Screenwriting

Hi, Göran Johansson. Dig into their histories, their lives, and the story to find things to add to the descriptions.

I think I understand what you mean. More suggestions?

Göran Johansson it's nice of this production company to work with you to develop your character descriptions like this. Normally, if they find that the pitch isn't complete, they'll just pass. I agree with them that the descriptions need a lot more fleshing out. How do the characters relate to each other? How does Pauline's drinking affect her ability to "please" her uncle and boss? And in what way does she want to please them? Give us a reason to care. If Marlene's doppelganger is identical to Marlene in every way, how is that interesting? If there's one thing that's different that drives the narrative, that's more interesting. Your revised descriptions are better, but still lacking depth.

Hey, Elle Bolan. I have scenes like that. It's usually scenes I'm having trouble with, like figuring out how to add subtext or a twist.

Sometimes descriptions - but I also produce and realize it doesn't matter what you write, it's gonna be dependent on location secured.

Hey, Billy Kwack. Spend time with family, watch movies, work on some projects, etc. What about you?

Hey Maurice, my sis is stopping over on Christmas Eve or day and I got a dinner Dec 30th and bowling new years eve with friends

Hope you, your sister, and friends have a great time, Billy Kwack!

Thanks for sharing the blog link here Maurice, I have just read the blog and it is a great reminder of the teams and the contacts (some new) who can support us on this platform.

You're welcome, Kirsty Louise Joyce. You're right. Big shout-out to the Stage 32 teams for everything they do for the community and everyone who supports other members on here!

It's just so wonderful to see my name on this list'

Love this. Hard work pays off. Can't wait to hear about the follow up meetings and the success stories that are going to come out of this!

Congratulations!

Congratulations~

Great job, everybody! Here's to more and more success!

You're so very welcome, Juliana!

Hi Juliana,

Thank you so much for sharing your story! It really resonated with me. Sometimes, we push ourselves to do something we feel ready for and confident about, but things don’t go as planned. We feel disappointed, even fragile. But later, when we continue with patience and belief in our work, that’s when something wonderful happens. Your story is such a great reminder of this—every setback can become a stepping stone toward success.

Wishing you even more inspiration and achievements ahead!

Best,

Sara

Sara Ghadersahi Wow, thank you : ) Very true, every, absolutely every "set back", is literally our consciousness stepping back, before a leap. Same to you, inspiration and success ahead!

Love how grounded you were immediately following that pitch Juliana Philippi and congrats on the amazing success that followed. I'm yet to pitch (kind of relieved that as I'm in Australia it will be written and not verbal).

Marie Hatten Thank you, so so much Mattie. Lol, my years in auditioning, years of lots of "no's", and then that one "yes", have trained me well, and I keep going, giving up, is not in my program : ) And go for it! I'm excited for you to start your pitching, and above all, when you prepare your pitch, form experience, aside from the structure and the cohesiveness, and all that, love that pitch, love it, believe it, and do it with pure confidence.

Matthew and Tom thanks for weighing in and reassuring me that I’m not losing my mind hahaha

ok now let’s get back on topic and talk about the problems of letting AI do more than research and organisation (which it’s really fast at), and becoming seduced by its writing (which initially looks good, but becomes nauseating really quickly—IMO)

what’s been your experience?

EVERYTHING WE DO IN FILM IS A CONTRIVANCE. It's lighted artificially most of the time, the angle of capture is not random, the sound pickup is not random, the foley art is not random and "totally authentic", the painted murals for backgrounds, LED screens.

Somehow using new creative tools with the art of screenwriting is being implied that it makes our work less authentic. Bullshit. My photography equipment evolved over time, to the collective shrieks of pixel peeping fanatics who cared more about technicals than about the art, and now they are using the very tech they decried when it first arrived. It's a balance of adapting to new changes and new tools.

But Hollywood and the film business is not a totally academic environment, it's obviously inextricably tied to investment capital to get it all done.

Seems to me if I can analyze my work and find ways to mitigate risk for the people who write the checks - that SHOULD be a huge gold star for the way I am approaching the entire scenario.

Forget about all the academics, can my shit sell?

Before I fully understood and had my jaw dropping code moment, I was equally as willfully ignorant and fearful about AI as many of you still are - until last August 2024. I had heard the collective shriek from LA. "You'll never work in this town agin if'n we catch you ridge runners usin' that dang AI".

I had heard all of the "contamination" talk. That somehow analyzing my work with AI would somehow taint its authenticity.

Really, you can easily shred me with academics, "he's too new to the game", etc.

But what if that misses the point - that now we - all players - can seriously game the business to the success of everyone involved. Unknowns like me become a huge new pool of available projects and material not based upon reputation alone but supported with great analytical tools. we can all win.

Isn't that what I keep hearing from "the streamers' - they need shows? "Yeah but - " becomes "Well now let's just see here what we got ..."

Correct me if I am wrong please.

The saying in the AI world is that it's not AI that will replace people's jobs, it's someone who knows AI. As a screenwriter and AI consultant for ethical integration, I'd refine that to: "It's the experienced artist who uses AI." But experienced means skilled in both prompting and the craft itself.

One challenge is that many prompts are too simple to produce useful results. I agree AI isn't the best storyteller, but there's a world of difference between a few-sentence prompt and a detailed one. There's also a big difference between AIs. ChatGPT and Gemini are solid, but Claude remains the favorite among writers I've worked with. The results I've demonstrated in class are night and day.

