Screenwriting starts here. 

If you want to hit a screenplay contest deadline, or train yourself to be able to meet the kinds of deadlines you can expect to see while writing for professional contracts, you’re going to need to find a proficient plan. That plan has to be structured in a way where you can not only write fast and focused, but also write well in the process. 

Look no further than our Three-Month Screenwriting Process for a well-structured plan that can keep you on task, ahead of schedule, and writing compelling and fast-paced first drafts that only need a few rewrite passes before submitting to contests or the powers that be while you’re under contract.  

Why Writing Fast (and Well) Matters to Screenwriters

Pro screenwriters don’t have time to wait for inspiration. They work under tight deadlines. When you’re a pro, gone are the days of taking six months to a year or more writing one script. Pros don’t have that luxury. Assignments come with one-to-two month deadlines for a first draft. Rewrites are expected in days just a couple of weeks, sometimes less. 

If you want to be a pro screenwriter, you’re going to need to prove that you can deliver quality work on demand. 

Developing and writing a screenplay in three months (or less) is one of the best ways to train yourself for that reality, and it will help you earlier on in your screenwriting journey as you try to break through via major screenwriting contests and fellowships. 

The Three-Month Screenwriting Process Helps With Screenwriting Contest Submissions Too

Since submitting screenplays to major screenwriting contests like Final Draft’s Big Break can be a highly effective way to get your foot in the Hollywood door, the following three-month screenwriting process can also help you make contest deadlines, which usually sneak up on most screenwriters. 

The good news is that this three-month screenwriting process is completely doable for all screenwriters. You don’t have to be a seasoned veteran with multiple scripts under your belt. If you’re a first-timer, this process is simple and highly effective. If you’ve written a couple of scripts already, maybe it’s time to start learning how to write like a pro under pro deadlines. 

We’re going to break this three-month process down into three parts, similar to the structure of a cinematic story. All scripts have the core base of a three-act structure. 

Beginning - We’re introduced to the world, the characters, and the core conflict.  Middle - The characters deal with the evolving conflict and work to find a solution.    End - The story is resolved as the characters overcome all odds stacked against them and emerge triumphant (or succumb to the conflict if the story is a tragedy). 

With the three-month screenwriting process, you have three acts within the three-month journey. 

Month One - Research and Development Month Two - The Writing Process Month Three - Rewriting and Polishing

If you follow the below process, you’ll be able to successfully finish a script within just three months, training you to write like a pro while also helping you make those “last-minute” screenwriting contest and fellowship deadlines.

Month One - Research and Development

Every great script starts long before you type FADE IN on the opening page. This first month is all about building the foundation of your script. This is your first act of the screenwriting process where you discover your world, characters, and story. 

Research

The research part of Month One - usually during Week One and Week Two - is all about building your knowledgebase of your script world and feeding your creative brain. 

Too many writers rush into writing pages before they truly understand the story they want to tell, leading to lackluster drafts, dead ends, writer's block, and major rewrites that are more time-consuming. 

The research period of this three-month screenwriting process is the time to immerse yourself in:

Movies and TV shows within your genre Similar tones, atmospheres, and themes Stories with comparable protagonists, antagonists, and worlds Real-world elements tied to your concept

If you’re writing a contained thriller, you should be watching contained thriller movies to look for inspiration, creative problem-solving, and also examples of what not to do. 

If you’re writing a romantic comedy, you can watch successful romcoms of the past to study universal elements like structure, pacing, and character dynamics that can be implemented and tweaked for your story. 

This isn’t about copying other people’s work. It’s about:

Building a creative base your imagination can work from.  Finding cliches and tropes to avoid or embrace. Looking for character archetypes.  Training your brain to think in the cinematic language of pacing, stakes, structure, and tone relevant to the specific story you’re about to tell.  

Beyond watching relevant content, you can also begin to research the world of your script. Your additional time during this first month can be spent researching:

Professions (police, doctors, lawyers, or whatever may apply to your script) Locations and environments Technology or procedures

Authenticity makes your script more credible. Credibility keeps script readers and audiences engaged. They don’t need to know all of the specific real-world details (if any) of your story and characters, but the research you do will help to bond your dialogue, scenes, and plot points to the real world. 

Development

Once your brain is full of inspiration and necessary knowledge, it’s time to shift into development mode for Week Three and Week Four. 

This is usually a process that novice screenwriters skip. Don’t make that mistake. 

The stronger your development process is, the faster you’ll be able to write the script, and the cleaner your first draft will be. 

1. Start with the Logline

Your logline is your North Star, always there to guide you back to the core idea of your script. It’s very easy to go off-course during the writing process. Having a strong logline is key to ensuring that you stay on course. 

Your logline should be short (no more than one to two sentences), sweet, and to the point. It should clearly define:

The protagonist Inciting incident Their goal The core conflict The stakes

The basic logline structure you can start from?

When [INCITING INCIDENT OCCURS]... A [CHARACTER TYPE]... Must [OBJECTIVE]... Before [STAKES].

Here are some examples you can follow:

When a killer shark unleashes chaos on a beach community, a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer must hunt the beast down before it kills again. (Jaws) When humanity faces extinction from a mysterious threat on the surface of the sun, a lone amnesiac astronaut must rediscover his identity and use his scientific expertise to stop the threat and save humankind. (Project Hail Mary)

You can then refine the logline as needed (it doesn’t need to follow the above structure to a tee). Test different versions. Make sure it’s something that can hook a reader. 

