John welcomes back Pamela Ribon (My Year of Dicks, Moana) to talk about how to fit the right characters to your story. We know story comes from characters, but often an idea starts with a world, so how do writers find the right characters to build their story around?

We also talk about writing for animation, working in reality TV and the forgotten art of television recapping. We then answer listener questions about choosing a character’s sex and gender, and gauging page count from an outline.

And in our bonus segment for premium members, we explore Pamela’s own podcast, Listen to Sassy, about the greatest teen magazine of all time.

Links:

• Pamela Ribon on IMDb
• Listen To Sassy
• Television Without Pity
• Get Real (1999-2000) on IMDb
• How to Hire a Pop Star for Your Private Party by Evan Osnos for The New Yorker
• The Secret to Judd Apatow’s Comedy? A Huge Library of Self-Help Books by Clay Skipper
• Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• Craig Mazin on Instagram
• John August on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• John on Mastodon
• Outro by Adam Pineless (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

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You can download the episode here.