Hi everyone, I’m Steven Raney, a screenwriter based in Las Vegas.
I write elevated horror, psychological thrillers, and contained genre stories built around clear rules, strong hooks, and filmable production scope. I have several feature scripts, and the one I’m currently taking out is The Favorite, about a niche horror streaming platform that unknowingly uploads a 1970s recording of an occult summoning ritual. The danger isn’t that the film is cursed. It’s that the thing being summoned can’t tell the difference between a recorded voice and a live one.
I tend to think about story through structure, scope, locations, and execution. I’m try to write genre films that are commercially strong, clearly structured, and realistically producible.
I’m here to connect with other writers, producers, managers, and filmmakers. I’m looking forward to learning, building my circle, and getting to know more people in the screenwriting and film community.
Feel free to connect with me.
My portfolio is here for anyone interested in my work: https://stevenraney.com/portfolio
2 people like this
The Favorite sounds really eerie and cool - definitely for the times with all the conversations about whether or not AI can tell the difference between reality and fake. Tell us what your protagonist is like in the story!
2 people like this
My protagonist is a guy named Alex Moreno. Hispanic, early 30s, system admin for a scrappy, online horror platform called Bloodgate, preparing for their first ever film festival set to take place at the Majestic Theater where his grandfather was the projectionist for 30 years.
His grandfather taught him that preservation matters. And to be respectful of the past.
He is a grounded, practical guy who believes in data and logs, but also wears a St. Michael medal and lights a candle for his grandmother, just in case. So when he notices that all users who finish this exact 73 seconds of a film in order never have any additional user activity, he is forced to admit that what he suspects might be real. Then deaths confirm it.
So his arc is a rational person being forced to accept that the thing he is investigating is real. And that the difference between watching and participating may not exist any more.
Welcome Steven Raney THE FAVORITE has a clear hook, a contained scope, and the kind of high-concept specificity that makes a producer stop scrolling. The Writers' Room is a great place to connect with producers, managers, and filmmakers who are actively looking for exactly this kind of elevated genre material. Come join us: https://www.stage32.com/writers-room/plans-vip