2. Expand the Logline to a Short Synopsis

Next, write a three-paragraph short synopsis, with each paragraph representing the three-act structure. 

First Paragraph = The Beginning Second Paragraph = The Middle Third Paragraph = The End/Climax

Refer to the three-act structure breakdown above. Expanding your logline to a short synopsis helps you to hone in on a story window for that core concept. If your logline is your North Star, the short three-paragraph synopsis is your more accurate GPS, keeping you within a focused story window. 

If you’re looking for an example, look no further than the back jacket of a paperback book - only with your version, you’re spoiling how the story ends in that third paragraph. 

The short synopsis also introduces key twists, turns, and plot points.

3. Write a Beat Sheet Outline

Writing an outline is essential. Some screenwriters may have the romantic idea of finding their screenplay during the writing process. Don’t fall into that trap. Screenplays aren’t novels. When you’re writing a novel, you generally have an open canvas, free of the structural aesthetics and page constraints of a screenplay. Screenplays are blueprints for feature films, utilized by hundreds of other professionals to make that film come to life. 

You need to learn how to embrace the process of writing an outline of your script. Most professional contracts require an outline, so it’s best to know how to write one. But it goes beyond that. Once you learn how to write an effective outline, you’ll find that doing so will help you write not just faster, but better. 

The type of outlines that are utilized today are beat sheet outlines. Beat sheets are very similar to the age-old method of writing scenes on note cards where you write a single sentence describing a scene (the location, what characters are present, and what is happening in that scene) on a single note card, and then proceed to write additional scene note cards to assemble the story structure for a script. 

Beat sheet outlines do this using a numbered bullet point form on a document where you start from the opening scene, and write nearly every scene from beginning to the end of the script using each bullet point to describe a new scene. 

You can then mix, match, and reorder the scene however you would like, no different than how screenwriters would use the notecard approach. 

Final Draft screenwriting software has an excellent Beat Board feature that helps you to write an effective beat sheet outline for your script. You can also just open a new document, create a numbered bullet point list, and start envisioning your script by briefly describing each scene you plan to use to tell your cinematic tale. 

Your beat sheet outline should include:

Character introductions as they happen in the script Every major story beat/scene Key turning points Set pieces and sequences Emotional arcs      

For every beat/bullet point, use one-to-a-few sentences to describe where the scene takes place, who is in the scene, and what is happening. When you read your eventual outline, it should read as a visual layout of your whole script from beginning to end. 

Here’s an example from Star Wars of what these beats could look like:

We’re in the silence of space until a fleeing spaceship is being bombarded by weapon blasts from a pursuing gigantic enemy space ship. One blast causes a huge explosion on the hull of the fleeing ship.  Within the fleeing ship, the crew reacts to the explosion, rocking them side to side. In particular, two droids (C3PO and R2D2) react and explain that the main reactor has been shut down, and there will be no escape for the princess this time. The droids and crew react to a loud sound.  In space, we see the fleeing space ship floating into the belly of the enemy ship. They’ve been taken by a retractor beam.  Armed crewmen react as they line up in defensive positions down a long corridor leading to an access door until the DOOR EXPLODES. Enemy STORMTROOPERS come through the now-destroyed door firing their blasters, starting a firefight that leads to multiple casualties on both sides.  Down another corridor, our two droid friends maneuver through another firefight.  Back by the exploded door, stormtroopers stand at attention as DARTH VADER enters. He’s a menacing figure dressed in all-black armor. He makes his way deeper into the ship with purpose. 

A scene-by-scene bullet point outline helps to communicate the structure and pacing of your story, allowing you the ability to make any necessary and key changes before you’ve embedded them into the actual script. 

Under pro contracts the outline is essential to the collaboration process between screenwriters and development executives, producers, and directors. 

But in your own development process, the outline helps you to write the skeleton of your script before you add the “meat” and texture when you get to the writing process. 

By the End of Month One, You Should Have…

A strong logline A short synopsis A detailed beat sheet outline

Now you’re ready to write.

Month Two - The Writing Process

This is the second act of your three-month journey, where the work of writing begins. 

The key to writing and finishing a script within three months (or less)? Writing sessions. 

Ten-Page Writing Sessions

Writing in writing sessions (rather than focusing on how many minutes/hours/days you write) is one of the most effective ways to write fast, and write well. 

Here’s the approach:

Write in focused sessions with no time goals Aim to write 10 pages each session Before you write another 10 pages, read the prior pages you’ve written (read more on that below). This helps you to stay on the same page with yourself each time.  As you read previous pages, tweak them as needed. This helps you to rewrite the script as you go.  Even when you’re ready to start writing Page 51, you should read the previous 50 pages before you do. 

If you write 10 pages per writing session, you can complete a 100-page (give or take) screenplay in just 10 writing sessions throughout Month Two of this three-month screenwriting process. 

10 pages per writing session may sound intimidating at first, but it’s easier than you think, especially with your outline in hand. And before you consider breaking any records by writing 30 pages or more per writing session, it’s best to keep it to 10 pages (give or take one or two) so you leave each writing session wanting to write more. This will help fuel you to stay engaged in the writing process, and also help you avoid writer’s block and burnout. 

What Does the Ten-Page Writing Process Do for You?

It helps you to write faster, and ensure that you finish the script in a timely manner. It also takes away the pressure of feeling the need to write for huge blocks of time. 

When you focus on writing sessions, there’s no time limit. You can certainly spend eight hours during one session. But you can also write ten pages in an hour if you have already outlined what you’re going to write for the next writing session. 

