STRUCTURAL WRITING || TBA
STRUCTURAL WRITING || ONLINE MASTER COURSE
COURSE:
A Six Week Online Master Screenwriting Course
Studying with Max Adams
Course Dates: TBA
Course Fee: $475 || Course Deposit: $150
Course Location: ONLINE
Structural 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 structural models and 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 structured and revised outline and beat sheet assignments with Max Adams.
*Prerequisites: This is the most difficult course in the AFW course line up and does require prerequisite course work. Students must have completed The First 30 Pages and Mastering Story Momentum prior to Structural Writing — or have a dispensation from Max to skip prerequisite class work.
COURSE SYLLABUS:
WEEK ONE: The Model, The Set Up ||
Lecture: How to Kill a Script in Thirty Pages or Less
WEEK TWO: The Second Act ||
Lecture: Escalation is Your Friend
WEEK THREE: Scene Structure ||
Lecture: Emotional High Points, Use Them or Lose Them
WEEK FOUR: Turning Points ||
Lecture: How to Turn a Scene in Three Sentences or Less
WEEK FIVE: Mystery & Escalation ||
Lecture: Withholding, It Is Not Just for Breakfast
WEEK SIX: Climax ||
Lecture: Protagonist Enclosed, No Batteries Required
WEEK SEVEN: Grace Week ||
No Lecture
WE WILL BE COVERING:
- The myth of the three act structure
- Scene sequencing
- Set up & illumination
- Story launch platforms
- The 15 page first act
- The 30 page first act
- Obstacles, turning points & plot focus
- Beating out the action plot
- Beating out the character driven plot
- Scene length & timing
- Climaxes & plot focus
- Time jumps & story compression
- Dots writing & traveling sequences
- Narrative dramatic tension & escalation
- Turning points & obstacles
- Comedic tension & pacing
- Dramatic tension & pacing
- Why stories slump
- 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, creating a focused well paced story that more fully supports character, dramatic & comedic tension, suspense, plot, pacing and cinematic impact improving reading experience for future readers and industry professionals considering material for option, purchase, development, attachment and production.
RELATED CLASSES
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THE FIRST 30 PAGES
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MASTERING STORY MOMENTUM
VIDEO COURSE
MASTERING STORY MOMENTUM
Ratings and Reviews
Ann Hoffman
This is by far, the most clear and helpful advice and instruction on structure. I learned so much, and not just on the script I am working on. The techniques and tools Max discusses are going to help me in any future projects!
One person found this helpful.
Leah Baxter
I was so thrilled to get into this class because I knew Max could explain how to structure a screenplay and I could get out of my structure rut. Sure enough! This class was a lot of work, but I left confident in my outline and ready to write! I also take with me the ability to do this on future scripts! Highly recommend!
One person found this helpful.
Tonia Kempler
This class took my script from a mediocre script to an award-winning screenplay. Max, is simply the best instructor there is out there. I highly recommend this master class for anyone who is truly serious about their career.
2 people found this helpful.
Debi Yazbeck
This is probably the most valuable course I've ever taken, so I took it twice with two different scripts. I was clueless on how to make my story be coherent, but Max fixed that. My brain hurt a little on the way, but soooo worth it! It's not a beginner's course IMO, but it is crucial to having a screenplay that can win awards and get noticed.
2 people found this helpful.
Nektarios Chrissos
Max Adams's teachings have done wonders for my screenwriting (and my storytelling in general), and this course is no exception. With this course, you'll get the tools to write a solid screenplay with an enticing beginning, middle and end, an even pacing and all the story stages done right. Some of the best spending of my money on a writing course ever!
2 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 can’t recommend this class enough. Max has a wealth of knowledge and effectively breaks down craft tools so they are easily understandable, digestible and applicable to any script you are working on. If you expect to have any kind of career in this industry you need to take this class. It is more than a structure class, it’s a how to talk about story class.