The Structure
What you're starting with.
- A treatment you believe in that now needs a structure detailed enough to carry the screenplay
- Or the treatment you built in The Foundation
Eight weeks, session by session.
The Analysis
- What triggers you in this story, read back out of the treatment you already have
- The character’s worldview and flaw, and the tension between want and need
- The thematic spine and emotional design already present in the pages
The foundation under your treatment, named: the spine the finished outline will be checked 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.
Breaking the treatment into sequences, ready for the grid.
The Grid
- The grid and its logic: why these three axes
- For every sequence: each active character’s goal and obstacle, switches and fulcrums, changes in status, function, and what the audience feels going in and coming out
- You build three or four sequences live from your own treatment
A working grid with the first few sequences built, and a clear method for completing the rest.
In Breaking BadThe cold open as one row: the last goodbye; asks how-did-he-get-here?; flight ▸ facing it; bafflement ▸ intrigue. See it in the Method →
Completing the grid across every sequence.
The Research Pass
- Reading the completed grid for where it’s thin, repetitive or doing too little
- Looking at the gap between what the character knows and what the audience knows at each sequence
- Locations, objects and milieu as dramatic instruments rather than backdrop
A research list tied to the weakest parts of the story, plus a clearer sense of where specific details can do structural or emotional work.
In Breaking BadThe RV, the gas mask, the glassware stolen from Walt’s own classroom: details that tell us who he’s becoming before he can admit it himself.
Researching, then revising the grid wherever the research changes the design.
Selection
- One question for the whole hour: what earns its place?
- Cutting, merging and reordering sequences according to their function
- Testing the weakest or most redundant parts of the grid together
A tighter story and a clear principle for making the remaining cuts on your own.
In Breaking BadDoes the car wash earn its place? It barely moves the plot, but it proves the humiliation Walt thinks he has been living with. Everything he does next becomes easier to understand. It stays.
Writing the outline from the finished grid.
The Return
- Reading the outline back against the thematic core from the first session
- Is this still the story you meant to tell?
- Where the audience journey drifted from the design, and whether the drift made the story better
The finished outline, checked back against the foundation, and the grid behind it.
In Breaking BadIs this still the story of a man who feels life gave him less than he deserved? If the outline turns him into a victim of circumstance, something has drifted.
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 comprehensive outline of the film, with the grid behind it.
By this point, the major questions have answers: what happens, why it happens, what every sequence is doing, how the characters change, what the audience knows and feels, and how each piece creates pressure for the next.
The screenplay still has to be written. But you won’t be figuring out what the story is halfway through the draft.
You have the map.
Now you get to write the movie.
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.