Screenwriting

Hey, everyone: I just received notice that I am one of only two FINALISTS in this year's FAITH IN FILM's INTERNATIONAL SCREENWRITING COMPETITION for my script TWO GARDENS, a comedy... Plus, they sent me 3 pages of notes and suggestions. For the record, there were only 400 entries. Well, not bad for an Old Guy! Now, if the phone were to start ringing... Yeah, right... LOL ;-)

Can you direct us to the FREE LEADS & SUBMISSIONS page? Really appreciate it! Thank you, Guyo ;-)

Think about the last conversation you had where you didn’t say what you actually meant. Maybe you told your partner “I’m fine” when you weren’t. Maybe you smiled at your boss and said “sure, no problem” while screaming internally. Maybe you spent twenty minutes talking with an old friend about the weather, the commute, or a film you both half-remembered, because neither of you wanted to bring up the thing lingering underneath the conversation. That’s subtext. And it’s one of the most powerful tools a screenwriter has.

In real life, people rarely say exactly what they mean. Your characters shouldn’t either. One of the most common notes I give as a script editor is this: your characters are being too literal. They’re saying exactly what they feel, exactly when they feel it, and it kills the scene. Real communication is indirect. We deflect. We soften things. We change the subject. We say “I’m not angry” in a tone that makes it obvious we’re furious. That tension between what’s said and what’s actually meant is where great dialogue lives.

A few things I always come back to when writing subtext:

- Know what your character really wants. Not what they say they want, what they need, and why they can’t ask for it directly.

- Let the scene be about something else. An argument about washing up can actually be about years of resentment. Keep the scene about the dishes.

- Trust your audience. If you’ve built the emotional groundwork, you don’t need to explain everything outright.

- Use silence and action. A character avoiding eye contact or suddenly washing dishes instead of answering a question can say more than a monologue ever could.

The scripts that feel real are usually the ones where characters are evasive, contradictory, and emotionally indirect, just like actual people. They laugh when they’re hurt. They change the subject when they’re scared. They say “I should probably go” when they desperately want to stay.

When dialogue reflects that messy human reality, scenes stop feeling written and start feeling alive.

If you’d like a sharp, honest pair of eyes on your script, I’d love to hear from you! - scriptservices.co.uk

i am a script writer from India.

Advocate salil kumar

advocatesalil@gmail.com

I genuinely believe today’s audiences no longer want thrillers that simply surprise them.

They want thrillers that destabilize them.

That is the difference between a conventional thriller and a true mind-bending psychological thriller.

For decades, suspense stories were built around external tension:

- catch the killer

- uncover the conspiracy

- survive the danger

- beat the clock

Those mechanics still work. I am not saying they are gone.

But modern audiences increasingly want something deeper: stories that challenge perception itself.

They want narratives that make them question:

- what is real

- whose version of reality can be trusted

- whether the past itself is reliable

- whether the protagonist understands themselves at all

And I think this shift says something fascinating about modern audience psychology.

We now live in a world shaped by:

- information overload

- fragmented identities

- curated digital personas

- competing narratives about truth

- emotional ambiguity

So naturally, audiences are gravitating toward stories that reflect that instability.

The modern mind-bending thriller doesn’t simply ask:

“What happened?”

It asks:

“What if reality itself is unstable?”

That psychological uncertainty creates a completely different viewing experience.

Instead of passively consuming the story, the audience becomes an active interpreter.

- Every detail matters.

- Every line may contain hidden meaning.

- Every visual symbol may point toward another truth.

And when done correctly, the story continues living long after the credits roll.

Personally, I think this is why audiences now obsess over:

- Reddit theories

- YouTube breakdowns

- TikTok analyses

- Hidden symbolism

- Alternate interpretations

The thriller becomes participatory. The audience actually wants to solve the psychological architecture itself.

This heavily influenced how I approached Yohana’s World.

I wanted to design a psychological experience where:

- perception becomes unstable

- emotional truth conflicts with external reality

- the protagonist becomes part of the mystery

And importantly: the screenplay avoids immediately explaining whether these experiences are literal, symbolic or psychological.

