At some point in the last year or so, you would’ve subscribed to a newsletter called The Script. You’d have expected to enjoy weekly essays on screenwriting craft as they arrived directly in your inbox.
And you may have even received some of those emails.
Then they stopped. Because I stopped sending them.
Sorry. I am genuinely sorry. We had a handshake deal and I welched on my end. Bad form. No one likes a zombie newsletter.
(Zombie newsletter…? Is there something in that? No, never mind. Moving on.)
So why did I stop?
Well - I got busy with the other kind of writing. My day job. Deadlines converged. New development opportunities increased my workload. The treadmill got a little bit faster.
I still drafted essays. I just didn’t find the bandwidth to polish them up and post them. Before I knew it, months had passed. But in that time I was able to think about what I really wanted out of this. And I realised that I had the right idea, but maybe the wrong execution.
I realised I love talking about storytelling. That’s the bit I got right.
But the “screenwriting lessons” bit - that started to feel slightly problematic.
I believe I have a unique perspective on screenwriting craft, given I’ve been doing it professionally for so many years.
But I’d also witnessed enough “content creators” devolve into topic of the week mode, finding new things to talk about purely because their posting schedule demanded it.
There’s a lot of screenwriting advice already out there. A lot. This started out as a hobby, and it would only be worth doing if I felt like I was giving you something of real value you couldn’t get elsewhere.
Compounding this was the realisation that it’s very hard to be both expansive and specific at the same time.
“Screenwriting” is a broad church. There’s TV, Film, Short Film, Animation, a whole rainbow of genres and subgenres. There’s mainstream, arthouse, 85 minute mumblecore indies, 150 minute superhero extravaganzas, the exceptions that prove the rule, the exceptions that disprove the rule, whatever David Lynch was up to…
This all made me think - over a long enough time frame, would I be able to provide you with the essays you deserve week-in, week-out? It seemed unlikely. With each new essay, a good chunk of you would tune out, thinking “this isn’t relevant to my practice”. And you’d be absolutely right to do that.
I wanted to go deep. But it was hard to go deep when the range of topics was so wide.
If was going to carry on, some things had to change.
So I’m making those changes. And - spoiler alert - not all of you will want to stick around to see them. And that is absolutely cool by me.
With that said, what’s changing?
Firstly I’m moving to Substack. That shouldn’t change things too much your end. When I start writing them again, the emails will still arrive as normal (I think). Only difference is if you hang out on Substack, you can find extra content there.
Secondly I’m focusing entirely on horror. I write horror. I know it. I love it. Other people love it. I can be much more targeted and go into greater depth if I commit to one genre.
Thirdly, I’ll be discussing storytelling craft mostly through the lens of existing media. That is: analysis of films (at first) and maybe books (later), from the perspective of storytelling craft.
Things like:
“Obsession’s $500 million jump scare”
Or
“Weapons and the art of the puzzle box”
Or
“The one thing that makes The Texas Chainsaw Massacre so disturbing”
If that sounds like your bag, you don’t need to do anything. Just sit tight and the essays will arrive as they once did (though probably not weekly).
If that sounds decidedly NOT your bag…here’s where I’ll say out loud: please unsubscribe. The last thing I want is for you to be receiving emails you don’t need and have no intention of reading.
Don’t let me gum up your junk folder. Don’t let me become admin. Unsubscribe now and we can part ways as friends and peers. Thank you so much for subscribing to The Script. It really meant the world to me. God speed.
If you are hanging around…welcome to Sculpting Fear.
(Oh yeah, I’m also changing the name).
To some of you, thanks for reading and all the very best in your writing endeavours.
To the rest - catch you in a few days.
Rob