To be clear, I don't use AI to write stories. I use it as a first-round reviewer and error-catcher. More of a writing assistant. But if you haven't tried Claude, it's worth exploring.

Here's an example of the difference prompting makes:

Too simple: Act as a screenwriter with 30 years experience. Write a story about a man who came back from war and is trying to be a detective. He's been given a big case but has to fight the demons of his past while solving it. Give me a three-act story.

More effective: Act as a screenwriter and story editor for drama features with a budget up to $3M. Follow the Save the Cat structure. The story is about a man returning from Afghanistan, suffering from PTSD he tries to hide while building his detective agency. He takes on a major case. Give me five case options that are compelling and subtly mirror his emotional journey. He should end broken but changed. This case is his rebirth. Don't give me the full story; give me three options for each beat so I can choose and develop further.

Even worse that following Save the Cat, is telling your AI to follow the Save the Cat structure!

Joshua Young - Re: first-round reviewer and error-catcher. More of a writing assistant." That's my take.

Re: writing a full story from one prompt - I've never even tried the "Act as a screenwriter" context.

But I did goto Claude with a brain fart one afternoon and told him an idea called DRACONIS and we built it out. Had a great back and forth. However, before I got too far with it - I did the same thing I did with that PRAETOR idea, I ran the numbers as best one can to see where its potential in monetization was.While PRAETOR failed DRACONIS is amazing. It's far from complete, but it is a great story that once it's filled out with nuance and dialogue it has some great potentiality. The best part was not just scribbling down an idea, but taking it right to execution and building out the foundations and stage for the marionettes to dance and speak for the story. So the dialog will be all human built.

As to dialogue - Still not comfortable with the current results, and so all I've done with Claude was to build out a scene based upon the story writ large. Wasn't satisfied, close but not "me".

I did "Please produce some dialogue samples" and he did, but they were "meh". So I have refrained from having AI doing dialogue. Once I do my own dialogue - then I can "Final draft" it and convert it to HSWC.

You're welcome, Tiger Taylor. Great. See you at the Open House! And I'm a Stage 32 Lounge Moderator. If you ever have any questions about Stage 32, let me or another Lounge Moderator know. We have badges on our pictures. Or you could email support@stage32.com.

We go over new scripts every week on my YouTube channel. Let me know if you want us to look at yours.

Maurice Vaughan Thanks, Maurice — really appreciate the welcome and the offer. I’ll keep that in mind and look forward to the Open House. See you there!

Preston Poulter Thanks, Preston — I’d absolutely be interested. What’s the best way to submit or coordinate?

You're welcome, Tiger Taylor. What's your show about, if you're ready to share about it?

Great points, Ron Reid! I haven't been to any film festivals, but I watch foreign films. I've picked up screenwriting tips from them.

I hope you get to a local one and just meet producers and distributors or actors and be inspired. You can do a lot more in your writing with meeting actors, directors and filmmakers bringing their films to festivals. It is an eye-opener. Maurice Vaughan

I love the professional panels at film festivals. They are so educational and full of real world advice. Meeting the panelists afterward is also valuable because they aren't accessible generally outside the festival venue.

Stephen Folker, I admire how easily you enjoy writing, and that joy is enough to keep you on the page :) When we love what we do, we're on top of the world. :)

Maurice Vaughan, likewise. Formulas and trends can be useful tools; they give us structure, help us understand audience expectations, and sometimes even open doors. But if we lean on them too heavily, they risk flattening the urgency that makes a story worth telling in the first place. What we need is balance :))

The first serious, but not first ever, writing project I tried my hand at was a sci-fi action novel that never went beyond outline and worldbuilding. Total lack of focus and/or lost in way too many potential details and nearly not enough attention to actual story.

When I rediscovered my first ever big writing project, a screenplay from ages ago, I redrafted it and simply loved the focus a script demanded. My favorite books growing had been the Redwall series and later Lord of the Rings and they shaped my writing ideas at that point. Expansive world, vivid details and this sense of wonder that's all good but just takes forever and it's something a rookie writer can get lost in. Or I did.

The lean verbage of a script is something I feel I can see better and thus tell a story with. I also find myself of playing "head movies" in my daydreams and as I try to think of what to write. And that translates to script much better than to prose.

Lastly, I might go back to that sci-fi novel project as it exists in script form now.

Because I am a writer. If I had a choice about the matter I would not change it. Before I knew I was I had written hundreds of in-house technical stuff.

That means the world to me Sandra Isabel Correia. Thank you so much my friend. And honestly, I don't think about the genre when I consider a premise. It just so happens that they fall into the genre that they want to and that most of them seem to be scifi or fantasy in some form. I let it choose itself.

Geoffroy Faugerolas now you're talking!

2025 was an incredible year on here, Geoffroy Faugerolas! Congratulations to you and everyone on all your success this year and hope you all have more in 2026!

It depends on the scene and the surrounding scenes, Michael Dzurak. The surrounding scenes might be short, so I might make the scene I'm working on long so it's not a fast-paced script, unless I'm going for fast-paced.

I write the details of an action scene if they’re important. If they aren’t important, I’ll just write something like “They brawl, tearing up the place.”