Any screenplay with a relationship at the center has a big structural decision to make. Make it early, and breaking your story becomes significantly easier. It's the decision of when the characters become a team/couple. - Rom-com template is often at the end. - Buddy movies before the third act. - Love stories before the midpoint. Your genre does not dictate this. Your story does. For example, a romantic comedy does not have to operate this way. It's just a frame of reference for how these stories are traditionally told. So worry less about the genre and more about the story you want to tell. Is that third act more about how they get together, or is it about how they became a team and now they get to solve their problem as one? Once you make this choice, the rest of your structure becomes much clearer because now you know what you're working towards and when. Big decisions up front mean all the subsequent decisions get easier and easier.

When I was younger, I had what I call "New writer energy." I could write for eight or nine hours a day; go to 5 am. Whatever. I loved it. I loved the focus, I loved how present I could be in the moment. Yes, a lot of energy went to learning to write, but it continued into my early professional years as well. Now? No way. I can't do it. I'm older. So many distractions. Life. Responsibilities. The attention economy. I am lucky if I get 3 or 4 focused hours a day now. Just protecting my focused time is a job in itself. I have noticed that generic writing goals like ”Write" or "Write five pages” are far more likely to lead to procrastination for me. If I don't know how to start the moment I sit down, I am far more likely to get distracted and remain that way for the whole session. If you struggle with this too, I found that getting specific the night before helps my screenwriting quite a bit. Like: - Write the scene where he quits. - Write the scene Marcus shows up. - Outline Act 1. - Rewrite the scene with his son so he is less harsh. Sitting down for that session and knowing what I want to achieve before I even start gets me working much faster and makes the most of that rare deep-focus time.

Comparing yourself to others makes a screenwriting career miserable. There is ALWAYS someone doing better than you, and it’s usually plastered on a billboard or a bus driving by. Shifting this mentality is not just the key to a better life, it produces better work, too.

Not every midpoint is a punch in the gut. Sometimes the midpoint is when a person's dreams all come true. Tomorrow, I'll share with 15,000 subscribers how that affects the back half of your structure. Interested? The link to subscribe is below. 👇

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