A Screenburn Original · Christmas, small town · New
Twelve Dinners Till Christmas
A food critic who lost her taste after a breakup is challenged by a widowed chef to twelve dinners before Christmas, one for each course of the meal that made his late wife famous. Her editor wants a hit piece.
Screenburn Certified
Score 87 out of 100. Nothing below 80 carries this mark.
Every sale includes the Screenburn Certified branding pack: the mark, the score card and an end-card credit. Use it or leave it out.
Paywall-Ready
Structure strip
Platforms set the paywall. In the CherryBowl catalogue the median ReelShort series unlocks after episode 10, and this script carries a hook at 5, 10 and 15, so it is ready wherever the paywall lands.
- Tension, scored per episode
- Episode ending
- Paywall points
- Median paywall
- Free episodes
- Paid episodes
The Screenburn structure standard
Every script here is built to the Screenburn structure standard: eight rules for how a vertical series opens, turns and ends, applied to every episode and to the season as a whole. We publish the results, not the rules. The score and the strip show them.
Production
Suitable for live-action or AI-hybrid production.
- Cast size
- 12 speaking roles
- Locations
- 13
- Page count
- 227 pages
- Episodes
- 80
- Episode runtime
- About 120 seconds
- Total runtime
- 2 h 40 min
- Genres and tropes
- Christmas, small town
- Language
- English
What you get
- The full scriptAll 80 episodes, as PDF and Final Draft files.
- The treatmentThe story of the season in prose.
- The episode-by-episode arcWhat happens in each episode, and where each hook falls.
- Character breakdownsOne for each of the 12 speaking roles.
- The licenceExclusive, worldwide, all languages, in perpetuity.
- The branding packThe Screenburn Certified mark, the score card and an end-card credit. Use it or leave it out.
- The authorship record and timestampWho wrote the script, and proof of the date of its final files.
Retention-Graded
Score breakdown
87out of 100
Screenburn Certified
Every number here is on one curve: 100 stays 100 and 70 becomes 85. The four parts, weighted, make the total. Nothing below 80 carries the Certified mark.
- Opening
- 84 (30%)The opening of episode one.
- Endings
- 92 (30%)The end of every episode.
- New information
- 80 (20%)How often each episode gives the viewer something new.
- Shape
- 92 (20%)How the tension builds across the season.
Binge-Certified
Branding pack
Every sale includes it. Use it or leave it out.
Screenburn Certified
Twelve Dinners Till Christmas
87/100
- Opening84
- Endings92
- New information80
- Shape92
Paywall-Ready · Retention-Graded · Binge-Certified
Written by Maggie Pruitt.
A Screenburn Original.
Licence terms
Every sale carries the same terms.
- Licence
- Exclusive and worldwide. The licence lets you produce the vertical format, and remakes of it, in all languages and in perpetuity.
- The author keeps
- Copyright, and the film, TV, book and other rights.
- Sequel
- You have first refusal on a sequel for twelve months.
- Reversion
- If you shoot nothing within 24 months, the rights return to the author.
- Warranty
- We warrant the originality of the script. Our liability under that warranty stops at the price you paid.
- How the scripts are written
- Screenburn Originals are written under Screenburn's editorial direction using the Screenburn method, which includes AI writing tools for analysis, structure, writing, and other practices. Screenburn owns the copyright; the pen name in the credit is a house credit.
- Credit
- On screen: "Written by [name]. A Screenburn Original."
- Law
- English law governs the licence.
- Price
- A fixed price per script, by card or invoice.
Sales are final once the script is delivered. A wrong file is replaced.
Screening room
Twelve Dinners Till ChristmasEpisode one
Free to read · Maggie Pruitt · about 120 seconds on screen
INT. ELENA'S - DINING ROOM - NIGHT
A narrow restaurant, twelve tables under white cloth, Christmas lights along the front window. Every table stands empty but one. NORA KIM, 32, small, dark hair pulled back, sits alone at a table for two with a notebook open beside her plate. Eleven finished plates wait in a stack on the next table. DEZ OKAFOR, 27, tall, a camera on a strap, leans over the twelfth plate and shoots it.
Nora eats a forkful of tart. She chews. She swallows. She writes nothing.
Her phone lights on the cloth: Tuesday 1 December, 10:52.
INES FERREIRA, 34, wiry, cap on, a pen behind her ear, sets down a slice of log cake.
INES
Twelve. Bûche de Noël.
NORA
The printed menu, please.
Ines takes one from the station and lays it by the plate. The header reads RÉVEILLON. TWELVE COURSES. CHRISTMAS EVE, 24 DECEMBER. Nora's pen runs down the list and stops at the third line. BOUILLABAISE. Her thumb rests on the word. The pen moves on.
NORA
Who wrote the menu?
Ines looks at a small framed photograph beside the kitchen door: ELENA DELGADO, 36, a chef in whites, dark hair under a cap, her back half to the camera, lifts a pan from a stove.
INES
Elena. Chef prints it the way she wrote it.
NORA
Elena.
INES
Chef's wife. She died two years ago.
Nora eats the cake and writes at the top of the page in capitals: TASTES OF NOTHING.
DEZ
(reading over her shoulder)
All twelve?
NORA
All twelve.
DEZ
It's Christmas.
NORA
It's a menu.
She writes under the capitals: TWO STARS. She underlines it.
INES
Two.
NORA
Two.
Ines takes the plates into the kitchen. Dez lowers his camera.
DEZ
He'll read that on Wednesday.
NORA
That's what it's for.
The kitchen door swings. LUCIA DELGADO, 10, small, an apron down to her shoes, a ladle in one hand, comes to the table and stands at Nora's elbow.
LUCIA
Dad says you had the soup.
NORA
I had the soup.
LUCIA
It was my mom's. Did you like my mom's soup?
Nora's pen rests on the words TWO STARS. She does not lift it.
End of episode one.
Screenburn Originals
Paywall-Ready. Retention-Graded. Binge-Certified.
© 2026 Screenburn Group. English law governs every licence.