Dialogue Writing is an accelerated screenwriting master class studying online with author & award winning screenwriter Max Adams. During six weeks of advanced study, students will analyze produced scripts and film clips provided in class, complete advanced course assignments and exercises, and participate in weekly online discussions reviewing and analyzing course materials and dialogue assignments with Max Adams.

Mastering Story Momentum is an accelerated screenwriting master class studying online with author & award winning screenwriter Max Adams. During six weeks of advanced study, students will study and analyze pacing models, analyze produced scripts and film clips provided in class, complete advanced course assignments and exercises, and participate in weekly online discussions reviewing and analyzing course materials and course assignments with Max Adams.

The Writer’s Reel is an accelerated screenwriting master class studying online with author & award winning screenwriter Max Adams. During six weeks of advanced study, students will analyze clips, reels, articles, story boards, and presentations provided in class, complete advanced course assignments and exercises, and participate in weekly online discussions reviewing and analyzing course materials and reel assignments with Max Adams.

Visual Writing is an accelerated screenwriting master class studying online with author & award winning screenwriter Max Adams. During six weeks of advanced study, students will study the three foundations of scene visuals, analyze produced scripts and film clips provided in class, complete advanced course assignments and exercises, and participate in weekly online discussions reviewing and analyzing course materials and course assignments with Max Adams.

High Concept Writing is an accelerated screenwriting master class studying online with author & award winning screenwriter Max Adams. During six weeks of advanced study, students will study and analyze the five core elements of concept, study examples in produced scripts and film clips provided in class, complete advanced course assignments and exercises, and participate in weekly online discussions reviewing and analyzing course materials and concept assignments with Max Adams.

Dynamic Writing is an accelerated screenwriting master class studying online with author & award winning screenwriter Max Adams. During six weeks of advanced study, students will learn the cornerstones of screen motion on the page and on the screen, analyze produced scripts and film clips provided in class, complete advanced course assignments and exercises, and participate in weekly online discussions reviewing and analyzing course materials and course assignments with Max Adams.

Character Writing is an accelerated screenwriting master class studying online with author & award winning screenwriter Max Adams. During six weeks of advanced study, students will analyze the cornerstones of character, study produced scripts and film clips provided in class, complete advanced course assignments and exercises, and participate in weekly online discussions reviewing and analyzing course materials and character assignments with Max Adams.

The Art of the Pitch is an accelerated screenwriting master class studying online with author & award winning screenwriter Max Adams. During six weeks of advanced study, students will analyze pitch break downs, clips, and structural models provided in class, complete advanced course assignments and exercises, and participate in weekly online discussions reviewing and analyzing course materials and pitch assignments with Max Adams.

The First 30 Pages is an accelerated screenwriting master class studying online with author & award winning screenwriter Max Adams. During six weeks of advanced study, students will study story opening models provided in class, complete advanced course assignments and exercises, submit the first thirty pages of a [completed or in progress] feature script for analysis & review, and will participate in weekly online discussions reviewing and analyzing assignments and students’ submitted pages with Max Adams.

Dynamic Writing is an eight part online video master screenwriting class. Full course running time is two & a half hours. Dynamic Writing is a member of the visuals & motion class set from TheAFW and author & award winning screenwriter Max Adams. Dynamic Writing is available both as a video course and as a six week online course studying with Max Adams.

Visual Writing is an eight part online video master screenwriting class. Full course running time is two & a half hours. Visual Writing is a member of the visuals & motion class set from TheAFW and author & award winning screenwriter Max Adams. Visual Writing is available both as a video course and as a six week online course studying with Max Adams.

Character Writing is an eight part online video master screenwriting class. Full course running time is two & a half hours. Character Writing is a member of the character class set from TheAFW and author & award winning screenwriter Max Adams. Character Writing is available both as a video course and as a six week online course studying with Max Adams.

Dialogue Writing is an eight part online video master screenwriting class. Full course running time is two & a half hours. Dialogue Writing is a member of the character class set from TheAFW and author & award winning screenwriter Max Adams. Dialogue Writing is available both as a video course and as a six week online course studying with Max Adams.

The Art of the Pitch is an eight part online video master screenwriting class. Full course running time is two & a half hours. The Art of the Pitch is a member of the pitching & industry class set from TheAFW and author & award winning screenwriter Max Adams. The Art of the Pitch is available both as a video course and as a six week online course studying with Max Adams.

Mastering Story Momentum is an eight part online video master screenwriting class. Full course running time is two & a half hours. Mastering Story Momentum is a member of the structure & pacing class set from TheAFW and author & award winning screenwriter Max Adams. Mastering Story Momentum is available both as a video course and as a six week online course studying with Max Adams.

Still struggling with loglines? We are going to be covering things like the two types of loglines, using tone in loglines, when stakes apply and when they do not in loglines, the importance of the word “must,” the mindset of an industry logline reader, why metaphors and adjectives are not your logline’s friend — and much much more.

