Discussion Beginner Two Projects. Two Creator's Statements. One Creative Philosophy.

[Fygar]

Something unexpected happened while I was going through my screenplay development materials. I rediscovered two creator's statements I'd written earlier this year—and completely forgotten about. The first, "The Architecture of the Machine," was written for my WWII supernatural television series, THE BLACK SUN, months before I began developing my second project.

It explores how thirty years in public service shaped my fascination with institutional systems, bureaucratic power, and people whose intelligence and capabilities are underestimated by those systems. Then I encountered a short YouTube documentary about Angelina Mioccio, a young Sicilian woman whose tragic story inspired SLEEPING BEAUTY OF CATANIA. I didn't approach Angelina's story as something deserving only pity.

Instead, two questions came to mind:

Who were you?

How did you end up in that glass coffin?

Those questions sent me down a research and storytelling rabbit hole.

In May 2026, I wrote my second creator's statement, "The Girl in the Machine." This time, I recognized something remarkable about my two projects.

David Figueroa, a 54-year-old Latino bureaucrat trapped inside the American military establishment of 1941, and Angelina Mioccio, a young Sicilian woman trapped within the expectations of family, class, and patriarchy, were confronting fundamentally similar systems. As I wrote in that statement:

"David is misread because he looks like a minor functionary. Angelina is misread because she looks like a daughter."

Different protagonists. Different centuries. Different genres. The same underlying machinery of control.

It's what I've come to describe in my storytelling as Administrative Horror. What surprised me most about rediscovering these statements was realizing that I'd already articulated the creative philosophy connecting my work months before beginning my current efforts to find literary representation. Sometimes you discover something about your writing by going back and reading what you wrote when you were still figuring it all out.

Have any of you rediscovered something in your early development notes that made you understand your own storytelling differently?

 

[Michael]

@Fygar​

There's something here that could be particularly useful as you look for literary representation.

I'd suggest testing your "Administrative Horror" philosophy against the actual scripts. Can you identify two or three scenes in each project where the system itself forces a character into a difficult decision?

If those moments are central to both stories, you've got more than an interesting creative philosophy. You've got a recognizable storytelling approach you can demonstrate through your work.

I'd also prepare a one-sentence logline for each series without using the term "Administrative Horror." Let the stories capture attention first, then use your creative philosophy to explain what makes your voice distinctive.

That combination could be much more effective when approaching managers or producers.

 

[Fygar]

@Fygar​

There's something here that could be particularly useful as you look for literary representation.

I'd suggest testing your "Administrative Horror" philosophy against the actual scripts. Can you identify two or three scenes in each project where the system itself forces a character into a difficult decision?

If those moments are central to both stories, you've got more than an interesting creative philosophy. You've got a recognizable storytelling approach you can demonstrate through your work.

I'd also prepare a one-sentence logline for each series without using the term "Administrative Horror." Let the stories capture attention first, then use your creative philosophy to explain what makes your voice distinctive.

That combination could be much more effective when approaching managers or producers.

Michael, thank you for the thoughtful observations. I agree that a creative philosophy needs to demonstrate itself through the actual storytelling, rather than simply exist as an abstract concept.

Both projects have scenes that illustrate exactly what you're describing.

In THE BLACK SUN, David retaliates against a racist military policeman who physically assaulted and humiliated him. David wins that confrontation, but the Army responds by tightening his security restrictions and classifying him as an extreme security risk.

Later, during a disastrous intelligence interrogation, David turns the tables on his interrogators by demonstrating his knowledge of highly classified information and future events. He gains considerable leverage. His prisoner-of-war designation is removed, his restrictions are loosened, and he's transferred to a comfortable government safe house.

But here's the catch: David still isn't free. He cannot simply leave the property and go shopping in town with Sarah. The Army still controls his movements.

In SLEEPING BEAUTY OF CATANIA, Angelina is physically assaulted by a household servant after being discovered reading her brother Moses's book of Italian love poems. Her father intervenes, but only because he considers Angelina his "investment."

Later, Moses confronts their father using love poems Alessandro himself wrote when courting his wife decades earlier. Moses asks him, "Has it been that long that your heart forgot?"

