Before You Binge

Every headline has a screenplay underneath it. And I have notes.

Scripted Realities is a film and culture journal that looks at stories the way a screenwriter does: through structure, emotion, and power. What choices did the writers make? What is this story really about? Who does it serve? How did it make me feel, and what mechanism created that feeling?

This isn't your typical review site. This is criticism from inside the craft, written by someone still learning it, still fighting for it, and still paying attention.

The site covers film and TV breakdowns, real-world events through the lens of cinema, the messy reality of pursuing screenwriting as a second life, and whatever else demands to be written about.

New posts go up throughout the week. The newsletter, Good Notes. Bad Notes., lands every weekend.

Pull up a chair. The show's about to start.

About F.C. Wells

I'm F.C. Wells, a Los Angeles-based screenwriter, former television producer, and the person behind Scripted Realities.

I spent years producing television in Southeast Asia, working on one of the region's biggest variety shows. That life ended. A new one started. The craft stayed. Now I'm deep in formal screenwriting training and building a career from scratch in Hollywood. But this site isn't just about movies and TV. It's about how I see the world.

I think and process everything as a story – A trade war is a story. An election is a story. A family dinner where nobody says what they mean is a story. I believe the best way to understand any of it is to ask the same questions a screenwriter would: What does this person want? What's stopping them? What are they not saying? Who benefits from this version of events?

I grew up on stories. I built a career on them. I left that career, moved across the world, and started over. And the thing that got me through all of it was the same thing that gets me through now: paying attention to how stories work, on screen and off.