By Max Newsom

You'd think script-writing was complicated.  It isn't.  But first, this is what you don’t need to know:

1. Anything your friends tell you about your script
2. Anything an agent tells you about your script
3. Anything similar being written by someone else which you’ve been advised to emulate
4. Anything you might read in a book about script-writing
5. Anything you don't know how to write
6. Anything that doesn’t propel you out of bed in the morning

What you do need to feel, however, is:

1. You don’t care if your script never made, it’s a beautiful story, beautifully told
2. Only you can tell it this way
3. You’ll always cherish the version of yourself it made you become
4. You want to do another one immediately afterwards
5. Strangers love it when they read it
6. You’ll smile to yourself when summarizing the story
7. Strangers stare at you with baited breath while you tell them the story
8. You feel genuinely moved by the story, each time you tell it

That is what a good script feels like.

So, what are the SIX PRINCIPLES FOR WRITING A GOOD SCRIPT?

1. Never write a script without knowing who your characters are in depth and caring about them all
2. Never write sloppily about any of these characters
3. Always have your characters be affected by one another’s deeds and words
4. Always have more than one truth operating between people at any one time
5. Always remember that people rarely get what they want but often get what they’ve earned
6. Always tell the truth about your characters

Script-Writing Course from Max Newsom

Following his appearance on the Café of Ideas panel of "Lose the Britches: Creating High Concept Drama in the West Country", Max Newsom will be offering his Two-Day, Script-Writing Course in Bath. Claiming to cut seven years out of the learning process, it brings his extensive experience to bear as a professional script-development executive as well as his own adventures in the screen trade as writer and director.

If interested please call Max on 07931 500575.

Biography of Max Newsom

MaxNewsom has been in the film and TV industries for twenty years.  He has worked in every area of film production and and was also a professional script-development executive, ending up as Head of Development for a $130m film fund in LA.  He is now a director/writer. His first film is being released next year and he has several other projects in various stages of development both in the UK and elsewhere.