Authoring & Playwriting

Banafsheh Esmailzadeh Awesome! Let me know when you hit that milestone and we'll celebrate :)

Zackary Goncz Congratulations!! Let us know when you've finished. I'd love to read it :)

Emanuele Vergari That was so well said! I'm happy you discovered this little trick to stay out of "stuck" zone. Let us know when you have something we can read or watch.

Thanks Kat Spencer! I’m now at 83 pages =D hoping to finish it at 110 or so (previous ones got pretty hefty due to lore and world-building), with any luck that’ll happen very soon :D

Hi kat Spencer Thank you for your attention. I have published a script for an action genre short film here. https://www.stage32.com/loglines/63189

Great topic, Ashley Renee Smith. Action, twists, and mystery are some of the things I use to keep readers hooked. And sometimes slowly revealing things about the characters, story, and world.

Hi, I don’t think there’s a strict rule—it’s the story as a whole that holds the audience’s attention. Of course, there are the ‘rhythms of emotions,’ but in general, it’s the combination of editing, character development, and narrative structure that comes purely from personal creativity, not from standardized processes, formulas, or schemes.

Surely, knowing the history of cinema and cinematic language, as well as teamwork, are valuable tools, but they’re not everything. The undefined margin remains our ability to imagine—something that has an innate seed, not a learned one

Mike Beavers What a great sentence! Tell me more.

Maurice Vaughan That's awesome! When did it transition for you? What did that step look like?

I found part of the script in high school during Computer class, Kat Spencer. It was the Office Space script. After I found the script, I looked up one or two screenwriting articles to learn how to write scripts. That's when writing went from being a hobby to chasing a career. I wrote a lot of spec scripts, and I worked with producers and directors on micro-budget indie projects, writing for free for a while, then I got paid jobs.

hey Kat Spencer I started as a instrumental player and later on it became my passion to compose for short movies and albums. but then when slowly things got changed and moved on, my passion became career as music composer and sound designer.

I feel that, Making it from hobby to career is something that everyone should go through what’s inside and outside the field of music and film business industry. if you’re capable enough to balance the politics then you’ll know what to do. Emotionally speaking , one must feel from bottom of the heart, if the hobby has to become career or not.

I switched my hobby to business, when I was confident enough to bring out my work and make it as a living for every day basis and business.

This is how my Hobby was changed as career.

Hello, I can't explain why from the beginning I experienced screenwriting with professional goals. A friend of mine writes screenplays and produces movies while remaining in an amateur context and what he makes he puts on the Internet for free, but I decided from the beginning that I would rather have a thousand doors slammed in my face than to self-produce for the mere pleasure of a passion. the transition from amateur to professional began when I wrote my first screenplay in 2023 and it was a finalist in two contests overcoming hundreds of entries. I took a basic screenwriting course and the instructor was impressed with my ability to turn words and concepts into cinematic images, and we have been in touch and collaborating diligently ever since.

Thank you for your reply, Debra Holland!!! Good luck on your writing endeavors!!!

Cyrus Sales, I don't know anything about animation, so I don't have much advice for you beyond contacting authors where you've READ their books and LOVED them, mentioning certain details that only a reader would know. Then say you have a vision about what you could do with animating that book or series and would they be interested in a conversation.

Successful authors get a lot of solicitations and the generic ones are really annoying. For example, I recently received one wanting to translate certain of my books into German. A quick Amazon search would have shown her that those books are already available in German. Or when they mention what they could do to promote my book (singular and no title), when a quick search would have shown that I have almost 40 books, and if you're going to pluck one out of the bunch, you'd better have a valid reason why that one.

As for audiobooks...I suggest going to acx.com and looking through the narrator profiles and clips, focusing on newer narrators, especially those whose samples could be improved by your skills. Or go to Audible.com and find narrators who tend to have low stars. Then send a TACTFUL email, starting with a compliment about their voice or the way they portrayed a certain character, and then pointing out that the sound quality could be improved in whichever way you could help.

Kat Spencer, Sandra Isabel Corieia, Maurice Vaughn, Sarah Folk, and Francisco Castro, thank you. I enjoyed "chatting."

