# Style & Substance

What Netflix's "Maid" says about America, right now, lends it the overall edge that it possesses in nearly every moment of its being.

Is anything harder in the world of fictional storytelling than coming up with an ending to a mystery that no one sees coming?

A good writer pushes the reader to draw on their common experiences and fill in as much story as is logically possible while they’re in the gutter.

Does the Bond franchise continue along the grittier Craig path? Or does it turn Bond back into more of the gentleman spy from the original Fleming books?

If anyone wants to give me shit and bring up the "West Wing" example, let me ask you this—is your name Aaron Sorkin? No? That’s what I thought. Pipe down.

Do most filmmakers consider it too gauche to center a film around a monster these days?

Any good "how to make a documentary" guidebook would tell you to hire a qualified DP and sound mixer to get the best quality picture and sound. But we didn't have money—we just had each other.

When the lights go down in the theater, I’m always hopeful that a sequel will rise to the challenge of making more out of its task than just being a quick money-grab.

A professor told me there is a reason why we call this a screenplay, because you are supposed to play on the screen. As a screenwriter we are supposed to play on the page.

Who’d have thought that Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, the creators of Seinfeld in 1989, would create a series that would come to foreshadow all the worst impulses and instincts evident in “the American experiment” in 2021?

Structure will provide your protagonist with a goal or destination from day one. This goal will enable you to keep moving forward … and keep you from getting stuck in a situation.

If a story is a journey not only for the reader but also for the writer (and it is), why would we choose to tie our fabricated narrative to the humdrum existence of our own life?

Ideas are like assholes: everyone’s got ‘em. So, what makes your idea worthy of becoming a book, or a film, or a TV series?

As people get more of their news and information in shorter bursts, 30-minute series, be they comedies, dramas, or limited series, are becoming the rage.

Choosing a genre can be an excruciating decision, made even more difficult if you don’t understand the difference between comedy and drama.