Writing Drama: Script for Stage and Screen Writing Drama: Script for Stage and Screen Writing Drama: Script for Stage and Screen

Writing Drama: Script for Stage and Screen

Hitchcock asked, "what is drama but life with the dull bits cut out?" This course will show you how to craft sizzling scripts for stage or screen.

Level

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Improving

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Location

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Online

Length

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12 weeks
  • Start Date
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  • Flexible (see Course Schedule)

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£795

£200 / month for 2 months and a £395.00 deposit

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All the world's your stage

This is an essentials of scriptwriting course which draws on on a wealth of classic and modern drama at Faber & Faber and elsewhere. Over twelve weeks we'll look at a broad gamut of dramatic texts – everything from Stranger Things to Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams to Toy Story, Samuel Beckett to Barbie.

The course will be a mixture of both zoom and the forums in our online classroom – with practical exercises during the zooms, tools and techniques and also assignments to do in your own time. Some of these will be just for yourself and your own private writing journey – others will be shared with other students in the online classroom forum.

Along with your tutor, acclaimed British playwright and screenwriter Michael Wynne, you’ll explore voice, ideas, character, story, structure, dialogue, stakes, conflict and getting it written. The course will also provide advice on how to get your scripts out into the world and produced.

Is this the right course for me?

This is a course for those starting out on their drama-writing journeys. It has been designed to accommodate total beginners, those with some experience of writing scripts and seasoned writers looking to try their hand at a new genre alike. You don’t need to have studied writing before, or published any work in order to take part.

Michael's approach mirrors his generous and wide-ranging approach to the craft of writing. This course stresses experimentation over rules, and helps you to access your story and view of the world. Michael shares what has worked for him, and asks that students 'throw themselves into everything and see what sticks. Try it all – you will be surprised where inspiration comes from. You really will get out what you put in.’

    The course lasts for twelve weeks and sessions will be taught using a mixture of Zoom meetings and forum participation on our bespoke online classroom. Materials will become available on a Monday morning for you to work through during the week, and Zooms will be held on Tuesday evenings in weeks one, two, four, six, nine and twelve, with individual one-to-ones taking place via Zoom in week seven.

Course Programme

Session 1

Opens Monday 21 July 2025

Prologue: What’s Your Motivation?...

Session 2

Opens 28 July

Uniqueness...

Session 3

Opens 4 August

Ideas & Noticing
...

See remaining sessions

Course Programme

Writing Drama: Scripts for Stage and Screen

Session 1

Opens Monday 21 July 2025

Prologue: What’s Your Motivation?

We’ll kick off the course with a live Zoom led by your tutor and look at one of the basic building blocks of drama – active characters. We'll delve into their wants and needs, leading us to explore your own objectives.

We'll also ask a fundamental question – why write? – and consider what you want to get out of the next 12 weeks. The session will finish off by furnishing you with tools to boost your creativity during the course and give you a screenplay and/or play to read over the next week.

Zoom session: Tuesday 22 July, 18:00–20:00 BST

Session 2

Opens 28 July

Uniqueness

In another Zoom week, we’ll explore and encourage you to go towards your own view of the world and help you to find your voice. What do you want to say? What stories do you want to tell? How do you choose between stage and screen, or write for both?

We'll also examine how anger can be a great fuel before setting you off on an assignment to look into the story of your own life and examine it with curiosity versus passion.

Zoom session: Tuesday 29 July, 18:00–20:00 BST

Session 3

Opens 4 August

Ideas & Noticing

In our first online forum week, we’ll ask where do ideas come from? We'll consider lived experience, observation, imagination and research as starting points. We’ll delve into each of these and focus on how it all comes back to your own prism.

We’ll also explore verbatim drama, look at how parameters can free up your imagination in surprising ways and consider Grayson Perry on 'noticing'.

Session 4

Opens 11 August

All About Character

Character is the key to brilliant drama. We’ll gather on Zoom to look at how to create characters and make them distinct. We’ll explore language, dialogue and brevity and ask: what is believable? What is surprising? Whose story are you trying to tell?

Zoom session: Tuesday 12 August, 18:00–20:00 BST

Session 5

Opens 18 August

Conflict: There Are No Villains

Via the online forum, we look at how conflict is essential to drama (and how it’s certainly not about your characters arguing). We’ll explore how to write opposing views and how to believe in your villain just as much as your hero. We’ll look at protagonists and antagonists and also delve into subtext.

Session 6

Opens 25 August

Story: Set Ups & Punch Lines

On Zoom, we’ll investigate why we tell stories and how important they are. We’ll look at plot, different models of dramatic structure and how a great joke has all the elements of a good story. For the punchline to work, the set-up has to be precise.

Zoom session: Tuesday 26 August, 18:00–20:00 BST

Session 7

Opens 1 September

One-to-Ones

This week will be made up of individual one to ones with Michael to talk about your writing journey, what you’re working on and any personal advice and guidance about dramatic writing.

Individual Zoom session times to be confirmed.

Session 8

Opens 8 September

Stakes: Never Be Boring

We'll use the online forum to consider how we can always up the stakes for our characters. We’ll look at inciting incidents, tension and climaxes, and how to write a scene by scene breakdown.

Session 9

Opens 15 September

Visual Storytelling

On Zoom, we’ll examine the principle of ‘show don’t tell’ and how we can communicate our stories with no words at all. This always applies to screenplays, but is crucial to stage plays as well.

Zoom session: Tuesday 16 September, 18:00–20:00 BST

Session 10

Opens 22 September

Sitzfleisch

A German word translated literally as ‘seat flesh’ – it means the amount of endurance a person has to sit still and get the work done. Inspiration and imagination are great but our scripts aren’t going to write themselves! Via the online forum, we’ll draw on Ann Lamott, Steven Pressfield and Elizabeth Gilbert to power us on. We’ll also set everyone a small dramatic assignment to write by the end of the course.

Session 11

Opens 29 September

The Final Furlong

In the penultimate session we'll get together in the online forum to look at writing and rewriting, beginnings, middles and ends, what can we steal from other forms and the power of the edit/cut. You'll also have time to work on your assignment for the final week.

Session 12

Opens 6 October

Epilogue

In the final Zoom session we’ll hear some of the short pieces you’ve written and think about getting your work out there into the world, with advice from Michael about writing agents, production companies, theatres, handling rejection and trying to stay sane(ish).

Zoom session: Tuesday 7 October, 18:00–20:00 BST

The Faber Academy Scholarship Programme

There is a scholarship place available on this course for a writer who otherwise could not afford to attend. We particularly welcome applications from writers of colour, working class writers, disabled writers and LGBTQ+ writers.

 

To apply, please email a cover letter and a writing sample (1,000 words if prose, 10 pages maximum if script) as Word docs or PDFs to academy@faber.co.uk, with the subject line ‘Scholarship Application: Writing Drama (Online)’. The deadline to apply for a scholarship place is 7 July 2025. The full terms and conditions and more information about our scholarship programme can be found below.

Tutor

MW

Michael Wynne

Michael Wynne is an Olivier and BAFTA winning playwright and screenwriter from Birkenhead. He wrote his first play The Knocky at...

More About This Tutor
Michael Wynne

Location

Faber Academy's bespoke online classroom has been built from scratch specifically for helping writers develop their craft. Through this platform you will access your weekly sessions, watch video lessons, join any Zoom sessions, download class materials and interact with your fellow writers in dedicated forums at a time that suits you. Our online learning model prioritises interaction, lively discussion and workshopping in small groups to help you get the most out of your learning experience.

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