Hi Reader, Tomorrow is Canada Day in my neck of the woods, and Independence Day is just around the corner for all my friends in the U.S. And no matter which one you celebrate, this time of year can feel like a chance to step away from the usual rush for a minute, spend time with family and friends, enjoy the summer, and hopefully take a much-needed break. But it’s also something else. With these holidays landing at the halfway point of the year, it’s a good reminder that we’ve reached a kind...
5 days ago • 4 min read
Hi Reader, Hope you've had a great week! One of the best screenwriting educations I ever got wasn't from a book, a course, or a contest. It came from making a short film. More specifically, from writing Boneyard Racers - a supernatural action-horror short that started with one very simple question from my producer, Preston: "Can we do anything with hearses?" It immediately got my creative gears turning, and that same night, I wrote the first draft. What came out of it was a kind of Fast &...
10 days ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, Happy Friday! Let’s talk about something that seems small at first glance, but can make a big difference in how your screenplay reads: character introductions. I’ve done coverage on several scripts lately, and this has been one of the most common weak points. A major character shows up for the first time, and their introduction is something like: "Jane, 25, a young woman in a t-shirt and jeans." And that’s it. No sense of personality or energy. No clue as to what kind of person...
17 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Hey friends, Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard the buzz around Obsession by now. If you're a horror fan, it's worth the price to see it on the big screen. But if you’re a writer or filmmaker, it is exactly the kind of movie you should be paying attention to. And I don't mean because it’s breaking out, or it’s low budget. Or even because horror keeps proving it's the one genre that can still bring in audiences in 2026. Underneath all of that, there are...
25 days ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, Something really interesting is happening at the box office right now. Two low-budget original horror films - Obsession and Backrooms - are doing the kind of business that should have every writer, filmmaker, producer, and story consultant paying close attention. As of now, Backrooms has opened to about $81.5 million domestic and $118 million worldwide on a reported $10 million budget, while Obsession has climbed to roughly $104.7 million domestic and $148 million worldwide on a...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, Let’s talk about one of the most frustrating places a writer can end up: you’ve got a great premise… but the script isn’t working. It's a feeling I know all too well (especially when I first started my writing journey), and if you’ve been writing for any length of time, you probably know it too. Your idea might get a good reaction. People like the hook. They might even say, "Hey, that sounds like a movie!" But then they read the script.... and suddenly things change. Maybe they go...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about something I hear all the time from other movie fans, and honestly, I feel it too: Why don’t movies feel as fun as they used to? And I don't mean all of them, obviously. There are still good movies being made. But a lot of people - especially those of us who grew up on 80s and 90s action, horror, sci-fi, and big crowd-pleasing adventures - know exactly what I mean. There was a feeling older movies used to leave you with. You’d walk out of the...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, This week didn’t exactly go according to plan. I had every intention of finishing my latest YouTube video for today. I had the topic. I had my main points written out. I knew what I wanted to say. But life had other ideas. This past week was packed with my daughter’s dance competition and my other daughter’s singing competition. In the middle of all that, my daughter broke her foot during rehearsal, which meant a long day in the ER and the last few days helping take care of her. On...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, Hope your week is going well! Today, let’s talk about worldbuilding. This is one of the most exciting parts of writing genre stories - especially if you love fantasy, sci-fi, or horror. It’s the part where you get to invent, and come up with the rules of the world, the dangers hiding inside it, the history behind it, the systems that run it, the creatures, the politics, the technology, the mythology - all the things that make a story world feel rich and alive. And it’s also one of...
2 months ago • 2 min read