That ambiguity became essential.

Because modern audiences are incredibly media literate.

We just cannot ignore this fact anymore.

Read the full article complementing this post: https://blog.yohanasworld.com/mind-bending-thriller/

Learn more about Yohana’s World and register your interest on: https://yohanasworld.com/

Read the first 21 pages of the screenplay here : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l1P1dKHB_XoqHUJ55vh-m-2F4PE9oHcL/view

Hey everyone! I wanted to congratulate our fellow community members who had scripts requested through Stage 32 pitch sessions over the last 2 weeks. We are thrilled for the opportunities for the following writers to have their scripts requested by various producers and managers, Superbe Films, Red Wagon Entertainment, Little Studio Films, Kersey Management, Expectation Management, and more! Please joinus in congratulating your fellow writers for their accomplishments!

Congrats to:

Jessica Gentry

Craig Berger

Mark Rochon

Chloë Bellande

TARAKESH K

Frank Wu

Brandon Mitchell

Grigorij Richters

Michael Wolfe

Grigorij Richters

Jerry Robbins

Selma Karayalcin

Lindsay Eleanor Smith

Alex Mehta

Khalid Saleem

Irina Voronina

Stan Evans

Rick Fraser

Craig W George

shalina Murrell

Marat Altynbaev

Amy McCorkle

Angela Manfredi

Rosemary Griggs

Salma Hassaballa

Selvir Katich

Khalid Saleem

Anthony Spadaro

Rosemary Griggs

Tanya Klein

Greg Benevent

Nicholas Woods

Kenneth Semat

Irina Voronina

David H. Fein (D. Hunter Fein)

