Finding your voice
How do we do that, exactly? The bedrock question is: WHY write anything in the first place? This question goes to the heart of why you are at our site.
Writing is hard work and does not come naturally to most people. Literary giants like Hemingway, Graham Greene, John Steinbeck, Anne Patchett, and countless others did not just sit down and let the writing flow out of them. They wrote, re-wrote, got notes and suggestions, sat down and re-wrote, again and again and again. And the result? Astonishing books which will live forever, thanks to their uniquely honed writing voices, which came from the deepest place inside them, and continues to speak to the deepest place in us.
How do we help you find that voice
In order to write well, you need to understand WHAT drives you to turn off the TV, set aside your life, and devote time and energy to write anything in the first place. You’ll be asking yourself why you NEED to write to best of your abilities.
We do a deep forensic read of your work, digging through the layers to find your BEDROCK voice, which says, “PUT EVERYTHING DOWN AND LISTEN TO ME, RIGHT NOW.” This inner voice is crucial to your discovering which subjects and characters matter most to you.
Once you connect with WHY you are writing, you can speak to audiences at the deepest level. Like anything really worth doing, discovering the WHY is hard work, but once you can answer that question, then nothing will stop you.
AN EDUCATED VIEWER: WHICH SCRIPTS WORK, AND WHICH DON’T
In order to write well, you need to be able to pinpoint the differences between successful and bad scripts. If you aren’t doing so already, we encourage you to watch a range of films and TV shows, both current and classic, American and global.
We’ll show you how to watch films critically, to recognize their underlying architecture so that the craft of film and TV writing becomes second nature to you. With that knowledge, you start building your unique voice, the signature that will sell your work.
An educated viewer can identify the characters introduced in the first three pages, the means of initiating the story idea, and the trigger for the action. You’ll recognize the act breaks, the growing obstacles, and the drive to the climax.
We encourage you to take notes and post about what you’ve seen, what you love, what you hate, what you would have done differently if you’d written the show.