By the End of Month Two, You Should Have…

A complete first draft Roughly 90-110 pages, which is the sweet spot for spec scripts

This second month obviously leaves extra time. When you finish that script by the end of 10 writing sessions, you can feel free to do another read of what will be the whole first draft. Tweak and refine as you go, and then put the script away for a week or two. Give yourself time to be able to do that. This step is a vital one as you go into Month Three.

Don’t look at the script, don’t talk about it, don’t think about it, don’t share it with anyone. Take a short vacation from it. This will help you approach the script objectively as you move into the next step of writing.

Month Three - Rewriting and Polishing

Now comes the third act of your three-month screenwriting process, where good scripts become great ones. Rewriting is where the magic happens. Luckily, you’ve been rewriting and refining your script throughout the whole process so far already. Now’s the time to make your script really shine.

Read Your Script as a Reader 

Now is the time to open that script up again after your one-to-two week break, sit down, and read it from beginning to end. No stopping. No editing. Just experience the script from a reader’s perspective. 

Ask yourself:

Does the story flow? Are there slow sections that halt the momentum? Are the stakes clear and high enough? Do the characters feel consistent? Does the dialogue drag or pop? 

You can take notes as you go, but resist rewriting on this first read. After that, it’s time to roll up your creative sleeves and get to work. 

1. First Rewrite Pass - The Big Picture

This is the big picture rewrite where you need to address structure, character arcs, pacing, and stakes. Don’t get lost in dialogue tweaks yet. This is all about giving a pass on the big picture of your script. 

This first pass you can do within a few days. 

2. Second Rewrite Pass -  Plants, Playoffs, and Foreshadowing

This is probably the most fun rewrite pass because you get to pepper your script with creative plants, payoffs, and foreshadowing. Script readers get bored. If your script is routine and bland, they’re not going to hand it up to their bosses. But if they see creative plot, story, and character plants that are later paid off in the script, they’re going to take notice of that. 

Find ways to accomplish this throughout your scripts, both with A and B stories and stories and characters, as well as C stories and characters. 

Once again, you can take a few days to do this. 

3. Third Rewrite Pass - Cut the Fat and “Kill Your Darlings”

Your script needs to shed some weight. Hollywood wants lean and mean muscle machines for spec scripts. Those are the types of scripts that are memorable reads where no line of dialogue or scene/sequence is a waste. Dive into your script and see what absolutely doesn’t need to be there. 

Anything that stops the flow of your story needs to go, even if you’re cutting great dialogue or amazing scenes. If they don’t serve the story and keep the pacing going, they need to go. 

A few days on this pass will do the trick. 

4. Fourth Rewrite Pass - The Polish Draft

You now have a sleek, lean, fast, and furious machine rolling off of the line. But you’re not done just yet. It’s time to polish any tiny scuffs, no matter how small. 

Do a dialogue trim and make sure every word is there for a reason.  Check your format and make sure it’s not overly busy.  Run a spelling and grammar check. Remove unnecessary exposition. 

By the End of Month Three, You Should Have…

A polished draft ready for screenplay contest submission You’ll also have a strong logline and short synopsis for any networking opportunities. 

Congratulations! You’re Writing Like a Pro Now and Making Those Deadlines

Whether you’re racing toward a contest deadline or training yourself to write under pro deadlines, if you commit to this process, you’ll build habits that will make you a better and more proficient screenwriter.

Yes, Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, involves a time machine. Yes, it’s packed with action, comedy, and chaos. But for Grabinski, who co-created Netflix’s Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, the real engine of the story isn’t the sci-fi: it’s the emotional and comedic potential of a character forced to confront a version of himself with whom he has some big issues. 

We sat down with writer/director BenDavid Grabinski to find out how he combined all these elements to make a highly satisfying, fun movie starring Vince Vaughn, James Marsden and Eiza Gonzalez. 

Turning Time Travel into Character Conflict

We asked Grabinski what inspired him to write a total genre mashup. “I wanted to make a buddy action comedy I hadn’t seen before, and I wanted to make a time travel movie with a bunch of lovable idiots who aren’t scientists.”

Grabinski admits he’s not a research guy and wasn’t interested in a rules-based exploration of time travel mechanics like worm holes or infinite universes. Instead, he was excited to experiment with people pre and post their character arcs. Surprisingly, he says he was inspired by Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.  

“I felt like it would be really interesting to see Scrooge at the end of the story having to deal with Scrooge at the beginning of the story,” he says. “An enlightened version of a character having to deal with a less enlightened version.”

That idea, essentially pitting first-act Scrooge against third-act Scrooge, became the main dramatic device in Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice. Putting together two versions of the same character, Present Nick (Vince Vaughn) and Future Nick (also Vince Vaughn), you get enormous tension.

It’s a deceptively simple construct, but one that’s comedic (because of the absurdity) and dramatic (because of the life and death stakes). It’s also psychological because it explores the idea that we are our own worst enemies.

For Grabinski, that’s the real function of the time machine.

“The time machine is a device to create the emotional thing of, ‘What if you could try to get your younger self to get their shit together,’” he says. “You do the time machine so you can have the emotional and comedic conflict, not because time travel is fun.”

It’s a philosophy that aligns with some of the most enduring genre films. Grabinski points to Back to the Future as an example.

“The time travel in that movie is just so you can see what it would be like to hang out with the 16-year-old version of your dad,” he says. “It’s a way to create a dramatic or comedic function.”

