From Frights to Film: A Horror Screenwriting Intensive

It’s that time of year when you’re watching a ton of scary movies and saying to yourself that you got the juice. You’ve had 100 ideas for scary scripts but have never put pen to paper. The horror industry is booming and, if you’re not quick, you’ll be left behind!

Details

So it’s time to make things happen and share your freaky little idea with the world. We’re all waiting!

More than screenwriting, this is a 4 week crash course in genre and the discipline of writing action. Goals, wants, seeking information, and dealing with consequences will all be top priority as well as generating a 3 Act Beat Sheet. It’s unreasonable to expect a full length screenplay in four weeks, but one should be ready to break story.

This course is obsessed with horror, horror fiction, and, specifically, horror screenwriting. Over four weeks, we’ll flesh out the rules, boundaries, and characters that will jump off the page.

What you will learn

- Students will learn tropes vs. cliches and what genre expectations are worth indulging and which are worth subverting. - Students will discuss character status and how it should inform dialogue and relationships. - Students will make firm rules for their bad thing and devise the best inciting incident that will fully activate their protagonist.

Workshop takeaways

You’ll have: a sheet of your character and their wants and needs, a 3 act structure and, more specifically, the detailed actions that happen therein, the safety net of your character and the ways in which you should cut off help, a defined arc for plot and subplots alike—the first several pages of your script, the inciting incident, and a written scene of action.

What you will be reading

Remakes / Adaptations: Dawn of the Dead (2004) by James Gunn War of the Worlds (2005) by David Koepp Insomnia (2002) by Hillary Seitz Originals: Sinister (2011) by Derrickson & Cargill Nope (2022) by Jordan Peele The Conjuring (2013) by Hayes Brothers And we’ll also be watching tons of movies! Woohoo!

Additional info