Screenwriting School

Lesson One: Getting Started

In this lesson, we begin your screenwriting education by dissecting a script to find out what makes it a KILLER SCRIPT. How does this screenplay stand up against other, less masterful scripts? What stays with you after you read it?

We then dig into the essential elements all good screenplays have in common, from Star Wars, to Rocky, to Casablanca. Together, we uncover the reasons why getting the right education in screenwriting includes reading and honing one’s understanding of the dynamics and antagonisms which are always at work in great screenplays.

Then, we’ll discuss why reading the “classics” is paramount for anyone who wants to grow an insider’s knowledge of script-writing and go on to write the KILLER SCRIPT. This screenwriting course is all about getting you started on the right foot so that you have a firm foundation upon which you can build.

Lesson Two: The Story

Whether you’re in Hollywood, Bollywood, Indiewood, or on some soundstage in Atlanta, New York, Charleston, or Ontario, everything starts with the story.

So, what’s the story are you’re burning to tell? Is it based on a true story, a book, or some other published work (an adapted screenplay), or is the idea entirely your own, hatched from your own imagination (an original screenplay)?

In lesson two, you will learn what the writing maxim “write what you know” really means. Then you and your mentor will discuss why every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Behind all great cinematic films is an adherence to structure. Rebel against it as you like, structure will forever be the backbone of great stories which, when handled expertly, become great screenplays and ultimately great movies.

A note on adapted screenplays: Not all great books make for great films. If the book you want to turn into a movie takes place through a first person point of view (POV), or if it tells the story of a writer, thinker, artist, or individual whose activity is one of the mind, you may want to reconsider your choice of subject. This screenwriting course strongly suggests that you focus not on the hard to capture interior mind of a character but on the vivid world you get to create!

There’s a reason behind the maxim of screenwriting to “write what’s seen.” They’ll be more on that later. Sure you can say good movies been made about artists, writers, philosophers, etc. Certainly! But in so doing, many screenwriters adapt what was originally told in a first person POV into 3rd person POV. Others attempt to leap into the character’s minds by showing their daydreams, dreams, or visions. Still others never clearly establish POV and therefore disrupt the audience’s ability to empathize with the main character and feel compelled to find out what’s going to happen next, rather than confused about what just happened.

In any case, stories told “in the mind” do not generally result in good screenplays, so beware!

Lesson Three: The Three Act Structure and Plot Points

Nearly all films follow the same plot format, which consists of three separate sections of a movie to tell a story. This is called the 3-Act Structure.

Although the manner by which various writers tackle and categorize the Acts may vary, the underlying structure is so universal that audience members naturally expect and anticipate for the movies they watch to unfold in a 3-Act Structure.

The Setup and The Confrontation, comprise Act One and Two, which may be seen as a “ratcheting up” of plot points and rising action which persists and increases all the way until the needle-sharp climax, followed by the shoring up of various narrative threads addressed in The Resolution of Act Three.

Act One: The Setup

• Exposition
• Main Character
• Dramatic Premise
• Dramatic Situation
• Inciting Incident

Act Two: The Confrontation

• Obstacles
• First Culmination
• Midpoint

Act Three: The Resolution

• Climax
• Denouement

Homework

Lesson Four: Character

Your characters must be so alive, so convincingly real that they seem to leap right off of the page. What they say, what they do, and how they do it even when they’re way out on a ledge, hanging-on with one sweating palm, pushed miles beyond their comfort zone, must ring true.

Some of the greatest screenplays of all time aren’t great just because of a memorable lead or well-executed plot twist. Sometimes a character can say one line, and you instantly feel you know him or her.

In short, every single character in your movie, from the leading man to the sultry seductress, to the street-sweeper who finds the body, has to have substance. There’s no substitute to doing the work it takes to achieve this.

Every character in your screenplay has to have substance. Substance is achieved by the development of a solid backstory. In lesson four, we’ll discuss the development of character and the relationship between character and story which are equally co-dependent i.e. two sides of the same coin.

