Coaching Call Recap: Watching the Work Come Alive

Coaching Call Recap: Watching the Work Come Alive - 2-2-26

This call was a great snapshot of the actual process — not theory, not formulas, but real writers wrestling with real pages and making real breakthroughs.

We had three writers present material, and together they showed the full arc of development: rewrite payoff, first-time pages, and radical rethinking of an opening.

🔹

@Krystel Biasotti

— Rewrite Payoff

Krystel brought in a second rewrite of the opening of Soulmate.

Same story. Same premise. Completely different experience.

We did a live table read, and the reaction in the room was immediate:

The pages moved faster
The comedy landed
Most importantly — people cared about her immediately

Nothing new was added in terms of plot. The shift was emotional access.

By opening on a deeply human moment — trying and failing to fit into a high school dress — the audience was pulled into her interior life without explanation. The information was always there. Now we felt it.

This is the thing I’m often trying to get writers to find without knowing exactly what it is yet. Krystel found it.

I’ve asked her to post earlier drafts as well, because this is a textbook example of:

Same movie. Same information. Radically different reader experience.

🔹

@Eva Titova

— First Pages, Strong Voice

Eva joined us for the first time and brought brand-new pages from Mainstream Uninvited, a character-driven family comedy set around a Christmas dinner.

Right away, a few things stood out:

Clean, professional formatting
Strong tonal control
Character dynamics doing the heavy lifting

We did a table read and paused to talk about how specificity builds trust with a reader, and how small descriptive choices quietly communicate confidence and voice.

There’s a strong Wes Anderson–style sensibility here — idea-forward, character-first, and quietly tense in the best way. This wasn’t plot-driven writing. It was presence-driven writing.

For a first session, this was impressive work.

🔹

@Anna Fermin

— Radical Opening Rethink

Anna brought in a substantially reworked opening, after realizing her earlier draft wasn’t aligned with her logline or central characters.

She talked through her process — revisiting the wound / lie / truth framework and asking a harder question:

How do I pull the audience into the emotional core immediately?

The discussion centered on how clarity of emotional intent reshapes structure — and how the hardest rewrites are often the ones that signal real progress.

This wasn’t a polish pass. It was a rethink.

🧠 The Bigger Lesson

All three pieces reinforced the same truth:

You don’t fix a script by adding more information.

You fix it by making the audience care sooner.

This call wasn’t about rules or formulas.

It was about taste, judgment, and emotional clarity — and watching those things sharpen in real time.

Great work from everyone who read, reacted, and jumped in. This is exactly how the room is supposed to function.

— David

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