We build something in isolation, and then we proudly present it, and it’s a levelling experience. It can feel like a direct attack on us down to the marrow of our bones. Terry Pratchett famously said, "The first draft is just you telling yourself the story." This permits you to be "messy." Shannon Hale views a first draft as "shovelling sand into a box so that later, I can build castles." Toy Story 3 took three years before Michael Arndt got the green light. Paul Thomas Anderson likens screenwriting to ironing: you move forward a bit, then go back and smooth things out. I don’t recall who said it, but they spoke about reframing how we look at a first draft and to stop seeing the rewrite as punishment but as showing we are intentional, in other words, professional rather than amateur. Does that make sense to you, and how would you amplify this?

No excuses. You want to say you're a writer you have to write. But if you're not in a writing state of mind get up and network. I network, with 10s of people daily. Actors, assistant directors....today I received a response from my all pro voice actor from Tokyo whose natural baritone is like Jim Morrison. His response to my email about his role as the protagonist voice actor, in the movie under production: Sounds like fun! I will have to pick up a new headset with a microphone because I'm in Hawaii and then Vegas for the rest of the month. Doable. I will send you what i can do and if it's good i will look at renting a studio for an hour or two. Sincerely in your service, ______________________________ Get out there. Present yourself.

Good morning, Forge. Here's some great stories about writers breaking through in the last week or so: - Stephanie Ahn Spent 8 Years on Her First Feature. Sony Pictures Classics Just Bought It. — Stephanie Ahn wrote and directed Bedford Park, a story about a Korean American woman caught between family obligation and identity. It premiered at Sundance, won the Special Jury Award for Debut Feature, and Sony Pictures Classics picked it up. Their words: "the confidence of a master." She found her lead actress in Korea six years ago and rehearsed over Zoom for months before they ever shot a frame. Eight years from blank page to Sundance stage. That's not a slow career. That's a writer who refused to let go of the story she needed to tell. - Adrian Chiarella: From Editing Room to Neon's Seven-Figure Deal — Chiarella spent years as a film editor, working under Baz Luhrmann. Then he started directing shorts. His first, Touch, came in 2014. His second, Black Lips, in 2018. His third, Dwarf Planet, in 2021. Each one a little bigger, a little bolder. Then he wrote Leviticus, a queer social horror, developed through VicScreen's Originate initiative. It premiered in Sundance's Midnight section. Neon bought it for seven figures. A decade of shorts. Then the feature lands. That's how this works for most people. You keep making things until the right thing finds the right moment. - Ramzi Bashour Grew Up in Beirut. His Debut Feature Just Got Acquired at Sundance. — Bashour is Syrian-American, raised in Lebanon, moved to Indiana after 2006. He wrote Hot Water about an American kid and his Lebanese mom on a road trip west after the kid gets expelled. It's personal. He was a Sundance Fellow three years running (2022, 2023, 2024) developing this script. Named one of Filmmaker Magazine's "25 New Faces." The film debuted in U.S. Dramatic Competition and Rich Spirit acquired it. Three years of development. One story he couldn't not write.

Good morning, Forge. Here's what's moving in the industry today. - Spec Market Stays Alive: Brandon Cohen Sells Two Scripts in Back-to-Back Months — Paramount grabbed Cohen's comedy Bald Eagles for seven figures. Before that, he sold I Can See You're Angry to Miramax. Two specs. Two studios. Proof that original material still moves when the writing is sharp. Cohen is repped by Range Media Partners. The spec script is not dead. Write yours. - SXSW Hands Screenwriting Award to Four First-Timers Behind 'Plantman & Blondie' — Robb Boardman, Cory Loykasek, Donny Divianian, and Frankie Quinones took the SXSW Special Jury Award for Screenwriting for their buddy comedy Plantman & Blondie: A Dress Up Gang Film. These guys came up through sketch comedy, wrote what they knew, and a festival jury noticed. You don't need a traditional path. You need a voice. - Humanitas New Voices Fellowship Deadline: April 6 — This one's tailor-made for Forge members. The New Voices Fellowship is specifically for emerging TV and film writers who do NOT have a manager or agent. No representation required. No prior staffing required. Deadline is 11:59 PM PT on Monday, April 6. If you've got a script and no rep, this is your shot. Apply. - Sundance Names 2026 Screenwriters Lab Fellows from 3,800+ Submissions — Eleven writers were selected for the Screenwriters Lab and thirteen more for the Intensive, which supports first-feature projects. Creative advisors include Barry Jenkins, Lulu Wang, and Michael Arndt. The Intensive fellows are working on their very first features. If you're early in your journey, this is the kind of program that changes trajectories. Applications for next year's cycle will open later this year.

Great characters drive every scene they are in. Even when nothing is happening. Writers come to me with the same complaint. The script isn't working. The story feels flat. Audiences aren't connecting. They want to talk about plot — structure, act breaks, whether the midpoint is landing. Here's what I've learned in 25 years fixing broken scripts: the plot is almost never the problem. The character is. The character isn't driving the story. The story is driving the character. They're being pushed from scene to scene by whatever the writer needs them to do next. They don't have a wound. They don't have a specific, consistent way of seeing the world that colors everything they do. They're a sock puppet. And the audience feels it — even if they can't name it. Here's what interesting actually looks like: a character whose internal wound causes them to exert control in every scene — even when the scene is about ordering toast. Jack Nicholson's character is the epitome of this in this classic dinner scene from Five Easy Pieces. Watch it for a masterclass in character. There's no plot in the Five Easy Pieces diner scene. The want is as minimal as it gets. A man wants a piece of toast. But how he responds to being told no tells you everything about how he sees the world and his place in it. Jack doesn't win. He gets thrown out. He never gets the toast. But he never stops being exactly, specifically, unmistakably himself for a single second. That's a character. Not a plot device. SAME SCENE. THREE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PEOPLE. Watch what happens when you put three fully-formed characters in the same diner, facing the same waitress, asking for the same toast. 🔴 TONY SOPRANO — The Sopranos Tony is already vibrating when he sits down. Something happened today — a betrayal, an indignity. The toast is not about toast. When the waitress says no, Tony goes quiet. Measuring. Then he SLAMS the table. The whole diner jumps. Carmela stiffens. He equates a diner rule with every indignity his mother ever handed him. He engineers the workaround — orders the chicken salad, tells her to hold the chicken. Gets thrown out anyway. Drops way too much cash. Leans in close: "Next time someone tells you they don't make the rules? They're lyin'." No toast. But everyone in that diner knows exactly who he is. That's the wound made visible.