are telling a story meant for a visual and aural experience by using a medium that lacks both: text.
It's the trend line in our screenwriting that matters.
No one’s work just gets better and better and better. No one’s.
The habit of making choices.
Get into the habit of making choices, and you will get increasingly better with the choices you make.
What screenwriters can learn from Kelvin Sampson.
Coach Sampson doesn't bring anything entirely new to this. What he does bring is clarity and commitment. And those two things are what matter.
The Drive to the Finish
The decision that dictates Sequence 6: The Drive to the Finish is the midpoint.
Write your Spec. But first, write your treatment.
I used to hate treatments. Now it's an immensely valuable part of my process.
What fear are you exploiting?
Fear works best when it is primal and taps into something much more profound than jump scares
The relationships go the way of the story.
Stories do not illustrate a protagonist's journey solely through their actions but also through the effects those actions have on others in their lives.
Know the mini-story of the scene.
At its core, screenwriting is scene work. And like everything else, scenes have a story.