• The Reality
• Back Story
• Character Arcs
• Taking What You See
• Supporting Characters

Homework

Lesson Five: Theme/Genre

In this lesson, you will define the kind of film you are writing. As is the case in music and literature, genre is a category of artistic composition marked by a distinctive style, form, or content. In Film, genre is the form of film your story will ultimately reveal. Understanding that definition will come to your aid as you learn to watch movies as a filmmaker. Hence, that “dramedy” that’s grossed millions at the box office, has just one dominant genre which is revealed at the film’s point of climax.

In order to write a great screenplay you need to know what’s expected of the story you’re telling. That expectation is largely based on genre. Want to bend the rules or disregard them altogether? First, learn the form and execute it well. You can break the rules later.

Genres include:

• Comedy
• Drama
• Action
• Musical
• Thriller
• Horror
• Western
• Science Fiction
• Fantasy
• Satire

As well as these variations:

• Dramedy (Drama and Comedy)
• Black Comedy
• Film Noir
• Romantic Comedy
• Street Drama
• Horror Comedy
• Musical Comedy
• Crime Thriller

Even though they’re often conflated, “theme” is different from genre. A theme addresses the question “What’s it about?” in a topical, idealistic sense. A story can be made deeper by adding a theme. That being said, it’s definitely possible to lay it on too thick.

Examples of themes include:

• Good vs. Evil
• Love Conquers All
• Triumph Over Adversity
• Individual vs. Society
• Coming of Age
• Death, as part of Life
• Man vs. Himself
• Man vs. Nature

Additionally, during this lesson you and your mentor will begin work preparing you to sell your screenplay and “go pro.”

• Identifying the Genre
• The Two Line Pitch
• The Two Movie Pitch

Homework

Lesson 6: Actions and Descriptions

Before it can captivate, entertain and delight, a screenplay has got to move. We’ve talked about having a beginning, a middle, and an end. All of the scenes within each of the three acts must work to propel the story forward, whether that happens through character exposition or action. In this lesson, we’ll dig into what to do, what not to do, and how to keep that writing fresh and engaging for the reader.

• The Novel vs. The Screenplay
• Write What’s Seen
• Writing Scene Action
• Shooting Scripts vs. Reading Scripts

Homework

Lesson 7: Formatting

If you submit a screenplay to a literary agent that’s typed in Microsoft Word in Times New Roman font, it will most likely never be read and end up in the trash. Screenplays must adhere to certain rules:

• They need to be formatted correctly.
• They need to be the proper length. One screenplay page is roughly one minute of movie playtime, so a 120 page screenplay is a 2 hour movie.
• They need to be printed and presented correctly

In marketing, “packaging is everything.” The same can be said of professional screenwriting. If you plan on selling your script or raising money to produce your own film, you need to know how to format and present your finished screenplay in exactly the same manner as the pros. The truth is that readers at a film production studio or agency are often very pressed for time. Every day they may be asked to review between 10 and 30 scripts. Take an eight hour workday, then subtract time for answering phones, scheduling, making copies, and working on shooting schedules, correspondence, or sending and filing contracts, as well as grabbing lunch and running errands. By the time the reader gets to “read” incoming submissions, they’ve got little time to actually read.

In order to separate the good from the bad, readers use a shortcut. Typically, they’ll look at the title page, the first page, and the last. If the format, presentation, and length of the script adheres to standards, the chances are good that they’ll actually read page one of your screenplay. If then that first page bores them it goes in the trash bin. If it compels them to turn to page two, they may keep on reading. If it doesn’t, that script which was worked on for hundreds, even thousands of hours, gets tossed into the bin, right along with the others.

Therefore, in lesson seven you and your mentor will dig into the essential nuts-and-bolts of screenplay presentation, including:

• Which Screenwriting Software to Use
• Your Title Page
• Printing

Homework

Lesson 8: Dialogue

When writing dialogue, you’re not writing what looks good on the page, you’re writing what sounds good to the ear and rings true for that character. One of the best ways to become good at dialogue is to listen to the people around you. Every line you write should be able to be spoken aloud. You should be able to visualize and hear your character saying that line of dialogue. Be as tight and as economical with your dialogue as possible. Try to never “overwrite.” Again, this is a screenplay, not a novel. People rarely talk or think in paragraphs. Make all your words tight and to the point. To that end, in this lesson you and your mentor will dig into the following fundamentals of writing good dialogue which reflects and informs the development of the character:

• Giving Your Characters a Voice
• A Word on Narration
• Do You Ever Use It?

