Every Podcast Conversation at Your Fingertips

John and Craig decipher mystery box shows, where the premise and audience experience involve solving the puzzle of what’s really happening. They look at strategies for revealing clues and information, being mindful of the audience’s expectations, and the importance of the emotional journey inside the labyrinth.

We also announce a new video game, discuss what we can learn by revisiting old projects, follow up on unlocked pages and home automation, and answer listener questions on live instruments, pulling story from D&D campaigns, and where to draw the line between INT. and EXT.

In our bonus segment for premium members, how do you set boundaries when you feel like you’re always supposed to be writing? That’s not rhetorical — we need help.

Links:

Birdigo on Steam
Lutron HomeWorks and Home Assistant
The Prisoner (1967)
Scriptnotes, Ep 296: Television with Damon Lindelof
Patrick Wilson, Jordan Donica Leading Industry Reading of Revised, Broadway-Aimed Big Fish on Playbill.com
Falling Slowly scene in Once
Life and Trust
Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
Craig Mazin on Threads and Instagram
John August on BlueSky, Threads, and Instagram
Outro by Spencer Lackey (send us yours!)
Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at [email protected]

You can download the episode here.

0:00.0	Today's episode has no bad language, but it does have some mild spoilers for severance.
0:04.8	So if you're trying to go into that show clean, without any spoilers, about midway through
0:08.9	the show when Craig starts spouting wild theories, just skip ahead 30 seconds or a minute and you'll
0:13.9	miss all of Craig's wild speculations. Enjoy. Hello and welcome, and my name is John August.
0:21.9	Oh, oh, my name is Craig Mason.
0:25.7	And you're listening to Episode 677 of Script Notes, a podcast about screenwriting and things
0:30.0	that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the show, what the hell is going on?
0:34.4	We'll discuss mystery box shows where the premise and audience experience
0:37.7	involves solving the puzzle of what's really happening. Then we'll talk about revisiting old
0:42.1	projects. I am just back from two weeks in New York working on the Broadway version of Big Fish,
0:46.6	which I've been working on for now 20 years. So we'll talk about how writers should approach
0:50.1	their earlier work when they need to. We'll also follow up on home automation and locked pages,
0:55.3	plus answer some listener questions.
0:57.1	And Craig and our bonus segment of premium members,
0:58.9	let's talk about taking some time off.
1:00.7	You just took some time off.
1:01.6	You took the weekend off.
1:02.5	You just took the weekend off feels like time off.
1:05.5	I had to negotiate it too.
1:07.0	Yeah.
1:07.6	Let's talk about being more deliberate about working on certain days,
1:10.4	not working on certain days, not working on certain days, and sort of refilling our supplies after a lot of work sessions. So we'll talk about ways to do that. But Craig, first we have a little housekeeping. We want to thank all over premium subscribers. You are going to keep the lights on here.
	...

677 - Puzzle Box Storytelling

Scriptnotes Podcast

John August

Summary

Transcript