🧂Writers: Your Script Might Be Missing a Pinch of Rosemary
The best thing I’ve ever made?
You’d think it’s art. Or a script. Or a character arc.
But no.
It’s lasagna.
Every time, people ask for the recipe.
And every time, they come back and say:
“It didn’t come out like yours.”
Here’s why:
They follow the recipe.
I follow the taste I want.
I know exactly how I want it to land—how acidic, how sweet, how rich, how comforting.
So yes, my recipe says “half a glass of white wine,” but if the wine I bought is extra acidic? I adjust. If the rosemary’s weak? I add more.
Excuse the drama, but I’m not serving a formula.
I’m serving a vision. 😎
And weirdly enough, I think this is also the main issue in animation writing today.
Too many people are cooking with someone else’s recipe.
They say:
• “We need an animal sidekick—those always work.”
• “Romantic love is overdone—let’s remove it.”
• “Just get that composer. It’ll work. It always does.”
That’s like throwing garlic and wine into a lasagna…
without knowing what you even want it to taste like.
You’re not building toward a specific emotional experience.
You’re copying an ingredient list.
The animated masterpieces of the past didn’t work because of what they included.
They worked because someone had a clear idea of what they were trying to say,
and used the ingredients accordingly.
They adjusted. Invented. Chose.
They weren’t following a recipe.
They were cooking to taste.
Because I work as a script editor, a lot of colleagues send me their drafts—and if I had a penny for every time they started with,
“I’m thinking…Spider-Verse.”
Ironically, Spider-Verse exists because someone said,
“Let’s make something different.”
So here’s my tip for writers:
Before you add a character or a scene, ask yourself:
🔹 “Why? In what way does this character/scene take me closer to my vision?”
🔹 “What do I want this to feel like?”
🔹 “What am I actually saying?”
If the answer is,
“Because it worked somewhere else,”
your lasagna’s probably going to come out bland.
The best thing I’ve ever made?
You’d think it’s art. Or a script. Or a character arc.
But no.
It’s lasagna.
Every time, people ask for the recipe.
And every time, they come back and say:
“It didn’t come out like yours.”
Here’s why:
They follow the recipe.
I follow the taste I want.
I know exactly how I want it to land—how acidic, how sweet, how rich, how comforting.
So yes, my recipe says “half a glass of white wine,” but if the wine I bought is extra acidic? I adjust. If the rosemary’s weak? I add more.
Excuse the drama, but I’m not serving a formula.
I’m serving a vision. 😎
And weirdly enough, I think this is also the main issue in animation writing today.
Too many people are cooking with someone else’s recipe.
They say:
• “We need an animal sidekick—those always work.”
• “Romantic love is overdone—let’s remove it.”
• “Just get that composer. It’ll work. It always does.”
That’s like throwing garlic and wine into a lasagna…
without knowing what you even want it to taste like.
You’re not building toward a specific emotional experience.
You’re copying an ingredient list.
The animated masterpieces of the past didn’t work because of what they included.
They worked because someone had a clear idea of what they were trying to say,
and used the ingredients accordingly.
They adjusted. Invented. Chose.
They weren’t following a recipe.
They were cooking to taste.
Because I work as a script editor, a lot of colleagues send me their drafts—and if I had a penny for every time they started with,
“I’m thinking…Spider-Verse.”
Ironically, Spider-Verse exists because someone said,
“Let’s make something different.”
So here’s my tip for writers:
Before you add a character or a scene, ask yourself:
🔹 “Why? In what way does this character/scene take me closer to my vision?”
🔹 “What do I want this to feel like?”
🔹 “What am I actually saying?”
If the answer is,
“Because it worked somewhere else,”
your lasagna’s probably going to come out bland.
