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Write From The Wound, Publish From the Scar

  • Holly Payberg-Torroija
  • .April 15, 2025
I attended a retreat facilitated by Elizabeth Gilbert and Rachel Cargle, and this was just one, of the many, important wisdom bombs Liz dropped on us at this wonderful 3 day retreat.   She said it in response to a question one of the participants asked: was it better to write from the wound or the scar? And I felt her answer was...
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Top Reads Spring 2025

The ISA Top Reads list for Spring 2025 has been announced! The writers' projects have been evaluated by multiple ISA readers, advancing through multiple stages of the Writing Gig consideration process, contests, and fellowship applications.After being heavily considered for our gig mandates and other submissions, these writers a...
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9 Game-Changing Screenwriting Lessons

Everything in life has a pattern. So does a screenplay.Writing a screenplay (or a novel or anything else) can be a lot like trying to assemble IKEA furniture without the manual - frustrating, a little chaotic, and filled with moments where you genuinely wonder your purpose in life (and let’s face it, those IKEA manuals aren’t mu...
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5 Writer Hacks That Will Save Your Story

Screenwriting is an art, and it’s never easy. When we think it’s easy, we’re probably missing something. That’s not to say that it’s supposed to be hard just for hard’s sake (I mean…telling someone a story and actually making them feel something over the course of two hours or an entire season of TV is tricky business), but it i...
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Horror at the Oscars: On "The Substance" and Crafting Your Own Nightmare

When we think of the Oscars, we don't immediately think of horror movies. But it happens. This year, we've got The Substance with five nominations and Nosferatu with four. Alien: Romulus can claim one nomination. Academy-lauded horror films of the past include The Sixth Sense, Get Out, Misery, The Exorcist, and Best Picture-winn...
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The Relentless Road to “Back to the Future”

There’s one trait every successful screenwriter must have, and it’s not just talent. It’s not even just hard work. It’s persistence. Grit. The ability to keep pushing forward when every door slams shut in your face. I was thinking last night about how to talk to emerging screenwriters about the necessity of more than just hard w...
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‘Yes, And’-ing Your Story Into Existence: The Sixth Sense Edition

Let’s do some more “Yes, and’ing” of movie stories, shall we? This time, I’ve looked at a screenplay that I originally covered on the job as a professional Reader, then watched it sell in a huge $3+ million deal for M. Night Shyamalan to write and direct the film that not only went on to become a huge hit, but at the time it bec...
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‘Yes, And’-ing Your Story Into Existence: The Hunger Games Edition

When watching a movie or TV show, I’m always thinking about how and why a story works, and how and why the writer made those particular story choices. I’m also intrigued by how the concept began. How small was the kernel of the idea when they began to formulate the story and how did they go about expanding on the original premis...
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Celebrating One of the Best Minds in The Film Critic Community: Gene Siskel

Every now and then I will be treating this “Screenwriter’s Almanac” a bit more specifically. And today, I did a little research - a pretty wide net was cast with just a simple search of, “What cool thing happened today in history?” Yeah, pretty broad, so of course I focused it more around screenwriting and Hollywood, and I found...
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Five Practical Things Every Writer Needs

I’ve worked in the entertainment industry, and specifically on the screenwriting and development side, for over 20 years. I sometimes marvel at that number, because the time has truly flown by. To think about who I was and where I was when I first jumped into this business…it’s a nearly night and day comparison. I still see elem...
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ISA 2024 in Review

  • January 23, 2025
As we look forward into 2025, we want to highlight some outstanding changes and achievements that occurred in the last year, both for the ISA and for our writers. By looking back at how far we've come, we can see the potential for ourselves and for the industry as a whole in the future. We are so grateful for this talented commu...
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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 9, 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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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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