Jake shares professional tips for prioritizing your writing goals as well as personal experiences for how to create your own writing lifestyle.

Life as a Writer: How to Build a Writing Lifestyle

How can you overcome your fear of pitching? Learn Jake’s approach for overcoming fear and pitching your script like a pro.

Are You Afraid of Pitching?

Jake shares 5 tips for making writing resolutions that work. Understand the Flash Flood Principle for setting goals for yourself learn how to make New Year’s resolutions for your writing that last a lifetime.

Writing Resolutions That Actually Work

Jake examines how emerging writers can break into the film industry and sell a screenplay or TV pilot. Part 1.

How to Sell Your Screenplay

Learn the four elements of character development, and how thinking of characters as verbs instead of adjectives can help you write unforgettable characters.

Character Traits vs Character Development: Is Your Character an Adjective or a Verb?

Getting back to writing after you’ve stopped for awhile can be like entering a creepy shed covered with cobwebs. Here’s how you can overcome procrastination and writer’s block to make it safe to write again.

The Shed

Jake does a deep, line by line analysis of the opening sequence of Everything Everywhere All at Once to help you understand how to write a great opening sequence for your own movie.

Everything Everywhere All at Once PART 2: The Opening Sequence

This week, Jake discusses James Gunn's script for "Guardians of the Galaxy." Jake calls the script "shockingly successful" and argues that the film "actually redefines our expectations for what a superhero movie can be... "Guardians of the Galaxy" is not a movie about capturing some crazy crystal, defeating some evil lord, or saving the galaxy. "Guardians of the Galaxy" is about coming to grips with the loss of the people you love and somehow holding onto your spirit of adventure, to your ability to connect to people, and to your ability to have family. "Guardians of the Galaxy" is just a giant metaphor for loss.

Find out more about Jacob Krueger Studio:

WRITER RESOURCES: http://www.writeyourscreenplay.com/category/screenwriting-articles/
WORKSHOPS & SEMINARS: http://writeyourscreenplay.com/classes

Guardians of the Galaxy: It's a Metaphor!

Learn the vital importance of your screenplay’s first 10 pages, and what it takes to make them successful on both a commercial and creative level.

Talk to Me Part 1: The Vital Role of Your First 10 Pages

The Inner Censor helps build writer's blocK –here’s how to turn it off

Writer's Block and the Inner Censor

Everyone agrees that some of the best writing in Hollywood right now is happening in television. And with brand new web networks like Netflix and Amazon hungry for quality new series, now is one of the most exciting times to be a TV Writer. So what do you need to break into this exciting industry?

In this podcast, three experts in the industry come together to teach you exactly what you need to succeed in the world of series. Whether you’re writing a half hour comedy, an hour-long drama, or an episode for your own web series, you’ll learn what you need not only to break in, but also to build a career as a series writer.

Learn the elements of a successful series, and what every network, studio and series producer is looking for when they read a series spec script or an original pilot. Understand how a TV Writers Room work, and what your role will be within a team of writers. And most importantly, learn what it takes to write a grade script that works within a series structure, without sacrificing your unique talent as a writer.

Panel members for the podcast include three faculty members from Jacob Krueger Studio: Jacob Krueger (Studio Founder & Award Winning Screenwriter), Jerome Perzigian (“The Jeffersons” and “The Golden Girls,”), and George Strayton ("Hercules" and "Xena: Warrior Princess").

Listen to Part 2: https://soundcloud.com/jacob-krueger-studio/tv-series-writing-2

Find out more about Jacob Krueger Studio:

WRITER RESOURCES: www.writeyourscreenplay.com/category/sc…g-articles/
WORKSHOPS & SEMINARS: writeyourscreenplay.com/classes

TV Series Writing:  What You Need To Break In - Part 1

Learn pitching from Jacob Krueger and top JKS faculty members.

If you liked this Podcast, join us for Thursday Night Writes! Our Happy Hour of Writing Exercises with Jake every Thursday night at 7:00 pm ET, RSVP: https://www.writeyourscreenplay.com/t...

