# Style & Substance

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.

A note is not a statement of enjoyment or dislike. A note is NOT your opinion.

“As an author [of a book], you have to be the camera. A script gets interpreted, but in a book, the words have to do all the work.”

A significant challenge for many writers can be to center a story within a community that they, themselves, are not a part of. Siân Heder acknowledges the challenge and how she navigated it.

If you’re super entranced with a story, if you can’t wait to get home from your day job and work on it every single day, that’s going to come through in your writing, right?

What we’re usually talking about when we say “character development” is Character Arc—it presupposes that a Character Arc is requisite to a well-rendered character … to which I say: “nay.”

For all the talk in Hollywood given to seeking out vital roles for women, the woman warrior has become every bit an egregious cliché as the hooker with a heart of gold was for half a century on film.

While few characters will hold appeal for every audience member, John Bucher shares approaches to flawed characters that decrease the chances of alienating your audience in the process.