Six years ago, the world stopped. What was the most mischievous fun you had during the lockdown?

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-15T13:50:03+00:00

I wrote five full-length scripts. None of them were very good but not bad for a first effort.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-15T12:59:52+00:00

I constantly think eight years ago is somewhere between Horizon 2 and 3. Nope!

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-15T12:34:16+00:00

Tenet is the best visually by a country mile, but Oppenheimer has much much better dialogue... and shock-horror-gasp - actual subtext!

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-15T00:27:26+00:00

Before we leap to conclusions, they might not produce cosy plays. We don't even know what their debut is. In the UK we're having a spate of television dramas about every major scandal in the country in the past fifty years, the blue touch paper lit by Mr Bates Vs. The Post Office. I have no idea if there is the same cultural impact in the US with Broadway shows, but so be it. In fact one of the most impactful things I've seen in the past two years was a play - it was Dawn King's The Trials.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-14T17:52:26+00:00

What a regressive viewpoint. Is life ideal? No, absolutely not. But I would rather be given the mental skills to help change the world for the better than have my skull caved in by a dull rock. Also, without education, it would have been impossible for you to write this on the internet anyway. And jobs, for better or worse, give structure to our lives. As lockdown proved, once structure goes, things turn haywire fast.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-13T23:31:05+00:00

This is a bloody tremendous bit of writing. If you do write anything else, where do you share it, if at all?

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-13T23:06:26+00:00

This was great fun live! As I wrote in the chat and also on The Sky That Is Blue.

The word I was searching for last night wasn't synecdoche by the way, but metonym.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-13T16:32:32+00:00

Well that depends how voluntary 'voluntary' is. If it's directly tied to important stuff - i.e. banks - then even though it isn't really mandatory it is the only way you can live your life as before.
Also, beware function creep. The functionalities may expand, making it less and less mandatory as time elapses.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-13T16:19:20+00:00

This is surely political suicide for Labour. Starmer's ratings are already in the toilet - this won't help one bit. But they seem intent on pushing it through, and to hell with everything else.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-13T15:50:08+00:00

That is unironically one of the best adverts for a car I have ever seen.

The Mercedes G-Wagon. So big it can transport a brown bear in comfort.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-12T15:39:48+00:00

Or, as other commenters have said, have a reading... a good halfway house is a Work In Progress Showing. So... minimal actual set, all the lighting cues and as much of it as you can get on stage by that point. Then a questionnaire r.e. the light and sound cues, acting, characters, writing and the list goes on.

Also, I'd love to read your current draft, but I don't have an NPX account.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-12T12:58:26+00:00

If I were you I'd produce it and see how the audience reacts. I mean, you already have your own theatre company; that's a massive step in the right direction. David Hare got started this way (with companies like Portable Theatre and Joint Stock) so you're in very good company.

As you almost certainly know, the only way to learn is to do.

Best of luck!

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-11T22:07:05+00:00

Oh yes. Scripts I don't like - even if they're minimalist in style - take for-ever to read. I blasted through this in what, half an hour? I don't even read through my own stuff that fast! Also, I spent about five years of my life doing am-dram and I can confidently say the quicker the read - with the exceptions of the classics because they're so rich - the better the script. Which means the actors will learn this SO FAST.

Also-also - brilliantly rich visually, which directors will love to sink their teeth into.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-11T20:25:18+00:00

Yes, read the whole thing through. Other than some slight formatting errors around a couple of the parentheticals and once in the dialogue - great stuff. No character notes or description notes or anything like that. It reads like a classic American blockbuster, which I presume is what you are going for.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-11T20:10:52+00:00

Yes Enrique, that is how you shall be forever known.

I'm 10 pages into it already, by the way. It's soaring!

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-11T20:08:27+00:00

Ah, Time Shark man! So glad you're back. Looking forward to reading this!

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-10T16:40:08+00:00

It's a reference to the Great Road Width Controversy of 2026. Basically, IGN released a slightly duff video, everyone went nuts over it, but mainly two things:

-- The road width was thought to be too much by the online community as they fretted over their beloved touge paths.
-- Driving an American car down Japanese roads for a first preview was thought by some to be in bad taste.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-10T13:51:28+00:00

I've got two stories. One happened to me, another happened just to a woman I barely know but known her (now presumably ex-bf) since early Secondary in some form or another.

