Script Perfection Archives - The Story Department

How’s Your Pacing: Rushing Or Dragging?

January 29, 2022January 29, 2022 by Karel FG Segers

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?

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than you have fingers on your left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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Yellowstone’s Taylor Sheridan: Power, Politics & Progress

January 30, 2022December 31, 2021 by Karel FG Segers

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

December 30, 2021December 24, 2021 by Karel FG Segers

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

July 26, 2021May 9, 2021 by Karel FG Segers

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

Wow Them In The End – Give Your Screen Story An Amazing Ending

March 7, 2021March 7, 2021 by Karel FG Segers

A great ending can save an otherwise problematic or difficult script – like The Muppet Man. Or have you seen Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood? Industry pros know that to go into profit, you need word of mouth – and repeat business. Great endings deliver just that.

Think about your favourite movies. Most will have an extraordinary ending. In this article I won’t give you the secret to writing a Muppet Man ending, but you may learn a few tricks to make yours more memorable.