Dear Paula, Your notes in the script, your summary at the end, and above all, our Zoom conversation were the most effective things I’ve ever encountered in the areas of dramaturgy, development, and coaching. Thank you so much again for that.

Right from our first conversation, I had the feeling that Nina truly understood my project. She immediately grasped its essence and shared my enthusiasm for the story. With great sensitivity, a keen sense of narrative structure, and the right questions, she helped me find the common thread running through my extensive material.

What had previously seemed impossible to me became a reality thanks to her guidance: selecting and structuring my content into a clear, coherent narrative. Our collaboration was not only extremely productive but also inspiring and supportive. Nina gave me the confidence to follow my own story even more consistently.

I can wholeheartedly recommend her consulting services and am deeply grateful to her for her support.

Thank you so much for your review, Paula—I find it very helpful and motivating—just like the others before it! Seriously, you’ve really got a knack for this!

And thank you so much for all the feedback. It’s been incredibly helpful once again. After reading your review, I took another look at the version (and the coaching) from last time. It’s interesting to see how new elements have emerged that have much more depth and potential for conflict.

“To me, Nina is a soul whisperer.”

She has the special ability not only to see a story, but also the person behind it. She senses the wounds, strengths, and personal issues that authors bring to their material, and knows exactly—yet with great sensitivity—how to bring them to light and boldly use them to serve the story.

Nina grasps incredibly quickly what a story is really about, even when the material itself is still searching for its core. She listens closely, asks the right questions, and senses what characters need to come alive and feel authentic.

In doing so, she never imposes anything on a story. On the contrary: she draws out what’s already there, uncovers the core, and helps authors make exactly that visible and narrable.

Nina combines great empathy with dramatic clarity. She is a wonderful sparring partner for stories and for the people who tell them.

What I particularly appreciate about Nina is her clear yet deeply engaged approach to a story. She quickly recognizes where a story has potential, where it hasn’t quite come together yet, and which dramatic adjustments are truly crucial.

In doing so, she always stays true to the authors’ vision. She thinks along with us, asks probing questions, opens up new perspectives, and finds very concrete solutions without imposing anything on the story.

Working with Nina is focused, inspiring, and straightforward. She brings structure to complex development processes while maintaining a keen sense for characters, tone, and the emotional truth of a story. To me, she is an invaluable dramaturgical sparring partner.

I found working with Nina Hoepp to be an experience that truly helped me realize my potential. In developing the screenplay, she was like a midwife: she helped uncover what was already there, refine it, and bring it into its true form.

What I found particularly valuable was that the story wasn’t developed based on rigid, formulaic thinking or purely analytical structural models. Instead, the focus was always on the characters’ emotions and inner motivations. The dramaturgy emerged from the characters’ feelings, needs, and conflicts—not the other way around.

Equally important was the recurring question: What do I actually want to tell?

As a result, the work evolved into an emotional journey for the characters, one that sprang from their emotional world. At the same time, it opened up new perspectives on classic dramaturgical models. It managed to think beyond established concepts such as the three-act structure, “Save the Cat,” or other narrative tools, viewing them not as rigid guidelines but as flexible points of reference. This created space for new solutions, unexpected connections, and true “thinking outside the box.”

For me, this process was not only a dramaturgical exploration of the material but also a deepening of its emotional and human core.

Have you ever had an AI evaluate your script or treatment? Yes, I know, it's incredibly fast and at first glance it seems well-founded, but the next morning comes and with it a second glance, and by the third glance at the latest, you know why Paula exists! No bits, no bytes, but brains and heart, and plenty of them. The AI hype is already on the decline, but Paula is still going strong.  

And besides, it's just fun and very inspiring to have Paula and the scriptdock team take your book apart. The next morning, I put it back together, and then it's really a screenplay.