Authoring & Playwriting

My condolences, Cynna Ael. I get burned out. I'm trying to get better at avoiding it. I'll check out "The Artist's Way." Thanks for the book rec!

Thanks. This month- I've been a published author for 22 years and I realised-- I've switched mediums- even though I do still write novels and stories-- that I don't want to burn out in scriptwriting. I want to keep these ideas I've got flowing. I realised others might also get this way during this time of the year. Wanted to give some help that worked for me. Not everything works for everyone, but a lot of people have found help in the book itself-- picking and choosing items. It's what I did and it really helped at a time when I honestly thought I'd never write again.

You're welcome, Cynna Ael. Congratulations on being a published author for 22 years! I make really detailed outline for my scripts, so I don't usually have a problem keeping ideas flowing. And doing the Tuesday writing exercises that Ashley Smith posts in Stage 32's Writers' Room helps too.

"Obvious" is in the eye of the beholder.

You could have been inspired by the arch know-it-all villain in The Princess Bride, and the overly suspicious relative may have noticed certain personality tropes are frequently repeated in real life.

If the offended relative cries fowl, just reassure the person, "You're much too wise to be THAT character." If he's truly egotistical, he'll believe you.

General note: Mark Twain frequently offended, and always entertained.

Fiction is a fun house mirror of real life. Be bold.

Never. Every character you write is going to reflect someone you know or maybe even never met. You can't come up with an original personality. If you have a negative character that someone is offended by, 9 out of 10 times that person is a scumbag but can't see himself through anyone's eyes than his own. Don't apologize to people that justify their own bad behavior by ignoring how it reflects on others.

I recently went toe to toe with a "manager" that doesn't seem to get any of clients any work and takes credit for things he seems to have had no part in. One of his clients won a participation Oscar for 22 minutes of screentime in Anora and he acted like he wrote and shot the movie. Meanwhile this was the first work his client had in 8 years. When I pointed this out, he was offended. If the truth offends you, maybe you should try a different approach to your life.

Moral of story; never apologize because someone acts exactly like one of your evil characters. It's their fault. Not yours. Of course you should use a different name. Let's not be too on point.

I love the wise, true, & tried advice! Thank you for your insight. It does seem to offend someone somewhere every time I write anything. Never my intention. Maybe they are people who want to be noticed most. LOL Fran Tabor "If the offended relative cries fowl, just reassure the person, "You're much too wise to be THAT character." If he's truly egotistical, he'll believe you."

I take pieces from various people I know, have met, or inspired by-- it's a fine line between replicating them and using certain things as inspiration. You're right- it's not worth hurting someone, but I'm also the person who in my writing-- loves honouring them too. --so It's a real balancing act. Morgan Hawke, an author who I have loved- did a course and wrote a book on how to adapt those people into characters so you can use their "Baseline" over and over. It's been my go to standard ever since I took the course. It's made a huge difference in how I portray those people. Even if I don't know them.

Yes, understanding the daily life of aliens is very important. I have one alien civilization that I’ve thought about deeply, and I’ll try to explore the daily lives of others as well Philip David Lee

"Have you ever tried to imagine the unimaginable?"

Yes, and the first thing that came to my mind was cosmic horror and HP Lovecraft.

And then, for a more mellow take, try to read Solaris by Stanislaw Lem, a Polish sci-author who was interested in the "alieness of aliens" and his represetations of alien life are quite hard to grasp. The 1972 Russian-language adaptin of Solaris sort of touches on this but focuses more on the personal drama, as does the 2002 US remake.

I’ve a master in philosophy so here is my advice.

What we do in philosophy is to go at the very root of what we know and question it. For exemple, time. We are used to linear time with causes and consequences. What happens in the past gives the presents conditions which inform us what will happen next. So you question that: what if time wasn’t linear. What if everything that happen in the past and future is determining to understand how something react or behave (like in quantum ohysics). You build on This new premise

Another examole would be our individualist self. We all focused on living and the self because we die and act individually. But what if that specie died collectively (perhaps two or three indivuals would be linked and would die together). Or what if their action was always collective in nature.