Learn more about our programs: https://www.writeyourscreenplay.com​​

4th Annual Pitch Festivus!

In this interview with Erin Brown Thomas, you’ll learn how to write an effective ensemble film through deep analysis of Erin’s Sundance film, Chasers and PT Anderson’s Magnolia.

Ensemble Pieces

Need help getting your 3 minute pitch ready for our free online pitching event on Jan 9 with Vanessa Johnston? Wondering how to build a short “elevator pitch” that communicates the essence of your project? Or just curious about pitching in general? Then check out this podcast recording of Jake’s recent Thursday Night Writes pitching class. https://www.writeyourscreenplay.com/free-writing-classes-thursday-night-writes/

How to Prepare a 3 Minute “Elevator Pitch”

Learn from “A Real Pain” how to apply the concepts of vignettes to building character, structure and theme in your screenplay.

A Real Pain: Building Characters With Vignettes

Lessons From Sundance 2025 Part 1

Learn from Sundance 2025 genre stand-outs Together and Didn’t Die how to explore deeply human characters and questions within an elevated horror or zombie format. 

Lessons From Sundance 2025, Part 2

Learn from The Apprentice the art of writing complex antagonists by connecting to the universal emotional needs that drive character choices

The Apprentice: Writing The Antihero

Learn how to balance expert research and creative freedom in your screenwriting as we explore Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, starring Adrien Brody.

The Brutalist Part 1: How to Deal with Experts & Research

Discover why Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, rejects the idea that protagonists must drive the action and how its unconventional approach grows out of its thematic exploration of the immigrant experience.

The Brutalist Part 2: Do You Need an Active Main Character?

Learn how Engine and Theme function in all 3 seasons of The White Lotus and how slight changes in The White Lotus Season 3 massively affect the feeling of the series...

The White Lotus: Why Season 3 Feels Different

Learn how The Last of Us Season 2 resets its story engine—and what it teaches about rebuilding character dynamics, stakes, and tension in your own TV series.

The Last of Us S2 Resetting Your Series Engine

 Learn how Adolescence grabs its audience in the first ten seconds—and what screenwriters can take from its naturalistic style, one-shot structure, and emotionally grounded approach to character.

Adolescence Part 1: Playing at the Top Of Your Intelligence

Learn how Adolescence Episode 3 (building upon structural techniques from The Wire) uses a Pattern Based Series Engine to navigate rare changes in characters and narrative form while still preserving the feeling of the series.


Adolescence Episode 3: Adolescence, The Wire & Pattern Based Engine

Often, as writers, we get so hung up on linear, narrative structure that we forget that there are completely different forms of screenplay structure that can be equally moving and powerful. So for today’s podcast we’re going to take a blast to the past, and look at a film that seems to diverge in almost every way from the traditional forms of structure we’ve been talking about on this podcast: Terence Malick’s, The Tree of Life.

What makes The Tree of Life so extraordinary is the effortless way it weaves traditional linear storytelling—the story of the family– with long meditative sequences of breathtaking images of the vast beauty and wanton destructiveness of the universe. But don’t let Malick fool you, underneath the melodic rambling of The Tree of Life is a rock solid structure, which provides the drum beat for the entire film.

Find out more about Jacob Krueger Studio:

WRITER RESOURCES: www.writeyourscreenplay.com/blog
WORKSHOPS & SEMINARS: writeyourscreenplay.com/classes

Tree Of Life: Alternative Forms of Structure

What the heck is a TV Series Bible anyway? How do you write one?  And why do you need one?

The truth is, the idea of a Show Bible, as many people talk about it today, is total fiction.But like many fictional ideas, it’s become a reality that we now need to deal with as TV writers.

If you ask Jerry Perzigian, who teaches our TV Comedy Classes, he’ll tell you that in his entire thirty-some year career as a show runner on The Jeffersons, The Golden Girls, Married With Children, and about a dozen other hit shows, he never once made a bible.

Wondering if it’s different in TV Drama? Ask former Showtime Executive and Pulitzer Prize nominated writer Steve Molton, who teaches our TV Drama classes, and he’ll tell you the same thing.

