The South by Southwest Conference & Festival, held annually in Austin, TX, crackles with a creative energy no other film festival can match, offering screenwriters lessons from its wildly diverse slate.

While studios were certainly present at the fest, with big-name sequels like The Accountant 2 and Another Simple Favor nabbing splashy premieres, it also feels like a remarkably scrappy place. You’ll find swing-for-the-fences high-concept projects sharing space with adult animation series, self-funded comedy pilots paired with deeply personal autobiographical stories, and concepts so audaciously weird they shouldn’t work but somehow do.

I saw as many features, shorts, and pilots as possible and spoke with writers from projects of all sizes and genres, putting together some of this year’s common themes and hearing what they’ve learned. 

Write what matters to you

JJ Herz, writer/director of comedy pilot R&R, wanted to create a world with a full and accurate portrayal of a person with a disability, creating a character based on her brother, Griffin. Her show is about siblings trying to make it in Los Angeles. 

“I’ve always wanted my sets to reflect not only what’s in the script, but actually my world around me,” she said. “And it was important to me to have that not only in this writing process … but also the best way to change anyone’s mind is through laughter. And I think if you’re able to make people giggle, it disarms them. And so for me, if the end goal is to give everyone a Griffin, to have everyone have hopefully some version of my experience on screen.” 

For Joe Tierney, writing about his experiences in a controversial boarding school for troubled teens was therapeutic and took 12 years. It resulted in his pilot, F*ckups Anonymous, based on his true story.

“I learned so much just watching these other shorts, and saying, ‘Oh my God, that’s an incredible idea,’” he said. “And they were courageous, really. They were almost like big-budget ideas in these shorts. ... It gave me more courage to dream bigger.”

Tierney added that the experience of SXSW showed him that if he doesn’t take the plunge to pursue his idea, someone else just as creative will likely beat him to the punch. 

“Because I think a lot of us are too intimidated to [do it], and whether it’s because it’s too vulnerable, emotional, or just saying, ‘I don’t have the means to do these things’—but someone else will,” he said.

In writer/director Elena Oxman’s Outerlands, a non-binary protagonist with a crush on their coworker agrees to watch her daughter, with unexpected results. Oxman wanted the lead, Cass, to explore the idea of their inner child.

“I was also interested in telling a story where the protagonist happens to be queer and non-binary without that identity being the focal point of the story,” Oxman said. “I had no idea we’d be sharing the film at a moment when our government would actively be trying to erase LGBTQIA+ history and identities. I hope Outerlands becomes a place of visibility for our community that showcases qualities of love, self-acceptance, and empathy, and offers strength to those who need it most.”

Don’t be afraid to get personal in your writing. Your perspective and experience can be valuable starting points for creativity. 

Get creative and weird

Screenplays come with expected structural elements, sure, but there’s nothing stopping you from bending and reshaping what happens inside that framework. When you disrupt the audience’s expectations and subvert tropes in thoughtful ways, you’re pulling them deeper into your narrative world, compelling them to lean in and truly connect with what unfolds on screen.

So get weird!

There’s no shortage of creative film at SXSW. Headliner Death of a Unicorn, written and directed by Alex Scharfman, features a father/daughter relationship against the backdrop of mythical animal death. Ramy Youssef’s animated show #1 Happy Family USA uses satire and absurdity to explore Muslim life in post-9/11 America. Wes Ellis’ short Neuro gives us bright, old-fashioned analog storytelling that only masks an unsettling sci-fi horror.

Maybe this advice from I Really Love My Husband writer/director, GG Hawkins, puts it best: “Write to your weird. Push the story to the scariest places. That’s where you uncover the good stuff.”

Embrace flexibility

Director Ari Gold approached filmmaking in a new way for Brother Versus Brother, inspired by Francis Coppola’s concept of “Live Cinema” (and it’s fitting that Coppola recently joined the project as executive producer). The film is a single take through the streets of San Francisco, and the story works from a loose outline with improvised dialogue, following two musician brothers.