Namhla Mnyamana

Paul Hikari

Khalid Saleem

M.T. Falgoust

Eric Christopherson

John Hezlep

Dane McCauley

Jeff Hindenach

Val Miller

Julie Georgina Shackman

Aaron Engel

shalina Murrell

Bill Osinski

Rosemary Griggs

Matthew Zoni

Jerry Robbins

George Edward Collins

Laura Lyte

Laura Lyte

Barbie Ross

Eric Lavelle

Dave Miller

Irina Voronina

Andrew Fisk

Daniel Callaghan

Craig Berger

Charlie Schulman

Steven Mitchell

Bongo Hooper

Anthony Spadaro

Rodgers wilson

Grigorij Richters

Lee Matthias

Daniel Gessner

Craig Berger

Jan Flis

Michelle Hanson

Grigorij Richters

Paulina Wróbel

Stacy Bannerman

Irina Voronina

Lisa Steadman

Limwell Lawas

Debbie Seagle

Janine Gwendoline Smith

M.T. Falgoust

Tigran Vardanyan

Lynn H. Elliott

Heino Heimann

sanya ilich

Michele Baker

Laura Harbin

Wade Taylor

Shamila Habibi

Nathaniel Watkins

Jaspreet Kaur

Desiree Tollis

Desiree Tollis

Amy Wilhelm

Paul Robertson

Ken White

Gideon Shmorak

Jack Sacks

Stuart Pollack

Maggie Grant

Gregory Hill

Erica Harris, MD

Christopher Hollenback

Gordon Penn

Daniel Weber

Jeffrey Glatz

Brian Nguyen

Leah Freilich

Roxanne Esquibel Hilburn

Bryan Kish

Mike Mazzilli

Reginald Liger

Jules East

Joseph Murkijanian

Eduardo Escober

Ramona Taylor

Bobby Bridges

John Fouche

Myna Sky

Dan Coplan

Howard Gopman

Martin Buchalski | Book Title: Being American Matters

Karen Roberts

Marc Prey

David Jacinto

Steven Hart

Bilal Maroon

Mohsen Assenjee

Phoenix Black

Alessandro Incalza

Matt Lavery

Brittany Slay

Mohsen Assenjee

Gila Zalon

Barbie Ross

Eric Christopherson

John Hezlep

Bongo Hooper

John Hezlep

Ingrid Wolf

Joanna Baladharan

Michael Mouyal

Douglas Parker

Brendan Gore

Pink Matzke

Tony Stampalia

Robertson Miller

Melissa Tucker

Arthur Tiersky

Tianwei Wang

Suzanne Birrell

Jumanah Abdul

Michael Ezrachi

Damian Sommerlad

Peter Brabson

Evan I Schwartz

Alexander R Tambascia

Coty Hampton

Frank Wu

William Bergman

Dave Miller

Selvir Katich

Adam Rosenthal

Scott Mlodzinski

Gabriella Walls

Todra Payne

Frank Wu

Christopher Shawbell

Phil Holt

Dee Shiver

William Holland

Rodney Seitz

Plus! We had 40 meeting requests from producers for our writers! Congratulations to the following writers!

TARAKESH K

Miroslavas Siniavskis

Grigorij Richters

Michael Wolfe

Rodgers

Namhla Mnyamana

Val Miller

Saurin Dinesh Lakhia

Anthony Spadaro

Rodgers wilson

Jan Flis

Michelle Hanson

Grigorij Richters

Stacy Bannerman

Debbie Seagle

Janine Gwendoline Smith

Michele Baker

Desiree Tollis

Gilani Sumida-Moiseff

Stuart Pollack

Ray Fontenault

Mike Mazzilli

Amy Moffatt

Dan Coplan

Martin Buchalski | Book Title: Being American Matters

David Jacinto

Kristine Skeie

Selma Karayalcin

George Edward Collins

Steven Hart

Jumanah Abdul

Damian Sommerlad

Evan I Schwartz

Alexander R Tambascia

Coty Hampton

Frank Wu

William Bergman

Selvir Katich

Adam Rosenthal

Gabriella Walls

I’ve been a lit manager for 19 years, and I regularly do notes consultations with writers. So, I read a ton of scripts. There's a note that I end up giving a lot of the time, so I wanted to chat about it here. I believe that all your scenes should be driving story.

Writing for TV and Film is a game of real estate. You don’t have endless pages to tell your story, this isn’t an Anne Rice novel, so using your real estate is very important. If you aren’t pushing your story forward in some way, why is that scene in your project? When I ask that question, one of the comments I often get is “character development,” which is of course necessary. Ideally though, that character info is something we need to understand so we get why that character reacts to something further down the line, so “driving story.”

What nugget of information is in a scene that we need to move forward? If you can remove a scene from your script, and have it not impact the story at all, I feel like there is an issue with that scene. Now, I don’t think the answer is always removing the scene. If you like it, I feel like you can massage it, and make it drive story. Maybe add that nugget of info to that previously useless scene, and voila, now it’s useful.

Writing is not black and white, and I’m not saying that you can’t have a scene in your piece that is just there for comedy, etc., but when the idea is to write a tight script that will keep the attention of the potential producer/studio/financier/actors/director/etc/etc/etc, why not make sure everything in there is there for a real reason?

As always, happy to answer any questions.

The protagonist cannot always be trusted.

And I do not mean “untrustworthy” in a moral sense.

I mean psychologically unstable enough that their perception of reality itself becomes uncertain.

That uncertainty transforms the entire narrative structure.

Because once the audience begins questioning the protagonist’s perception: every emotional reaction becomes evidence and every visual detail becomes interpretive.

The protagonist stops being merely the guide through the story.

They become part of the mystery itself.

That idea became foundational while developing Yohana’s World.

Yohana initially appears highly capable:

- disciplined

- analytical

- emotionally composed

- observant under pressure

She investigates crime scenes confidently. She notices behavioural inconsistencies quickly. She understands emotional patterns in others.

From an external perspective, she feels reliable.

But slowly, subtle fractures begin appearing in her perception.

Importantly, the screenplay does not immediately explain why.

That restraint became extremely important to me.

I think one of the biggest mistakes in psychological thriller storytelling is over-explaining the protagonist’s mental state too early.

The moment the audience fully understands the instability mechanism:

the psychological tension weakens.

So instead of directly explaining Yohana’s psychology, I approached the narrative through controlled disclosure.

