We’re Back!

Long time no see. Where the hell ya been?  

Well, writing, consulting, and teaching actually.

Hundreds of college students to be exact.

Thanks to the fine folks at the University of North Georgia, I’ve had the good fortune of being a full-time professor teaching screenwriting to inquiring minds all year long. That’s enough to keep mere mortals like myself swirling in scripts. I have also served as mentor to graduate students in the Creative Writing MFA Program at Reinhardt University. And offered my two cents on a few movies and series coming soon!

When not teaching and preaching, I wrote my first crime novel! It’s called RULE ONE. It’s witty and gritty, and coming out June 2025 from Wordeee Publishing & Media. Hope you’ll get it and love it. It was a blast to write, and now I’m addicted to writing novels.

But enough about me. Let’s talk about you!

WE’RE LAUNCHING NEW WORKSHOPS

In addition to our annual SCREENWRITING 101

We’ve now added...

PITCHING 101

ADAPTING 101

SELLING 101

Woohoo! This is what you’ve been asking for and... FINALLY... we’re offering it.

So we hope you’ll join us for one... or all of them!

Not to mention, they’re all on ZOOM so you don’t even have to leave the house.

For your convenience, they’re up on our new and improved website here:

SCREENWRITER SCHOOL

https://www.screenwriterschool.com

For early birds, we’ll even give you a 10% discount with the promo code: TAKE10SS

So have a gander! Please share with anyone else you think might be interested.

And follow us on Facebook and Instagram for tips and tricks and wry remarks.

If you have any questions, please drop us a line. We’d love to hear from you.

info@screenwriterschool.com

That’s it for now. Hope to see you soon!

Best,

Michael

Blame It On the Dog

Common questions around here:

When is the next Screenwriter School?
Why don’t you hold more of them?
Will there be coffee?

Not necessarily in that order.

Some say “Blame it on the dog.” After all, my loyal Labrador, ROCKY (yes, named after the iconic movie character) is very demanding. There are balls to fetch, hikes to take, parks to crash. It’s all so dizzying. Okay. Maybe not. But it would be an easy out.

The truth is... Screenwriter School is just me. There’s no staff. No office. No team. Just me.

And thankfully, I’ve been busy.

Lecturing at multiple universities. Writing and producing films. Developing television series. Consulting on screenplays. Conducting festival workshops. And playing drums in a rock band.

All of which, mind you, I feel incredibly fortunate to do. But they take time. And sadly, have resulted in me having to cancel or postpone a Screenwriter School or two over the years.

So that does not happen again...

For the foreseeable future, Screenwriter School will only be held one time a year. During the summer. Every Saturday. For six weeks. From 12 – 2pm EST. Online. On Zoom.

This summer’s course will take place from May 21 – June 25.

To sign up, please click here:http://www.screenwriterschool.com/register

Please know this decision does not come lightly. After years of teaching people of all ages on all continents to write screenplays the way I was taught by the best and brightest in Hollywood, the thought of doing it only once a year at Screenwriter School is bittersweet.

My hope is this will work for most people. If not, I’m available to consult one-on-one.

Thank you for your support and understanding.
Or sure... blame it on the dog.

Michael
 

Will You Read My Script?

Every writer needs readers. For feedback. Support. Direction. When you’re answering a thousand questions a day creating an entire world, it’s easy to miss a few things. We go to our friends and family first because we know they’ll be nice to us. What we get are a few taps on the back and a couple “Way to go’s!” But what we really need is professional objective criticism from what Hollywood terms “readers.”

Every studio, network, agency and production company hires readers. They are English and Film and Writing graduates who live and breathe screenwriting. Many are writers themselves or aspiring creative executives in the industry. They have read the books, taken the workshops and read a thousand screenplays. They know what to look for and when to look for it. They know how plots are woven and characters are developed, that your hero should reach their low point at the end of the second act and rage into battle in the middle of the third. They catch superfluous commas and reign in flamboyant description, make sure dialogue is realistic and your theme impactful. And that’s just for starters.

Reading takes time. A feature screenplay takes a few hours to read and do notes on. A written summary takes another hour or so. Meeting to discuss the issues requires even more. For writers, it’s easy to take this for granted. Don’t people want to read my screenplay for fun? No. They don’t. People have plenty to do. And providing feedback is a whole other thing. Especially when the writers are sensitive or defensive or family or friend.

There are many screenplay reading services out there you can hire that range in price. As with most things, you usually get what you pay for. For a modest fee, a professional will read your script in its entirety and respond with written feedback in what’s called coverage. It’s fast. It’s easy. And it’s worth it. To the left are a few of them. When you got your script as good as you can get it, send your script to one of them. They’ll be happy to help you.

Or if you would like to work with me on your script, email me anytime:
michael@screenwriterschool.com.

Whether you use them or me makes no difference. But for the love of all that is good in the world, please use somebody. It doesn’t mean you have to take their advice but getting it will make a world of difference in elevating the quality of your script from good to great.

Next

 We’re still here.

Last year was a doozy. No question about it. Hopefully you came out unscathed.

What else did you come out with?

Asked to social distance, to quarantine, to stay at home. What did you do with your time?

Did you write a screenplay? If not, why not?

Take heart. Not everyone can balance everything on a rollercoaster.

But then you’re not everyone. If you were, you wouldn’t be reading this.

Writing screenplays is not for the faint of heart. It takes a certain amount of… chutzpa.

After all, it’s not a Haiku. It’s 100 pages.

You have to believe in yourself. To have something to say. And believe others want to hear it.

So. Now you get a do-over. What do you want to do with this year?

If you’re serious about wanting to write a screenplay, let us know.

We’ll show you how. How to write it. And how to sell it.

Imagine being able to do what you want to do… when and where you want to do it.

And get off the rollercoaster.

Michael

What Where When

When I was a wee tyke, we had three television channels.  That’s it.  ABC, CBS and NBC.  Sure, there was a distant, staticky, fourth quirky stepsister called PBS.  But no one watched that.  Except nerds.  And us on Saturdays for a little known show called Soccer Made in Germany.  Then along came Ted Turner.  Our Atlantan native son gave us TBS that grew into the Super Station that soon spread nationwide.  Then came the rest of the Turner empire: CNN, TNT, TCM and more.  And then, thanks to the expansion of cable, came a hundred other cable networks.  MTV, TLC, BET and more.  Like salmon trying to swim upstream, they all jockeyed for position to find their place in the turbulent rapids of our media landscape.  It seemed that was it for a while.  Enveloped by our couches, we flipped back and forth between those hundred channels trying to figure out what was best.  And then everything changed.  Technical innovation gave way to digital proliferation, and soon every Tom, Dick and Harry could produce and distribute whatever their heart desired.  We could watch anything we wanted anytime we wanted anywhere we wanted.  Streaming services took root like weeds and nowadays we are bombarded by so much content we don’t know what to watch where or when.  It’s hard to know what platform to go to or pay for to even see what it is they’re offering!  Netflix?  Amazon?  Apple TV?  Disney +?  Hulu?  Where the hell do we start?  

The good news is this: 

1. There’s lots to watch. 

2. There’s lots to write. 

 All these platforms all need content.  And it doesn’t write itself. 

Mind you, the pay for writing for these companies may not always be comparable to what it was in the old days.  But they all pay something.  And chances are it’s more than you’re making now.  Doing something you would probably rather be doing than what you are now.

 So what’s stopping you? 

 After all, you can write what you want, where you want, when you want.

 Starting now.