Why You Should Take CTWR 409: Fundamentals of Screenwriting

By: Kristen Adams ‘25

Whether you’re a business major who writes pitches, an acting major interested in exploring the behind-the-scenes, or a journalism major who just loves to write, storytelling is everywhere and in everything we do. As a Business of Cinematic Arts major who loves watching sci-fi and psychological thrillers, I took CTWR 409 just for fun, and unexpectedly came out of the class with a newly added Screenwriting minor! Here are 3 reasons why you should consider taking this class.

Learn the Elements of Building a Story

This class introduces you to all of the technical elements of what makes a film worth watching. All stories follow a three-act structure with distinct checkpoints in each act. In the first act, you learn to develop an opening image, establish the setting through world-building, and design the moment when your protagonist becomes set on their goal and makes the decision to act upon it. You learn about planting and payoff, foreshadowing and turning points, and you get to develop moments when your characters are at rock bottom, when all hope seems to be lost. You will create rallying moments for your characters, recommitments to their original goal, commitments to new goals, and a denouement to wrap up your story.  

Most importantly, you will learn how to write in script format, mapping out your story as a technical manual that can be understood by the entire crew of a production, including the actors, sound designers, set designers, and the director. From scene headings to sound cues, you will learn how to use a screenwriting software to write your screenplays and submit your writing assignments each week. I took this class with Professor Garth Twa, where we learned how to use Final Draft software, which has a free trial for students.

Even though I don’t see myself pursuing screenwriting as a career, I learned valuable lessons on world-building, language, and storytelling that can be applied to the world of business. Now, whenever I craft a story as a hook for a presentation or a persuasive pitch, I often reference the tools I learned from CTWR 409 to ensure that my story is cohesive and purposeful for my audience.

Practice Articulating Your Vision

In this class, you will have the opportunity to hone your writing skills through a variety of creative exercises. From atmosphere assignments to memory prompts, you will learn how to effectively articulate your vision through specific language. What is your audience seeing, shot by shot? When and how are they seeing it? In what order do they see it? How do we know how they are feeling? For instance, we cannot write that a character feels angry because you cannot see a feeling. Instead, you have to describe what you are seeing: Does the character pace the room? Does the character raise their voice? Does the character throw something in frustration?

One of my favorite assignments in this class is the “Wrongest Person” dialogue scene in which we were challenged to create a scene where Character A is preparing a location for Character B, but Character C, who should be the absolute worst person who could arrive, shows up instead. The purpose of this exercise is to test our storytelling skills and play around with new scenarios, pushing ourselves outside our comfort zone and creating characters that we can relate to in some capacity. Little exercises like these push us to create interesting storylines and scenes for our own screenplays so they are engaging to not only read on paper but to also watch on the big screen.

Share Human Experiences

This class is set up as a writer’s room where each week we dive into everyone’s story idea in detail. Each person has a set amount of time to read their script to the class and receive feedback from the professor and the other writers in the room. We would bounce ideas off each other, provide recommendations, give praise, and share what works and what doesn’t. We would also read each other’s scripts and assign lines to students so you could hear your characters come to life.

Films should tell stories of the human experience. Because we all have different backgrounds, interests, and experiences, we all have unique stories to share. We also may have shared stories, which creates deep connections during the writing process. I am still in contact with my classmates from my CTWR 409 class, and I am grateful to have been able to share snippets of my own life through my sci-fi psychological thriller idea that I pitched by the end of the class. 

With the unconditional support of my peers along with the toolbox of skills I have gained from this class, I now feel more confident both going into an important business pitch to persuade a client and writing a pilot script for an original show idea.  

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