Episode 13. The Vertical Reach: How One Writer Moved UpUntitled Episode

Jessica Burkhart went from publishing 30 novels to writing full-time verticals in a year. She shares her pivot from books to games to screenwriting, how she learned to work within tight budgets, and why moving vertically—not horizontally—changed her entire definition of success.

In this conversation, Jessica walks us through her creative journey: from middle-grade and YA novels to mobile games (Pixelberry's Choices, Chapters app) to becoming a Silver Telly Award-winning vertical drama screenwriter with 17 produced shows on DramaShorts, Shorts, and ReelShort. We talk about the biggest challenges (relearning pacing and economy of language), the biggest surprises (creative freedom without traditional boundaries), and the real work of balancing creative ambition with shoestring budgets.

Most importantly: we talk about permission. Permission to try. Permission to pivot. Permission to move up instead of across.

If you're at a creative crossroads or you've hit a ceiling somewhere, this conversation is for you.

GUEST

Jessica Burkhart is a Silver Telly Award-winning vertical drama screenwriter, best-selling author of 30+ novels, and mobile game writer. Her vertical drama series have been featured on most-watched charts across major platforms. Recent credits include The Sweetest Challenge (DramaShorts) and The Quarterback's Secret Princess (Shorts).

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone, welcome to the Vertical Reach Podcast. This is where storytelling meets strategy. I'm Pauline Gray, and each week I sit down with the creators, innovators, and voices shaping the world of vertical storytellers. Let's go stories that connect. Hello everyone, and welcome again to the Vertical Reach Podcast. The vertical reach is that moment when you decide to extend upward, whether physically, professionally, emotionally, in your personal, professional life, when you really have this desire to meet what exists above you or you suspect exists above you, when staying at that same level is just no longer enough. You know you're better than your circumstance. The vertical reach is that act, raw, authentic of rising to meet what's higher, whether it's your body, your work, or your ambition. The vertical reach podcast is about people who didn't just pivot careers. They changed altitude. This season focused on filmmakers and creators entering and often dominating the vertical microdrama space. This tends to be part of a larger integration or reinvention of the self. So the goal here is to document a real-time transition and transformation, not polished hindsight, just a real step-by-step where I am now, where I started, where I'm looking to the future. And today in the guest chair, we have vertical screenwriter Jessica Burkhart. Jessica Burkhart is a drama screenwriter in the vertical space with 17 produced shows on platforms, including, we all know, drama shorts, shorts, and real short. She's also a silver tele award winner, best-selling author, and mobile game writer. Several of her series have reached the most watched charts on their respective platforms. She's a bala. Also, she is an author. She has 1.5 million books in print. You can find her on the IMDU website My Silver Christmas and Husband Snowbound with the Homeless Prince and The Sweetest Challenge. It's a wonderful lie coming out this fall on Simon and Schuster. Her socials, which will be in the show notes, are at Jessica underscore Burkhart and her IG at the Jessica Burkhart. And you can go do a deeper dive online at Jessica Burkhart.com. And with that opening, I will let Jessica, in her own words, introduce herself and share her journey with us.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Thank you so much, Pauline. I am so excited to be here. I was just saying to Pauline off camera that we've been in the same space for a while, but haven't had the opportunity to connect face to face. So I'm very excited and thank you for having me. I am new in the vertical space. I've only been at this for about a year. So it's been quite a wild ride and quite a journey. You know, we joke about verticals being like the Wild West sometimes, and that's how you exactly. I feel like a cowgirl, but I love it. I think it's amazing. It's so much fun. As you mentioned, I started my career in book publishing. Have 30 books out now. And I have a new book coming out next fall, as you mentioned. And I've been doing this since I was 19. And I kept going, okay, what's next? What am I going to do next that creatively challenges me, fulfills me something different, right? Like we all get to that point. So I decided, okay, I want to try writing mobile games. And this was a few years ago. And I started working for Pixelberry, who does choices, and then I started writing for Crazy Maple Studios, and they have an app called Chapters. And that app is Choose Your Own Adventure, Spicy Romance Games. And last summer they were like, hey, we have this really popular real short called How to Dump a Hockey Star. Would you consider adapting that into a game for us? And that was my first introduction to verticals. I had a moment of what is this? What are verticals? I've never heard of these before. And they gave me the scripts for it, and I just fell in love with the format. I wrote the game and then the rest was history. I just started writing verticals. And that's what I've been doing now full time is writing vertical dramas.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Amazing, amazing. So let me ask you this. While it seems what you're saying that your transition was relatively seamless, was there a moment though, perhaps before that hockey had an upper hockey star? Which I don't know why you'd ever do that, mind you, but that's okay.

unknown 4:38

Right?

