Story Analyst Michael Sweeney on Script Reading, Taylor Sheridan, and the Future of Screenwriting

Michael Sweeney, Union Story Analyst

For 10 years, Michael Sweeney has been a script reader for Netflix and other producers. In this interview, he talks about working for Taylor Sheridan’s 101 STUDIOS, the impact of A.I. on screenwriting, how streamers changed screenplays, what he is currently writing for himself, and how YOU can break into Hollywood. If you’re interested in … Read more

How’s Your Pacing: Rushing Or Dragging?

Pacing is critical. Rush through the story, and viewers struggle to understand what is going on. Slow down too much, and they get bored. How do you manage the pacing and rhythm of a story? Can you fix it in post?

Read more

Yellowstone’s Taylor Sheridan: Power, Politics & Progress

In Variety’s Top 100 telecasts for 2021, Yellowstone features as the only cable show on the list. And while all other major scripted shows – NCIS and The Equalizer – are written by a sizeable writers’ room, Yellowstone springs from the MacBook of just 1 guy: Taylor Sheridan. Given that “Yellowstone” is technically in competition with the enduringly popular … Read more

Why Taylor Sheridan Is The Most Relevant American Screenwriter

Screenwriter Taylor Sheridan

After seeing Sicario and sourcing the script in 2015, I instantly fell for the voice of this new writer. But Taylor Sheridan was not new. His script Comancheria hit the Blacklist a few years earlier, and would hit cinemas the next year under the title Hell Or High Water. Today, Taylor Sheridan is the most … Read more

FORMATTING TIP: Accent, dialect and foreign language in dialogue

foreign language in dialogue - a tower of babel?

A powerful tool in creating distinctive characters is their language, using accent, dialogue and even foreign language. In the real world, everyone speaks in a way that is slightly different from everyone else. In sociolinguistics, this is called an idiolect. (from Greek idiōma ‘private property, peculiar phraseology’, and idios ‘own, private’) A few years ago I … Read more