The “One Night” Structure

Once Grabinski had the central dynamic, he needed a structure that could hold it all together in a way that made sense and was satisfying. His solution was to use the “one night gone wrong” framework.

“I thought the thing that would make it simpler and contained is making a one-night movie,” he says. “A bunch of characters who have to survive the night. Will they still be alive in the morning? Will they resolve their differences by the time the sun comes up?”

It’s a classic structural device that naturally creates urgency, escalation, and momentum. By compressing the timeline, Grabinski ensures that every decision carries immediate consequences, and that the narrative drive never stalls.

For writers, it’s a reminder that when you’re juggling multiple genres like action, comedy, sci-fi, constraint can be your best ally.

Eiza González in 'Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice'

Writing Two Versions of a Character

On the page, writing two versions of the same character might seem like a logistical challenge. For Grabinski, it was a blast.

“The dynamics you get with yourself are funny and relatable,” he says. “There’s no one you have more conflict with than yourself. As they say, you’re your own worst enemy and that’s great for entertainment.”

By leaning into that idea, Grabinski avoids one of the common pitfalls of high-concept writing: relying on external stakes without anchoring them in personal stakes.

Eiza González, James Marsden, Vince Vaughn in 'Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice'

A Good Read Vs. the Shooting Draft

Grabinski told us how he encountered an unexpected problem during production that illustrates the difference between writing a script that makes an entertaining read and writing an effective shooting script.

In the screenplay, he intentionally withheld the reveal that a character was Future Nick, labeling him simply as “Nick” to preserve the surprise for the reader. It worked on the page, but not on set.

“We had a scene where Vince Vaughn got put in the wrong costume,” Grabinski says. “And I was like, how did this happen? And then I realized – it’s because of how I wrote it.”

Because the film was shot out of order, the ambiguity that made the script engaging became a liability for the crew.

“The script is designed to be as entertaining as possible. But once you’re shooting, it’s a functional blueprint designed to get departments to do the correct thing,” he says, adding, “The next movie I make, I’m going to rewrite the script into something much more boring just to make sure there’s no room for error.”

At the end of the day, the draft that sells the movie and the shooting draft are not always the same document.

James Marsden in 'Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice'

Maintaining Tone Across Genres

With a film that blends action, comedy, and sci-fi, tonal consistency becomes one of the more difficult but most important tasks. For Grabinski, there’s no formula. 

“It’s really your gut,” he says. “Sometimes something might be too funny, so you’re not going to get the emotional catharsis. Sometimes something might be so emotional that it feels a little ham-fisted, so you want to undercut it.”

The key is balance across the entire film.

“It’s about what is the most engaging thing in the moment that also doesn’t feel like it’s violating the world you created,” he says, adding, “I didn’t want to make something that feels unhinged. The movie is insane in a way that I hope is charming but it’s not haphazard.”

Building a North Star

If there’s a single takeaway from Grabinski’s process, it’s the importance of having a clear internal compass.

“You have to have your own internal North Star of what you’re trying to do,” he says. “Otherwise, it’s just chaos.”

In Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, that guiding principle is to use every tool from time travel, to action and comedy to explore character. Because at the end of the night, the question isn’t just whether these characters will survive. It’s whether they’ve changed.

Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice is currently streaming on Hulu. 

It all comes down to this moment: the climax of your story.

Everything has been leading up to this point. It’s a showdown between hero and villain, the time when an underdog team makes a triumphant play, or when the protagonist faces their final test. Regardless of the climax, it only matters if everything that came before it resonates with the audience and makes them care.

So, what is the climax of a story? And what steps can you take when writing your screenplay to make it satisfying and exciting?

What is a Storytelling Climax?

A storytelling climax is the moment when the central question of the story is finally answered. By the time the climax arrives, the stakes are at their highest for the protagonist. This is the point where they must act, and whatever happens determines how the story resolves.

A strong climax also forces the protagonist to show how they’ve changed. Often, they must apply a lesson learned during the story, or confront the flaw that once held them back. The storytelling climax is more than winning or losing; it’s about delivering an emotional payoff, making the journey feel meaningful, and providing a satisfying resolution.

A Climax in Every Story We Tell

If you’re talking to friends or family, there is likely a climax in the story you’re sharing. We’re hard-wired for stories going back to the campfire and cave days of long ago. Call it a climax or a punchline, we build up stories in hopes to engage our audience, whether they are millions of viewers or a couple of people around a table.

Here are some examples:

Parenting: My child learned to crawl and has been holding themselves up on furniture, then last night, they finally took their first step and we were all so happy. Every Day: I was at the grocery store and they didn’t have something I needed, so I went to another one nearby and they were out too. Finally, I found it online and it arrived within 2 hours. Career: I’ve had three interviews with a company I want to work for, and they called back today. I didn’t get it.

Not all resolutions are happy endings, but they should be satisfying. Let’s take a look at what happens before and after a storytelling climax.

What Happens Before and After a Climax?

Most of a movie takes place before the climax, and often very little happens afterward. Failing to focus on the introduction of the protagonist and other characters, the inciting incident, and the rising action will likely leave your movie feeling unsatisfying, if the audience hasn’t bailed on it by then.

Before the Climax

As most of the movie will happen before the climax, this should be the main focus leading up to the ending. Whether you’re using the Hero’s Journey, Freytag’s Pyramid, or a standard 3-Act structure, the first part of your story should establish the ordinary world of your protagonist. 

In Captain America: The First Avenger, it’s Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), small and weak, exhibiting love for country and a desire to serve but failing to enlist in the army.

