Follow Up

Writing for microdramas, aka verticals

September 24, 2025 Film Industry, Follow Up, Los Angeles, Television

Over the last six months, we’ve discussed microdramas (aka verticals) several times on Scriptnotes. For readers who don’t know, microdramas are a format originating in Asia in which a filmed narrative is broken into very short episodes intended to be watched on your phone. They’re often called verticals because they’re shot to be watched on a phone held vertically.

Typically, the first few episodes are free, and then each subsequent episode requires an in-app purchase. The overwhelming majority of microdramas are romances, often feeling like a heightened soap opera.

They’ve recently hit American shores, with U.S. productions shooting in Los Angeles, largely using non-union crews. They have provided work for underemployed actors and crew members — particularly recent film school graduates — and have some experienced producers kicking the tires.

Here’s an example from the ReelShort series The Hidden Billionaire in First Class.

Note that the WGA contract does cover this type of work. Guild writers should not be working on these productions unless they’re under a Guild contract.

We asked listeners who have written on these productions to share their experiences. Several wrote in. Here are two examples.

Risky Business writes:

I spent six months writing for Reelshorts. As a writer, it was terrible.

The first 10 chapters were pored over with repeated rewrites until all the joy was taken out of them, then pretty much they didn’t care. The rest of the story had little oversight as they didn’t expect people to watch.

The CEO repeatedly criticized the writers in company wide messages, while giving 100% of the credit for successes to the editors.

All while paying $22 an hour, with ‘no work’ orders between feedback cycles, and a constant “your contract can be cancelled at any time” hanging over your head, and expectation that you’d be immediately available the second they had feedback, which sometimes took over a week to receive. It ended up being less than minimum wage to basically hold all the blame for a possible failure poured on you from the entire company.

Creative decisions were entirely made by algorithms based on what was selling. The whole prediction model that hollywood is always trying to master contracted by the short production schedule.

I have not had the pleasure of joining any union, but the success of reelshorts definitely scares me. If the model succeeds, AI will definitely be writing the scripts, and the CEO can have his dream of never having to rely on a writer’s creativity again

Another listener wrote in with their experience:

In episode 693, Risky Business shared about his negative experience writing for verticals. I recently started as a screenwriter for one of the larger vertical drama companies as well, and I wanted to offer my perspective since I’ve had a more positive experience.

My salary is about $1540 a week–about $40/hr–with benefits. My lawyer also negotiated that my agreement be non-exclusive, so I am free to keep developing and writing non-vertical projects. Since I’m staffed, I still get paid when I’m waiting for feedback.

For sure, figuring out the soapy, melodramatic tone and structure of verticals has been a tough nut to crack. Even though there’s some room for innovation and creativity, at their core verticals are reverse-engineered around data-driven formulas. It’s kind of like doing a fill-in-the-blanks puzzle. It can be fun and even playful, but it’s a very different process from anything else I’ve done.

Because writing verticals often feels more like solving a puzzle than writing from scratch, I usually have a lot of creative energy left over to keep working on my own projects. I’m also able to write remotely outside LA, which has been a godsend for family reasons.

As a non-WGA writer, I’d love to see verticals get WGA coverage. But at this point, especially with the current state of the industry, I’m grateful for a screenwriting gig that pays the bills while leaving space for my own stuff.

To clarify, verticals already do have WGA coverage. WGA writers shouldn’t be writing on them, just as they shouldn’t be writing any film and television that’s produced without a Guild contract.

More on AI environmental costs

January 23, 2025 Follow Up, Geek Alert

In my earlier explainer about recent AI developments, I linked out to a Wikipedia entry that ran through some of the environmental impacts of AI models, mostly in terms of energy and water usage.

Since that post, Andy Masley came out with a much more useful comparison of AI costs. It’s worth reading the whole thing, but the short version is these costs seem much less massive when you compare them to everyday things like hamburgers and leaking pipes.

Low costs are not zero costs. But if you’re making choices as an individual, there are many more effective steps you can take to reduce your carbon footprint.

Masley’s whole article is worth reading, and a good reminder that big numbers (20,000 households!) and tangible metaphors (a bottle of water) can often lead to framing effects and vividness bias.

How ChatGPT resets the levels

December 22, 2022 Follow Up, Geek Alert, Hive Mind, Meta

On a [recent Scriptnotes](https://johnaugust.com/2022/rian-johnson-returns), I showed off ChatGPT to Craig and Scriptnotes guest Rian Johnson. We asked it to write up a plot summary for a future *Knives Out* movie set in space.

We got an answer similar to this query I just ran: ((The prompt is “Give me a plot summary for a Knives Out set in space.”))

> In the far-flung future, wealthy space entrepreneur Harrison Thorne is found dead in his luxurious space station, the victim of an apparent suicide. However, Detective Benoit Blanc, a renowned investigator known for solving even the most complex cases, has a hunch that foul play is at work. As he begins to investigate, he finds that every member of Thorne’s eccentric and contentious family has a motive for murder.

> As the detective delves deeper into the mystery, he must navigate the tangled web of lies and deceit spun by the suspects, all while trying to stay one step ahead of the cunning killer. With the help of Thorne’s loyal assistant Marta, Blanc must unravel the truth before the killer strikes again.

