Screenwriting starts here. 

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.

When literary manager Trent Anderson reads a screenplay for Final Draft's Big Break Screenwriting Contest, he’s not just looking for a polished script. He’s looking for a writer with a distinct voice. 

As Head of Literary at Luber Roklin Entertainment, he reads tons of material every day from both aspiring and professional writers. The scripts that always stand out are the ones that feel deeply personal and unique to the writers behind them.

Finding His Passion 

Anderson’s path into the film industry wasn’t exactly traditional. “I was trading commodities,” he says. “Just the most boring thing ever.”

But when a mentor from his high school arts program pointed out how passionate Anderson was when he talked about movies and storytelling, he had a lightbulb moment. Maybe he should think about becoming a film producer, even though he admits he didn’t fully understand what producers actually did at the time.

“I liked the idea of putting people together,” he says.

While still in college, he began interning at production companies, eventually receiving advice that would shape his career: Start in talent representation.

Instead of the traditional agency mailroom route, Anderson joined boutique manager Joanne Horowitz, where the small size of the company meant he was quickly exposed to every side of the business. From there, Anderson moved to Anonymous Content, first working with actors before transitioning to the literary side of the business. “I wanted to be on the lit side with the people who were creating all these opportunities,” he says.

He eventually began representing writers and directors and producing projects that grew out of client relationships. “Every producing opportunity I’ve had has come from clients and developing material with them from the ground up,” Anderson says, which is exactly what he loves doing now at Luber Roklin. 

The Most Important Thing He Looks for in a Big Break Script

When Anderson evaluates scripts for Big Break, he asks the same question when deciding whether to represent a writer: Does the writer have a distinctive voice?

While that question can sound a bit vague, Anderson clarifies it this way.

“I’m always looking for something that feels like the person who’s writing it is the only person who could have written it. If it feels like it could be written by anyone, then that’s not really interesting to me,” he says.

The Mistake Many Writers Make

After reading scripts from emerging writers across competitions, representation submissions, and professional channels, Anderson sees one mistake repeatedly: Too many writers chase trends.

“I think people often try to chase what’s working right now. If a show like The Bear becomes popular, scripts that are similar start popping up.”

He says that approach misses the point of why those projects succeed. “The reason that show stood out is because it didn’t feel like anything we were seeing,” Anderson says.

Even more importantly, the development timeline for film and television means trend-chasing rarely works. “These things take so long that by the time anything is going to get made, the trend you’re chasing has already moved on.”

That doesn’t mean writers should ignore the marketplace entirely. Anderson still reads material with an eye toward what could realistically sell.

“Good writing will always stand out,” he says. “But good writing that also feels like there’s a market for it is really the thing that lands with me.”

Advice for Writers Entering Big Break

For writers submitting to Big Break or any major competition, Anderson encourages them to focus less on what they think the industry wants and more on the stories they genuinely want to tell. He points to advice often shared by Jordan Peele.

“When he’s writing a script, he always says he’s trying to write his favorite movie,” Anderson says. “What’s the thing that you’re not seeing out there that, if you could, you’d go see in theaters this weekend?” 

That’s the script writers should be trying to write.

Thinking Like a Producer

Anderson also encourages writers to think about the practical side of the business, something many emerging screenwriters overlook: At some point, someone will have to try to sell the script.

“A lot of times writers say, ‘I’m going to write this thing I love, and you should just go out and sell it,’” he says.

But selling a project requires a salesman in the form of a manager, agent, or producer, who must pitch it to buyers, follow up, and convince people to take a chance on it.

“Someone has to go make the phone call,” Anderson says. “They have to ask someone to read it. They have to pitch it for you.”

That means writers should think strategically about the kind of project they’re creating. “You want to give them the tools and set them up for success so that you’re making their job as easy as possible.”

Standing Out in a Crowded Field

The reality, Anderson says, is that breaking into screenwriting has never been more difficult. “There’s more competition than ever. There are more people trying to do this than ever,” he says.

That’s one reason competitions like Big Break remain so valuable.

They can help unknown writers with powerful voices, the kind of writers Anderson and other industry professionals are always looking for, get noticed.

 

Final Draft’s 2026 Big Break Screenwriting Contest is now open for entries. For more information visit finaldraft.com/big-break-screenwriting-contest.

Based in beautiful Bend, Oregon, Erin Galey is a writer-director who won the Sci-Fi/Fantasy category in the 2025 Final Draft Big Break competition with her feature See You See Me. The script is a grounded genre thriller that blends a search for identity with cutting-edge science as one woman fights for her own survival. What begins as a mystery about fractured memory evolves into something much darker and more existential.