Then there is an inciting incident. This pushes the protagonist forward into a journey that will change their life. For most superhero movies, it’s the sudden presence of the villain who threatens their world, or it might be Santa Claus falling off a roof (The Santa Clause).

Now, the rising action commences. This is the bulk of the character’s journey as they are tested and their flaws exposed, and they must face some challenges and obstacles. Each moment may be a win or a loss but it gets them closer to a final epic showdown - maybe with themselves, a nearly impossible villain or some other force. That showdown is the climax.

Chris Evans and Stanley Tucci in 'Captain America: The First Avenger'

After the Climax

This becomes the resolution of the story. Your protagonist now returns back to their world a changed person. Generally, this wraps things up and concludes the story.

Climaxes can be extremely short. In Rocky, after the climactic fight, Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) cries out for Adrian (Talia Shire) who comes down to the ring, hugs him and the movie ends.

Other times, it may go longer. Think of it like the end of a roller coaster: after all the excitement, everyone wants to get off the ride and go their own way, so it’s good to not keep the movie going too long after the climax.

How to Write a Climax

Writing a strong climax means delivering on the promise your story has been making since the first scene. Every challenge, setback and revelation should point toward this moment.

Start by putting your protagonist in a position where they must act. The situation should force a decision that cannot be delayed or avoided; this is the moment the hero saves the day or the athlete enters the match they’ve been training for. Basically, whatever happens next will determine the outcome of the story.

The climax should also require that the protagonist uses what they’ve learned during the journey, such as Luke using the Force or Rocky using his training. That also means that, earlier in the story they may have failed due to any number of factors: fear, pride, selfishness or inexperience, for example.

Climaxes are when stakes should be at their highest and the obstacles at their greatest, for example, a death star is going to destroy a planet (Star Wars: A New Hope) or Harry will lose Sally forever (When Harry Met Sally).

Remember, this moment should center on the core conflict of the story without introducing new complications.

Tips for Writing a Satisfying Climax

No matter what type of ending you choose, the climax must make sense for the story you’ve been telling. Audiences accept surprising or even devastating outcomes, but they will hate-post about an ending that feels disconnected from the protagonist’s journey.

There are several common types of climaxes used in films and television. Here is a breakdown of the different climaxes you can use in your story as well as a few narrative climax examples in movies and TV:

Surprise: Delivers an unexpected outcome that still fits the story’s logic. Examples: Memento and The Sixth Sense Tragic: Ends in loss or failure for the protagonist, however, even if the hero loses, makes the wrong choice or pays a heavy price, the ending still works. Examples: Rocky and Titanic Moral: The protagonist must decide between two things they care deeply about; but usually they end up picking one that shows their growth or integrity versus the easy way. Examples: Tony Stark in Avengers: Endgame and Breaking Bad Suspense: In this case, the outcome hangs in the balance until the very last moment. Examples: Jaws, Silence of the Lambs, and Armageddon Ironic: This climax is opposite of what characters expect, often highlighting a theme or flaw within the story. Example: The original Planet of the Apes and Se7en

Occasionally, screenwriters use an anti-climax where the expected dramatic payoff is intentionally avoided. An example is No Country for Old Men which uses this technique to emphasize theme over spectacle; in fact, the Coen Brothers often have an anti-climax in their films.

The best tips for writing a satisfying climax include picking one of the types above and ensuring it fits the type of story you are telling. Also, make sure it revolves around your protagonist and forces them to make a decision. The climax should be tied to your character’s growth and resolving the main question from the very beginning.

Kate Freund is an actor, writer, and director whose new film, Pretty Lethal, which she stars in and wrote, just premiered at SXSW to an enthusiastic crowd. Seriously, if you’ve never been in a festival crowd that’s cheering for butt-kicking ballerinas, you’re missing out.

Directed by Vicky Jewson and starring Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Uma Thurman, Millicent Simmonds, and Iris Apatow, the story follows five American dancers traveling to Budapest for a competition. They are stranded in a remote stretch of Hungarian countryside and end up taking shelter at an inn that turns out to be a gangster haven. After they’re taken captive, they’re forced to weaponize their training to survive.

The story started as a spec Freund wrote in 2009 after watching Taken. It took 10 years, multiple rewrites, and a lot of no’s to get to that SXSW standing ovation, and Final Draft was able to sit down to hear what she learned in the process.

Write the Story Only You Can Tell

The spec market has its highs and lows, but one thing that will always come through the noise is a personal story told well. And now, we seem to be in a time when original stories will be seen as more valuable.

"I really wanted to develop something where women had agency,” Freund said. “I don't know about you, but my dad, he's great at a tax return. He's great at doing a car lease. My dad's not grabbing a gun and going to save me.” 

That provided the spark. With no Liam Neeson in your life, how would that movie go differently?

“It just made me think of what would happen if a man wasn't coming to save me. I have this amazing group of girlfriends that I've grown up with. One of them is a black belt. What would happen in this situation? We would fight back together. And that's something for me that I've always wanted to see."

Protect Your Premise

Freund’s story is an ensemble actioner with young female leads and a female villain. Filmmakers with unique ideas eventually confront the business side, and until a team was willing to take a risk on Pretty Lethal, she heard a lot of “no.”

"I had written this as a spec script. I went out with it for two years, and everyone said, 'No, you're crazy. This will never work. You cannot do female action, ensemble, and have the girls survive and fight back without a guy.’”

