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Dear Hollywood, You Drove Me Crazy. Also, I Love You.

  • Coli B. Sylla
  • .January 17, 2025
As a screenwriter who toiled away for years honing and perfecting my craft, I often found myself wondering if the next script would be it, or if the next general meeting would put me in the presence of the gatekeeper assigned to me by the Gods of entertainment. Nothing I had hoped to happen for me in LA happened in LA. Instead, ...
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9 Components Of The Perfect Logline (Part 2)

  • James "Doc" Mason
  • .January 16, 2025
This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series "Logline."4) Triggering EventIn the logline, a triggering event describes the change in circumstances that creates the conflict to be resolved in the climax. Some call it the inciting incident or inciting event, others call it a catalyst. Whether a specific event, or the final straw in a s...
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9 Components Of The Perfect Logline (Part 1)

  • James "Doc" Mason
  • .January 13, 2025
This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series "Logline."Many aspiring writers battle with loglines. Quite a few working writers struggle, too. Afterall, it’s a different skill from writing a script. The good news is crafting a logline becomes much easier when the writer knows what to include and, more importantly, what to leave on the...
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An Inside Look: Judging Creative Screenwriting Magazine’s Competitions

  • Jeffrey Morales
  • .January 10, 2025
Creative Screenwriting Magazine runs a range of screenwriting competitions for television pilots and feature length scripts throughout the year. Each one has a specifically-trained pool of readers to judge each category. This article breaks down the various components that are judged and some sample comments you can use to ensur...
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Showrunner Tia Napolitano Offers Tips On Getting Your Next TV Writing Job

  • Staff Writer
  • .January 8, 2025
There’s an ongoing fiery debate regarding ways newer TV writers can most effectively break into writing for television or securing their next writing job. More specifically, whether they should write a spec script for an existing TV show or an original sample.“I think an original sample is what people are looking for and have be...
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The New Year and Your New Writing Resolutions

Do we need writing resolutions? Do we need resolutions at all, really? The basic answer is “yes”, but at the same time I prefer to look at the start of a new year as a review as opposed to a completely new, fresh start.We’re not new at this. In other words, even if you’re reading this Substack for the first time, you’ve likely b...
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ISA Staff Picks: January 2025

These screenplays and their writers were selected by ISA staff members as standouts in their genres and formats for the month of January, 2025. They are being submitted to agents, managers, producers and production companies actively looking for writers to rep or projects to produce.  Staff Picks: ELIZABETH KLEIN HAS NO FRIENDS ...
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Which Screenplay Should You Write Next? (Part 2)

This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series What To Write.Based On Something Else3 Body Problem was based on an award-winning book series by Chinese sci-fi writer Cixin Liu. It took the science fiction market by storm and had a lot of people scrambling for the TV rights.Netflix won the most recent rights battle and released a succes...
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Which Screenplay Should You Write Next? (Part 1)

This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series What To Write.Perhaps the most important decision any writer makes is what to write. There’s a lot to consider including the market, trends, your strengths, etc. When I started my career I had in mind to create good sci-fi material. It was what I read and loved and I couldn’t think of anyt...
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Why Do We Procrastinate?

I had that moment of “gasp” last night because I’ll just be honest with you…I forgot to post my weekly Almanac! I then realized why I did such a thing…and it actually doesn’t have anything to do with the topic of today’s Substack. It actually had everything to do with basic mental and emotional health…but for good reason! I just...
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This Scene...from Christmas Vacation: A Script Versus Movie Comparison

Happy Holidays! Happy Christmas! Happy everything because I’m sharing a scene from one of my favorite Christmas movies, CHRISTMAS VACATION. I wouldn’t say this is my favorite scene from the film, but I chose it because I wanted to look at the difference between what ended up on screen and what is on the page itself.So yeah! I’m ...
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Ed Herro & Brian Donovan Make Mayhem, Murder & Maple Syrup In “The Sticky"

  • Staff Writer
  • .December 18, 2024
A story about a maple syrup heist may seem the stuff of wacky pulp fiction, but a notable heist did actually happen in Canada. It inspired a TV series from comedy writers Ed Herro and Brian Donovan (American Housewife) appropriately titled The Sticky. It stars Margot Martindale as Ruth Landry who gets herself into a sticky situa...
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A Quick Look At Developing the Most Important Element of Your 2nd Act

Today I want to focus on developing the strength of your unique moment. What does that mean, exactly, “unique moment”? And how is your unique moment connected to the 2nd Act as a whole? It's something I stress over and over; delivering your "recurring moment." Burn that term into your brain! "Recurring moment." I've used it befo...
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ISA Top Reads - Winter 2024

We are thrilled to announce the Winter 2024 list of ISA Top Reads! These writers' projects have been evaluated by multiple ISA readers, advancing through several rounds in the Writing Gig consideration process, contest, and fellowship submissions. Their loglines stood out from the crowd, catching the eyes of our team. After bein...
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Mike Schur Sends Ted Danson on Undercover Mission in “A Man on the Inside"

  • Staff Writer
  • .December 13, 2024
A Man On The Inside started as a 2020 documentary film by Maite Alberdi called The Mole Agent. It was an exposé of elder citizens’ abuses in nursing homes. Now a comedy television series starring Ted Danson as Charles, the amateur sleuth, his daughter Emily (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) seeking connection after the death of her mother ...
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Writing Exposition To Make Your Script Pop (Part 2)

VoiceoverDespite being overused and used to shortcut actual writing voiceovers can be a powerful tool used properly. I ask my students to not use these, to work harder to get across their ideas, and invariably someone will bring up Casino or Goodfellows and my argument goes right out the window.I will say that these movies are b...
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Writing Exposition To Make Your Script Pop (Part 1)

Exposition is the beating heart of any story be it script, novel, song, article or poem. Building to a solid ending requires layering and delivering information in specific ways to make that ending work.But exposition isn’t just telling the audience something. It involves many aspects of a script – or any story for that matter. ...
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Wicked: An Adaptation Of An Adaptation Of An Adaptation

  • Staff Writer
  • .December 6, 2024
Victor Fleming and King Vidor made movie history when they made the timeless, inventive and fantastical The Wizard Of Oz in 1939. The spinoff film Wicked, based on the book series The Wicked Years by Gregory Maguire and a musical book by Winnie Holzman, was adapted into a hugely successful broadway musical in 2000, and is still ...
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A Look Inside the Christmas Movie

Because the holidays are upon us, I thought it would be fun to look at one of my favorite genres - The Christmas movie.I will start off by saying this: I do not agree that Die Hard is a Christmas movie. If you would like to stop reading right now because this tears a hole in your dark Christmas heart and makes you want to pull y...
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ISA Staff Picks: December 2024

These screenplays and their writers were selected by ISA staff members as standouts in their genres and formats for the month of December, 2024. They are being submitted to agents, managers, producers and production companies actively looking for writers to rep or projects to produce.  Staff Picks:HEAVY by Colette LeGault (Featu...

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