Young is a relative term. I think you’re only as young as your hunger allows you to be. To succeed in this game one needs an insatiable appetite to continuously work at the craft. I look back at my writing 10 years ago and barely recognize the words on the paper. That evolution and improvement was only achievable through endlessly and diligently returning to the computer day after day, absorbing feedback, dropping the ego, listening, rewriting, pushing through the wall. All of that takes an enormous appetite to get better. Perhaps masochistic is a better term 🙂 



Describe your unique personal and professional background and the specific project that attracted industry interest? 

 

More than anything I feel the nomadic existence I experienced as a child was hugely impactful to me. I was raised in South America then South East Asia and was fortunate to experience incredibly rich and diverse cultures before moving to the UK. Growing up in those places I was exposed to the kinds of things many of my peers never saw and consequently has given me a different lens of the world. Before I sold my first script I was a creative executive at Saatchi, then the Guardian newspaper, so from a professional standpoint I was exposed to a creative process that is a natural extension to screenwriting. 



What personal qualities do screenwriters need to make it? 

 

I can only speak for myself with any certainty on this one but I have a very clear vision for what I want to achieve. I’m not in this career by accident and I knew 10 years ago it would require enormous work to get to where I wanted to. I’m enormously ambitious as a writer, but at the same time I’m not disillusioned to think I’m remotely close to the finished article. I gobble up feedback (apart from my wife’s analysis of my scripts – she’s the only person capable of wounding me with her always accurate notes) because I want to get better. 

 

Above all I LOVE writing stories. It sounds obvious but the passion and desire to  share the craziness in my head with the world is something that drives me forward each day to get better. 



Why did you decide to become a screenwriter above all other careers? 

 

I don’t know. I just knew from a very early age it’s all I wanted to do. I toyed with the idea of being a commercial aviator at some point before I realized I was crap at math and scared of heights! Writing stories seemed like a safe bet.



How do you become manager bait? 

 

Write work that’s compelling, be authentic, be willing to work really hard and under no circumstance be a douche bag. We’re in a ‘for profit’ business that is highly risk averse with an over-saturation of content. As writers we have to challenge ourselves to write incredible content that draws attention. If we can do that then it’s natural to expect some attention. Early on in my career, my scripts were crap, so I committed to writing better. When my writing improved I started getting interest.  



Where do you get your creative inspiration? 

 

My head. It’s an absolute mess inside; a gift and a curse all wrapped up in one. Honestly, I’m not entirely certain how I make it through the day. My mind is literally teeming with ideas that the noise often becomes annoying and overwhelming. I don’t have a good process for distilling these ideas aside from barely legible stream of consciousness scribbles into notebooks. What’s odd is the rest of my life I’m really neat and tidy.



How do you decide which ideas are worthy of pursuing? 

 

My process is horrible. And my manager is going to have second thoughts about repping me after reading this… Once I have an idea that seems like something that might be cool to write I’ll stop writing any notes and try not to think about it again. If the idea is tough to dismiss and I start to obsess over it, I’ll write an opening scene as I see it. At this point I’ll either see the story or I won’t (I have hundreds of opening scenes I’m embarrassed to say). If I see it then I’ll write a very broad strokes outline. Then if it’s still compelling to me I’ll start writing. I’ll normally plot about five scenes ahead, then write, then another five scenes plotting, then write and so on. I’ve tried more traditional approaches but really struggled with them. I intrinsically know the beats I need to hit and aim for them but this process also allows the story to breath more naturally. Once I have a draft I turn it over to my manager who tears it to shreds. I take his notes and go again. By now the structural skeleton is there and the story really begins to fill in. 



Do you have a writing brand in terms of interests you gravitate towards? 

 

I really struggled answering this. First and foremost I gravitate to character. Everything else stems from there. From a genre standpoint I would say I’m agnostic. But the thematic flavor of most of my work probably leans into dark/psychological worlds.  



How do characterize the current state of the industry and opportunities for emerging writers? 

 

From a personal perspective I feel it’s healthy. I’m not sure we’re in the spec glory days of the 80s and early 90s. But from a TV perspective there are a lot of platforms wrestling with the traditional broadcast community for content. From a features perspective there are more paths to getting content out into the market. That said being, with so much material out there there’s a greater need to stand out from the crowd. Which is also healthy as it’s forcing writers to go deeper. It’s definitely a good time to be in the game. 

 

 

 Gosh, I wish there was a mystery key that circumvented lots of hard-work but in my experience it’s been blood, sweat and tears. Which translates in my case to writing about 2-4 hours every day, having great collaborators and if you’re lucky enough, (which I am) a brilliant manager.

 

Something I was told years ago by an A list writer long before I had representation was to watch a bunch of movies I liked then read the corresponding screenplays. It was invaluable. I got to read how the masters do it.   



What are the qualities of scripts you read that don’t get industry interest? 

 

I think the most compelling quality about a script for the industry is one that evokes change, principally in the main character. So, ignoring screenplays with the obvious non-starter issues like typos, bad writing, poor character development, shitty dialogue etc, I think the biggest miss is when a story’s character(s) remains stagnant; meaning the person they are at the beginning has changed little by the end.  



What advice do you have for screenwriters wanting to make next year’s Young & Hungry list? 

 

Challenge yourself to write the very best material you can. Everything else flows from that point. 



What is something that few people know about you? 

 

I suffered from anxiety disorder. It’s crippling and unfortunately rampant. I also played professional soccer for a couple of years. And now everyone will know that I cry at the end of rom coms 🙂