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Like, what were you thinking? So it was going basketball instead, but uh when you was there a moment you kind of had a light bulb or maybe a a glowing light bulb moment when you realized that where you were growing horizontally had capped out. And you want to just reach higher, explore, investigate, or explore inwards, outwards, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

And yeah, I think for me, like I said, I had written 30 books, published 30 books, and they are primarily in the middle grade and young adult space. So for kids ages eight to 14, roughly. And I adore writing for kids. That's always at the heart of what I do when I write novels. But I went, okay, I'm ready to write some adult stories now and kind of explore that field. And I felt like I really wanted to see my stories come to life on screen. And I didn't know how to get into traditional legacy Hollywood. I thought, hey, wow, verticals, they're opening this lane to people like me who don't have a foot in the door in legacy Hollywood. So that's why I decided to take the leap into verticals.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Amazing. So now in that vertical space, what carried over from the novel work? Was it more structural? Was it more the level of storytelling? Like what were the bridges?

SPEAKER_01 6:00

I think the first thing for me was how to effectively use cliffhers because my first novel was part of a series of 20 books. And you have to know how to hook people if you're going to sustain a series for 20 books. So I feel like I learned that in novel writing and carried that over. And also just a deep love of characterization of making characters well-rounded, not making them flat, having our villains have a little bit of a moment of good in them. So they're not that, you know, that typical villain, that flat villain.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

A little ambiguous, a little double textual duality.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Yeah, exactly. So it there are a lot of things, I think, that I carried over from novel writing. But the biggest thing that did not translate for sure was pacing, making sure that, you know, you spend a lot of time in characters' heads in novels, and there's a lot of thinking and a lot of reflection. And in verticals, as you know, every word matters. So that was a learning curve for me to figure out and learn how to pull back on that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

I definitely agree. You know, one thing I found in the vertical space is as a writer, I started off in poetry. And with poetry, it can be a sonnet. There's some poems that like The Honesty is a poem at the end of the day. Yeah.

unknown 7:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

And just learning the craft of economy, you know, really going to almost like extreme economy to say, okay, this is 40 words. Can I say it in four words? Right. Yes, exactly. And sort of a reconstructing of a skill set, you know. So I totally get that. So what was that say your biggest surprise about vertical storytelling then?

SPEAKER_01 7:50

I think the biggest surprise was that I could really go all out in having fun. I think, and that was really cool. Like we're creating these at the end of the day, we're writing these and creating these to entertain. That's what primary goal is. And we can make them as silly or as ridiculous or as fun or as wish fulfillment as we want. And I think a lot of viewers respond to that. We're putting our heart into these and trying to make them stand out in a sea of verticals, right? So I think coming into them and just letting go and being as creative as we want without a lot of traditional boundaries is really, really surprising and fun.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Let's hone in on that for a second because circling back this notion of like relearning, unlearning, you know, myself as a screenwriter by trade, and now going to vertical screenwriting, I have always gonna have two minds. You know, on the one hand, I want to dive into the fantasy. I want to be swimming in an ocean on Mars. Sorry, that's what I want to be, you know. On the other hand, the other skill set I've had to hone is two characters, one location, eight shoot, make it work. Yes. And and so, how does one kind of develop that internal landscape of surrender? You know, so on the one hand, with verticals, you really are in this romantic, perhaps, werewolf landscape where the rules and linear logic are built in that world. But then you also want to let loose and be free for 90 seconds. Right. So, how have you navigated those conflicting metrics?

SPEAKER_01 9:39

So I think that there's an interesting example that I can think of, and it's with my first vertical, my accidental Christmas husband. And when I wrote the script, I had a fire in the bakery and I had a car crash. And my producers came back to me and they were like, hey, that is going to be really, really expensive. Can you think right? Just a little bit. Can you think of another way to get this emotion across, this moment across without blowing the budget, essentially?

unknown 10:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

And for me, right, and for me, that's an interesting puzzle to solve. And I thought, okay, how can I do this? What pieces can I put into place? And I figured it out. We changed the fire to a robbery. And that brought across the same fear, the same worry, the same emotion. And with the car crash, we had the sound effects of the crash, and they changed showing the flashing lights inside a building. Exactly. Yes. So it's learning how to work, I think, within that framework. Like you said, we're given a short 90 seconds and we've got to stick to budget, but also playing out our fantasies. So it's learning like, how can we do this without it costing a ton of money and still really grab people's emotions? And I feel like every vertical is kind of its own puzzle to unlock to really figure out what pieces can I put into place in this episode, in this episode, in the next one, that grab people that entertain people, but that fit the budget and the guidelines. Amazing, amazing.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Do you tend to work with the same producers over and over again? So I guess have like a shorthand, like a like sort of a telepathic communication, or do you rotate producers? How does that tend to work for you?

