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The “Why Not?” Part
I have a milestone birthday this week. I’m still deciding whether to celebrate or not, which brings up a lot of questions. Mainly, why not? I attended a wonderful wine tasting last week. It’s on my weekly schedule, but somehow the friends who want to go always back out and I’ve never gone alone. This time I did because I’d written about the winery for an online magazine that covers San Miguel's culture and lifestyle and was curious to actually taste the wines. I made wonderfu
Lorraine Flett
7 days ago2 min read
THE INTERVIEW: THE NICE ROOM
What inspired you to write The Nice Room? The Nice Room was the second of two screenplays I wrote after seeing Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! Its anti-patriarchal spirit and nonstop energy sent me into a burst of writing. Good Taste came first. When I finished it, I wanted to keep that energy going with a contained story set in San Miguel. I didn’t completely manage the contained part. For the premise, I turned to Shallow Grave, Danny Boyle’s 1994 low-budget thriller about th
Lorraine Flett
Jul 314 min read
Designing the Spaces My Characters Occupy
The opening scene of a movie establishes so much – world, character, tone, genre – that getting it all on the page can be overwhelming. That’s why your first couple of pages are likely the ones you edit the most. They’re certainly mine. I find it helpful to have a clear image of the space and how it flows into, or acts as a counterpoint to, what comes next. As the screenwriter, you decide which visual details matter. Whether it’s a lonely cottage on a bluff overlooking a sm
Lorraine Flett
Jul 292 min read
The Architecture of a Screenwriter’s Voice
What can a psychological thriller about a man assuming his dead friend’s identity have in common with a dark comedy about three women concealing a dead body? Both are built on the same premise: “People believe what they want to see.” They occupy different genres, but they share a foundation. That is where my screenwriter’s voice begins. As a teen, I wanted to be an architect. I was told only men were architects. I landed up studying exhibition design and window display. Throu
Lorraine Flett
Jul 254 min read
THE INTERVIEW: GOOD TASTE
When a reckless rich daddy’s girl dies in her own pool, her gay best friend covers it up, assumes her identity, and turns her failing gallery into a success while deceiving her controlling father and dangerous lover. What inspired Good Taste? After seeing Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride!, I wanted to write something daring. I loved the irony of Mary Shelley inhabiting the body of what would become her own creation and going on a wild ride with her own male protagonist Frankenst
Lorraine Flett
Jul 175 min read
The Merry-Go-Round of Praise, Rejection, and Why We Write
I have been quiet here since February, but not because I have not been writing. Quite the opposite. In recent months, a number of scripts have been named semifinalists, quarterfinalists, and official selections. FilmFreeway has sent up its little stars and bursts of digital confetti, which are not quite an Oscar but can still improve an afternoon. And then there are the days when a festival says no. The days when you submit work you believe in, perhaps work that has been reco
Lorraine Flett
Jul 62 min read
Good Taste — or Who Decides
Then I saw Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride. The irony of a dead author becoming the bride of her own male protagonist, post-mortem, was sheer brilliance. Identity doesn't just transfer. It mutates.
Lorraine Flett
Apr 172 min read
Leaving Home, Returning to Motion
For thirty years, I called San Francisco home. Then I discovered San Miguel de Allende. Returning now, amid talk of San Francisco’s “decline,” I found a city alive with motion, appetite, and possibility — and a reminder of why I once belonged here.
Lorraine Flett
Jan 263 min read
A Smidgen of Traction
One week into the new year and I’m thrilled to be starting with a bit of good news (for me). I just got word that San Miguel ExMas MixUp has advanced to the Quarterfinals in this year’s ISA Emerging Screenwriters Competition. There are still 540 writers in the running (by my estimate), which is both humbling and oddly encouraging. It’s a reminder of just how many screenwriters are out there hoping for that ray of light that says: someone read it, someone responded. Somebody
Lorraine Flett
Jan 91 min read
Lingering in the Idyll
I’ve been revisiting a script I wrote twenty-five years ago. Not polishing it so much as listening to it, the way you listen to an old record and hear more than the music. You remember a time, a place, who you were with. The script is Postcard From Italy . It was sparked by my travels there. Lazy afternoons. Surprising rain showers. Water taxis. Train platforms. Espresso taken standing up like a local. That particular European suspension of time where nobody seems in a hurry
Lorraine Flett
Jan 62 min read
The Devil Is in the Details: How Stories Begin
A simple storytelling exercise inspired by a skeleton Santa in San Miguel de Allende, and how noticing small details is where stories really begin.
