Writing

Craft, software, tips, tricks and thoughts

Process

On Rewriting and Rewriting

Formula One as an analogy for script rewrites.

Process

Good Enough

When is a screenplay good enough?

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Writing

On getting stuck...

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Writing

Finding a Writing Style

How to develop your unique screenwriting voice

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Writing

Kill the Cat

Some thoughts on story structure...

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Writing

Don't Give Them What They Want

Journal

2024-10-08 - Interview link

I recently did an interview with design expert Andy Polaine for his Power of Ten podcast. It's essentially an hour of me banging on about film and TV development and the state of the industry. If that sounds like it might be up your street, it's

Writing

On Aeon Timeline

Writing Featured

"Bits of the Mind's String"

Looking for myself in my notebooks

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Writing

On notes, outlines, and somehow cobbling a script together...

Writing

Butter Docs

The new prose app from the makers of Arc Studio.

Work

Into 2024 - Outputs

What may or may not be coming your way in 2024...

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Writing

How to Write an Action Sequence.

A road-map of sorts

Writing

Too Much Exposition...

...and why there's no such thing.

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Writing

Breaking the Screenplay

The rules are there ain't no rules.

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Writing

On Fluidity...

Writing

Character Journeys

The order I’m writing these things in might seem a little random, but I’m trying to work in the order in which I think about story. Once I’ve got my research and my notes in order, and I’ve done a little brainstorming, I will turn to

Writing

Organising Ideas

One of the great pleasures of being a writer in any medium is the not-writing part; the bit where you get to play with your ideas, brainstorm them, organise them and categorise them, without actually committing anything to the draft. And so that's where we are now.

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Writing

Story Ideas - The First Spark

It all starts with the spark of an idea. And everyone’s got one of those. During the week, I asked in the Substack chat for example notions that I could use for this piece, just one-line ideas that would illustrate the point. Iain Rowan at Maps of the

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Writing

On being easy to fire...

The best screenwriting lesson you can learn.

Writing

On naming characters...

Journal

Writing Prompts and Inspiration

Some links to get the brain working.

Newsletter

Workflow: From Inception to Outline

How I generate, research and outline ideas, a frankly exhaustive guide.

Audio

A podcast script

A few people have asked recently what podcast scripts look like. Well, I don't know. But I know what mine look like so, for those who are interested, here's a PDF of the first episode of The Shadow Over Innsmouth. I write these scripts in normal

Writing

And so it begins...

The Shadow Over Innsmouth is go!