SPEAKER_01 11:25

I work with the same producers several times. My first three shows I did with the same producers, and now I'm kind of freelancing all over the place. So it's working with different people, but I feel like the guidelines are usually roughly always the same, right? Like don't do anything super expensive. And I feel like the more scripts I've written, the better I've gotten at keeping budget in mind, and then figuring out how wild I can get while working within a budget.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

I love that trick with the sort of the flashing lights, the reaction shot, the siren, maybe the cop comes in, shattered glass sound effects. Yep. So I'm sure a lot of your game writing skills fed into that as well, I'd imagine, did they? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Because when I was writing the games with Crazy Maple, they were always cliffhangers because you need people to spend diamonds, which are just like coins on the vertical apps, to purchase the next episode and to keep reading. And you have paid choices within those games. So if people want to see a spicier romantic scene, they'll buy diamonds if they want. So yeah, so that taught me a lot about what do people really want and what are people willing to pay for the hit scenes that they want. And I feel like I've tried to bring a lot of that into verticals and go, okay, what am I going to get people to spend coins on to unlock the next episode?

SPEAKER_00 12:57

So you had sort of that blueprint internally of the monetization functioning of a, I guess, a platform or modality wired in before you went into the storytelling part. That's great. That's a great sort of background to set you up for success, I'd imagine, in the space. So was there anything that felt particularly risky or inevitable or what kind of were those kind of wobbly moments for you?

SPEAKER_01 13:22

I think it's always those moments of since I'm a freelancer, am I going to keep having opportunities? Am I going to keep being able to tell stories? Are people going to continue to want my verticals? And am I making enough connections, the right connections? Am I meeting people? Am I talking to the right people? And I don't live in LA. So am I am I zooming enough? Am I talking to the right people? And that for me is always my biggest kind of mmm moment. Just making sure I feel like with what I'm doing as a freelancer, probably 60% of my time right now is networking and 40% is actually writing. I hear you.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Well, if it's any consolation, I live in Los Angeles and I'm always wondering. I feel like I roll over in the morning and it's like, okay, LinkedIn, what's that? Okay. Yes. Yep. And it's like, I mean, it's like there's a ritual. If we get out of bed, it's like, am I have I re reached the phone? Is it charged? I mean, am I and I mean I'd say it's an it never ends. You know, I always say, you know, the sun sets on Spielberg too, you know. The sun it's gonna rain on George Clooney just like it just rains on me. The difference is that he can afford an extra shoot day. Right. Or a weather day. Yes. We might not. Right, exactly. But you know there's certain universal conditions of you're constantly making relationships. You're constantly, you know, wondering it's like sowing seeds, you know, and and that really is the job.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

It is, and it's it is, and it's seeing, okay, sometimes I have a week where all of my seeds have grown to the same height at once and everything is due at the same time, on the same day, the same week, and then other weeks are much more chill. So it's a constant juggling act for sure.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Yeah, I'm I I also work in film production and commercials. And the running joke in commercials is if you want a big job, plan a vacation. That makes a lot of sense. Always, yeah. Yeah. So in a world in which I see like horizontal growth as doing more or fewer activity along the same ceiling at the same ceiling. Kind of like you're on the treadmill. Where the vertical reach, you're making fewer moves, but with higher leverage, right? With that comparison or that difference in mind, have you changed how you define success now versus before when you're writing novels or when you were in doing different creative activities?

SPEAKER_01 15:53

I think for me, at the end of the day, the line of success has always been am I able to pay my bills and eat, uh, doing this art thing, or do I need to go get a nine to five? Like what that is the line for me. And if I'm not able to do that, then yes, then I need to go get an office job. So I feel like at this moment, the ceiling on verticals is so high, and there's so much going on. There are so many apps, there are so many people excited about the space, and they always need writers. So I feel like my barometer for success now is higher than it was when I got into it. At first, you know, I thought, oh, if I can get one vertical, see one vertical on an app, that that would be everything. I would be so happy and I'll continue writing novels. Right, I'll continue writing games, and I've had to quickly change that to pausing game writing. I'm still writing novels, but that's become my project at night. And by day, I am fully immersed in vertical world. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

What a success story. So, was there a moment when you realized that this move wasn't lateral, it was more vertical. When you're like, oh, okay, this is something that is upwards. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

I think when it started taking over my day, when it went from I can do this as a little fun side project, or maybe as a hobby and see how it goes, I don't know if it'll turn into anything, and I probably won't get more than, like I said, than one on an app. I don't know if people will like my writing, um, or maybe I won't be good at this. All those fears and doubts and concerns. But then when the work kept coming and I kept booking projects and having to turn people away because I could not take on something else at that time. Yeah, then I realized, okay, maybe I do have a shot at making this into a career.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

So, Jessica, tell me, you have reached some amazing heights in that's been about two years or so? How long has it been? It's been a year, which is wild. Here. Amazing. Here. Okay, so in a year you've transformed. In a year, you've just equipsed all expectations. Tell us, what is your next swipe up?