You're welcome, Debra Holland. I enjoyed chatting too. Thanks again for taking the time to answer our questions. This AMA is really helpful!

It was a pleasure Debra Holland ! I wish you all the best and I am cheering for you :)) We love to chat :))

I used greenlight and was surprised that they mentioned every movie I had used as inspiration and named every actor I saw in the leading roles. If nothing else, it let me know that I had at least captured the feeling tone of the movie I wanted.. It also pointed out scenes that could be deepened and how. I tried using chatgpt for playing with different outlines, they were far quicker at laying out the progression of different themes in a multiprotagonist script, that frankly spared me weeks of routing around in the weeds and helped me think about structure.

I just kept giving it refinements and directing it to do what I wanted it to do. It generated a lot of material, now I have to sit down and read it all. This was for a rewrite. It was also helpful in historical research, that would have taken me hours to compile from different sources. I would say, tell me about so and so's childhood, or where an event took place, how did it look, what decisions did they make there, in less than 30 seconds. It would generate everything I needed. The more you know what you want, the better results you'll get. It does the grunt work faster so you can get more of it done. You have to be specific or it will go off the rails and start making up characters and plot points, which could be interesting but, exasperating when you want it to deal with the facts and plot points of the script you wrote.

It's a lovely companion, always polite and wanting to do the best for you; it takes cursing them out for misunderstanding your directions better than a human being-:) better than taking out your stress on a well-meaning human assistant. I once asked, why did you have a male character do something, an attitude I gave to the woman, and it said, tropes :). it will give you standard movies, but nothing it can't find in its vast trove of regurgitated information..

I developed an app that calls ChatGPT to give you feedback by way of a text-to-speech table read, where the actors act out your scenes in a audio drama. Then, you can revise your scene(s) and recast as many times as you want. Let me know what you think? https://youexplainit.com

Mark Deuce! I am totally interested in grok (3) but haven't messed with it yet. Good to hear your comments for sure!

Erin Leigh, thanks for including some prompts here, great post. I do Not have any interest in including AI of any kind into my creative process and am not following through with any suggestions whatsoever. But it certainly doesn't mean I'm not interested in this technology, as it has been useful in some (totally unrelated to this subject matter) contexts; and since as you said, it is not going away, I do want to stay informed on its evolution over time.

Helene Leff -- I've been hearing a lot about Greenlight! A playwright/screenwriter recently showed me the breakdown and analysis it provided for a piece of hers that I know well. It was very interesting and I'm considering it with my writing partner. Personally, however, I'm a little derisive of the listing of actors/actresses that Greenlight suggests. To me it is silly -- how many incredible freaking actors are out there but who, for one reason or another, are not "A-listers" that Greenlight would utilize in the list -- hahaha, you can see I've got an attitude here.

Nancy Wilkinson "Before the Legends" ooooo I like that. If you want help narrowing down feel free to message me.

I like using words or phrases that are rarely used or don't exist: Jockettes; Hoopettes; Legendesses. It may involve the sport itself: Baseballese; Basketballing/ Basketbrawl; or Basketbrawling, that sort of things. Much easier search results.

Jeff, that’s a good point about future search results.

The title is everything along with the poster and Trailer...

Consider a title that isn't a description of the movie. Maybe the team name, or the character name, maybe whatever it is that inspired the character. I think people highly, highly overvalue titles. What is a Led Zeppelin? What is a Beatle? What is Pulp Fiction? What is Blue Velvet? You know? I feel like its easy to feel like you need your title to have some deep meaning or almost be a separate art piece in and of itself, separate from the movie. It's just the name of the thing you made, the thing that you made is what is important, and if the thing you made is good, that will give whatever the title is meaning. For example, what's a Led Zeppelin? It's an awesome rock band from the 70s, that's what it is. Good luck, but I would say don't overthink the title. It's a functional identifying tool. It really isn't going to change the quality of what it identifies.

