Introduction To Screenwriting Class

Next week I teach Introduction To Screenwriting. It used to be that I kept it simply to the subject of learning how to write a screenplay, but frankly, I believe that is an unfair scenario to launch any writer into with the starry-eyed gaze of hope.  If you want to be a writer, you have to start somewhere. This much is true. However, of all writing venues screenwriting is perhaps the most unforgiving.

I’ve talked about the odds here: 55,000 story ideas, 400 chosen. Pretty sad. Then take it even further. There are 400 film schools in the world just about. Therefore, if just one student who has practiced this craft for 3-4 years makes it, that cuts out all the hobby screenwriters who are just learning the craft. Screenwriting is a professional choice, and not a good hobby. It takes a year to develop a good feature-length screenplay for the most professional writers, working about 10 hours a week. They generally work on several projects at once. There are methods. There is a structure to learn. There are those scenes that need truer vision, and dialogue that must be trim and support the action.

Learning how to write a screenplay could very well be helpful for writing any other kind of story because at its best it is dynamic, structured, active and tidy. A novel, poetry, and even proposals for business would be helped by understanding screenwriting. There is no doubt to me about that. Screenwriting is specific in its demands, and yet the best screenplays are unique and revealing. The heart of a great screenplay is a point of view that stays truthful. This is what makes a screenplay transcend the “formulaic” trap screenplays can fall into, and sometimes this means honing a story down to the simplest of themes.

The way a ballerina makes dance look easy, a screenwriter makes writing look easy. It doesn’t mean that there haven’t been years of practice behind the work. The rule of thumb is that most screenwriters don’t get this on their first, second or even third try. It can take up to ten speculative screenplays before a writer finds the screenwriting groove. When you taste it, you’ll realize that all the crap you were writing before was just crap. I don’t know any other way of putting it kindly. The iconic literary agent I once worked for put it this way to me, “Don’t worry about it, Amanda, the cream always rises to the top.”

So, if you’re going to take my class, realize that Hollywood is fat because it only takes cream. If you’re going for that dream, it will take hard work, and lots and lots of planning, and practice runs. That’s just the way it is and will continue to be for the near future. However, that said, I do believe that we are entering a new era. At the beginning of new eras there are opportunities available for upstarts, improvisers and smart asses, like there never is once it becomes established.

In this Introductory Class, we’re going to touch on those new possibilities because I believe it is important to teach what, from my point of view, is becoming an obvious opening in the entertainment industry. I’ll introduce the different pathways that are meeting at this crossroads…there’s no longer one straight highway to the promised gig. If you pay attention to what is happening in Social Media and practice a little bit of extrapolation, you’re going to begin perceiving opportunities that never existed before. I’ll give you some clues as to where to start.

I hope to see you next week!