Fragments appear gradually:

- symbolic imagery

- emotional inconsistencies

- recurring motifs

- recall disruptions

- environmental reactions

The audience slowly assembles the architecture of her mind themselves.

That process transforms viewers into active interpreters rather than passive consumers.

And personally, I think psychological thrillers become strongest when the audience participates psychologically in reconstructing the protagonist.

Another element I became fascinated by is the distinction between external stakes and internal stakes.

Most thrillers operate externally. Psychological thrillers introduce another layer entirely.

The protagonist must confront something within themselves.

In Yohana’s World, Yohana investigates Nicole’s murder externally.

But internally, the investigation forces her toward unresolved emotional territory connected to abandonment, trauma and suppressed feelings.

This dual pressure became the emotional engine of my screenplay.

Read the full article complementing this post: https://blog.yohanasworld.com/designing-unreliable-protagonists/

Learn more about Yohana’s World and register your interest on: https://yohanasworld.com/

Read the first 21 pages of the screenplay here : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l1P1dKHB_XoqHUJ55vh-m-2F4PE9oHcL/view

Are there any writers here that have had success writing speculative sci-fi that is both believable and entertaining?

Ch8 Pg 12

Garerit crouches down to examine the base of the dam. He pokes at the clay with a stick, noting how soft and eroded the material has become. His eyes narrow with suspicion. Behind him, the others are looking at the dam with varying degrees of doubt and concern. The villagers exchange worried glances, while the knights prepare to help.

Gareirt (thinking): "If this fails, the entire field could flood. We need to act fast.”

The group gathers in front of the dam, discussing how to break it open and release the water safely. The tailor stands at the forefront, as his experience and intelligence are evident.

Garerit (with confidence): "The structure is weak, but the clay will hold for a while. We need to break the logs holding it in place.”

Knight (questioning): "But if we break it too soon, we risk flooding the whole valley.”

Garerit (nodding): "We don't want to break it all at once. I'll set things in motion- just make sure you're ready to help control the flow.”

The page opens with Garerit standing near the base of the dam, holding a lantern in one hand and a small flask of lantern oil in the other. He appears focused, his brow furrowed in concentration. Behind him, the knights and villagers are still securing the area, preparing for the release of water. The sky is cloudy, adding to the tension of the scene. Garerit kneels and pours the lantern oil in a controlled stream across the base of the logs, carefully ensuring the oil coats the wood in specific places.

Garerit (thinking): "If I can burn the logs at the right spots, the structure will collapse much faster, releasing the water without flooding everything.”

Close-up of the logs as the lantern oil soaks into the grain, the dark liquid contrasting against the pale wood. The tailor's hand is steady as he pours, and the oil seeps deep into the wood. The anticipation builds as the oil begins to settle into the cracks.

Garerit (whispering to himself): "This will do the trick.”

One of the knights, watching from a distance, comments with a hint of disbelief: "Is this going to work?”

Garerit, still focused, reaches into his pouch and pulls out a small, intricately designed glass bottle filled with swirling, crackling lightning. It glows with an intense energy, humming with the power inside. He holds it carefully, as if it were both a tool and a weapon. The magic inside the bottle is volatile, and the tailor knows he has to act quickly.

Garerit (thinking): "I'll need to strike the logs directly to get the fire started.”

One of the villagers (from behind, unsure): "Are you sure this is safe?”

Garerit (without turning around): "There's no other way.”

He looks determined but calculating, knowing he needs to be precise. The surrounding knights and villagers stand by watching with bated breath.

Garerit (to himself, thinking): "With just the right push, the water will flow out, but the dam won't completely collapse, I just hope this works.”

Ch8 Pg 13

Garerit stands, ready to make his move. He looks up at the logs, assessing the best spot to strike. With a swift motion, he throws the bottled lightning toward the soaked logs, aiming for a vulnerable point. The bottle arcs through the air, crackling with electricity. The moment the bottle strikes the logs, an explosion of energy erupts. The bottle shatters on impact, and the electricity dances across the logs, igniting them in a bright burst of flame. The air is filled with the sound of the lightning's crackle and the roar of the fire beginning to consume the logs.

