The Foundation
What you're starting with.
- An idea you don’t quite know how to turn into a story
- A story you’ve been circling for years without starting
- A draft you abandoned and would rather rebuild from the foundation than keep repairing
Nine weeks, session by session.
The Idea
- Logline: what the idea currently is
- Why you keep coming back to this story
- The emotional trigger underneath it, and what that means for the premise
A clear understanding of what draws you to the material, and a working premise built around it. The thing writers lose by draft seven, established at draft zero.
In Breaking BadA chemistry teacher, told he is dying, starts cooking meth to leave his family money. Underneath it: the hunger for power of a brilliant man who settled for less.
Working through a set of questions about what the emotional trigger reveals about your worldview.
The Theme
- Turning your emotional response into a thematic core
- The tension between the character’s conscious want and subconscious need
- The flaw in their worldview, and how the story will test it
A thematic spine: something every later decision can be tested against.
In Breaking BadWalt wants to provide for his family. He needs to admit that what he really wants is power. Underneath both is the belief that his talent entitles him to more than life gave him.
Building out the character by tracing how the worldview shapes behavior, choices and relationships.
The Characters
- Pressure-testing the worldview and flaw you bring in
- Research toward a living prototype: a real person to study
- The supporting cast as facets of the protagonist: which side of them does each one open?
- How the worldview behaves under pressure, how it gets challenged, and whether it changes
A behavioral dossier rather than a biography: goals, obstacles and conduct, all derived from the worldview.
In Breaking BadUnder pressure, Walt doesn’t break. He escalates. Jesse brings out the part of him that needs to be the smartest person in the room. Skyler brings out the part that lies.
Building the same behavioral logic across the supporting cast.
The Plot
- Main plot points, drawn from character rather than imposed on it
- The central dramatic question: what the audience knows, and when
- Choosing the structure that best serves the thematic core
A structural spine for the story: the major turns, the dramatic question, and the architecture you can now build into a plot.
In Breaking BadCancer gives Walt the deadline, but pride gives him the choice: he turns down help and decides to cook meth instead. The pilot shows us the man he’ll become in the desert, then jumps back to the timid chemistry teacher and lets us watch how he gets there.
Turning the structural spine into a full synopsis: inventing the actions and consequences that connect the major turns.
The Audience Journey
- Pressure-testing the synopsis
- Breaking the story into sequences
- What the audience knows, expects and feels going into each sequence, and what has changed by the end
A pressure-tested plot and an audience journey map: what the audience is meant to know, expect and feel as the story unfolds.
Together, they become the design you’ll write the treatment from.
In Breaking BadThe cold open takes us from bafflement to intrigue. The ordinary life that follows gives us context and sympathy. By the time Walt chooses to cook meth, curiosity has turned into anticipation: now we want to see how far that choice takes him.
Writing the treatment from the synopsis and audience journey map.
You’ll also get a small set of treatment references and a short guide to the form before you start.
The Treatment
- Checking the treatment against the design it was built from
- Where the audience gets ahead, where the story lulls, where the emotional cost doesn’t land
- Whether the treatment itself makes the reader experience the movie we designed
A finished treatment you can send out, plus a written revision map for anything you want to push further.
In Breaking BadThe treatment would have to preserve the pilot’s central experience: bafflement in the cold open, sympathy in Walt’s ordinary life, then anticipation once he chooses to cook meth. If one of those turns lands too early or too softly, the treatment shows us before the screenplay does.
How it runs.
You send your work two days before we meet. I read it and send a brief response ahead of the session, so our hour starts with the work already in motion.
Sixty minutes on video, recorded for you, so you never have to choose between thinking and taking notes.
Questions and working methods shaped to your story.
What you've built.
A treatment you can confidently put in front of a producer or collaborator.
A complete version of the story at treatment scale, with the major dramatic, character and emotional decisions already made.
You’ll also have the work behind it, so if something changes later, you know what you’re changing and why.
Want to see if we're a good fit?
You tell me what you're working on and where you're stuck. I'll ask some questions, explain how I'd approach it, and we'll work out whether this process is the right fit for you.