She was given feedback and assurances that certain changes would get the movie made.

"I even had one executive tell me, 'Look, Kate, I love this script. I love this premise. If you just change this to a boy's baseball team, we can greenlight this.' And I was like, 'I can't do that. I can't do that.' And also, as a writer, I think I'm going to get replaced with a male writer as soon as something like that happens. So there's no way."

In an action/thriller spec script, you might think there are certain rules you have to follow as a writer. Freund was told she was breaking several genre conventions.

"Everyone was like, 'You need a final girl. We hate Princess [Condor]. Princess does not deserve to live.' And I'm like, 'Yeah, Princess, she's a privileged little lady, but I don't want her to die. I want her to get redemption.'” 

The genre conventions you do like, you can lean into.

“Sometimes the world is so dark, but if you can pop on an action movie and there's a clear sense of right and wrong, and there's this strong moral compass that pushes you to want to be a better person and help somebody or fight for someone, it just really lights me up."

Uma Thurman in 'Pretty Lethal'

Build Internal Logic Into Your Action

Through this process, Freund continued to work on ways to share her story. Eventually, she created a music video to show dancers and how they could creatively use those tools as weapons, which is something that made it into the feature.

Almost all of the action set pieces in the film are tied to dance and ballet, so the action feels thematically tied to the characters and consistent. They carry blades to customize their shoes; a blade eventually gets stuck on a toe box and used as a weapon.

"Just being hit with a ballet shoe, the box is a thin concrete,” Freund said. “If you get smacked with that, you're going to break your nose. So it's like you can have them kick and you can also have them have the blade and just be slicing throats."

Later, the characters leave Freund’s character tied up and gagged, and the usage of props continues. (Their bindings are just tights the dancers would have in their bag.)

"And the little ball that they put inside my mouth is a massage ball that you would use on your shoulder or [for] rolling out your feet, but they stick it in my mouth,”  she said. “And everything that they use, aside from when they're in the kitchen and they're grabbing a knife … everything is coming from that ballet bag."

Maddie Ziegler in 'Pretty Lethal'

Be Willing to Rewrite Everything

If there’s one thing she learned on this project, Freund said it was flexibility. She went through many, many rewrites.

"Originally, the script was set in the South, and it was in a brothel, and then that was considered a little too dangerous. So director Vicky Jewson came onto the project in 2021, and she's English and was like, 'I'd love to set this in Europe. Are you open to it?' And I said, 'Absolutely.'” 

They moved the story to Scotland, but then their studio at the time wanted a Russia-set story. Then the war broke out, so they nixed that. They moved to the Czech Republic, couldn’t get stages, and changed to Serbia. But, again, there was an issue.

“And then it was the problem of insurance, and everyone going, 'Oh, do we want to be in Serbia? We can get an amazing, amazing location in Budapest. Will you rewrite it for Budapest?' Rewrote it again for Budapest."

Do Table Reads. Seriously.

This is advice we’ve heard multiple times, including recently from Jim Cummings and PJ McCabe. You must hear your writing out loud.

"Do not give up, and do table reads,” Freund said. “Even if you have friends who you're like, ‘Oh, they're not the greatest actor,’ who cares? You need to hear it out loud and be open to notes. Don't be so locked in that you can't bend, because at the end of the day, you want the project to live."

Spec Scripts Still Matter

Freund ended our conversation on a hopeful note.

"We're told so often that it doesn't matter, but it's like...and with the threat of AI, it's like, no, we do need original ideas. We do need spec scripts. [Pretty Lethal] is a spec script. If I can do it, you can do it."

Pretty Lethal is now streaming on Prime Video.

Something Very Bad is Going to Happen is the new Netflix horror series that follows a bride and groom in the week leading up to their doomed wedding. With the hook right in the title, the show sets up five days of sheer terror inside the mundane events of wedding prep. 

Created by 32-year-old Haley Z. Boston and executive produced by Matt and Ross Duffer, the eight-episode show is being hailed as the Duffer Brothers’ hotly anticipated follow up to Stranger Things. The show is a slow-burn psychological thriller that keeps viewers guessing about what kind of story they’re watching until deep into the season.

Camila Morrone in 'Something Very Bad is Going to Happen'

Discovering Horror (and Screenwriting)

Whip-smart and a natural observer, Boston grew up in the Pacific Northwest, far from Hollywood. “My parents are both doctors, and that’s what I thought I would do,” she says.

Movies eventually changed that trajectory. One of the first films to leave a strong impression was I Am Legend, which she saw at age eleven. “It was so scary, and actually turned me off from horror,” she laughs.

A few years later, another film changed her mind about what cinema could be. “When I was 14, I was at water polo boot camp, and I saw Kill Bill Vol. 1. And I was like, a movie can be this?”

With her mind blown, she quickly fell down a rabbit hole of screenwriting and genre. Quentin Tarantino’s scripts became early inspirations, along with Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay for The Social Network and Diablo Cody’s Juno. “I started reading scripts and thinking, this is interesting. I don’t know how you make a living doing this, but it’s interesting.”

Boston eventually attended Northwestern University to study film, where professors encouraged her writing. After graduating, she followed a traditional Hollywood path: moving to Los Angeles and working as an assistant at a talent agency. Within a few years, she was represented and landed her first television writing job at age 24 on Netflix’s surreal horror series Brand New Cherry Flavor. After that, she wrote for Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities and Prime Video’s Hunters. 

Building Horror Around Commitment

The seed for Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen came from an emotional theme. “I wanted to explore the fear of commitment,” Boston says.

