Everything Everywhere All At Once: Evelyn’s Journey is the Screenwriter’s Journey Pt.1 In this episode, I’m going to try to do the impossible, and help you understand how the screenplay Everything Everywhere All at Once was built. The truth is, to fully break down the structure of Everything Everywhere All at Once would take me a full day. In fact, it did! Back when the movie first came out, I taught a Master Class during which I broke down the full structure of the movie over an entire...

Succession Season 4: The Difference Between Plot & Structure This week, we are going to do a deep analysis of Succession, Season 4, Episode 1. There will be spoilers, but only for Episode 1.  This is actually my fourth podcast on Succession, and there’s a reason for that. There is so much you can learn from this show– as a screenwriter, as a TV writer, as any kind of writer– because the writing is just so extraordinary.  In my previous Succession podcasts, we’ve broken down the engine...

The Last of Us: How To Find Variations on Your Series Engine This week we’re going to be talking about The Last of Us, the HBO TV series by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann.  For the last couple of episodes, I have been hammering on this idea that the TV Series Engine is designed to make each episode of your TV series feel both the same and different… but then we get to Episode 3, an episode that feels… well, different and different.  Episode 3 of HBO’s The Last of Us series seems to...

The White Lotus: Engine of a Limited Series This week, we’re going to be looking at The White Lotus, Season 1 and Season 2, and through The White Lotus we’ll be looking at a really important concept in writing for TV: the TV Series Engine. We’re going to be learning how to build an engine for a limited series, and how to apply those concepts to any kind of series– whether it’s a TV drama, comedy, dramedy, or anything in between.  To understand how the engine of The White Lotus works, let’s...

Triangle Of Sadness: Meaning, Structure and the Power of Location in Screenwriting Hello, I’m Jacob Krueger, and this is the Write Your Screenplay podcast. This week, we’re going to be talking about Triangle of Sadness by Ruben Ostlund.  There are so many valuable things that we can talk about, looking at this movie. You can think of Triangle of Sadness as basically “White Lotus on a boat,” but there’s also something fascinating happening in the structure of Triangle of...

The Banshees Of Inisherin: Allegory, Stakes and Structure  This week we’re going to be looking at The Banshees of Inisherin, by Martin McDonagh. It was fascinating to see The Banshees of Inisherin up against Everything Everywhere All at Once at the Golden Globes, because Everything Everywhere All at Once was such an extraordinarily complicated screenplay, and The Banshees of Inisherin is such a simple one. It was very interesting to see those two scripts in head-to-head competition, because...

Avatar: The Way of Water VS. Avatar – Spectacle and Structure This episode, we’re going to be looking at Avatar: The Way of Water as well as the first Avatar, the 2009 film. We’re going to be breaking down both movies structurally, analyzing their strengths and weakness, and understanding the role of spectacle in both Avatar films, and how to apply those lessons to your own writing. There’s an interesting thing that happens with sequels. When we’re building sequels, our movies actually...

New Year’s Resolutions For Writers That Actually Work It’s New Year’s Day. That means, if you are like most people (and certainly if you’re like most writers), you probably just set a New Year’s Resolution for your writing.  The truth is, you probably set a New Year’s Resolution last year for your writing.  And you probably set a New Year’s Resolution the year before for your writing.  In fact, you’ve probably set a ton of New Year’s Resolutions for your writing.  Which raises the...

Pitch Festivus! This podcast is a replay of our Dec 8, 2022 Pitch Festivus event, where I was joined by Jacob Krueger Studio faculty members Steven Bagatourian, Keatyn Lee, Ron McCants, Karin Partin Wells and Jonathan Redding for a 3 hour pitching extravaganza!  The transcript includes my introductory lecture about how to pitch your screenplay or TV show from the event as well as pitching advice from each faculty members. To listen to the fabulous pitches of our competing students from the...

Is Your Pitch Working? Before we get started this week, I want to remind you that Pitch Festivus. our annual pitch party and holiday event is coming up. It’s FREE! Thursday, December 8, Online, from 7-10 pm Eastern/ 4-7 pm Pacific. The entire JKS faculty is going to be there. We’re going to teach you about pitching, we’re going to teach you how to handle pitch meetings, we’re going to talk everything pitch. And you’ll even get a chance to throw your name in the hat for a chance to pitch your...

The Shed Today’s podcast is an excerpt from a recent Thursday Night Writes in which we discussed some of the causes of writer’s block, how to overcome procrastination as a writer, and how to keep your writing flowing through the chaos of the holiday season, so when you’re setting your New Year’s resolutions, they can be about how to take your writing to the next level, rather than how to get the engine started again.  I realized I’ve been doing this wrong for 17 years.  For 17 years, I’ve...

Every Genre Is Like a Musical This week, we’re going to be talking about writing genre movies and TV shows. We’re going to be talking about writing the horror genre, and writing elevated horror. But we’re also going to be talking about writing any kind of feature film or TV show, or even a play, comic or novel that has strong genre elements.  The truth is, every film and every show, every work of art for that matter, has a strong genre element.  Whether you’re writing an action...