Homework

Lesson 9:Synopsis and Treatment

The short synopsis is a one to two paragraph summary of your story. Be careful here: you don’t want to give away the ending! You just want to give a quick rundown of what the story is about. This is another one of those tools that helps you both before you write (it gives you a short, tight picture of your story), and after you’ve completed your screenplay, since many times it’s your short synopsis that gets your foot in the door. Besides drafting a compelling and accurate short synopsis, this lesson will also cover:

• The Long Synopsis
• The Four Page Treatment

Homework

Lesson 10:The Scene Outline

The outline is an essential tool for many writers. Though many veteran WGA writers still use outlines, it’s greatly important for beginning writers who have never completed a script to know just where, specifically, they are going.

• Scene Ordering
• Marking The Plot Points, Acts, Midpoints and Climax
• Sample Scene Outline
• Your Guide
• The Main Rule of Writing
• Create Your Rock

Homework

Lesson 11:The First Draft

The main rule of writing is as follows: Don’t be afraid to write crap. Understand that even the best writers in the world do not write brilliant masterpieces on their first drafts. Many of the greatest screenplays of all time have been written and rewritten numerous times over. Just focus, get excited, and begin to write. With us you can learn screenwriting in an iterative manner. If you never start, you’ll never finish, so start!

• Create Your Rock, Part Two
• Pushing to the End

Homework

Lesson 12

Now You Know

Congratulations! You’ve finished your rough draft screenplay. Isn’t it a great feeling? It’s fantastic to hold those 120 or so pages, 3 hole punched with 2 brass brads and say, “I did this!” Okay, now don’t get too confident. The script you hold in your hands you will show to NO ONE. EVER. Don’t get down. In this lesson, you’re going to hone critical skills that can make you a pro who’s capable of going the distance, from first draft to final draft, and on!

• The First Read
• The “Professional” First Draft
• Making a Cohesive Story
• Judging the Logic and Movement
• Your Job

Homework

Lesson 13:Polishing

The first aspect of your script polish deals with tightening. As we stated before, you MUST have a script that moves. After your first rewrite, you might have altered major aspects of the story. Now it’s time to polish them. Polishing the script is like operating with a laser. Another way to look at it is, you’ve shaped the rock, now it’s time to pull out the chisel to start working away the extraneous stuff that’s in the way. “Tightening” is the process where you make the script shorter and quicker. There’s no such thing as a script that reads too fast. You need to be economical on your dialogue and your action, but not lose essential elements. Here you will learn screenwriting polishing which can seem like “magic” but it’s really just a good, professional polish which can make those great elements shine in all their glory.

• Good Tightening
• Bad Tightening
• Fixing a Scene’s Structure and Flow
• Making It Error-Proof
• The First 10 Pages
• Your Job

Homework

Lesson 14:The Good Read

Know this: at this point in time you’re too close to your script. When even the most veteran of writers have completed their first draft, they might have an idea of how good or bad their screenplay is but they never truly know until they’ve gotten “The Good Read.” The Good Read is the read by an objective person who will cover your script and give you feedback. This person is not a friend or a family member, even if you find them critical or think they’re objective. They’re not. They know you and they have a sense of you, so their view of your script is always tainted. In this lesson we’ll uncover the following:

• Where to Find Good Readers
• How to Interpret Their Notes

Homework

Lesson 15:Rewriting, Part Two

One of the essential steps in your second rewrite is to identify the problems that the “Good Readers” pointed out. What do you need to change? How do you change it? Again, the best way to improve something is to see how the problem areas in your script were resolved in a successful script. If one of your consistent notes from your readers were, “I wasn’t buying the action sequences,” for example, then you know you’re not writing great action sequences.