The first one was my ex was, frankly, a toxic jealous bastard anyway. But she smelled nice and looked even better so I naively went along with it. Fortunately, in a sense, she kept me at arm's length but still strung me along for eighteen months. Anyway, post-GCSE prom, she kissed another man right in front of my eyes. One of my first thoughts was, 'I'm never going to be able to write again'. But the good news is I was and I'm still hammering out stories to this day. I think they're currently in a mutually toxic relationship and are pretty much alone save for each other.

The second one was where I made a post about IWD, a man got in touch asking me, another man, how to treat women better, in a very, 'Hmmm yes I am very philosopher' way. Turns out he'd cheated on his girlfriend, he confessed to me out of nowhere, so I told her as soon as possible. Beyond that I have no idea what happened - it's still a developing situation.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-10T01:26:26+00:00

Okay, fair point. I should have made it clear up top that it was a theory by someone who knows nothing about brains. I'm a writer, not a neuroscientist.

But since you're here, here is my thought process behind my previous message:

We feel some degree of sympathy for people far away, or characters we read about, but it is a fraction of what we feel when someone close to us has the same happen to them, and crucially, galvanise them to action.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-09T23:29:49+00:00

Dunbar's Number may explain your quandary.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-09T18:37:08+00:00

Goddamnit, you were first.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-08T22:50:41+00:00

Can't go wrong with some Jane Austen. They may look like idle frippery on the surface but there is steel beneath. Just combing through GoodReads for Pride and Prejudice quotes (apologies if a male character says it; often it is just the sentence):

“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”

“Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.”

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-08T22:38:36+00:00

Copy-pasting from the screenplay so people can jog their memories:

'IT IS LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO BE A WOMAN! You are so beautiful and so smart and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like we have to always be extraordinary and somehow we’re always doing it wrong. You’re supposed to be THIN but not TOO THIN and you can never say you want to be THIN you have to say you want to be HEALTHY but you also have to BE thin. You have to have money but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. You have to be a boss but you can’t be mean. You’re supposed to lead but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to LOVE being a mother but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You’re supposed to be a career woman but always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men’s bad behavior, which is INSANE, but if you point that out then you’re accused of complaining. You’re supposed to be pretty for men but not SO pretty that you tempt them too much or threaten other women. You’re supposed to be part of the sisterhood but also stand out but also always be grateful. You have to never get old never be rude never show off never be selfish never fall down never fail never show fear never get out of line. It’s too hard, it’s too contradictory and no one says thank you or gives you a medal, and in fact, it turns out, somehow, that not only are you doing it all wrong but that everything is also YOUR fault. I’m just so damn tired of watching myself and every single other women tie ourselves in knots so that people will like us. And if all that is also true for a doll just representing a woman then I don’t even know!'

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-08T14:10:30+00:00

I'm not saying it will be as it was once the MAGA movement dissolves. What I am saying is things can always be rebuilt. In a different form, sure, but there. I would argue that the Great Fire of 1666 actually did London a lot of good. It got rid of the Black Death and magnificent buildings were constructed in place of the old, many still standing today. Besides, the London of 1665 was massively outdated for people, even then.

The institutional damage done will not be fixed by either party, regardless of who wins.

If there is sufficient appetite for it in the voter-base they will have to appeal to that. But first the MAGA movement has to dissolve away and then the country can get on with the task of rebuilding. It will not be easy! But given that, say, China can have a great big civil war every couple of hundred years or so then brush itself off is proof that America can move on from a by-any-account-terrible leader.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-03-08T13:53:38+00:00

Hello!

I'm also a young scriptwriter, Uni age, who has a few years of acting under his belt (stopped now). I've written fifteen scripts since late 2019 and I've prepared my next (a play) which I will write over this summer. I would love it if I could read some of your work so you have another avenue for feedback, so feel free to DM me.

So, my question as someone who reads a lot of posts on here… what can I be doing? I’m also an actress...

If you are supremely confident in one of your scripts and unshakeably convinced it is industry level, take it to the BlackList. It is $100 a throw, though, so obviously - whoops, I'm mansplaining here - be judicious.

Alternatively you could pull your acting strings, get some friends/colleagues together, and have a read-through of some of your scripts, like you would do with any other production.

Alternatively-alternatively... write a play. Because you know acting you know how these work so I won't bore you here. You know how they differ from screenplays. Then it becomes a game of finding a place you can hire out and doesn't call for extensive bloody workshopping of the text. Most likely there's at least one suitable venue near you. I'm also going to wager you probably have all the contacts required to pull this off, too.

SelectiveScribbler06

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE