Whether you are new to the craft of screenwriting, or perhaps stuck somewhere in the middle of your manuscript, the thought of joining a screenwriting class is worth taking seriously. The right class can be genuinely transformative. The wrong one, however, will cost you time, money, and confidence you can’t easily get back.
So, how do you choose the right class?
Most people see a well-designed website, a recognizable name attached, and hand over their credit card. Then they find themselves with a binder full of notes on breaking down different movies, none of which has done anything to move their own screenplay forward. There is a meaningful difference between analyzing the structure of Casablanca and learning how to write a screenplay. The best screenwriting classes understand that distinction.
In this article, I will walk you through what makes a screenwriting class worth your time, how to recognize the signs that a class is working, and what to look for before you commit. Lastly, I’ll give you a Story Weapon to help you decide your next step.
Screenwriting classes are coveted for understanding the format: the right one will give you the fuel to succeed for multiple careers. Understand what instruction your screenplay needs by learning what classroom you work best in, how to receive notes, and which process will sustain your story.
What a good screenwriting class does
The first thing to understand is that craft cannot be transmitted through theory alone. You can spend a semester analyzing the structure of Chinatown or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and come away knowing a great deal about those particular film scripts without having moved an inch closer to finishing your own.
Knowledge about writing is not the same thing as actually writing.
A good screenwriting class teaches structure not as a conceptual model, but as an experiential one — a way of understanding how to marry character to plot in order to create a story that builds in meaning as it progresses.
Structure is a paradigm for transformation. When a class hands you a rigid template and tells you to make your story fit, that’s a red flag. Story analysts may be skilled at deconstructing existing masterpieces, but they often fail to articulate the mysterious, organic process of creating a new story from the inside out.
What you should look for is a class that helps you access the story that already exists within you and gives you the tools to get it onto the page. That means writing. A lot of it. Consistent, guided, practiced writing.
Signs that a class Is actually working
1. You are writing regularly.
Lectures have their place. Your instructor might introduce ideas you haven’t encountered before or reframe something you thought you previously understood. But if a class is all listening without any chance for putting what you’ve learned into practice, it is not a writing class.
You need time to test ideas against your own material rather than simply absorbing them in the abstract.
2. The feedback you receive is specific to your work.
Generic notes that could apply to any screenplay are not particularly useful. Especially when you’ve got the rough story down and get to the rewrite stage, you’ll need feedback on your story, your particular characters, and the choices you are making as a writer.
If the feedback you are receiving sounds like it was pulled from a textbook, you are probably not getting your money’s worth from that class.
3. You have a clearer sense of direction.
This means the class has changed the way you see your own writing. You are not just hammering out new pages; you are developing a new relationship to the work you have already done. That is where the craft deepens.
A good class should leave you with a process. Not someone else’s process, borrowed wholesale and applied without thought, but a way of working that is responsive to how your imagination functions. You are not attending a screenwriting class to write one script. You are there to become the kind of writer who learns the fundamentals of story creation so you are able to build a body of work.
What to look for before you register
Look for evidence of regular writing and workshop time built into the course. A syllabus is not always clear on what exactly will be covered, but it is worth asking directly.
Check to see if the instructor has screenwriting experience. Someone who has written or produced screenplays understands the difference between a script that looks good in a classroom and one that can survive contact with the industry. Their experience shapes the quality of what they can offer.
Make sure there’s a genuine feedback component. Not just peer notes, but instructor feedback that is informed, specific, and tied to your individual work. This is where a smaller class often has an advantage over a larger one.
It’s easy to be seduced by a famous name offering a short vanity intensive — a brief peek into the inner workings of their brain. If your goal is to actually complete a full screenplay and develop as a writer, however, you may need something more extensive that will reliably bear fruit over time and teach you a reliable writing process.
Your story weapon: You are the channel
Do you need to take a screenwriting class at all? If you do find a good one, it can definitely help. If it’s not in the budget, however, there are other resources available outside of formal courses: books, workshops, video tutorials, writing communities, and your peers out there who are doing the same difficult work you are.
I built the 90-Day Screenplay workshop around the belief that every writer has a story worth telling, and that what most writers need is not more theory but a structure that supports them in actually writing it.
Whatever form your education takes, keep this in mind: the goal of any good screenwriting class is to support you in marrying the wildness of your imagination to the rigor of structure, and send you back to your desk with more clarity, and more trust in your own voice. If your screenwriting class is doing that, you’re in the right spot.
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