Now... How are you trying to figure out how to tell it? And what's holding you back?

Link: Thursday, July 2nd, 10 a.m. Pacific Time! This is where everyone starts! These newcomer calls are always fun and pack with regular members who show up to read pages and welcome the new folks to the cult... I mean, group. We have pages on deck from @Brijit Reed and @Marion Mills. If anyone else has pages or just wants to come see how things work around here, by all means check in below or just show up tomorrow and we'll be glad to welcome you on board and hear about bit about your journey as a writer and what lead you here. See you folks mañana! Dave

Great characters drive every scene they are in. Even when nothing is happening. Writers come to me with the same complaint. The script isn't working. The story feels flat. Audiences aren't connecting. They want to talk about plot — structure, act breaks, whether the midpoint is landing. Here's what I've learned in 25 years fixing broken scripts: the plot is almost never the problem. The character is. The character isn't driving the story. The story is driving the character. They're being pushed from scene to scene by whatever the writer needs them to do next. They don't have a wound. They don't have a specific, consistent way of seeing the world that colors everything they do. They're a sock puppet. And the audience feels it — even if they can't name it. Here's what interesting actually looks like: a character whose internal wound causes them to exert control in every scene — even when the scene is about ordering toast. Jack Nicholson's character is the epitome of this in this classic dinner scene from Five Easy Pieces. Watch it for a masterclass in character. There's no plot in the Five Easy Pieces diner scene. The want is as minimal as it gets. A man wants a piece of toast. But how he responds to being told no tells you everything about how he sees the world and his place in it. Jack doesn't win. He gets thrown out. He never gets the toast. But he never stops being exactly, specifically, unmistakably himself for a single second. That's a character. Not a plot device. SAME SCENE. THREE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PEOPLE. Watch what happens when you put three fully-formed characters in the same diner, facing the same waitress, asking for the same toast. 🔴 TONY SOPRANO — The Sopranos Tony is already vibrating when he sits down. Something happened today — a betrayal, an indignity. The toast is not about toast. When the waitress says no, Tony goes quiet. Measuring. Then he SLAMS the table. The whole diner jumps. Carmela stiffens. He equates a diner rule with every indignity his mother ever handed him. He engineers the workaround — orders the chicken salad, tells her to hold the chicken. Gets thrown out anyway. Drops way too much cash. Leans in close: "Next time someone tells you they don't make the rules? They're lyin'." No toast. But everyone in that diner knows exactly who he is. That's the wound made visible.

Hi everyone, I'm Michael from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. I'm currently working on an elevated horror feature called The Things We Carry and developing the second script in what I hope becomes a trilogy. The stories blend supernatural horror, mythology, mystery, and dark humor, but at their core they're really about trauma, grief, connection, and the things people carry through life. Some of my favorite films are The Sixth Sense, Hereditary, The Thing, Donnie Darko, Se7en, The Shining, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I tend to love flawed characters who are struggling against something inside themselves as much as something outside. The character currently driving me crazy is Byron, the protagonist of my feature. He's haunted by a supernatural entity and has spent his entire life avoiding confrontation and hiding parts of himself from the people closest to him. What drives me crazy is that he constantly wants to withdraw when the story needs him to engage. What I love about him is that beneath all of that fear, he's genuinely trying to do the right thing. Even when he makes terrible choices, they're usually coming from a place of protecting other people. Looking forward to learning from everyone here.

Hi, I'm Scott, your newest member. I am a Christian, Husband, Father, Actor, Author, and now Screenwriter. I am excited to meet new people, polish up on my skills, and network in here. Thank you for allowing me to join.