Page 14 of Flipping the Script
"Sorry," she said, the heat of embarrassment creeping up her neck. "Can I just—give me a second."
The table fell silent except for the distant hum of equipment and the scratch of Quinn's pen. But instead of impatience or judgment, Solen heard something else entirely.
"What do you think Maya is really trying to say here?" Quinn's voice was thoughtful, clinical. "Because the words might be fancy, but the emotion underneath is simpler."
Solen looked up from the script, meeting those sharp green eyes that now held something she couldn't quite identify. Not pity—Quinn didn't seem the type for pity. More like... problem-solving.
"She's trying not to admit she's interested," Solen said slowly. "Like, she's hiding behind big words because the real feeling is scary."
Quinn nodded, making a note that looked suspiciously like approval. "Exactly. So what if instead of focusing on the specific phrasing, you let Maya be someone who gets tongue-tied when she's attracted to someone?"
It wasn't exactly what the script said, but it was what the script meant. Solen felt something ease in her chest as she tried the line again, this time with Maya's nervousness rather than her own.
"Better?" she asked.
"Much." Quinn's smile was small but unmistakably genuine. "The character just became real."
They continued through the scene, and something unexpected began to happen. Where Solen struggled with complex phrasing, Quinn would ask a character question that unlocked the emotional truth beneath the words. Where Quinn had written dialogue that felt stilted when spoken aloud, Solen would suggest a rhythm that made it flow naturally.
It felt like the best kind of collaboration—two different skill sets creating something neither could achieve alone.
During the fifteen-minute break, most of the cast and crew migrated toward the craft services table, leaving Quinn and Solen alone at the table scattered with scripts and coffee cups. The soundstage felt different with fewer people—more intimate, like a secret shared between friends.
"Thank you," Solen said quietly. "For the character questions. You could have just let me struggle."
Quinn was reorganizing her pens with unnecessary precision. "You weren't struggling with the character. You were struggling with my tendency to use five-dollar words when fifty-cent ones would do the job better."
"Still." Solen turned in her chair to face Quinn more directly. "You made it easier without making it obvious. That was... kind."
Quinn's hands stilled on her color-coded arsenal of writing implements. "I suppose I should thank you too."
"For what?"
"For making my dialogue sound like actual human beings might say it." Quinn's laugh held a note of self-deprecation. "I spent so much time making sure every word was perfect that I forgot people need to actually speak them."
Solen studied Quinn's profile—the sharp line of her jaw, the way she worried her bottom lip when thinking. There was something almost vulnerable about her in this moment, guard lowered just enough to let real uncertainty show through.
"Can I ask you something?" Solen said.
Quinn's posture straightened slightly, but she nodded.
"When you were writing Maya and Zoe's story—about opposites finding balance—were you writing about anyone specific?"
The question seemed to catch Quinn off guard. She was quiet for a long moment, her fingers absently tracing the edge of her notebook.
"I was writing about the kind of person I thought I could never understand," Quinn said finally. "Someone spontaneous and intuitive and comfortable with uncertainty. Everything I'm not."
"And now?"
Quinn turned to meet Solen's gaze directly. "Now I'm starting to think maybe incompatible is different from impossible."
The air between them felt charged with something Solen couldn't quite name. It was more than professional respect, deeper than casual friendliness. It felt like recognition—two people seeing something in each other they hadn't expected to find.
"Places, everyone!" Marcus's voice broke the moment, and the cast began filtering back to the table. But as they settled back into their chairs, Solen noticed Quinn had moved slightly closer, their scripts now overlapping at the edges.
They finished the table read with a momentum that surprised everyone. Quinn's writing came alive through Solen's instinctive emotional intelligence, while Solen's performance gained precision through Quinn's understanding of character motivation. By the final scene, they were practically finishing each other's thoughts—or at least, finishing each other's dialogue.
"Beautiful work, both of you," Marcus said as they wrapped. "That's exactly the kind of chemistry this story needs."
