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DRAFT ZERO

Draft Zero — Screenwriting Podcast & Deep Screenplay Analysis

Recent Foundational Deep Cuts

Latest Episode

DZ-127: Secrets and Clues 2 - The Cost of Revelation

What does it cost a character to find something out, or to say it?
DZ-127: Secrets and Clues 2 - The Cost of Revelation
Listen to learn the emotional impact of revealing secrets vs discovering them.
⏱ 1h 51m
Structure · Character · Scenes |27 May 2026
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In this episode Stu, Chas and Mel apply the Landmark–Hidden–Secret framework (from DZ-126) across two very different genres: the thriller SIDE EFFECTS (2013) and the tragicomic pilot of SHRINKING… →
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AI✦Stu frames how Dr. Banks is pushed and pulled through Side Effects by the danger that comes from uncovering information, while Chas connects this to whether characters are sharing secrets because they're pushed by external forces or pulled by internal factors.✦

"If they push just a little harder, just one or two more scenes, they could have made it an 80s erotic thriller instead of a 90s thriller."

— Mel Killingsworth  |  DZ-127: Secrets and Clues 2 - The Cost of Revelation

Recent Episodes

DZ-126: Secrets and Clues

How can Secrets and Clues motivate characters?
DZ-126: Secrets and Clues
Listen if you want to understand how hidden information drives character motivation and plot structure!
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“Getting information puts your character in danger. And danger rewards your character with information." — One of three ideas we steal from game design in this episode. In this two part series, we talk about how secrets, clues and hidden information motivate characters and may (or may not) help you plot from a character perspective. Part One (this episode) looks at WAKE UP DEAD MAN; while Part Two looks at SIDE EFFECTS, and the pilot episode of SHRINKING… →
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AI✦The episode's central framework examines how secrets (information characters know exists but must unlock) and hidden clues (invisible until characters pay a cost) motivate character action across WAKE UP DEAD MAN and other narratives.✦

DZ-125: Oscars One-shot - BLUE MOON

What craft tools make a low-budget, contained, period drama riveting?
DZ-125: Oscars One-shot - BLUE MOON
Listen if you want to understand how narrative POV, screenplay format, and dialogue craft can elevate a contained biopic into an Oscar-nominated film
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BLUE MOON is a talky, period-drama that film about an obscure songer-writer in the 1940s. Yet, it attracted world-class talent AND Academy Award nominations, including for it’s script. Join Chas & Mel as they explore how narrative POV, interweaving relationships, hooky dialogue, and even the screenplay format itself make the script for BLUE MOON so great… →
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AI✦Rather than treating French scenes as a theater concept, Chas and Mel show how Blue Moon uses character entrances and exits within the same location to shift the dramatic temperature and signal emotional beats through new combinations of characters.✦

DZ-124: Making the Despicable Compelling

How does Film Noir show us terrible people doing terrible things without endorsing it?
DZ-124: Making the Despicable Compelling
Listen if you need audiences to root for characters who do terrible things
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Mel and Chas continue to explore what Noir (the genre) can teach writers of all other genres. In particular:… →
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AI✦The episode isolates voiceover and given circumstances as tools that contextualize why characters make incredibly stupid or morally grey choices for understandable reasons.✦

Foundational Episodes

Beginner's Guide →

DZ-56: Character Motivations 2

Workshopping ways to fix character motivations.
In this second part of their exploration of character motivations, Chas and Stu dive into what makes “BAD” screenplays NOT work. They examine at moments where they (and maybe you, dear listeners) did not believe a key decision being made by a character and so were taken out of the movie. In a departure from the Draft Zero format, they apply the tools they developed in Part 1 to workshop potential fixes to these beats… →
⏱ 2h 16m
Character · Process · Audience | 30 MAR 2019
Listen if you want to understand how character decisions can break a screenplay and how to fix them
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DZ-40: Tactics and Scenes

How do tactics make your characters and scenes more dynamic?
In this episode, Stu and Chas turn their gaze to the “tactics” that characters use in scenes to get what they want. Tactics are how the characters try to achieve their goals and (we reckon) can be revealing of the essence of their character. The shifting and thwarting of tactics can make scenes more dynamic; while over the course of a story, the changing of tactics can reflect the growth of characters… even if their goal stays the same… →
⏱ 2h 15m
Character · Scenes | 4 FEB 2017
Listen to learn how a character's tactics reveal who they are under pressure--and how their changing tactics reveals their growth.
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DZ-49: Antagonists! 1 - vs Humans

What makes a strong human antagonist?
Prompted by a listener (and patron of the podcast) question, Stu and Chas dive into antagonistic forces. And because Draft Zero does not do anything by halves, this is Part One of a Five Part Epic Exploration™ into antagonists; namely: vs humans, vs self, vs nature/supernatural, vs systems and “other”. aka the classic narrative conflicts… →
⏱ 1h 20m
Character · Structure · Scenes | 31 MAR 2018
Listen if you want to understand how to craft compelling antagonists who oppose your protagonist through direct human conflict
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DZ-52: Antagonists! 4 - vs Systems

How do systems pressure your characters to change?
This is Part Four (!!) of our Five Part Epic Exploration into antagonists forces and sources of conflict. In this episode we explore “system/world/society” antagonists. While stereotypically associated with science-fiction, these sources of conflict are found across genres… →
⏱ 2h 16m
Structure · Character · Theme | 28 JUN 2018
Listen if you want to use how societal, governmental, or environmental forces as villains.
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DZ-32: High-Tension Sequences

How can you recreate the feeling of cinematic high-tension on the page?
Chas & Stu take a close look at sequences of high-tension - the ones that make you lean forward in fear, or jump backwards in terror. Without camera angles, lighting, music or sound, how can screenwriters can evoke those emotions in readers using only the page? These sequences can be found in any genre of film, not just thriller or horror. To that end, Stu and Chas dive into high tension scenes from NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, ZODIAC, ROOM, and THE BABADOOK. We cover their use of shifting POV, Dramatic Irony, Status Transactions, White Space, Sound FX, and many more… →
⏱ 2h 23m
Scenes · Audience · Structure | 12 JUN 2016
Listen if you want to evoke fear and tension using only the written word (without relying on camera, lighting, music, or sound_
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DZ-4: Catharsis and the Post-Coital Cigarette

How does the end of certain films make your soul shudder?
Stu and Chas are joined by their first guest – illustrious script developer and producer Stephen Cleary – to explore how certain films can trigger an outpouring of emotion from the audience. Turns out that Aristotle may have figured it out a few thousand years ago and called it Catharsis… →
⏱ 1h 25m
Audience · Structure | 14 APR 2014
Listen if you want to make you endings great!
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