“It’s a sci-fi thriller. A young woman wakes up from a coma, and she’s trying to get her memory back. She really wants to go home and be reunited with her family, because she’s been asleep for two years in a coma. Or so she thinks,” says Galey with an impish smile. 

As the story unfolds, the character discovers she is actually a clone, created by grieving parents to replace their daughter. But that’s just the first of many twists and turns in the script. “It’s all told from the point of view of the clone. It’s a story about belonging, identity and who you really are, and what all that really means,” she says. 

It’s a bold concept, but Galey’s Big Break win wasn’t just about writing something clever or shocking. It marks the next step in moving her career forward.

From Encouragement to Recognition

By the time Big Break came along, Galey had already begun building momentum with the project. She had attended BendFilm’s Basecamp, which she describes as a meaningful early boost, and then got into Stowe Story Labs. Those opportunities helped give her the green light to keep putting her work out into the world.

“That gave me the courage and validation to apply for more things,” she says. Then came the rollercoaster climb through the Big Break competition. 

“I made a quarterfinalist, then a semifinalist, and then a top 10 finalist,” Galey says. “It just kept going, I couldn’t believe it.”

When she finally learned she had won, the moment was emotional.

“They told me I was the winner, and I was just so floored and thrilled,”

Like many entrants, Galey knew the competition came with prizes and industry exposure, but she didn’t fully understand how much support would follow until after the win. That turned out to be one of the biggest benefits.

“I knew there was a prize package, but I hadn’t deeply researched it,” she says. “And it’s been an amazing experience.”

The “Professional Amateur”

As one of the winners, Big Break has given her access to working professionals, craft development, and career strategy at a moment when she was ready to make the leap to professional filmmaker.

She points to her work with career coach Lee Jessup as one of the most valuable parts of the experience.

“She’s so brilliant and has really helped me understand certain aspects of how to go about becoming a working screenwriter from what I call myself, a ‘professional amateur.’ Trying to make that leap from doing this as a passion to doing it as a job - Lee’s filling that gap for many people,” she says.

She also cites screenwriting mentor Jen Grisanti’s class as another major asset. 

“You can pitch in her classes, and that has been incredible,” Galey says. “Being able to pitch, listen to other people’s pitches, hear the feedback on their pitches, see things that work, see things that maybe could use another look.”

Pitching to Pros

One unforgettable opportunity that came from the experience was the chance to pitch to Oscar-nominated screenwriter Vanessa Taylor, co-writer of The Shape of Water. For Galey, it was both intimidating and helpful.

“I was nervous to pitch to her, but then as soon as I saw her on screen, I was like, ‘Oh, she’s down to Earth, I can just do my pitch.’”

What Galey valued most was Taylor’s clarity. Instead of vague encouragement, she offered precise, practical feedback.

“She actually really loved my concept,” Galey says. “And then she had two really great notes. They’re not major changes, but they were enough that I was like, ‘Oh, wow, that really elevates this to a level I hadn’t considered.’” 

One of those notes spoke directly to the sophisticated demands of sci-fi writing, and constructing creative reveals for certain plot points. “She said, ‘the sci-fi audiences are going to poke holes in all your stuff, and you have to be ready for that’” Galey says.

It’s the kind of high-level, professional note that can strengthen both the logic of a screenplay and the arc of a protagonist. Something you can’t learn in a class or a book. 

The Strategic Path Forward

For Galey, Big Break has helped her clarify how she wants to move forward career-wise.

“Working with Lee and Jen is about how you’re going to shape your career moving forward,” she says. “It pushed me over the edge to make some decisions, create action steps, and formulate a plan moving forward that is strategically accurate with industry-vetted advice/next steps, not just hoping my own perseverance will work.”

In other words, she feels momentum. 

Her Advice to Writers Entering Big Break

Galey’s advice to writers considering the competition is straightforward.

“I would just do it,” she says. “This is a contest where you have a lot of exposure to real working industry people, so make sure your script is in good shape.”

Her own script, she says, had gone through extensive rewrites before she sent it in. “I polished the rock a lot before I put it out there.”

Then she offers a unique perspective, perhaps shaped by her life in the Pacific Northwest. 

“This competition happens every year,” she says. “It’s like a river you can jump on at any moment, so think about being ready to get on that river before you go down”

Congratulations Erin! We can’t wait to see what happens next.

Learn more about the Big Break Screenwriting Contest.