You can also go to our root values (freedom, love…) and change them. imagine a specie with other core values.

So the basic advice is go to the root and change it. then build it back up with these new conditions. What do you get

Thank you for your suggestions. I hope you succeed in writing your project Michael Dzurak

Thank you, that’s truly helpful. I’ll think about those questions Nicolas Lavoie

Congratulations again, Lauren Hackney! Family and friends who aren't writers, producers, directors have given me unsuspected feedback.

I suspect everyone's gonna want to improve on my work, the loudest being the ones who ignore my offerings. I'd almost rather get a "This sucks" to let me know they're paying attention.

Now the positive feedback is the vast majority of spoken feedback and I have a whole document of these comments which I've already sent to the ignorers (who still keep on ignoring) so therefore nothing that comes my way is unsuspected, although the request for a pilot and synopsis was the first of its kind but still not unsuspected nor unexpected because I've put in the work and have learned long ago that democracy and freedom comes with the price of ignorance, the wish and willingness to not seek out truth or dialogue with others. It's their right to be scroogelike hermits. The Constitution allows it.

Meriem that's both hilarious and chilling at the same time. Whether it's true or not depends on the imagination of the producer. Are they a Ron Howard (Avatar, Avatar Brave New World--I forgot the name of the sequel) or do they have a binary, linear imagination (the same thing that scares so many cisgenders when gender dissolution enters their world). But at the same time, if you're going to imagine a parallel or skewed universe that's very unlike our own, your imagination needs to still be able to create something coherent enough for viewers to get and the production team to make real. I don't think they'll ever make a movie from Finnegan's Wake for that reason but it's a great book if you can get through Joyce's impossible to follow prose.

Thank you very much Marc Ginsburg

The De-Evolution Game was originally inspired by Mr. Nobody, and since my story also deals with parallel universes, I tried using a similar structure. I noticed how the psychologist in the film guides the narrative—each new question creates a new branch of Nemo’s reality. But that structure didn’t work for my story.

I need to invent another way to present the parallel universes while keeping the whole narrative coherent.

Here are some insights from the story. I’d like to know your point of view.

https://www.stage32.com/lounge/promotion/The-De-Evolution-Game-Paradoxes...

Sounds like you had an illustrator think deeply about your message, especially since you approved of the suggestion. My unexpected feedback came from an editor who suggested a different head for my sci fi books. He was right.

Hi, Mikka Hope. I’m a Stage 32 Lounge Moderator. I wanted to let you know I moved your post from the Composing Lounge to the Authoring & Playwriting Lounge since it's about writing a series of books. Let me know if you have any questions.

I read some of what you wrote. You have talent. I can't work on your conversion into a screenplay right now due to personal issues.

yes that's a good theme as well Maurice Vaughan

the persistence of memory

I’ve written 6 stories thinking they were about other things but in the end realised they could all go into a collection by that title

That sounds so good James LO

Even when a story explores many themes at once, there is always one major guiding theme behind it.

meriem, have you written any short story or screenplay about times travel or parallel worlds from the lens of human existence that you would care to share? I’d be happy to swap with one of my unpublished tales revolving around the persistence of memory

I have the idea but it’s not written yet.

It’s called The De-Evolution Game: Paradoxes Unleashed.

You can see some insights about it here James LO

https://stage32.com/post/3920679695024137577

Lauren Hackney, this is such a helpful breakdown. Thank you for laying it out so clearly!

Lauren Hackney I really did! Low key and relaxing. How was yours?

Yikes, even titles? Lol thanks for this post Lauren Hackney, I’ll definitely have to read the hell out a contract and find a good lawyer if I ever release my novels and comics :p

Banafsheh Esmailzadeh I hope for you it's a case of 'when you release' not 'if you release' - you got some good stories going on - they need to be shared with the world!

