Your finished novel, scored, staged and turned into a 60-episode drama season.
Short-form vertical drama — the 60-90 second, cliffhanger-driven format — runs on a strict, honest bar: a two-lead story, a real power imbalance, and conflict a camera can see. The Micro Drama Studio scores your manuscript against that bar, helps you fix it if it falls short, and — once it clears the gate — converts it into a full 60-episode season, built in stages you sign off.
Output files only. The Studio does not produce, film or render video. Every deliverable is a PDF or a Word document — scripts, a bible, and a production summary a producer can work from.
A real script page · EP01, The Marker
Built for any author bringing a completed manuscript.
This is for you if
- You have a complete manuscript and want a clear, honest read on whether it can carry a 60-episode vertical drama season.
- Your story already leans on a real power gap between two leads, a hidden truth, and conflict that plays out in scenes, not summary.
- You want the script and packaging work done for you, then plan to take the finished files to your own video production route.
- You’re prepared to review and sign off six checkpoints along the way — this is a staged build, not a one-click export.
Probably not for you if
- You want us to shoot, animate or render the episodes — the Studio produces scripts and packaging files only, never video.
- Your manuscript is still in progress. We score a complete novel, not a synopsis or a partial draft.
- Your story is an ensemble piece, an epic-scale plot, or has no natural two-lead centre — the format’s Production Simplicity and Episode Engine dimensions are built around two locked leads in a handful of interiors, and that’s hard to move without becoming a different book.
A card counter, counting her father’s debt at the felt — the kind of scene the scoring bar is built to find.
Six dimensions, scored 1-5, on what’s actually on the page
Every manuscript is read in full and scored against six dimensions that decide whether a story survives the vertical-drama format — each score has to cite specific chapters, not a plot summary.
Visual Conflict
Is the tension something a camera can show — a confrontation, a look, a physical stake — or does it only live in a character’s head?
Trope Clarity
Is there one clear, nameable trope driving the story (from a standard list of ten), not a blur of two or three competing ones?
Power Imbalance
Is there a real, structural gap between the two leads — money, position, leverage — or are they simply equal partners?
Visible Emotional Stakes
Do the feelings play out in scenes the audience can watch happen, or only in narration telling us how a character feels?
Episode Engine
Does the plot naturally break into 60-90 second, cliffhanger-sized units, or does it resist being cut that small?
Production Simplicity
Can it be shot with two locked leads across three to five static interiors, or does it need a full ensemble or epic scale?
The verdict is a straight sum out of 30
Below 22, we won’t convert a book — we’ll show you what to fix first. 22–25 converts with notes on the dimension that needs the most work. 26 and above converts clean. The single lowest-scoring dimension is always named, whatever the total.
“A viability score built on a plot summary is worthless. Every scoring read is a full read of the manuscript, chapter by chapter.”
Micro Drama Studio · scoring methodScore it. Fix it if needed. Convert it.
Every book runs through the tiers in the same order the scoring gate requires.
Launch pricing
A full read of your manuscript, scored on all six dimensions with a straight GREENLIGHT / REWORK / REBUILD verdict.
- One branded PDF, 10–18 pages
- Cover, verdict summary, six dimension pages
- Rebuild recommendations for any 1–2 score
- Casting section if your score is 22 or higher
Launch pricing
The bridge for a manuscript that scored REWORK or REBUILD — a diagnosis and a concrete plan to lift it into convertible range, without a full rewrite.
- One branded PDF: Dimensional Diagnosis
- Chapter-by-chapter plan: KEEP / REVISE / CONSOLIDATE / CUT
- 3–5 sample rewrites in your own voice
- A re-check protocol back into the score
Launch pricing
The complete conversion: your novel built out into a 60-episode vertical drama season, built in stages you sign off, script and packaging only.
- 60 individually named episode .docx files
- One full-season master .docx
- A Season Bible and six Batch Review documents
- A Production Summary PDF
- A branded Pitch Package PDF — cover, concept, full character profiles, three-act outline and ten demo episode scripts, ready to hand to a buyer
There is no path to a Full Season without a passing score in hand — we won’t convert a book that scores under 22, we’ll show you what to fix first. A book that scores REBUILD isn’t a dead end: the Rework Package exists to get it to 22, or, honestly, sometimes the right answer is to adapt a different book instead.
Every season starts the same way — two locked leads, a hidden truth, and someone watching.
Staged so drift is caught every 10 episodes, not discovered at episode 60
Six author checkpoints are mandatory. Batch two is not drafted until batch one is signed. Nothing auto-advances — the Season Bible, the Arc Map, and each of the six 10-episode batches all wait for your sign-off.
