Newcomer Call Replay: Finding the Human Story Inside the Idea

Or as I like to call it: Why does anybody give a damn. Maybe they don't love baseball, or believe in an afterlife or know anything at all about Maori people.

But great writing cuts to the heart, in whatever subject it deals with, and brings the audience along for the ride.

So today's Newcomer Call became, in effect, a live mini workshop.

Which is what they're geared for anyway. To give you a taste of what we do around here.

We started with

@Gregory Scott

opening pages about a young boy learning baseball from his father. The scene was warm and beautifully observed—but that raised the real question:

What is the audience leaning forward to discover?

The baseball wasn’t the story. It was the emotional anchor: a memory of who this father was before tragedy changed him, and what his son is still trying to hold onto.

Then we read

@Ron Sobol

's sci-fi opening and talked about the balance between mystery and confusion. You can introduce a strange world, big ideas, and unanswered questions—but the audience still needs one clear human thread to follow.

Finally,

@Richard Kerr-Bell

got his tail up at god knows what hour in New Zealand (I believe) and pitched Incarnation, based on the true story of a young Māori man sent to Rome in the 1850s to train as a Catholic priest.

The pitch had powerful themes: faith, colonialism, cultural erasure, identity, and belonging. But themes alone aren’t a movie. The work was finding the specific human relationships and conflicts that dramatize them:

Who sends him away—and why?

Who tries to change him?

Who does he change in return?

What does he lose, and what does he fight to preserve?

That was the thread connecting the entire call:

A story isn’t a collection of events or themes. It’s a human being under pressure, fighting to hold onto—or become—who they truly are.

Want this kind of coaching on your own work?

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And if you’re ready to seriously level up your work, let’s talk about The Script Forge Workshop and see whether it’s the right fit for you and your goals.

If you're ready to get serious and take your writing to the next level, click here to apply.

First in, first served. Lock your place now.

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Newcomer Call Replay: Finding the Human Story Inside the Idea