The short story sale only took 45 years to happen Genre: Dystopian/Sci-Fi Adjacent Premise: 100 teen boys participate in an annual event that forces them to do a death walk until there is only one left. About: Okay, I’m cheating a little. This isn’t technically a short story. But it’s a short story in Stephen […]

I tell you how The Beekeeper script sold for a million bucks and share with you some screenwriting lessons from Anatomy of a Fall and Self-Reliance January is always a funky month in the box office schedule. It used to be a dumping ground for studio movies that tested terribly but, these days, if you […]

Learning the difference between Type 0, Type 1, and Type 2 Concepts One question I constantly go back and forth on is, “Is concept the most important part of screenwriting?” It’s a challenging question to answer because the other aspects – character, plot, dialogue – take so much more time to construct and integrate into […]

Genre: Comedy Premise: In the early 2000s, two totally opposite best friends, Mike (an uptight lawyer) and BJ (a stoner slacker), awake one morning to find that they have swapped bodies, are stuck in a time loop, and are afflicted with many other high-concept comedy premises of that era. Drawing upon their knowledge of those […]

One of the biggest short story sales of 2023! Genre: Thriller Premise: An American negotiator in London is called in to help deal with a unique situation – a construction worker is stuck on top of an old World War 2 bomb, which could detonate in response to the slightest movement. About: This is the […]