CHARACTER WRITING || SEPT 8
CHARACTER WRITING || ONLINE MASTER COURSE
COURSE:
A Six Week Online Master Screenwriting Course
Studying with Max Adams
Course Dates: 09.08.26
Course Fee: $475
Course Location: ONLINE
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.
COURSE SYLLABUS:
WEEK ONE: Character Intros & Set Ups ||
Lecture: Authorial Intrusion is Your Friend
WEEK TWO: Protagonists vs. Antagonists ||
Lecture: Chatting With Aristotle or, Whose Story Is It?
WEEK THREE: Empathy vs. Likability ||
Lecture: Use Flaws Don’t Lose Flaws
WEEK FOUR: Using & Defining Character Goals ||
Lecture: No Goal Equals No Character
WEEK FIVE: POV Characters ||
Lecture: Taking A Page From Terry Rossio
WEEK SIX: Secondary Characters & Subplots ||
Lecture: Illuminate or Perish
WEEK SEVEN: Grace Week ||
No Lecture
WE WILL BE COVERING:
- Cornerstone elements of character
- Who the story belongs to & why
- Protagonist want vs protagonist need
- Characters & features
- Characters & series
- Character & plot
- Subplot characters
- Character introductions that impact
- Point of View characters
- Antagonists & plot focus
- The three primary character arcs
- Supporting characterization with dialogue
- Supporting characterization with action
- “Likable” vs “Interesting”
- And more —
YOU WILL TAKE AWAY:
- Actionable craft tools that, implemented in your own scripts, will immediately improve your existing & future feature and television scripts, ceating stronger characters who are more dynamic and arresting on the page and on the screen — creating stronger appeal for readers & industry professionals considering material for option, purchase, development, attachment and production.
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Ratings and Reviews
Louis Bernstein
In any good screenplay, your CHARACTERS will tell the tale; through their words, their actions and their personalities. This course teaches you the essentials of how to introduce, develop and bring your characters to life - characters that your audience will recognize, relate to, and empathize with. I recommend CHARACTER WRITING to learn the skills necessary to create REAL characters.
5 people found this helpful.
Marjorie McRae
You might fall in love with reading screenplays, with learning what a powerful character introduction is, with the process of writing and it might take over your whole life. Max is a genius. Plain and simple. And, I will be in her next two classes.
6 people found this helpful.
Debi Yazbeck
If characters are flat, I don't care how good the story is, I'm gonna lose interest. Characters are flawed whether they're protagonists, antagonists, supporting roles. They need to suck and occasionally shine. Max makes us dig deep and try to find facets to these personalities we're spending months or even years living with. Why would we shirk getting to know them? Don't! Take this course.
6 people found this helpful.
Nektarios Chrissos
This aspect of storytelling was my Achilles's heel. And this course taught me how to introduce , describe and handle distinct and memorable characters in my screenplays. The techniques introduced in this course are true screenwriting hacks from a screenwriting warrior that has learnt and practiced her screenwriting in the Hollywood battlefields.
6 people found this helpful.
TESTIMONIALS
Alvaro Rodriguez
Screenwriter
Debi Yazbeck
Screenwriter/Producer/Director
CK Love
Screenwriter/Author
Tony Ferrendelli
Screenwriter
About Max Adams
MAX ADAMS is an author and award winning screenwriter. She has written for Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures, Tri-Star Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, Universal Pictures — and a couple others to remain unnamed because no one around here wants to get black listed.
Max is a former volunteer AFI Alumni reader and WGAw online mentor, former Nicholl reader and judge, has appeared as a speaker at, among other places, AMPAS, USC, and Film Arts Foundation, is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at University of Utah and a former lecturer & instructor at New York Film Academy, is the author of The Screenwriter’s Survival Guide AND The New Screenwriter’s Survival Guide, is the founder of two international online screenwriting workshops — and TheAFW — and has the dubious distinction of having been dubbed “Red Hot Adams” by Daily Variety for selling three pitches over a holiday weekend — which made her agents cry.
[In a good way.]
She answers now to both “Max” and “Red Hot” in crowds and dog parks.
Max has been writing, selling, mentoring, and teaching for two decades. Four or her workshoppers have won Nicholl Fellowships from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences. Many of her students and workshoppers have gone on to option, sell, publish, and produce work.
I have such faith in Max. If she teaches it, I need it. There is no wasted effort and everything I learn here is spot on right and simple to apply to my writing. Character Writing is no different. After 8 years screenwriting, I learned things about writing characters that I’d never been taught before. Highly recommend!