In fact, on these shows the bible’s weren’t made by the writers at all. The show bibles were made by the assistants. And only after the show was up and running for a good long time, when the old staff writers were moving on, and the new staff writers started coming in to replace them.

Find out more about Jacob Krueger Studio:

WRITER RESOURCES: www.writeyourscreenplay.com/blog
WORKSHOPS & SEMINARS: writeyourscreenplay.com/classes

Does Your Show Need A Bible?

This week, Jake breaks down the pilot for the new hit Netflix series, Stranger Things.

Stranger Things - Part 1 - The Show Engine & the Bible

This week, Jake takes a break from film analysis in order to share a lecture from his Screenwriting Masterclass.

A Trip to Cambodia - & Act Structure & The Art of the Outline

This week, Jake analyzes how Hell or High Water breaks the typical cops-and-robbers movie mold.

Hell Or High Water

Doctor Strange - Feeding The Genre Monster

This week, Jake analyzes Eric Heisserer's new sci-fi feature film Arrival starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner

Arrival: The Writer's Journey

Lear how to pitch your screenplay or TV show and advanced pitching techniques for Screenwriters, TV Writers, Web Series Writers, Novelists and Playwrights.

Fix Your Pitch

"...As Dan O’Bannon has noted in interviews, the idea that actually spawned the original Alien, was the horror of rape and forced pregnancy-- a horror that so many women have gone through in their real world lives, but that few men could viscerally understand. So instead of going after women in an exploitative way, as so many horror movies have done, he wanted instead to go after the men-- to make that horror visceral to men, in a way that would make them, “Cross their legs” and feel what that is like.

And you can see that the entire structure of the Alien franchise, from the structure of each individual script, to the horrifying visuals, to the rules of the universe, down all the way to the production design, the way the alien creatures burst from the chests (and later, in Alien: Covenant from the backs) of impregnated males, every single decision grows from that one simple idea. The deeply personal why that the writer is actually writing it..."

Alien Covenant: Setting Up A Trick Ending

For all its many structural problems, Atomic Blonde succeeds in its fight sequences in the same way that Iron Man succeeds. Atomic Blonde and Iron Man both succeed because they realize that guns are no fun...

Podcast: Atomic Blonde

"There’s no doubt that some of the most successful movies ever, from Dead Poets Society to Little Miss Sunshine,  have more than one main character.  And at the same time, there are genuine risks when we start telling a story from the point-of-view of more than one main character. In this podcast, Award Winning Screenwriter Jacob Krueger shows you how to write a script with more than one main character and how to avoid the pitfalls when building this kind of complicated screenplay structure."

Writing a script with more than one main character

Annabelle: Creation is not a fully successful film. For all that’s great about it, it’s also full of holes, gaps in logic, violations of its own rules, crappy dialogue… but there’s also a ton you can learn from it as a screenwriter, particularly when it comes to how to write your first ten pages.

Annabelle: Creation

On this podcast episode, Jacob Krueger breaks down The Florida Project, to show the underlying structure that makes this seemingly structureless film so successful.

The Florida Project: Structure Without Structure

In this very special 100th Episode, Jacob Krueger and Audrey Sussman PhD discuss how learning to nurture the inner artist that is the source of your creativity can change not only your writing, but also your life.

Nurturing The Inner Artist: With Special Guest, Audrey Sussman

Jacob Krueger talks about the role of tone in genre, and how the writers of Deadpool controlled the tone to handle heavy topics in such a lighthearted way.

Deadpool 2: Where Tone Meets Genre

In this podcast, Jacob Krueger analyzes the Season 2 pilot episode of Succession and shares how building a series engine from a personal place of truth will help you create the roadmap for a show that can continue to grow for several seasons.

Succession Season 2: Generating an Advanced Series Engine

Rather than looking at movies in terms of "two thumbs up" or "two thumbs down" Award Winning Screenwriter Jacob Krueger discusses what you can learn from them as a screenwriter. He looks at good movies, bad movies, movies we love, and movies we hate, exploring how they were built, and how you can apply those lessons to your own writing.  More information and full archives at WriteYourScreenplay.com
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