“It took some time for me to come to this method,” Gold told us. “I’ve written about 15 scripts, and I’m usually very careful with each moment—structuring jokes, emotional beats, and overall character arcs meticulously. Then, of course, after I work with actors, and all kinds of weather, and finally get to editing, I have discovered that many of my favorite moments on the page are not my favorite moments on the screen.”

Realizing the potential in improv, Gold tried something new. Although the actors would be improvising conversations, he set out an arc for each scene that kept the story in a flow of emotional high and low points. This structure was still important, even if the dialogue wasn’t fully on the page.

“And indeed, so much of what people came up with is a marvel to me, as a writer. I respect my craft, but I couldn’t have come up with the amazing way people expressed themselves!”

You might not want to be this loose as you’re writing your screenplay, but you can start with your outline and decide where to go from there!

Try a new approach or point of view

The first version of a story might benefit from a shift in perspective. For instance, you can tell a haunted house story about a character moving to the country with his dog, and that could be fun. But what if you told the story from the dog’s POV?

That’s the premise of Ben Leonberg’s Good Boy, which features the filmmaker’s real-life dog (and star in the making), Indy.

“They say don’t work with dogs or kids, so why make a movie just with a dog?” Leonberg said. “I love the challenge of it, and I think I wanted to try and create something, not if not hugely profound, at least something people hadn’t seen before in the way of a dog performance and as an approach to a horror film.”

What about the potential in screenlife films, a relatively new genre that follows drama as it unfolds on computer screens? Ronan Corrigan’s Lifehack is one of the strongest examples I’ve seen so far—it’s a taut heist thriller about young computer nerds who attempt to break into a tech billionaire’s crypto wallet, and the story lives in their Discord server sessions, Rust gameplay, and IM conversations. Maybe you could try a new setting in your next work.

In Idiotka, writer/director Nastasya Popov mixes elements of reality TV with traditional narrative, poking fun at the new “American dream” in the process. Genre-bending can be another fresh approach to your writing. 

Don’t let budget constrain your vision

If you want to take on the challenge of actually making your project, as many SXSW screenwriters do, you might need to brainstorm knowing your budget, or how you can creatively problem-solve. Almost every project at the festival is a testament to filmmaking drive, with many projects being crowdfunded and crews composed of friends. 

So as you start, consider what is feasible for you to accomplish. And how can you get creative to make sure what you have on the page can be translated to screen?

We emailed with Mary Neely, Fidel Ruiz-Healy, and Tyler Walker, the writing team from pilot Stars Diner, which is a fun take on ‘80s sitcoms. 

“When we all pitched ideas of what would happen in the first episode of Stars Diner, we intentionally picked the craziest, biggest possible event to happen: A volcanic eruption in Fresno, California,” they wrote to us. 

In production, they used miniatures, camera shake, and lighting to achieve that eruption. 

“Our advice is don’t let budget constrain your vision. Follow the fun. And when you’re editing a script, cut to the bone. Keep things lean and mean. The great thing about film and film festivals is that everybody has their own approach. Use SXSW to watch all types of stuff, hang out with other filmmakers, and find out where they’re coming from. And use that diversity of style and opinion to feel confident in telling whatever unique story is specific to you.”

There are no bad ideas

Jess Varley put together her sci-fi horror feature, The Astronaut, after learning about the strange symptoms real explorers have when they return to Earth. But much like her lead character, there were some bumps before she stuck the landing in her script.

“I think that you can’t have a movie unless you do the thing,” Varley told me. “You’ve got to move through the uncomfortable rewrites.”

She mentioned the many cut scenes she’s grateful didn’t make it into the final version of her film, but is still happy about her process.

“I’m a big proponent of there are no bad ideas. I think just getting it out on the page, even if it’s the absolute worst, most cartoonish version, that even if maybe only one or two scenes make it in, it’s still worth it.”

Learn more about the South by Southwest Festival here.