Learn & study lookbook design & composition in this weekend lab with author & award winning screenwriter Max Adams. You will learn lookbook composition and creation in a hands on demonstration of lookbook creation & design in this Zoom lab using Canvas tools, templates and more.

Still struggling with second act pacing? We will be working on pacing in this lab, studying act breaks, scene compression, story engine, plot focus, compression, using cause and effect, escalation & turning points, narrative dramatic tension, the difference between tension and suspense, comedic tension — and much much more.

Author and award winning screenwriter Max Adams talks about screenwriting — and about some of the more than bad advice you are going to get out there on the internet. [video width="800" height="800"...

Check out the very cool trailer for Elevator, a short written by my student Laila Royster. Yay!     Elevator will be showing...

Online Saturday screenwriting labs are back! Oyez. Online Zoom screenwriting labs with yours truly, author and award winning screenwriter Max Adams, are back in September. Yay! These are Saturday Zoom labs. The first is The Logline Lab. Yeah yeah, I know, you could...

Dialogue prompts are a device of the Devil — Okay maybe that is hyperbole. It's unlikely dialogue prompts are big in antisocial alternative religion ceremonies. Also I hear the Devil is a smooth talker probably he does not make dialogue mistakes. But I see a lot of...

The key word in “lookbook” is “look.” For an artist (“artist” means you, writers) that means something someone may look at that conveys a sense of the film. Imagery, tone, big story moments that will be powerful on a screen — the entire purpose of a lookbook is to...

“Most aspiring screenwriters simply don’t spend enough time choosing their concept. It’s by far the most common mistake I see in spec scripts. The writer has lost the race right from the gate. Months — sometimes years — are lost trying to elevate a film idea that by...

PASSIVE VOICE — I get into trouble sometimes with students. I will tell a student something doesn’t work. The student will say, “Gotcha.” I will think all is well — Till the next time I see the student’s writing and the student will still be doing what I said doesn’t...

HIGH CONCEPT WRITING: THE CRICHTON MODEL   If there is one writer who regularly nailed high concept [and did it over and over again] it was Michael Crichton. Crichton was one of the first writers to write a story about a scientific and military response to a...

THE LOGLINE; OR, CONTORTIONS OF THE MODERN DAY SCREENWRITER   So I am talking to my students about pitching.  And I’m talking about pulling information for a short one liner describing story. And someone gets stuck. In every pitch, the short pitch, the medium...

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME —   One of my most consistent comments on scripts is, I have difficulty differentiating between characters because characters have similar names. Listen. Character names have jobs. One job is to create an impression of character. You are...

ONE SCRIPT — At the AEB one year anniversary bash I was a guest speaker (thank you for inviting me AEB I had a great time) and there was a question and answer session after the talk and one question stands out to me. A woman said she got advice to write a lot of...

TALKING HEADS — Talking heads is a term that, as I was told in the film school trenches, relates back to the early days of television when news was delivered by a solitary news announcer sitting behind a desk reading news reports to the camera off a sheet of paper. A...

DISCOMFORT — I really enjoy Mark Wildman’s clips and I’ve always believed this particular clip, about becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable, has a lot of carry over into writing. Writing’s not easy. Not the kind of writing we’re doing at any rate, taking a...

GOAL VS TASK One thing to keep in mind plotting a story is that there is a difference between a primary story goal and tasks protagonists undertake to achieve the primary story goal. For example, looking at the film The Blues Brothers, (1980 starring Dan Aykroyd and...

DANCES WITH WOLVES, MICHAEL BLAKE EXT. INDIAN CAMP – DUSK Several travois are parked in a clearing. It’s a scene of terrible woe. On the travois are dead bodies. Women members of several families are grieving as they collect the dead men. Some are shrieking, some are...

SOUTH PARK WRITERS SHARE THEIR WRITING RULE #1   This is a great presentation from South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker on plotting using the key words “but” and “therefore.” It’s brilliant. Watch it. [video...

The original screenwriter’s uniform blog post is lost in the interwebs somewhere (how does this happen?) but it keeps coming up in conversation. (Also, according to fashion experts, white sneakers are back! Whoah. Did not see that coming.) I yanked some photos off the...

Screenwriting books you should have —   A Martian Wouldn’t Say That ~ Leonard B. Stern Adventures in the Screen Trade ~ William Goldman Conversations With My Agent ~ Rob Long Creating Unforgettable Characters ~ Linda Seger Directing: Film Techniques and...

There’s a great anecdote in the book “Your Screenplay Sucks: 100 Ways to Make It Great.” It’s the year 2000 and William Akers, the author, is standing in line at a movie theater to see Finding Forrester. Two guys are in front of him and one says, “What’s it about?”...