Thank you Lauren Hackney, it's going to take a while with the way I'm going ^^; but I'll do my best~

Congratulations, Kat Spencer! It is wild how some projects take years before anyone really discovers them. It's happened to me, like producers emailing me about scripts I pitched or posted online years ago.

That's a wonderful delima Kat Spencer and Maurice Vaughan ... I can't say that has happened to me - but you never know the future!

Hi Alex, I very much enjoy adapting novels and short stories and have adapted three novels and one short story. If you're interested in speaking, please let me know.

ALEX - The writers delight, dreaming up new and interesting ways to kill characters.

Yes. Always. My story, my direction - I'm the only one allowed to direct my own works which I've written.

Everyone has a vision of what they want in an adaptation. I always have an editor after I am done to revise things I missed.

Stefano Pavone I'd happily let my stuff go! To the right person, that is.

Thanks, Ingrid — that’s really interesting to read.

I realize we work in a very similar way, just from opposite starting points.

You begin with the character and let the world reveal who they truly are…

I tend to start by designing the mechanics of the world, and then I watch how those rules push or shape the character’s choices.

But in the end, it’s the same goal: the moment where a character finally goes against the “logic” of their environment and reveals something deeply human. I love that overlap in our approaches.

I agree with Fran and Ingrid comments above - also, in addition to the world driven conflicts, ground them, give them little unimportant things but that actually annoy them. Give them a longing for something they love - like chocolate, or a Gibson Martini with two of those delicious little silver-skin pickled onions, with a sprinkle of salt and a dash of the pickle juice, into the vermouth - obviously which has to be French. Then a partner who hates pickled onions, so they argue about it, and it ruins romantic moments as they blame pickled onions for their worldly trouble. You get the idea. I love Gibsons.

David Taylor I get what you mean — those small daily irritations really do bring something genuine to a relationship.

For me, tension often comes from something a bit deeper: the way people are, their temperament, how they move through life.

It’s simply another way of keeping things human, I think.

Personally, I think emotional depth and worldbuilding in sci-fi are two important aspects in the said genre but the former is the engine that drives the story forward.

In all movies, your emotional depth enables your audience to relate to your onscreen characters. Blissful or sad emotions our characters experience as the movies unfolds should resonate with our audience's experiential learning.

Any writer who glorifies worldbuilding at the expense of emotional depth is definitely skating on quicksand.

WH?

Answer: Human beings are social animals that have emotions. Emotional attachment is key. Conversely, worldbuilding , as far as I'm concerned, is largely drawn from reasoning or logic but its end product is steeped in emotional depth. While creating this unique world , you're tactfully appealing to the emotions of your audiences. In a way , I subscribe to the idea that the screenwriter should build their world ( with its own rules ---- dos and don'ts) largely from the emotional depth they intend to.create.

Worldbuilding should enhance the thematic flow of the writer's storyline. Worldbuilding, if expertly handled, has an astounding capacity to shape character dialogue. Dialogue should in turn explore the flowing:

1. What's at stake

2. The fears of characters

3. Expectations

4. Themes

5. Motifs

6. Etc

In short, the better approach between the two is the EMOTIONAL DEPTH TO WORLDBUILDING APPROACH and not the other way round.

Jabulani Pongolani Thanks, Jabulani — that idea really resonates with me.

I often start from a simple question: what does the system expect from people, and how do those expectations quietly shape the way they see themselves?

That kind of soft, well-intentioned pressure can become its own form of constraint.

And when a character finally wants something the system doesn’t consider “useful,” that tension naturally creates emotion — almost like a small rebellion just to feel something real again.

For me, that’s exactly where worldbuilding and emotional depth meet: the mechanics of the world explain why the characters feel the way they do.

Telling a story set against a historical backdrop is quite complex and requires a lot of patience and thorough research. Even a small mistake can draw criticism from the audience.

Reading your post, I can see that you’re aiming to tell a story on a really grand canvas. Wishing you all the best with it!