Scriptnotes Podcast (.mp3)

This week’s episode finds Craig and John answering questions about agent etiquette, business cards and those troubling rewrites that unravel everything. From there, John goes on a small tirade about weak verbs and Dungeons and Dragons-style scene description. Good writing: It’s not just for novelists. There’s some language geekery as well, with a look at the hidden micro-classes...

On the 41st Scriptnotes, John and Craig discuss screenwriting software, knowing when to start, and the Game of Thrones finale. But before moving on to new business, they update us on two topics of podcasts past. Last we heard about Disney and Amazon Studios, there was a vacancy atop the former , and the latter had decided to become a WGA signatory . Now, Disney has hired Alan Horn as chief, and Am...

Craig and John talk about Craig’s decision to abandon his once-bustling blog , while John weighs the pros and cons of comments and community. How important is feedback? The Scriptnotes podcast gets overwhelmingly positive reviews — 99% are five stars — but how much of that is helpful or constructive? We also go into follow-up about The Death of Screenwriting (as a career) and ann...

Craig and John take a look at the difference between plot and story with some help from the Littlest Pet Shop and Game of Thrones. Plot answers the “what” questions: What happens next? What is in the mysterious vault? What secret was the dowager keeping? Story, however, is much more concerned with the “whos” and “hows” and “whys.” Characters have the...

John and Craig open the listener mailbag and sprint through twenty questions in just under an hour. ➤ When John sets a timer for himself, what is his work/break interval sweet spot? (1:12) ➤ How do you break up with your manager? (2:16) ➤ Are there any tricks for organizing files when writing out of order? (3:42) ➤ Why join the WGA? (5:35) ➤ What “lingo” do Craig and John use in story...

Screenwriters can learn story and structure, but the ability to create real, tangible characters is more elusive — and ultimately more important. The best gauge of good writing is whether a screenplay’s characters feel distinct and alive. A lot of that comes from how the characters speak: what they say and how they say it. John and Craig offer some tests to see if your screenplay&#8217...

John and Craig open the 36th Scriptnotes with a brief discussion about contracts, and then face writer’s block head on. “Writer’s block” is an overused term. When a writer claims to be suffering from it, he is usually wrestling with some combination of three common problems: procrastination, perfectionism, and fear. “Writer’s block” is a romanticized catch...

On the 35th episode of Scriptnotes, John and Craig discuss the small, currently leaderless world of Walt Disney Studios, along with its challenges and opportunities. With so many of Disney’s distribution slots taken up by DreamWorks, Marvel, Pixar and Bruckheimer, whoever gets the job of chief probably won’t be making many movies on his or her own. Yet the Disney brand is one of the on...

Craig and John take a brief look at the misguided Girls backlash and complaints about nepotism in Hollywood, before segueing to a bigger discussion of spec scripts and positioning: What are “spec farms,” and how can you avoid them? What should you do if you and your reps/producers disagree about whether your script is ready to send out? Is it a good idea to post your script online? How...

Craig and John just have to talk about the double-barrel craziness of the Joe Eszterhas/Mel Gibson spat. How often do you have screenwriters lobbing incendiary accusations at movie stars? Well, pretty often, actually. But almost never so publicly. And the already-certifiable, formerly-A-list-ness of it all makes it especially gossip-worthy, so forgive us if we go on for a while. That settled, we f...

Craig and John answer questions about specificity, television and what to do when your great idea sounds too much like a movie that’s already been made. The big news this week is potentially very big news: Amazon Studios has completely revamped their business model, ditching the terrible parts and transforming into something potentially very good for writers. Notably, Amazon is now a WGA sig...

Craig and John take a look at Toph Eggers’s apology, which segues to a discussion of apologies in general and laugh tracks. The bulk of the episode is spent on listener questions: After making a spec sale, what should a writing team do next? When handing in a rewrite, should you preface your changes in an email? How do you handle file-keeping with multiple projects and drafts? What is a &#82...

