Write On: 'Long Bright River' Showrunner Nikki Toscano
Write On: A Screenwriting Podcast
Release Date: 03/07/2025
Write On: 'The Home' Director/Co-Writer James DeMonaco and Co-Writer Adam Cantor
Write On: A Screenwriting Podcast
“Write your own anxieties. Get into your own psyche. I think if it scares you – like, I'm terrified of guns, and that's where The Purge came from. But here, there were various generational fears and whatnot that led to The Home, Adam's fears and my fears about getting older and our anxiety. So I would say if it's born from your fear, the majority of the audience probably has a similar fear. I think we are communal in that way. Fears are not singular, so I think you should work off your own fears, and on a practical level, if you can keep the budget small, you're in a much better place...
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Write On: 'Abraham's Boys' Writer/Director Natasha Kermani
Write On: A Screenwriting Podcast
“Vampires hold incredible destructive power, and so we're very drawn to them, sort of like moths to a candle, right? I think that's sort of eternal, and that's the reason every culture, pretty much around the globe has some version of the vampire because it represents that very human conflict of what we desire which is so in tune with and aligned to things that can also destroy us. That just feels very honest and eternal, so I don't think [vampires] will ever go away. I think they will be an eternal part of our mythologies,” says writer/director Natasha Kermani, about the everlasting...
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Write On: 'Countdown' Creator/Writer Derek Haas
Write On: A Screenwriting Podcast
“One thing I’ve found in the crime genre is that homicides are always interesting. When somebody’s killed, whatever that case may be, it’s usually compelling drama. So then it’s up to you as the writer to surprise the audience and do things that they didn’t think were coming. I’ve described it like this before: If you can hit the sweet spot of, ‘I didn’t see that coming! I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t see it coming,’ That, to me, is the best writing. It’s like, when you got to the end of The Sixth Sense, and you were like, ‘Oh my god, I should have seen...
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Write On: 'Apple Cider Vinegar' Creator and Showrunner Samantha Strauss
Write On: A Screenwriting Podcast
“In my mind, Belle is going through life, at least our version of Belle – I've never met the real Belle – she’s going through life with this hole inside, this overwhelming need for approval, that social media absolutely capitalizes on and she just keeps trying to feed the beast. She hasn't grown up with the healthiest of role models herself. She has learnt that being sick is a shortcut to being loved and to getting attention,” says Samantha Strauss, creator and showrunner for the Netflix limited series Apple Cider Vinegar, about understanding her main character’s disgraceful...
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Write On: 'Matlock' Creator & Showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman
Write On: A Screenwriting Podcast
“The most important thing that I've learned as a storyteller is that I have to treat every character in the show as though they're the lead in the show, and they are never doing anything so that I can prompt a move from another character. They are doing things that are true to what they want and their motivation. So that's what makes that architecture hard, because you know you want things to happen, but they have to happen coming out of character, not coming out of what the room wants to see happen. So it's like the merging of those two. We know what architecture we want, but if it doesn't...
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Write On: 'Running Point' Showrunner David Stassen
Write On: A Screenwriting Podcast
“It’s not ripped from the headlines. We’re not using any of [the Buss family’s] real-life stories and putting them into our show. Because Mindy [Kaling], Ike [Barinholtz], and I have so many influences like Arrested Development, 30 Rock, The Office and Succession, we’re coming up with our own fun stories and fun situations to put this dysfunctional, very wealthy, successful family into a blender and then have them going back and forth and arguing and solving problems together and against each other,” says David Stassen, showrunner of Running Point, about taking inspiration from Los...
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Write On: 'Hurry Up Tomorrow' Director/Co-Writer Trey Edward Shults
Write On: A Screenwriting Podcast
“It was a lot of empathizing. I would do long phone calls with Abel (Tesfaye, aka the Weeknd) after we had met, just basically talking to him and finding out more of his history, where he was at in different phases of his life, where he’s at today, and using those to create a character. And part of creating that character is I’ll find my own personal stuff to attach to it… Portions of his life I can relate to very much. And past all of that, I think this is the deepest I’ve gone with my therapy background and my mom and stepdad being therapists. I tried to make the movie work to...
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Write On: 'Nonnas' Screenwriter Liz Maccie and Director Stephen Chbosky
Write On: A Screenwriting Podcast
“Sometimes it’s easier to find and access your truth through ‘pretend’ characters. So I had this embarrassment of riches of this true story but in my heart, I was like, ‘I totally get to tell my truth!’… So my advice is find a way to do it, and if you have to do a mind trick by saying, ‘I’m writing this pretend character’ that’s fine, but put all the stuff that’s real to you into that pretend character, because I find there is an immense amount of freedom in being able to write through these characters because they aren’t exactly my family, they are pieces of them....
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Write On: 'Shadow Force' Director/Co-Writer Joe Carnahan and Co-Writer Leon Chills
Write On: A Screenwriting Podcast
“For me, I don’t know how you could not make [a script] personal. I think drama allows you to hide how personal it is. I think that’s kind of what I like about writing in the genre space. On the outside looking in, it just looks like a big action movie. It doesn’t look like a personal story. But there are personal elements like my mom was a working mom as well. And so that’s why you have Kyra in the movie who has to come back to her son because she’s been working to protect him. That’s a very personal thing… but you would never assume that it’s a personal story because it’s...
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Write On: 2024 Big Break Short Film Winner Brandon Osterman and Seed&Spark
Write On: A Screenwriting Podcast
On today’s episode, we speak to writer Brandon Osterman, whose short script ‘The Naughty List’ won last year’s Final Draft Big Break Short Screenplay Category. As part of his prize package, he received a consultation with Sav Rodgers, Marketing Manager for Seed&Spark, the film industry’s most popular crowdfunding platform. Sav joins the conversation to tell us exactly what crowdfunding is and help all writers understand that funding for their project is possible to achieve. “Who is your audience? At Seed&Spark, we always say that great crowdfunding is audience...
info_outline“With an adaptation, you can never give back your first read. So, what are you taking away? What fills your soul? Why do you want to tell this story? And then that becomes sort of the North Star. And I’m tethered more by that North Star than by the actual moves that are happening in the book,” says Long Bright River showrunner, Nikki Toscano, about adapting Liz Moore’s best-selling novel for television.
Long Bright River is an emotional suspense thriller that follows Mickey (Amanda Seyfried), a police officer in a Philadelphia neighborhood hit hard by the opioid epidemic. As a string of murders unfolds, Mickey must find her missing sister who’s also battling addiction before it’s too late – but long buried family secrets stand in the way.
On the surface, the show is a highly engaging murder-mystery, but beneath the whodunnit is a love story between two sisters. We chat with Toscano about delving into the sisterly dynamic that is both compassionate and toxic at the same time.
Toscano shares tools for building an enticing mystery that includes giving your characters secrets to help drive the story.
“I think that in the beginning of anything, you have to determine what your character wants and then put a bunch of people or things in that character’s way. So that’s how secrets are born, right? And that’s how you have your audience leaning in. Is the secret going to come out? Who’s going to tell the secret? You and I could be having a conversation and I say, ‘Don’t tell anybody!’ And then the next scene is you being in a situation where do you tell, do you not tell? It’s about setting up those kinds of things. I mean, whenever building any kind of show, whether it’s an adaptation or not, determine what your character wants and then stick a bunch of people between them and that goal that either complement or compromise your character’s journey,” says Toscano.
To hear more, listen to the podcast. Long Bright River streams on Peacock March 13.