> As the body count rises and the tension mounts, it becomes clear that no one is above suspicion in this high-stakes game of space-age crime and deception. Will Detective Blanc be able to solve the case before it’s too late, or will the killer get away with murder in the cold vacuum of space?

None of us were blown away by the plotting. It felt like it was copy-pasting ideas from the first movie, with a lot of generic pitch filler. Still, we all agreed that the sentence-by-sentence writing was surprisingly good. It didn’t feel like it was written by a bot.

When we asked it to write a scene, it was functional but weightless. Here’s one based on the summary above: ((Prompt: “Write me a scene from this movie where Blanc first meets Marta, in screenplay format.”))

INT. SPACE STATION – DAY

Detective BENOIT BLANC, a middle-aged man with a southern drawl, walks through the sterile corridors of the space station, his face etched with determination. He approaches a door labeled “Harrison Thorne – CEO.”

BLANC

(to himself)

Time to get to work.

He opens the door and enters the office, which is spacious and well-appointed. A young woman, MARTA, sits at a desk, typing away on a computer. She looks up as Blanc enters.

MARTA

(stands up)

Can I help you?

BLANC

(flashes badge)

Detective Benoit Blanc, ma’am. I’m here to investigate Mr. Thorne’s death.

MARTA

(nods)

I see. Well, Mr. Thorne was a good man. I can’t believe he’s gone.

BLANC

(nods sympathetically)

I understand. Is there anything you can tell me about his final days, or any unusual circumstances leading up to his death?

MARTA

(hesitates)

I’m not sure. I mean, he was under a lot of stress with the business, but he always seemed to handle it well.

BLANC

(nods)

I see. Well, thank you for your time. I may have more questions for you later.

MARTA

(nods)

Of course. I’ll do whatever I can to help.

BLANC

(smiles)

Thank you, ma’am. I’ll be in touch.

Blanc exits the office, deep in thought. The investigation has only just begun, and he has a feeling that it won’t be an easy one.

To be generous, it’s not nonsense. Unlike [earlier attempts at algorithmically-generated screenplays](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/05/an-ai-wrote-this-movie-and-its-strangely-moving/), you can follow what happens, and characters do feel like they’re talking to each other. But there’s no nuance or character motivation despite the endless parentheticals.

It’s not a scene, but a simulacrum of one.

Listener JR, who makes his living using tools like these, wrote in with an interesting perspective:

> Language models are built on “training data,” which is the text you feed into a learning process to produce the output. For very sophisticated models, the training data is vast: for something like ChatGPT, it includes something like _all the text you can scrape off of the last twenty years of the Internet, or so_.

> But this means ChatGPT is about as smart as the average writer on the Internet has been over the past twenty years — and indeed, the models that comprise GPT **drag the results toward the average, not the extraordinary**, because the average has much nicer statistical properties than the extraordinary for companies that seek to produce a marketable, scalable product from their models, which requires the ability to tweak, diagnose, and defend what you’re selling.

ChatGPT isn’t optimized for breathtaking originality because that’s not its goal. It’s meant to be conversational and approachable, not wild and daring. It’s giving you hamburgers rather than Japanese wagyu sando with white truffle shavings because 90% of the time, that’s what you want.

JR continues:

> Ultimately what these models mean is that with the click of a button you can now be just as good as the average writer who posts content to the Internet, and so the old “average” is now the new “zero.” **If you wrote at the average level of the Internet in 2022 you now write at the zero level.**

That’s a big idea, so let’s turn it over in our hands a bit.

Let’s imagine we can pick something that represents the average quality of English writing on the internet. It might be an article about [holiday lobster prices](https://news.yahoo.com/plenty-fish-sea-eaten-holiday-201000334.html) or a piece of [Peloton marketing copy](https://blog.onepeloton.com/fitness-accountability-partner/).

Could any English speaker write at that level? No.

You probably don’t have to think that hard to come up with several people in your life who can’t write up to the standards of “Yahoo News article” or “Peloton blog post.”

Many folks don’t write, won’t write, can’t write.

In fact, if we want to consider it “median” writing quality rather than “average,” then approximately half the English speakers on the internet couldn’t hit this level of sophistication.

Only now, with tools like ChatGPT, they can. It’s very good at taking awkward, ungrammatical writing and making something decent out of it.

I fed ChatGPT this text —

> if youre stove won’t light here’s what you do 1) check that that the gas is on turn the knob do you hear it 2) lisen if it’s clicking that’s the igniter. if it’s not clickign you could light it with a match 3) lift off the burner cover cuz sometimes that the issue 4) try another burner

— with the instruction to “Rewrite this as a good blog post.” Here’s the result:

> If Your Stove Won’t Light: A Step-by-Step Guide

> If you’re trying to cook a meal and your stove won’t light, it can be frustrating and time-consuming. Here are some steps you can try to troubleshoot the issue:

> 1. Check that the gas is on. Turn the knob and listen for the sound of gas flowing. If you don’t hear it, the gas may be turned off or there may be a problem with the gas line.