She was also inspired by the Apple TV+ series Servant and its ability to sustain mystery over multiple episodes. “It keeps you guessing on what it is: Is she crazy? Is he crazy? Is it supernatural? Is it a cult? That’s what I wanted to do with this show.”

In Boston’s series, the genre itself becomes part of the suspense. The audience isn’t told exactly what kind of horror story they’re watching until after the midpoint. “I’m basically saying, I’m not going to tell you what the very bad thing is at all and you have to kind of play along.”

But before she wrote a single page, Boston knew one thing. “I had to come up with the ending first,” she says.

From there, the project simmered in her mind for nearly a year before she began drafting the pilot. “I was just thinking about it all the time and writing notes to myself, writing emails to myself. It was like a year of doing that before I actually started writing.”

Karla Crome, Camila Morrone, and Gus Birney in 'Something Very Bad is Going to Happen'

The Horror of Meeting the Family

While the series centers on a looming wedding, much of its tension comes from the bride Rachel (Camila Morrone), meeting her fiancé’s family for the first time. Boston drew from the universal fear of stepping into an unfamiliar family dynamic. “I wanted to capture the feeling of meeting your significant other’s family for the first time,” she says.

Rachel’s first glimpse at the Cunningham family is deliberately heightened and disorienting.

“When we meet them, we’re always in Rachel’s POV, and they’re very strange,” Boston says. “She’s seeing danger everywhere, so she’s sort of reading into this dynamic.”

The Cunninghams’ eccentricities, from taxidermy of the family pets to the legend of a serial killer called The Sorry Man, really begin to ramp up Rachel’s anxiety. Over time, the characters reveal themselves as more human but with big secrets. “You get to know the family a bit better, and you realize why everyone is the way they are. Then they become more like a normal, dysfunctional family.”

At the center of that dynamic is Victoria, the formidable matriarch played by a chillingly rigid Jennifer Jason Leigh. Boston approached the character not as a villain but as a mother whose love has warped into something controlling. “She just loves her son so much, and she wants to protect him,” Boston says. “And that’s harmful to him.”

Jennifer Jason Leigh in 'Something Very Bad is Going to Happen'

Finding the Structure

Early versions of the pilot were dramatically different from what appears in the final show.

“In the first draft of the pilot, they don’t meet the family at all,” Boston says. “It’s just a road trip.” Eventually, the series evolved into a more structured format built around the days leading up to the wedding which creates an effective ticking clock, upping the tension. 

Boston credits fellow writer Kate Trefry, who worked on Stranger Things, with helping refine the structure. “She helped me figure out how to structure the season in a way that would still maintain what the show was but give it something people can hang a hat on.”

The lesson became one of Boston’s biggest takeaways as a writer. “If you want to do weird in your art, you still have to give the audience something that’s familiar for them to grasp onto,” she says. In this case, it’s simply the wedding schedule itself: dress fittings, rehearsal dinners, and other rituals leading up to the ceremony.

“It can be very simple,” she says. “Like, this is the day we’re doing the dress fitting. Then you can mess with it and make it weird and crazy.”

Mentorship from the Duffer Brothers

After Boston wrote the pilot, she pitched the series to Matt and Ross Duffer, the creators of Stranger Things, who came aboard as executive producers through their Upside Down Pictures banner. Boston had been a fan of their work long before meeting them. “I watched the whole first season in one sitting with my older brother and his friends,” she says. “I even dressed up as Joyce for Halloween.”

Working with the Duffers provided both creative support and mentorship. “They really wanted to support me and my vision,” Boston says. “They used their influence to protect me from having someone else come in.”

The brothers also gave her advice that shaped her approach as a first-time showrunner. “The biggest thing they taught me was how to stay true to your vision,” she says. “There are so many collaborators in television, and that’s wonderful, but it can be easy to get lost.”

Their solution was simple: follow the internal compass that guided the project from the beginning: “You have to follow your North Star.”

Camila Morrone in 'Something Very Bad is Going to Happen'

Writing Horror That Feels Real

Despite its dark premise, Boston approaches horror from an emotional perspective rather than a purely genre-driven one. Before layering in supernatural elements, she focused on Rachel’s psychological journey.

“I took Rachel’s emotional journey and wrote it out. I looked at the reality of someone getting married and the week leading up to her wedding. How is she feeling?”

Only after mapping that internal arc did she add the horror elements. “Once I had that figured out, I was able to add the genre elements so that the horror felt very tied to her emotional experience. You’re following this character on their path. You figure out what their arc is, and then figure out how to throw obstacles at them,” she says. 

Advice for Screenwriters

Boston’s advice to aspiring writers is familiar but one she believes deeply. “It’s easy to follow trends and think, horror is in or whatever,” she says. “But the best things just come from you. Write what you would want to see.”

That authenticity, she says, is what ultimately leads to work that feels unique and terrifying in all the right ways.

Something Very Bad is Going to Happen is now streaming on Netflix. 

Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) is a middle school science teacher. His kids love him and he enjoys what he does. He’s also extremely smart, which is why he gets recruited to an ambitious program designed to figure out why the sun is dying.

Project Hail Mary is the second novel by Andy Weir, whose first novel-turned-movie, The Martian, made audiences experience life on Mars and what it takes to survive on your own with no chance of anyone showing up to help for months.