Book a free 15-minute call (opens in a new tab)Before you book
I don't have a story yet. Just a fragment, an image, a character I can't shake. Is that too early?
That's the right time. Most script services need you to arrive with a draft, which means you've already made a thousand structural decisions alone and in the dark. I'd rather meet you before that, when the idea is still soft enough to shape.
How is this different from notes or coverage?
Coverage evaluates what you've written. This builds what you haven't.
Nobody scores your pages, ranks your logline, or hands you a list of problems to go fix by yourself. We face the same blank space and design the thing together.
What happens on the free call?
Fifteen minutes. No pitch deck required.
You tell me what you're circling. I tell you whether I think I'm useful to it. Sometimes the answer is no.
It's a conversation about fit, not an audition or a free sample of the work.
Who is this not for?
Three kinds of writer.
One who has a finished draft and wants an opinion on it. That's notes, and there are good people who do notes.
One who wants to be told the idea is great.
And one who won't do the work between sessions, because that's where the story actually gets built.
I bring the questions. You still have to answer them.
Does this work for television?
Yes. The method is about the audience's experience, not page count, so it doesn't much care what format you're working in.
What changes is the deliverable and the calendar.
The Foundation ends with a treatment for the season. The Structure ends with a synopsis of every episode plus a full outline of the pilot. That's more work between sessions than a feature asks for, so the spacing stretches to hold it.
We'll set the shape on the free call.
How it works
What does a session actually look like?
Sixty minutes on video. Six sessions across nine weeks for The Foundation, and five across eight weeks for The Structure. Television may take longer.
One pause of up to a month is fine. Everything finishes within a month of the planned end.
The spacing is deliberate. The gaps are where the thinking and writing happen.
You send me your work two days before each session. I read it and send a brief response ahead of the call, so our hour starts with the work already in motion.
What if I can't get the work done in time?
Then we move the session.
If your materials aren't with me two days before we meet, the call is rescheduled. No exceptions.
That isn't a penalty. It's arithmetic. I can't do my half without your half, and an hour spent discussing what you would have written is an hour neither of us wanted.
Do I need to know how to write a treatment already?
You need to be able to write. You don't need to arrive knowing the treatment form.
Before you start yours, I'll give you a small set of treatment references and a short guide to the form. By then, we've already built the story, the structure and the audience journey together.
Your job is to write it. Mine is to make sure the treatment actually delivers the movie we designed.
What do I leave with?
From The Foundation, a treatment you can send out.
Not a draft of a treatment. Not notes toward one. A finished version of the story at treatment scale, ready to go to a producer, director, collaborator or into the next stage of development.
You'll also keep the work behind it, plus a revision map for anything you want to push further. The treatment is the result of the engagement, not a project that begins after it.
The Structure goes one level deeper: a comprehensive outline of the film and the finished grid behind it, checked back against the foundation so the shape and the meaning are still making the same argument.
Do I have to do both?
No.
The Foundation ends when session six ends, and it's built to stand alone.
You can also come directly into The Structure with a treatment you already believe in. If you finish The Foundation and it makes sense to keep going, we'll talk about it then.
Money, rights, and the fine print
How does payment work?
The Foundation is $3,000. The Structure is $2,500.
Pay in full by card or bank transfer, or split it at checkout with Klarna.
The fee is for the engagement as a whole, not a per-session rate. Booking commits the full fee.
Who owns what we make?
You do. All of it.
I take no credit, no ownership, no participation, and no claim on anything that comes out of the work: not the treatment, not the outline, not the film.
You're hiring a set of questions, not a partner.
Will you sign an NDA?
Yes.
Your agreement already includes a confidentiality clause. If you’d rather use your own NDA, send it before you share anything and I’ll sign it.
Can I reschedule?
Yes, with at least 24 hours' notice.
Late materials trigger a reschedule automatically, as above.
Are sessions recorded?
Yes, and the recording is yours.
Partly so you're not taking notes when you should be thinking. Partly because the thing you half-said in minute forty is often the thing worth going back for.