Knight (shouting): "Get back! It's working!”

Close-up shot of the logs starting to burn, their surfaces blackened and crackling as the fire spreads quickly. The lantern oil provides the perfect kindling for the blaze, and the flames climb higher, eating through the logs. The energy from the bottled lightning gives the fire a strange, almost magical quality. The fire spreads faster than expected, and the logs begin to splinter and crack under the intense heat.

Garerit (to himself, watching with satisfaction): "The fire will burn through the logs... It'll be just enough to break the dam.”

The page widens, showing the full scale of the dam as the fire spreads across the logs. The flames grow larger, and the heat is palpable; the entire structure begins to crack and shift under the pressure. Standing back at a safe distance, the villagers and knights watch as the fire continues to rage across the dam. The energy in the air is palpable, a mix of fire, magic, and impending destruction.

Knight (with a grin): "That's one way to do it!”

The panel zooms in on the dam as the fire continues to spread. Large cracks begin to form in the clay and logs, signaling the dam's impending collapse. The pressure from the burning logs causes the structure to weaken rapidly. The water behind the dam can be seen rising higher as the cracks spread, ready to burst free once the dam gives way completely.

Garerit (muttering to himself): "Just a little longer..."

The final panel shows the dam as it begins to break apart completely. The fire has weakened it enough that large sections of the clay and logs start to crumble and fall into the water. The floodgates are opening. Garerit stands at the front of the group, watching the destruction with a quiet satisfaction. The knights and villagers brace for the incoming flood of water, ready to manage the release. The page ends with the dam breaking open, and the rush of water beginning to flow freely, symbolizing the success of the tailor's plan.

Garer (smiling faintly): "It's done.”

The page opens with a wide shot of the area surrounding the dam. The knights and villagers are working together to roll large boulders toward the dam's base. They are positioned at various points along the dam, preparing for the final phase of the plan. The tailor is seen in the foreground, focused on the fire still burning along the dam. In the background, the boulders are being guided with great effort, their massive size emphasizing the strength of the group working together. The scene has a sense of urgency, with a strong wind blowing through, stirring up dust and leaves as the action picks up.

Garerit (to one of the knights): "We need to break the clay before the fire burns through completely. We have to be fast!”

Helloo fellow creatives

I'm an indie author figuring things out as I go. My sci-fi novel, SAMSARAVERSE, blends cyberpunk with Eastern philosophy (where "karma" is processed as computer code).

To make the world-building more immersive, I experimented with mixing mediums by creating an original soundtrack titled "Portal 989." It captures the psychological dread of the "Echo World" a dark dimension in the book where characters are trapped in a loop of their own cosmic data.

I wrote the lyrics myself to match the existential horror, and to make it personal, the haunting vocals were actually done by my own child

I'd be incredibly honored if anyone here could check out the visualizer and share your honest thoughts on the lyrics and the overall vibe.

Watch the visualizer here:

https://youtu.be/XELzx13y7Io?si=t1aslCKImXotHRRp

About the book:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GZ3T6NCX

Thanks for your time!

The technology in your script is the least interesting thing about it.

Most writers add it one of two ways. As a gadget that looks cool. As a threat that turns evil by the third act. Both are weak. Both treat the technology as the thing the audience is supposed to watch.

Here is what technology actually does in a story. Every piece of it takes a decision away from a person and moves that decision somewhere else. An algorithm now screens the job applicants. A system now flags which medical case is urgent. A model now decides which script gets read first.

The drama is not in the machine. It is in the person who used to make that call. They still have the expertise. They still have the instinct. They just no longer have the authority. They stand right next to the place where their judgment used to go. That gap is where the scene lives.

This is why the evil AI plot feels hollow. It skips the real loss. The true version is quieter and worse. Nobody is being attacked. Someone is just being slowly made unnecessary. They can feel it happening. Everyone around them thinks the new system is working fine.

So when you write technology do not ask what it can do. Ask whose judgment it just replaced and whether that person agrees they should have been replaced.

What decision did the technology in your story take away from a character, and do they know it yet?