John and Craig welcome Aline Brosh McKenna to look at what writers mean by a “voice,” and how it develops.

Some screenwriters’ voice develops long before their craft, leading people to label them as “promising” even though the scripts themselves are a mess. Other writers get all the technical stuff right from the start, but have a hard time finding something distinctive about how they write.

From there, we segue into one of the most contentious Three Page Challenges we’ve ever done, with wildly split opinions.

In our bonus segment for premium members, John the Eagle Scout gives Drew practical advice for wilderness camping in 2024.

Links:

• Aline Brosh McKenna on Instagram
• Spy Magazine
• Recitative on Wikipedia
• Three pages by James Topham
• Three pages by Cheryl Laughlin
• Three pages by Chris Vieira
• Submit for the Three Page Challenge
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• Craig Mazin on Threads and Instagram
• John August on Threads, Instagram and Twitter
• John on Mastodon
• Outro by Matthew Chilleli (send us yours!)
• This episode was originally produced by Stuart Friedel. Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and is edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.