Tenacious Cow

Crafting your script to be ‘marketable’, doesn’t have to feel gross. And you should be thinking about it from Day 1.

The habits you build now will shape your career.

HOW TO WRITE A DIAMOND -

Be ruthless with your protagonist.

If you go easy on them, they won’t change.

If you let them off the hook, they’ll stay the same.

If you give them an easy out, they’ll take it.

This may sound harsh, but you HAVE to push them, break them, and force them to face the thing they’ve been avoiding all their life.

Their character arc IS the story. And you only have 90 - 120 pages to do that, so be strategic and make sure every scene, every moment, serves that transformation.

Link in BIO to download a free guide.

Last week I taught a workshop on the Belief Cycle System to a group of writers, directors and producers who had all earned their way into a fabulous mentorship program on the merit of their feature film projects.

Being asked to speak about story to a group of professionals whose projects had already earned them recognition and a spot in the program did cause me to take pause for a moment, I mean did they really want to hear about a process that could potentially mean (at least for some of them) going back to outline? I couldn't help but wonder if there would be some push back.

There wasn't. They were amazingly receptive with heaps of questions about how to apply the system to their own work. I wish we had had the time to workshop each of their projects - but it was already a full day and we simply ran out of time.

I just love writers and the constant drive to elevate their stories. For me it was an encouraging reminder that no matter where you are in your career or with a particular screenplay, understanding story from an integrated perspective -- where all elements from world-building to subplots and themes as well as supporting characters and even visual motifs are ALL created organically through your protagonist's false belief -- will elevate your story and make audiences care. Because it’s the human experience.

There is literally nothing in the story, not a single moment, that does not come from the pressure placed on that false belief.

And it's magic.

As story should be.

I'm so excited to be able to share the Belief Cycle with writers everywhere soon.

You can actually SKIP 10 YEARS of heartache and banging your head against the wall. I can show you how.

Most working writers I know learned the same way I did - we figured it out on the page. It took a dozen screenplays before I could honestly say: ‘I know what I’m doing.’

It's how the craft has always been taught, that ‘the only way to learn how to write is to WRITE.’

And sure, there’s some truth to that. If you have 10 years to write enough drafts you’ll eventually find your way.

But then I started teaching. And I watched writer after writer walk the same … looonnnnggg … road. They made all the same mistakes, and they invested YEARS into scripts that were never going to work. Why?
The foundation wasn’t built properly.

So I started paying closer attention to where and when they got stuck. I slowly worked out ways of helping them get from A to Z, quicker and more effectively, without the agony and frustration of one bad script after another.

That’s when the ‘Belief Cycle’ slowly emerged. And it's not a theory. It's the integration of my own writing journey, and two decades of teaching the craft.

I created the very map I wish someone had handed me during draft one of my first script (cause man, did I spend years on that one). But that’s the beauty of it, that’s what we’re meant to do; create the thing we can’t find but desire for ourselves.

Breakthrough Script is built around the Belief Cycle System. In 30 DAYS (not 10 years), we go from CONCEPT … to a PROFESSIONAL first draft.

Don't wait until you've written 10 screenplays to write the one that gets you noticed. The path is built. I did that work for you. You just have to follow it.

Founding Member enrollment opening soon. If you'd like the link the moment doors open, comment ‘WAITLIST’ below — or grab the waitlist link directly from my bio.