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Words on the page

Never Gonna Not Dance Again could have been bigger

May 10, 2026 Words on the page

This morning, Apple Music surfaced a song I hadn’t thought about in years: Pink’s “Never Gonna Not Dance Again,” written by Pink (Alecia Moore), Shellback and Max Martin. The song was released in 2022 and reached No. 99 on the US Billboard Hot 100. I like the song! I think the song could have been […]

Constructing a great action sequence

June 30, 2025 Formatting, Video, Words on the page

On Scriptnotes, we often explore craft topics, looking at the specific choices writers make on the page. But there’s an obvious challenge when discussing visual storytelling in an audio medium. That’s why for the most recent Scripnotes video, I wanted to revisit my conversation with Christina Hodson on writing action sequences. In this new format, […]

Which of these answers was written by AI?

January 10, 2023 Tools, Words on the page, Writing Process

GPTZero is a new service created by Edward Tian designed to sniff out AI-generated text. I’m dubious, in part because I’m not sure I could reliably spot the differences between sentences assembled by humans versus machines. But maybe that’s just my human bias. As an experiment, I decided to run a quick, not-at-all-scientific test. I […]

Clarifying scene geography

July 15, 2022 Follow Up, Formatting, Scriptcast, Words on the page

Based on an earlier Three Page Challenge entry — and with the blessing of writer Andrew McDonald — I’ve posted a new video in which I revise a scene in real time. Along the way, I discuss how small choices on the page can help (or hurt) a reader’s ability to understand where characters are […]

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