# Style & Substance

While genre might have a small place in defining a writer’s voice, there are so many other aspects that add to it.

If the backdoor suddenly SQUEAKS open and our protagonist turns around, but no one is there …

I had preconceived notions about the genre, most of which were rather unfair.

It’s gonna take far more than a “polish” to hammer this pile of steaming vomit into any kind of recognizable shape.

We can’t recognize escapism any more when hard truths are staring back at us every morning in the mirror.

I’m excited for you, believe me, but hold up a second here and let’s have a little talk.

They’re the reasons Luke and Darth felt right ... So where do you find these potentially script-worthy names?

When was the last time you had fun—real fun—at the movies? Beginning-to-end, clapping at the screen, whooping along with the audience, goosebump-raising FUN.

Sticking the landing of a script is tricky. It can’t be too predictable, yet it needs to feel wholly appropriate, justifiable, and even inevitable in its way.

One has to hand it to a show like Severance as it’s not only chock full of metaphors about the dumbing down of America and the corruption of information sharing, but it's doing so on a platform run by those they are critiquing.

Without me even realizing, Emma Thompson had been guiding my ship the moment I put pen to paper. I couldn’t ask for a better teacher.

An excess of emotions can also mean that your ability to think clearly and logically about your script is impaired.

So much of what you adore when you read or watch is the result of an author, screenwriter, actor, director, stepping out onto a limb and offering you more.

Clearly there is a knowledge gap out there … there’s something that a hell of a lot of writers out there need to know, and they don’t know it right now.

But for our other mediums we must travel to what some cynics describe as the least truthful place of all—Hollywood.