Season Bible
Two locked leads, a five-part reveal structure (a new truth surfaces at episodes 3, 8, 10, 30 and 50), 15–25 planted clues tracked through the season, three to five anchor locations, wardrobe continuity and tone rules.
Arc map
All 60 episodes mapped across six 10-episode batches — Pilot, Second Wave, Midseason, Escalation, Dark Night, Payoff.
Batch 1 — the Pilot
Ten episodes drafted with the beat structure locked (Detonation, Lock, First Crack, External Threat, Public Moment, Brick, First Reveal, Betrayal, Choice, Paywall), with an explicit “does the show work” check before anything else is drafted.
Batches 2–6
The remaining 50 episodes, drafted ten at a time, each batch with its own review document and checkpoint before the next batch begins.
The 8-second hook and the Episode 10 paywall
Every episode is built to win the first 8 seconds — the audience’s real decision window — and the season carries one fixed paywall, always at Episode 10.
Final assembly
All 60 episodes assembled into one full-season master document, plus a Production Summary covering shot counts, location reuse and screen-time split.
HOOK
The 8-second decision window has to be won here.
FRICTION
The conflict of the episode plays out.
TURN
The scene turns on new information or a reversal.
CLIFFHANGER
A hook image and a next-episode teaser tag close it out. Runtime is hard-capped at 90 seconds.
Three of our own books, scored the same way yours will be
The Marker
A card counter marries the billionaire who caught her to save her family — not knowing he’s secretly watched her for months. Scored REWORK, and still became a complete 60-episode season, built in stages you sign off, with a full pitch package.
The Tell
Scored REWORK, and produced its own complete 60-episode season and pitch package.
The Debt
A bodyguard/forbidden-romance with a stacked power imbalance and a staged hidden-truth ladder — the strongest bones of the three on story, held to REWORK by four production-heavy set pieces. Diagnosed with a Rework Package and converted into its own full season and pitch package.
All three are our own books, put through the same scoring gate every manuscript gets. All three have been through the Rework Package tier — The Marker’s is excerpted below.
Real sample output, from The Marker
Three excerpts, pulled straight from The Marker’s own build.
Rework Package · Dimensional Diagnosis
Production Simplicity — Current: 3/5 → Target: 5/5
Failure pattern: Location Sprawl + Cast Crowd (partial)
Diagnosis: Production Simplicity is the only dimension below 4 for The Marker, and it is a location/crowd problem, not an action-sequence problem — this book has no fights, chases or stunt work anywhere in it. The Marker’s actual cost is eleven-plus distinct interior locations, plus two genuine crowd set-pieces: the Commission hearing gallery, which ‘ran full past fire code,’ and the casino-floor ‘one hand’ showdown, staged in front of ‘ten thousand strangers.’
From The Marker’s Rework Package
Full Season · Episode 01 script
INT. CASINO FLOOR — HIGH-LIMIT PIT — NIGHT
WREN sits at third base, a club soda at her elbow. Her face gives nothing away. The dealer’s hole card turns. A jack. Bust. Chips slide toward Wren.
WREN
(V.O.)
Three hundred forty thousand. My father’s debt, owed to men who don’t forgive and don’t forget daughters.
A man in a midnight-blue suit falls in at her shoulder — SILAS.
SILAS
Ms. Callahan. Mr. Vane would like a word.
CUT TO: INT. THE SKY — CONTINUOUS
CASH stands over a bank of monitors, watching her on camera forty-one.
CASH
(into the line)
Silas. Bring her up. And Silas — be polite. She’s going to be your boss.
CUT TO BLACK.
Episode 1 of The Marker
Full Season · Pitch Package
The Marker, by Ivy Kayne (pen name) — Blackmail marriage of convenience (contract marriage)
The 8-Second Hook — Open tight on Wren’s hands at a blackjack table, mid-count, face perfectly blank. Cut to a cold, dark surveillance room sixty floors up, where a man’s hand covers her table on a bank of monitors like he’s covering a bet: “Bring her up.”
24 out of 30 — viability score — REWORK
Concept · The Pitch — A card counter marries the billionaire who caught her to save her family — not knowing he’s secretly watched her for five months already.
From The Marker’s Pitch Package
The turn, the reach, the cliffhanger — built the same way, episode after episode.
The questions every author asks first
Do you produce the video episodes?
What’s the difference between the three tiers?
What if my book scores REBUILD?
Does this work for any genre?
What if my manuscript is very long?
Is this only available in English?
Do I have to approve each batch?
What do I actually receive?
Bring us your finished manuscript
We’ll score it against the six dimensions, tell you honestly where it stands, and walk you through what a Full Season build would look like for your book.
See the three tiers