Written for the screen by Drew Goddard, adapting Project Hail Mary felt like a near-impossible task, especially considering how technical the book was and how much of it revolves around a central character who does a lot of internal thinking. Goddard, who also wrote The Martian, accomplished this feat by creating a relatable, empathetic character without all that science getting in the way of telling an emotional story.

Writing the Everyman

“I love watching competent people do their jobs,” Goddard said in an IndieWire interview. “We’re not doing a story about the world’s greatest astronaut. We’re going to start with a schoolteacher’s point of view. On a core level, ‘the school teacher saves the universe’ sounds preposterous, and yet felt so right to me.”

While most of the audience won’t have the expertise that Grace does, the fact that he is a teacher makes him instantly relatable. Everyone who sees the movie has had some form of a teacher in their life; in fact, most can fondly remember one that had a lasting impact – Grace becomes that teacher.

Most people can also understand that being a middle school teacher is a hard-to-do, low-paying job. When this “everyman” is called upon to save the planet, it’s easier for the audience to go on the journey with him, because many feel in the same boat as he does; struggling to make ends meet in a draining job, and dreaming of doing something more than what one is doing now.

But still, writing dialogue for a smart character who knows science and engineering has its challenges. Goddard knew he wasn’t smarter than Weir, someone who went college for computer science and was a software programmer before writing novels, so he defined his job as a screenwriter as someone capturing how smart people sound rather than what they say.

“I grew up around scientists in Los Alamos, New Mexico” Goddard said in a RogerEbert.com interview. “I know what geniuses sound like, and my job is to capture that. And then when I would screw it up, Andy (Weir) was always there to say, like, ‘I know what you’re trying to say here, but the smarter way to say it is this way.’ So, it was very much a collaboration.”

Ryan Gosling in 'Project Hail Mary'

Writing Technical Science-y Stuff in a Screenplay

Fortunately, Goddard knew that Weir had the science part covered so he could focus on emotions.

“It’s how I structure everything I do; no matter the genre, it’s an emotional journey,” Goddard said in his IndieWire interview. “What I care about is the love of science and the purpose of science — not the science itself.”

It’s okay if the audience doesn’t understand the science. I mean, does anyone understand what the ER doctors are saying in any number of medical shows, or the forensics team on a cop show? In fact, in Star Wars, no one knew what a Jedi, the Force, C3PO, R2D2 or how a ship made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs, when the film first came out.

“It’s OK if they don’t understand,” says Goddard. “As long as the emotional intent is pure, audiences will go with it…As long as the emotions are clear, the rest will take care of itself.”

When a Non-Linear Story is More Than Flashbacks

Project Hail Mary is a film that takes place in two different times: the past and the present.

In the present time, Grace has been traveling for decades in an induced coma inside a ship headed toward the single star in the universe that isn’t dying. Upon waking, he seems confused about why he’s there, and roams around the ship in a self-destructive state not accepting his reality. He soon meets a fellow traveler from a different planet who begins communication, and they forge a bond that could possibly help them save the galaxy.

The past is shown through flashbacks centered on Grace’s time on earth as he helps discover what is causing the planets to die and how to possibly fix it. At first they seem like standard flashbacks, but as the movie continues, they reveal information that changes the audience's perception of the present day.

It’s not easy to write non-linear, but keeping the two intertwined and disclosing information slowly makes the impact of flashbacks more meaningful to the entire story. In Project Hail Mary, it helps the audience feel closer to the protagonist, making his journey feel earned and inevitable.

The flashbacks answer not only how he got there, but why he was the only one who could do it.

Ryan Gosling in 'Project Hail Mary'

Write Original, Find Inspiration

“Whenever you’re doing anything that feels bold or different, I’ve learned, people are going to push back against it. There’s a human quality in what we do that you feel comforted if it’s been done already,” said Goddard in the IndieWire interview. “So, anytime something’s different, and you take a chance on something, there’s an initial reaction to say, ‘No…it feels weird. I don’t understand this.'”

As different as Project Hail Mary is, and despite the challenges of adapting the book into a coherent film, Goddard pressed forward, using long-established structures to make the movie feel bold and distinct while still retaining familiar elements.

“I see James Cameron’s influence on structure. He, from my point of view, for big event movies, there’s nobody better at structure,” Goddard shared in a Variety interview. “If you look at something like Titanic, we meet two kids, they fall in love, we root for them, the ship hits the iceberg. These movies are about two individuals dealing with these big emotional things in the middle of wildly complicated situations.”

The same is true for The Abyss, True Lies and The Terminator, as well as Project Hail Mary with the alien Grace meets and names Rocky.

“Creating a believable but relatable Rocky was the greatest challenge,” Goddard said in the Variety interview. “He can’t talk. He speaks in whale sounds. They don’t even have the same atmosphere. That’s preposterous, because you’ve got a boy in a bubble scenario without a face.” And yet, just like with Cameron’s films, Goddard could take the ideas of two individuals who are dealing with big emotional moments and turn it into a relatable story.

If there is a lesson screenwriters can take away from Project Hail Mary, it’s that Goddard had to think like an engineer to write the screenplay.

“There’s an engineering mindset where they just don’t take no for an answer. There’s no right or wrong with an engineer. It’s just, ‘We haven’t figured it out yet.’ That is the way they approach any problem. It’s not that they failed to solve it. It’s that they just haven’t solved it yet,” Goddard said in the RogerEbert.com interview.

So, if you find yourself struggling to find the right beats of the story, discover something isn’t working or plot holes are becoming the size of sinkholes, remember that it’s not a matter of failing to find the right answer, but knowing that it hasn’t been solved yet.