> 2. Listen for the igniter. If you hear a clicking sound, that means the igniter is trying to light the gas. If you don’t hear a clicking sound, you can try lighting the burner with a match.

> 3. Lift off the burner cover. Sometimes, food or debris can accumulate underneath the burner cover and prevent the gas from lighting. Removing the cover may resolve the issue.

> 4. Try another burner. If all else fails, it’s possible that there is a problem with a specific burner on your stove. Try using a different burner to see if it lights properly.

> By following these steps, you should be able to get your stove working again in no time. If the problem persists, it may be a good idea to call a professional for assistance.

Imagine you’re a technician asked to document how a system works. You could describe the steps and let ChatGPT do the writing. Would you still need to proofread it, to make sure it’s not hallucinating something wrong? Absolutely. But most reluctant writers are competent readers. They should be able to spot when it’s gone off track.

Where I think these tools have even more benefit is for people who don’t feel confident in English. Type in your native language and let the AI do its work, translating not just the words but the intent.

Which brings us back to JR’s thesis, that a tool like ChatGPT resets the levels. In a world in which everyone can write at the old “average” level, what happens?

I’m not sure. There’s not a great comparison in recent human history. Calculators enabled ordinary people to do a lot more number-crunching, but were they transformative? (For the human calculators of *Hidden Figures*, perhaps so.)

A world filled with AI-polished text might push us in unexpected directions. To err is human, and we might find language incorporating mistakes to porve a hooman wrote it. Or we might use these tools like Instagram filters to make us look like someone we aspire to be.

Personally, I don’t think screenwriters are particularly endangered, at least not in the short term. Future tools may be trained and tuned for scriptwriting, but they’ll be working off a corpus of all the screenplays that have come before. **And that’s how it’s always been.**

JR notes:

> All writers are competing against the cumulative past of our species and its semi-automatic weapons of creative destruction, and are competing to stand out from an average defined over the past couple of decades or so.[…]
> Writers should only worry about automated writers as much as they are already worried about the agglomerated capacity and output of our species up until the present moment, which, eh, we can do better.

How classes use Writer Emergency Pack

October 11, 2022 Education, Follow Up, Writer Emergency, Writer Emergency Pack

Since the launch of Writer Emergency Pack in 2015, we’ve partnered with youth writing programs to get decks into classrooms and after-school groups. By far our biggest partner is NaNoWriMo’s Young Writers Program.

With the arrival of [Writer Emergency Pack XL](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnaugust/writer-emergency-pack-xl?ref=41qc4k), I asked NaNoWriMo’s executive director [Grant Faulkner](https://twitter.com/grantfaulkner?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor) for an update on how the original decks are being used.

**JOHN: A lot of people are familiar with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), but what is [Young Writers Program](https://ywp.nanowrimo.org)?**

GRANT: It’s a version of NaNoWriMo, just for kids. When I was a kid, I didn’t dream of writing a novel (and I was bookish). Because of our Young Writers Program, though, now nearly 100,000 kids write novels each year, and educators from over 9,000 classrooms around the world participate.

The challenge is, like NaNoWriMo, to draft an entire novel in November. We believe that giving kids agency and making writing fun is the best way to learn. For 30 wild, exciting, surprising days, kids get to lock away their inner editor, let their imagination take over, and just create! You might say our pedagogy is rooted in joy.

**What are students doing in the program?**

We provide teachers a virtual classroom so they can do things like read student novels and create chat topics. And then we also provide kids with free classroom kits — which include Writer Emergency Packs! — workbooks, and Common Core-aligned K–12 lesson plans.

Kids set word-count goals for the month (appropriate to their age and capabilities) and then draft their novel right on our site. They track their progress, and then they also get support from published authors and an international community of fellow novelists.

photo of high school classroom, students looking at teacher

**How are teachers using Writer Emergency Pack in the classroom?**

I’ve heard so many stories. I’ve heard of teachers who weave cards into the mini-lessons they might do on things like conflict or characterization. I’ve heard of teachers who hand out cards to students who might have hit a wall and have writers’ block. I’ve heard of teachers who give the cards to groups of students and have them use the cards to collaboratively create a story together and then tell it to the class as a way to warm up to write in November.

There is one commonality, though: all teachers make the cards part of the classroom, which is important, because the classroom becomes a writing community during NaNoWriMo.

**What feedback have you gotten from teachers about the decks?**

They love them! The cards are encouraging, approachable, and fun! They provide the same lessons a book might—but in a single illustrated card. Like NaNoWriMo itself, the cards are all about sparking the imagination, making writing not about a teacher’s red correction marks but the joy of storytelling.

**Do you think the new decks will have the same reaction?**

I do. I think the size of the cards makes them more inviting. All of the relevant information is now on a single card, and with 52 cards there’s enough for every student in class, even bigger classes.

And, just one more thing: I know adult writers who use the cards as well (me).

—

Writer Emergency Pack XL is [now on Kickstarter](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnaugust/writer-emergency-pack-xl?ref=41qc4k). For every deck we send to backers, we’ll be sending a deck to our youth writing program partners, including NaNoWriMo’s Young Writers Program.

Photo by Kenny Eliason/Unsplash