Rochester Writers Workshop

Cinemastix is a Youtube channel of film criticism essays that I find thought provoking. With Spielberg’s latest film Disclosure Day, the channel took a look at his previous alien films.

How do the protagonists of these films align themselves thematically? It’s fascinating to see that Close Encounters, ET, and War of the Worlds approach their themes in three distinct ways.

See “How they SECRETLY made a perfect movie trilogy across 40 years and no one realized” below

What motivates your characters? Many film pairings can be reduced to one character motivated by “avoidance”, while the other is motivated by “love”. On a recent Scriptnotes episode, Craig and John broke it down in a really inspiring way. I found it motivational!

Listen to the podcast at
https://johnaugust.com/2026/avoidance-and-other-anti-quests

I’m always on the lookout for new screenwriting programs. Personally, I’m drawn to cheap (or free) writing apps that don’t have more settings and menus that I need. It needs to be lightweight and easy to use, and of course easy to open old files or download/save the latest ones.

Today I tried out Porcupine, which is a free Fountain-based web app. Just open your browser and go to the site. You don’t even login! That suggests to me it’s good for quick writing, but not long term projects. If I close my browser, will it remember me tomorrow? I wouldn’t count on it. Still, you can (and should) download the fountain file after every session, so you can import it next time you want to build on it.

Check it out at https://porcupine.oli.digital/

A participant at Stage 32 was struggling with how to write challenges for their protagonist, including setting up the proper antagonist. Not every movie is an action packed sci-fi Marvel world-in-danger situation, so how do you handle the escalation of stakes? There were several writers who chimed in with excellent suggestions.

Check it out at https://www.stage32.com/lounge/screenwriting/Where-do-you-guys-get-your-antagonists-from

Lucy Ives has a book with 365 writing prompts. She shares many of them in this blog post — some are specifically for novelistic writing, but many can be altered to jumpstart your screenwriting.

Check it out at https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2026/01/14/ten-writing-prompts/

Recently I discovered a free screenwriting app that saves to Google Drive and also exports as PDF, FDX, or Fountain. It’s barebones — you just go to the website and start typing! Want to save your work? Install the add-on for Google Drive and it will save your files there. (You do have a Google account, right?)

So simple, so free.

As with any web app, I encourage you to download a PDF or FDX of your work after every session just in case something bad happens. Don’t trust the internet to save your work forever.

YouMeScript.com

Looking for some holiday writing inspiration? Try some of these screenplays suggested by Bulletproof Screenwriting.

https://bulletproofscreenwriting.tv/christmas-movie-screenplay-download/

When a writer connects part of the script with something that happened earlier, that’s a callback. It can be a big set-up and payoff, or something smaller like a joke. 

Read all about callbacks in this article at Script Mag:

https://scriptmag.com/whats-a-callback-in-a-script-and-are-they-necessary-or-even-useful

I’ve been watching Instagram shorts from writer Nic Curcio (highly recommended), and he now co-hosts a new show, available as podcast or Youtube channel.

The Hollywood Hang is an industry deep-dive podcast hosted by two screenwriters – Nic Curcio and Kristen Tepper. Together, they and their guests share the highs, lows and hell no’s of their journeys to break into Hollywood – offering honest, relatable, and sometimes totally insane behind-the-scenes at the realities of the film industry today.

https://www.youtube.com/@thehollywoodhang

Some good thoughts here on writing efficiently, especially for a low budget.

https://scriptstrategy.com/2025/06/04/five-screenwriting-lessons-from-night-of-the-living-dead/