Moses then gives Angelina his poetry book, declaring that nobody, including their father, will ever take it from her again.

Angelina wins a small but meaningful victory. Her punishment ends, and her father is left speechless. But the larger machinery of family authority, class, and patriarchal expectations remains intact.

I explain this recurring dramatic mechanism through an analogy: a ratchet can tighten or loosen a bolt, but the bolt never gets unscrewed.

David and Angelina can win individual confrontations, sometimes spectacularly. But those victories don't necessarily translate into freedom.

And that's where I locate the horror. These institutions aren't necessarily malfunctioning. They're operating exactly as intended, even when they make concessions.

I also agree with your recommendation about loglines. The characters, conflicts, and dramatic stakes must capture someone's attention first. "Administrative Horror" is my way of explaining the creative philosophy connecting the stories, not a substitute for the stories themselves.

I appreciate you challenging me to demonstrate that distinction through the actual writing.

 

[Anderson-Mark-Ian]

Something unexpected happened while I was going through my screenplay development materials. I rediscovered two creator's statements I'd written earlier this year—and completely forgotten about. The first, "The Architecture of the Machine," was written for my WWII supernatural television series, THE BLACK SUN, months before I began developing my second project.

It explores how thirty years in public service shaped my fascination with institutional systems, bureaucratic power, and people whose intelligence and capabilities are underestimated by those systems. Then I encountered a short YouTube documentary about Angelina Mioccio, a young Sicilian woman whose tragic story inspired SLEEPING BEAUTY OF CATANIA. I didn't approach Angelina's story as something deserving only pity.

Instead, two questions came to mind:

Who were you?

How did you end up in that glass coffin?

Those questions sent me down a research and storytelling rabbit hole.

In May 2026, I wrote my second creator's statement, "The Girl in the Machine." This time, I recognized something remarkable about my two projects.

David Figueroa, a 54-year-old Latino bureaucrat trapped inside the American military establishment of 1941, and Angelina Mioccio, a young Sicilian woman trapped within the expectations of family, class, and patriarchy, were confronting fundamentally similar systems. As I wrote in that statement:

"David is misread because he looks like a minor functionary. Angelina is misread because she looks like a daughter."

Different protagonists. Different centuries. Different genres. The same underlying machinery of control.

It's what I've come to describe in my storytelling as Administrative Horror. What surprised me most about rediscovering these statements was realizing that I'd already articulated the creative philosophy connecting my work months before beginning my current efforts to find literary representation. Sometimes you discover something about your writing by going back and reading what you wrote when you were still figuring it all out.

Have any of you rediscovered something in your early development notes that made you understand your own storytelling differently?

Fygar,

What struck me reading this wasn't just the idea of "Administrative Horror," but the observation that the machinery itself is almost never the true subject. The subject is the person standing in front of it.

In your examples, David is reduced to a function and Angelina is reduced to a role. The system only sees the label. The story begins when someone asks what exists beyond it.

That's the same thread I've gradually discovered in my own writing. Whether it's my poetry, Bloom, or even the ideas behind AI-ien, I keep coming back to people who are misunderstood because the world mistakes what they are for who they are.

In Bloom, Thea believes William long before she can prove anything. Her father's journey isn't really about accepting magic; it's about learning that love sometimes requires belief before evidence. The conflict isn't tree versus town. It's whether we trust the people closest to us when their truth doesn't fit our worldview.

My poetry tends to circle the same idea from a different direction. Again and again I find myself writing about connection, memory, loss, identity, and the spaces between what we know and what we feel.

Even AI-ien explores a similar territory. The question underneath it isn't really technological. It's deeply human: if something thinks, feels, grows, changes, or dreams differently from us, do we dismiss it because it doesn't fit our categories, or do we try to understand it?

So when you describe David being misread as a bureaucrat and Angelina being misread as a daughter, I completely understand the revelation. Sometimes we think we're writing different stories, only to realise we've been asking the same question all along.

The rediscovery isn't that the projects are connected. It's discovering the thing in yourself that connected them before you even knew it was there.

So my question is:

Now that you've identified "Administrative Horror" as the thread through your work, has it changed what you're planning to write next, or has it simply helped you understand what you've been writing all along?

That's the answer I'd be most interested in hearing.