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Mine would be to create a pipeline from my novels into verticals. That's really yes, I P. That's really what I would love to do. I would love to, when I send a new book on submission, to automatically have a deal in place that there's going to be a vertical made. I think that would look attractive to book publishers and to vertical apps and to eventually turn every book that I'm writing into a vertical. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

In-house, total verke integrated IP. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. I can't wait. I can't wait. It's amazing. So, Jessica, let me ask you this. Most people, I would say, especially now, with all the shifts, whether it's in technology or society or social media, I'd say a lot of people are getting itchy in their skin. We are exposed to more options for lifestyle choices, what we can become. You know, when we were, perhaps when we were kids, when someone said, What do you want to be when you grow up? For a long time, it would have been a doctor, a nurse, or a fireman. Now it may be an influencer. Right. Yes. You know, or a digital strategist, right? You know. So I'm curious for those people who want to make their own vertical reach, but they're scared or they're hesitant. Or in my perception, I think that we talk a lot about stepping out of our own comfort zone. But I believe that we individual people, we don't really have comfort zones. I think people around us more likely have a zone of comfort that they like seeing us in. And so we then step out into the what will others think of me if I and am I able to live outside of the box that has been created for me. And one example for you know of that is I don't know if you know the story of the woman who invented the the Spanx brand, but she was very internally insightful. And she at the time, she was selling either fax machines themselves or the toner for fax machines. But she had to be on foot, walking up and downstairs in various climates, and her hosiery didn't meet her need. So she decided I'm gonna create hosiery that meets the need of a woman who has to go up and downstairs. I mean on elevators, carry stuff around, and she also I don't want anyone else's negativity, and I'm paraphrasing. I don't want to be influenced by the opinions of others. So she told no one that she was doing this. Yup, not a single person. And now she has a global empire. Right. And so I sort of respect her chosen right to incubate and nurture and foster her own dream without any negativity, any opinions of others. And that confidence comes from that too, just not seeking approval of your dream. So I'm curious for you, maybe you might have had a moment when you started writing novels where you kind of wondered, did you have self-doubt you overcame in the process or along your journey? Do you still have it? And how would you encourage others to overcome that self-doubt, you know, move forward, take a step forward?

SPEAKER_01 21:40

So this goes back to when I first started writing novels. And I was a senior in college, and college was paid for for me by scholarships, by grants, Pell Grants. I was a very, very poor kid growing up, and I was the first in my family to go to college. So I thought, my God, am I really gonna try to make it as a writer? That seems really frivolous, that seems dangerous. I need to be able to take care of my parents, you know, take care of myself. And I heard about this contest called National Novel Writing Month, where you write a novel in 30 days. And I thought, you know what? I could give this dream 30 days. That's it. And if I if I don't make it, if I fail, if I don't like it, if I'm not good at it for whatever reason, then I'll go right back to doing what I'm supposed to be doing, right? No, no real loss there. And I found out how much I loved writing the books. And the draft was horrible, as a first draft, you know, usually is, but doing it that way allowed me to give myself permission to take a little leap and to try something. And that's how I looked at verticals in a way. I didn't tell anybody I was doing it because I thought they're gonna think that I already did this kind of impossible thing by being a novelist. Surely she's not gonna make it as a screenwriter, too. And I didn't tell a story. Who dare you? Who dare you? I didn't tell anybody until I had my first contract with verticals. And I think we have to give ourselves permission to try. Like I said, I didn't grow up with money, didn't have any, and it was a sort of, I'm gonna try this and maybe I'll soar at it. Maybe I will, or maybe I'll flop and go do something else. But just allowing yourself to try and see what can happen. Well, I feel fairly confident in saying you're soaring.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Thank you. I think you're quite the eagle, quite honestly. Thank you. So encouraged us to hear that. Yeah. You got to have that permission slip. You know, the hall monitor is gonna come by and like Yeah Right. Yeah, exactly. There are no hall monitors anymore, people. So to my audience, I would say please remember if you're becoming something new or building something new, this is your home, the vertical reach. And please, please, please keep swiping up. Take care of yourself. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Vertical Reach Podcast. If you enjoyed the conversation, make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. If it sparked something for you, please share it with a storyteller. Until next time, let's tell stories that can.