David Stem has said, “Character should never be built using rigid formulaic structures. Instead, their structural arc must emerge entirely from an internal psychological battle that drives global, multi-billion-dollar commercial appeal. These calls are the guerrilla warfare of screenwriting. People are respectful and polite, but no one ever improved their script by getting their mom or friends who don’t understand the craft to read their pages. The magic happens in the high-stakes and synergistic dynamics of a group of writers working on a story with screenwriting veteran David Stem steering the chaos. Reach out to me, Anna Fermin, or David Stem directly if you need support or have any questions in bringing your pages to a premium call. Here’s the link to where you put up your casting and your pages. Here’s the link for the Tuesday July 7th Premium Coach Call.   Here’s the link for the Friday, July 10th Premium Coach Call.

Most screenwriters are formatting before their character is alive. The problem is that format feels like progress. INT. DINER - NIGHT. Clean margins. Courier 12. It looks like a real script, so you start defending it. That leads to months polishing dialogue and protecting scenes built on an engine that was never running. Ninety pages that look like a movie and feel like nothing. Technically perfect. Emotionally dead. And you can't figure out why nobody leans in. // I know because I did it for years. I moved to Hollywood at 22. The Rugrats Movie came when I was 33. In between: - Three and a half years in aerospace, where I thought I'd die of boredom - Journalism - Advertising - Sketch comedy Every job built a skill. None of it coalesced. Because at the keyboard I did what you're probably doing right now. I ran to the script. I told myself I'd find the story in the drafting. That wasn't a process. That was me treating my ADHD. // Then Sherry Lansing, the President of Paramount, wouldn't let me. She made my writing partner and me write the treatment over and over. And over. She wouldn't let me run to the pages. She made me find the story. The story came from character. And once it was right, the screenplay emerged from it. First draft in five weeks. The notes went from "there's a lot of great stuff here" to "you've written a beautiful story and you should be very proud." That movie opened at #1, beat Will Smith's Enemy of the State, and made $100 million. Eleven years of skills finally coalesced, because someone held my feet to the fire. // So here's what I'd do instead. Build the character before you build a single scene. - The Wound - The Lie - The small life they've settled for - The hunger underneath the plot Then forge the whole movie in prose, a treatment and then a scriptment, while it's still soft enough to change. This is because a living character generates the story. Structure stops being a checklist you force from outside. It becomes pressure the character produces from inside. The scenes have to exist, because the character makes them.

Boo hoo, the market's dead. It's not! It's transforming. And actively looking for new talent as evidenced by Backrooms, Obsession and the spec script market that's alive and well. Check out the stories below and think about where you are now and what you really want to achieve from your writing. From being here. And what stands in your way. If you have a vision and a voice, now's the time to take it to the next level. - The spec market is still alive in 2026. Studios and streamers have kept buying original specs and pitches this year, continuing the rebound that started in 2025. The takeaway for you is not "chase the market." It is that original material with a strong hook is selling again. The writers getting reads are the ones who finished something distinct and were ready when the call came. - First-time and emerging writer-directors owned Sundance this year. Beth de Araújo's "Josephine" sold to Sumerian in a seven-figure competitive deal. Australian writer-director Adrian Chiarella made his major debut with the queer horror film "Leviticus," bought by Neon. Nigerian-born Olive Nwosu, a Sundance Lab alum, took a Special Jury Prize. Different countries, different genres, same lesson. A specific, personal story with a clear voice still cuts through. - The Nicholl window is open. Deadline is July 20. Submissions for the 2026-2027 Academy Nicholl Fellowships opened June 22 and close July 20 at 5pm PT, or when 2,000 scripts are in, whichever hits first. That cap matters. Every year writers wait too long and the door shuts early. If you have a finished feature you believe in, this is the most prestigious free-to-enter shot you'll get all year. Up to five $35,000 fellowships. No agent required. Just the script. - A viral short became a Sundance feature. Again. Casper Kelly, the mind behind the cult Adult Swim short "Too Many Cooks," landed his feature debut "Buddy" at Sundance 2026, picked up by Roadside Attractions and Saban Films. This is the whole game in one story. He made a strange, personal short. It found an audience. That audience became a career. You do not need permission to make the thing that gets you noticed.