Lorraine Flett
Dec 22, 20251 min read
When the Formula Shows Its Hand
A question that I’d parked in the back of my mind finally demanded my attention: why is the only script I’ve written that strictly follows a prescribed structure the only one that’s gone nowhere in screenwriting contests? Not even a quarterfinalist nod. It’s a serial killer script called Misidentity . And it does exactly what serial killer scripts are meant to do. The structure is solid. The escalation works. Information lands where it’s supposed to. The story moves forward w
Lorraine Flett
Dec 21, 20252 min read
Seeing the Full Frame
I never leave home without my phone—aka my camera. And if I do, I invariably regret it. Today, I saw magenta and orange bougainvillea exploding over walls. An orchid tree in full bloom. A canopy of green so dense it turned the street into a tunnel of shade. It struck me—again—that writing has very little to do with sitting at a desk waiting for sentences to behave. It’s about noticing. Taking in detail visually, aurally, physically. Training the eye and ear long before my fin
Lorraine Flett
Dec 17, 20252 min read
The Café Already Knows the Story
I told the waiter Roberto at my local café that I’m using the place as a location for the script I'm writing, Café Eterno. “What’s it about?” he asked. I said it’s the central gathering point for a group of love stories — people yearning for love, falling in love, staying in love, falling out of love, circling back, missing each other by inches. The usual human chaos. Just with better coffee — and a touch of magical realism. He didn't blink, just said, “I owned a restaurant
Lorraine Flett
Dec 15, 20252 min read
My Cryptomnesia, Reinvention, and Why the Stories Feel Inevitable
I learned a new word recently. Cryptomnesia. It’s a documented neurological phenomenon where a forgotten memory resurfaces and is experienced as a brand-new idea. Not plagiarism. Not déjà vu. A genuine belief that something has just been invented—when it’s actually been quietly waiting in the back rooms of the mind. Writers live inside this state more than most people. But here’s the part that caught my attention. Neurologists studying memory recall have found that people who
Lorraine Flett
Dec 14, 20252 min read
Of Portals, Grand Pitches & A Soupçon of Parisian Magic
Some days feel like they’re winking at you — and 12.12.12 is one of them. A global portal day, a little extra voltage in the air... the perfect moment, apparently, for San Miguel ExMas MixUp to claim a spot as a Semifinalist in The Great Pitch Competition ( showcasing outstanding creativity, originality, and commitment to the craft - their words!). From several thousand scripts down to under a hundred... and my magical-realism Christmas body-swap set in San Miguel is still
Lorraine Flett
Dec 12, 20251 min read
A Writer’s Gratitude: How San Miguel Keeps Inspiring New Stories
After October's whirlwind visit from Donna—where we practiced what we preach with daily roaming, rooftopping with the best of them, and of course, eating out—I’ve been inspired to leave my computer and step out more with my notebook. There’s something about San Miguel that makes you want to be in it, not just observe it from a café window or a rooftop with a view, but on its streets, with its people, and in the little pockets of magic that surprise you around the next corner
Lorraine Flett
Nov 27, 20254 min read
A Small Victory Worth Celebrating: Semifinalist at Cleveland Arthouse Film Awards
Sometimes in the screenwriting journey, you need to pause and acknowledge the wins. Even the "small" ones that don't come with a trophy or a check. My teen supernatural horror screenplay, Before We Were Afraid, has been selected as a semifinalist in the Cleveland Arthouse Film Awards, and while it might not sound like winning a Nicholl Fellowship, here's why I'm celebrating anyway. The Numbers Tell a Story Let's put this in perspective. Reddit's screenwriting community has m
Lorraine Flett
Nov 20, 20252 min read
Rooftops, Roaming, and Finding Your Next Story
Three weeks. That's how long it's been since I last posted here, and honestly? It's been the best kind of busy. Donna was in town, and naturally, we practiced what we preach. We ate, we roamed, we wrote. Boy, did we eat . We made it our mission to hit every fabulous rooftop we could for sunset cocktails, watching the sky turn impossible colors while plotting our next creative moves. Between bites and sips, Donna was busy killing villains in her female version of the Bourne Id
Lorraine Flett
Nov 10, 20252 min read
One Pass at a Time: A Better Way to Rewrite
You know the advice. Fix the structure. Deepen the characters. Punch up the dialogue. Make every scene count. It's like telling someone to "just play better" after they've lost a tennis match. The advice isn't wrong, it's just not actionable. What does "fix the structure" mean when you're staring at 110 pages? Where do you start? Jack Epps Jr., who wrote Top Gun and Dick Tracy , developed a system over decades: the Pass Method. Instead of fixing everything at once, you make
Lorraine Flett
Oct 17, 20255 min read
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