Danny Range Nailed it on the head. I can't speak to successful marketing of books because even after hiring a publisher (who also struggles) to help with that, sales were low. Except on release day. The best tip I got was to involve people in the process of the title and book cover (characters, like Leonardo mentioned, are a brilliant way.) But it boils down to having a support system that will spread the word. If you don't have one (like me), you have to build one yourself and or use paid advertising. It's great to get reviews ahead of time before launch day (supposedly Amazon will market it for you if you have over 50 reviews, so I've heard). Kirkus Reviews is a reputable source if you have a marketing budget. But at the end of the day it is just marketing, it is no different from everything else. Ashley's list was spot on. For some reason, I can't tag you, Ashley, my browser has been finicky with those.

Well said, Kat Spencer. There’s no doubt that a good support system is paramount.

This is such a great conversation, with a ton of tips! Definitely mentally bookmarking this for later :)

10-30 books category. While you solicit large wholesalers for your book, don't forget about the expos, conventions, fairs held in your area that feature your book's subject matter. There exists every expo imaginable. While getting a booth ($800-$2000) may not provide a reasonable return (that's a lot of $5.99-$19.99 books), you can often forgo the booth and visit the booths that do attend, spur up a reasonable conversation, and pick up their booth card with their email. Follow up later with "I met you at your booth and mentioned my book (current or coming out).... and so on." I've sold 10-30 books in this manner which is better than a day on Amazon. :) You might also convince one or two booths to hip-pocket or quick-cosign your book title at their booth as an added product, if it has an appealing cover or is related to their product or services, while at the same time adding to your growing email list.

I've done that Pidge Jobst and can attest that it does work! Great reminder!

For sure Maurice Vaughan, I've been watching them in little bursts. Incidentally reading the script out loud also helped me find errors here and there (for about twenty minutes RoP's narrator's power went out so I stepped in to do it--lots of fun and honestly something I wouldn't mind doing going forward; also helps that everyone can hear me pronounce the more uncommon names, and also helps me to overcome my nervous stutter lol). Table reads are just so much fun, even if my stuff never makes it to the big screen it's cool that I have a sorta movie series to watch for myself :)

And yes, definitely do a full reading of your next script, it's a whole other sort of high :D

Great question Dawn Prato! (I think what stood out to me was why it's taking you until the end of the year to edit your novel. No judgment, pure curiosity. Is it a spare time thing? Editing and helping writers, write, edit, and often format is my jam, and I usually have things done quickly. So I was just curious.) For myself, I do make New Year's resolutions, but I tend to start them before the new year and lately, I focus on one word that embodies my biggest goal. Last year was making sleep a priority (which changed my life) and this year my word is networking. I have been in creation, production, and survival mode for about 15 years. Time to take a break from those :) Speaking of driver's licenses, I suppose it is another goal to help my daughter get hers. Neither of us is in a hurry, but she's 19, so it's time. My March goal is to stay consistent with my writing and music and have fun running the Couve Clover 5K.

Hi Kat Spencer - thanks for asking! It's definitely a scheduled spare-time thing for both of us. Our day jobs take up a majority of our time, I have a few other projects I'm either collaborating on or being paid to write, and she loves physical activity and prioritizes spending time with her partner. So, while it's not quite a hobby/for fun thing we're doing, it's more of a, "we want to pursuse this as professionally as possible but recognize we have limited time" thing :) So far, we've been pretty good at sticking to meeting via Zoom once/week and meeting in person on a weekend day, so we're trucking along slowly but surely haha.

@Banafsheh and @Leonardo, congratulations to you both as well! Everyone here is doing amazing, and I love that we're acknowledging personal/physical/non-writing-related goals as well - balance is so, so hard to manage sometimes, but we're all trying :)

Have a great Sunday, everyone!

Have a great Sunday too, Dawn Prato!

Dawn Prato Thank you for your answer! I wish you the best with it and congrats on keeping it in your mix. I am an advocate for a balanced life. What is the novel about? (If you don't mind sharing)

I grew up in Florida Kat Spencer so the whole walking on the beach during a hurricane was what I remember well. I so miss the water.

Leonardo Ramirez Nice! I'm in the PNW, Cannon Beach is my home away from home. We are tough up here. No palm trees. But every once in a while we get lucky with some beautiful beach weather. I don't think I could live away from water.

I looked up some images Kat Spencer. Looks like a beautiful place!

Leonardo Ramirez It's the best! (shhhh don't tell anyone.)

Kat Spencer Copy that friend!