Craig and John offer advice on handling revisions once your screenplay moves into production. Why do you lock pages? How do you add scenes once the script is locked? Why are some pages different colors? And what comes between page 15 and 15A? Get it right, and it should be smooth sailing. Get it wrong, and you have a frustrated crew and a lot of cleanup. Television series generate so many scripts...

Craig and John tackle five listener questions on topics ranging from greedy managers to lazy agents to throwing in the towel. What happens when a manager wants to attach himself to your spec? How much detail should a screenwriter provide about wardrobe? When is it okay to give up on screenwriting? Also discussed: St. Patrick’s Day, The Book of Mormon (the musical), and the Koren/Eggers idioc...

John and Craig turn from the pen to the knife to talk through the whys and hows of cutting pages — both the cosmetic trims and the deep cuts. Your script is probably too long. Here’s how to fix that. Craig also discusses his WGA seminar on surviving the feature film development process, and his vision for a screenwriters training program analogous to the well-regarded TV showrunners pr...

Celebrating Leap Day, John and Craig play the game of “What If?” Specifically, what if we each were handed the reins of a major Hollywood studio? We discuss what we’d movies we’d make, what standard practices we’d change, and how we’d address the shifting realities of movie-going and home video. Could we really do it better? Doubtful. It’s easy to play mak...

This week, Craig and John get all Miss Manners to talk about best practices, bad behavior and throwing writers under the bus. Short advice: Be charitable, be cool, be nice. Note that we recorded this episode before the Oscars — at which Jim Rash, Nat Faxon and Alexander Payne received the award for Best Adapted Screenplay.  After that acceptance speech, one could imagine a follow-up conversa...

For their 25th podcast, John and Craig tackle listener questions. How does a screenwriter option a novel he wants to adapt? John has optioned two novels — one through a studio, and one on his own — while Craig recently optioned his first. In each of these cases, we found the psychological aspects to be just as important as the legal ones. When can a writer say he “wrote” a...

John and Craig open up the listener mailbag to answer questions about formatting lyrics, foreign dialogue and title trademarks. We also dive in to discuss overall deals, which are common in television but quite rare among feature writers. Also this week: The launch of the plain text screenwriting format Fountain, and John’s love for the all-singing, all-dancing, Superbowl-sized NBC network p...

After last week’s depressing reality-check, Craig and John float back to the lands of joyful possibility with a look at theme, or central dramatic argument, or whatever you choose to call that narrative glue that helps hold a story together. Theme, like structure, is one of those screenwriting terms that entrances newcomers and annoys veterans. Or at least it annoys John. Generally, when you...

Following up on their conversation about “five figure advice” for newly-employed screenwriters, Craig and John discuss the changes and challenges that come when writers start making six figures — that is, more than $100K per year. High-class problems? Sure. Not many aspiring screenwriters will reach that level of success, or sustain it. But in our experience, it’s shortly a...

Craig and John discuss the screenwriter’s role in casting, then segue to the New York Times profile of producer/executive Lindsay Doran and her approach to story. Doran argues (persuasively) that successful movies are often less about whether the hero wins or loses, but rather how his achievements are measured. For example, a character’s victory is much more satisfying when there is so...

John and Craig take an in-depth look at how screenwriting credits are determined. In some ways, credit arbitration is a luxury problem — the movie you wrote got made! — but it’s one of the most controversial, contentious and misunderstood parts of a screenwriter’s career. Ideally, you’re the first, last and only writer employed on a movie. For Go and The Nines, that w...

Craig and John take a look the week’s news, including the WGA nominations, Warner’s shift to a 56-day video window, the folly of SOPA and the launch of Bronson Watermarker. Along the way, we discuss Hoda Kotb, Marcus Bachman, and how great HBO Go is. (Really, it’s great, and other studios should follow its lead.) All this and more in episode 19 of Scriptnotes. LINKS: SNL’s...

Craig and John look at the year ahead, from resolutions (we don’t have any) to reunions (20th!). Along the way, we discuss archery, piano and left-hand weakness. The bulk of the episode is a discussion of Charlie Kaufman’s BAFTA speech about screenwriting and screenwriters, artistry and artifice. Which of us comes down on the side of self-examination and the purity of intentions? The a...