Pulp Fiction: A Simple Trick For Shaping Your Audience’s Expectations This episode is going to be a throwback to Pulp Fiction. I recently rewatched the film in preparation for the ProTrack mentorship session with one of my students. There are so many lessons in this film that will be really valuable for you all, so I’m excited to share them with you. Pulp Fiction, on its surface, seems to be completely revolutionizing what screenwriting structure looks like.  Pulp Fiction unfolds out of...

Structure is a Puzzle This week, we’re going to be talking about screenplay structure in what may be a different way than you have experienced it before. Usually, when people talk about screenwriting structure, they might be talking about outlines, or plot, or the kinds of things that might have to happen, or Three Act Structure, or Seven Act Structure, or The Hero’s Journey, or any of the millions of other permutations by which people try to understand structure with their intellectual...

Homeland: Getting Staffed on a TV Show with Jonathan Redding Jake: My guest today is Jonathan Redding. Jonathan is the newest faculty member at Jacob Krueger Studio.  Jonathan was a writer on Homeland, which, if you haven’t watched, is an extraordinary show. We’re going to be talking about how Homeland was built, and what was it like to be in that room, especially as your first staff gig as a staff writer.  Jonathan began as a playwright and a dramaturg. And we’ll talk a little bit about...

The Inner Game of Screenwriting with Christian Lybrook Jake: I have a special guest today, Christian Lybrook, who is one of our ProTrack mentors at Jacob Krueger Studio.   I’m especially proud to have Christian here because Christian came up through our program. He’s an extraordinary writer. He has produced and directed his own work, he’s managed to maintain a career as a writer from Idaho! ( we won’t tell anybody, Christian) And he’s also just a sensitive human being with incredible...

The Bear: The First Image and the Opening Sequence This week, we’re going to be talking about The Bear.  We’re going to be analyzing the first image of The Bear and the opening sequence of the pilot. We’ll be talking about the importance of the first image in your screenplay not only when it comes to selling your script but also on a creative and structural level. And most importantly, we’re going to talk about how to make the first image work for you in your screenwriting.  The first...

How to Transition from Playwriting to Screenwriting  This episode is for the playwrights among you. We are going to talk about how to make the transition from playwriting to screenwriting, the difference between plays and screenplays, and how you can use some of the incredible skills you have as a playwright in order to make the transition into screenwriting or TV writing.  What is the difference between playwriting and screenwriting? And how do you make the transition from playwriting to...

Top Gun: Maverick – All Writing Is Political This week, we’re doing something special. I’m actually sharing a video from my latest Thursday Night Writes Class. This is the free class that I do every Thursday night.  But this particular lecture, I felt was so timely and so important that I wanted to share it with everyone on the podcast. You’ll notice we had some sound issues. The sound is not as good as you would normally expect from the podcast. But I think you will get a lot of value out...

Winning Time: How To Adapt a True-Life Story This week, we’re going to be looking at Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty by Max Borenstein and Jim Hecht, and how to adapt a true story into a TV show or feature film. We’ll be building on our conversation from my podcast about TV Bible writing, to help you understand how to translate some of those concepts into the structure of your TV Series. And most importantly, we’ll be learning how to develop your TV series structure around the...

Selling a TV Series: The Role of the Show Bible Today we are going to talk about what it takes to sell at TV series, and specifically the role of TV Show Bible and the way it works together with the Series Pilot to make the sale. We’re going to answer the questions: What is a Show Bible? Why do you need one? What does a TV Bible supposed to do? How do TV Bibles relate to Pitch Decks? And how do you actually know if your TV Bible is working or not?  How does a TV Bible help you sell your TV...

Archetypes vs. Stereotypes: A New Look At The Hero’s Journey Archetypes are one of the most valuable and also most challenging concepts in screenwriting.  To understand how to use archetypes effectively, we have to go back all the way to the source, Carl Jung (famously not a screenwriter).  We have to understand where the concept of archetypes comes from, and how it connects to a larger concept called the Collective Unconscious.  And we have to learn how to tap into archetypes...

The Gilded Age: 5 Steps To Raise The Stakes in Your Screenplay This week, we are going to be talking about how to raise the stakes in your screenwriting and TV writing. This is probably one of the most confusing notes that writers tend to get from producers, and one of the most popular.  “Raise the stakes! Raise the stakes! Raise the stakes!” But what are stakes? Why is it that you can blow something up, burn $3 million bucks, shoot at a baby, and it can still feel like there are no stakes?...

Character Traits vs Character Development Today we are going to be talking about character traits, character development and how to write great characters in your screenplay.  Basically, all of character development comes down to one really simple concept: A lot of people think that characters are adjectives. They think that a character is “funny,” “responsible,” “smart,” “kind” or “hard-working.” But characters are actually verbs. When developing characters, writers often think that...

How to Sell Your Screenplay: Learn from Indie Producer, Noah Lang Jake: My special guest today is Noah Lang. You just finished a really interesting film, This Is Not A War Story.  I thought this would be a wonderful interview for our final podcast in the Sell Your Screenplay Series, because this film is not what most people would traditionally consider a “likely” movie to reach production, much less a release on HBO Max. So many new writers think that selling a script is about “selling...