Continuing with this example, you’d need to refer to at least two screenplays where the action sequences are known to be excellent. Always, always refer to what has worked in the past. That’s what makes this program and its approach to screenwriting instruction so powerful. We’re using the technique of “modeling” to create a KILLER SCRIPT. “Modeling” involves duplicating successful paths so that you can be successful as well. You’re going to be modeling your KILLER SCRIPT after the techniques and qualities that previous KILLER SCRIPTS had! Learn screenwriting by honing your abilities to know what works and what doesn’t.

• Don’t Be Afraid to Kill Your Babies
• Go Back and Read
• Your Job

Homework

Lesson 16:Agents

Literary agents serve to sell your screenplay in exchange for a 10% commission. They have the connections to the studios and the production companies who buy your script and potentially make it into a film. In essence, that’s what you’re paying the 10% for…their contacts and relationships. The more powerful the literary agent, the more pull he or she has with the studios and major production companies.

• The Pitch
• Referrals
• The Query Letter
• Getting Them to Read Your Script

Homework

Lesson 17:Selling Your Script

There are tons of scripts written each year. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has less than 12,000 members. Of these members, only a small percentage are making a living by writing. Becoming a professional writer takes time, hard work, and talent. As we stated earlier in this program, if it was so easy to sell a screenplay for mid-six figures, everyone would be doing it.

The best thing you can do to protect yourself and plan for success is to write a KILLER SCRIPT. That’s what matters in the end. If you can create a Killer Script that’s backed up by good reads, has been polished, and can potentially be reshaped (more on that in the next lesson), you have a much better chance at a sale.

• Be Realistic
• Production Companies
• Don’t Be Afraid
• Copywriting

Homework

Lesson 18:Rewriting, Part Three

Okay, so maybe your script isn’t selling. Maybe you can’t get an agent, even after you’ve gotten some great feedback. What are you doing wrong? Perhaps your script needs to be altered. Maybe if you wrote a thriller set in the 1970’s and it needs to be moved to present day. Maybe you’ve written your lead character as a male and you might need to change him to a female.

There are so many variables. The key is, you need to be flexible and open to changing your script. A script is almost never finished. Once your script is optioned, it will be rewritten many times, and by the time the screenplay makes it to the screen, the script may be completely different. You must be open to this.

• Be Open to Changing Your Script
• Writing is Rewriting, but…
• Director’s Notes

Homework

Lesson 19:On Set/Credits/WGA

Sometimes it seems like the writer has one of the least important roles on set, and, in many ways, that’s true. You, as the writer, were the inspiration and the source of the film in the first place. You created (or adapted) the idea and put in the many hours, sweat, and worry it takes to write a good script. As a result of that very blueprint, a movie will be made. Now here’s something it may hurt you to hear. Even if you single handedly wrestled that idea out from the depths of your imagination and have turned it into a great screenplay, it’s time to get out of the way. It’s true…when it comes time to shoot a film, the writer’s job is regulated to the sidelines. That’s exactly why, according to the WGA, the writer has to be paid in full 100% by the time production starts. Their work is done—kind of.

• Your Job on the Set
• Actor’s Notes
• Credit Rules
• The WGA

Homework

Lesson 20:Your Career as a Writer

The killer script is your ticket to making a career as a screenwriter. You can become a professional writer if you work at it persistently and regard this as a career not a hobby. As your read more, learn more, and write more scripts, remember to always look into the great screenplays you’ve studied and consider what worked and why it worked. Develop your ability to know and see with your mind’s eye everything that’s delineated on the pages of the screenplays you read. It will serve you well. Consistently reading great scripts as an ongoing form of education is one of the best screenwriting courses you can take. Most professional screenwriters regularly read the scripts of the hottest films. Doing the same can serve you well.

Recognize the problems you come across in those less-than-fantastic scripts you read (there will be many). In short, task yourself with developing a deep understanding of writing film. And even though the screenplay is a document of words that serves as the blueprint for a movie, always work to entice the reader who is holding that script in their hands. Make it downright captivating to read.

• The Future
• Branding Yourself
• Establishing a Body of Work

Homework

Coursework is delivered via distance education and completed at a location determined by the student. Externship locations can be up to 60 miles away from the student’s address. The externship mentor will work with each student on structuring a specific schedule, the student agrees that he/she will be available to meet with the mentor for a minimum of two sessions per week.”