The Perils of Coincidence

In 2007, John came back from a screening of Spider-Man 3 and used his reactions to point to the hurdles a writer can throw in their story's path when relying too heavily on coincidence.

Featured Friday: Swords and Sandals

Weekend Read, our app for reading scripts on your phone, features a new curated collection of screenplays each week. This week, inspired by Christina Hodson’s recommendation on a recent Scriptnotes for great action writing, we look at one of the oldest genres: the sword and sandals epic. Our collection

Creating Custom Themes in Highland Pro

In Highland Pro, you can change the colors of just about anything. Use one of our built-in themes, or create one exactly to your taste. In this short video, I explain how themes work, how to create a custom theme, and how to share your creation with others. Here'

Featured Friday: Buddy Cops

Weekend Read, our app for reading scripts on your phone, features a new curated collection of screenplays each week. This week, we look at the many different iterations of the buddy cop character dynamic and the benefits of a clearly-defined central relationship. Our collection includes: * 21 Jump Street by Michael

Scriptnotes Recap: Episode 680, Writing Action Set Pieces with Christina Hodson

This is only the third recap I’ve done, and I’m assuming that by this point you’re onto me. I highlight that we spoke with a celebrity filmmaker, offer pithy but ultimately empty insights about them, highlight a few bangers from the conversation, and then you click through

Featured Friday: Robots and A.I.

Weekend Read, our app for reading scripts on your phone, features a new curated collection of screenplays each week. This week, we look at stories of artificial intelligence and how we can reflect humanity in the machines we make. Our collection includes: * Blade Runner by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples

Featured Friday: Spring Break

Weekend Read, our app for reading scripts on your phone, features a new curated collection of screenplays each week. This week, grab your sunscreen and your culottes – we’re going on spring break! Our collection includes: * @Zola by Janicza Bravo & Jeremy O. Harris * 22 Jump Street by Oren Uziel

The Design Philosophy Behind Highland Pro’s /Lookup Feature

Highland Pro’s /lookup provides short, inline answers. Building it required early design decisions.

Introducing Highland Pro

Meet your new favorite writing app. Today we're launching Highland Pro, a groundbreaking writing tool designed to empower screenwriters, novelists, and creators of all kinds. Highland Pro offers a clean, distraction-free platform tailored to unlock creativity and enhance productivity. John talks you through many of the new features

Scriptnotes Recap: Episode 674, The One vvith Robert Eggers

Robert Eggers shouldn’t do interviews. Don’t get me wrong, he was a delightful and generous guest. But after a decade of putting out exquisitely-crafted and painstakingly-researched films, I started to create this image in my mind of a tortured intellectual who speaks with a deep brogue, writes with

Scriptnotes Recap: Episode 672, Navigating Loss with Jesse Eisenberg

Last week on Scriptnotes, John welcomed writer, director and actor Jesse Eisenberg for an in-depth discussion on loss, finding your voice as a writer and how to get your movie made. Jesse Eisenberg was a dream guest. Not just because I’ve been a fan of his work for a

Which Screenplay Should I Write?

In 2009, John answered a question about how to choose between the different stories competing for your attention, and gave an example of one time he didn’t need to choose just one. I know you have addressed this type of question to a certain extent, but I was left