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Does the quality of a script matter? Absolutely, it does. But once you reach a certain level of craft, there’s an even playing field, where other factors are the determining ones. Hustle is one of those factors. Let’s take two writers, and place their careers side by side. One of them is a WARPED GENIUS. The other one is a SOLID WRITER. The Warped Genius writes brilliant, compelling material. He’s not the next Aaron Sorkin, but he’s good. The Solid Writer writes meat-and-potatoes, base hit material. He’ll get the job done, but he’s not flashy. Now take an average year...

A common adage of certain true stories is, “You couldn’t make this stuff up.” But in screenwriting, ideally, your stories should feel as true as real life. And real life, as the greatest documentaries often show, is complicated. Let’s look at some examples from recent outstanding documentaries. Bing Lui’s documentary MINDING THE GAP was recently nominated for Best Documentary Feature for the 91st Academy Awards.    On the surface, it seems like a documentary about a bunch of skater kids. The film gradually morphs into a treatise on domestic abuse. And those skater kids? They are either victims of that...