How to Write a Screenplay

Join screenwriter, novelist, playwright, producer, and Senior Professor of Practice Scott Lax, as he shares the essential elements of the 3-Act screenplay structure of set up, rising action, and resolution. In this fun and intensive hour-and-a-half session, Scott will cover the basics of creating a screenplay, including character, dialogue, narrative, formatting, and adaptation of other literary forms. He'll talk about an often overlooked but critical element of a screenplay, which is what producers and directors look for, as well as what to avoid. He'll show you how to move to the next level of your screenplay with the correct software and support material.

Called "a master wordsmith of the first order" by the Midwest Book Review, Scott Lax teaches Screenwriting at the Cleveland Institute of Art, where he received the 2025 Dan Tranberg Teaching Excellence Award. He was named "Midwest Filmmaker of the Year" by the Cleveland International Film Festival for the movie version of his novel, The Year That Trembled, which was listed as one of 1998's "milestones in fiction" by the Denver Post. Scott has adapted his novel, Vengeance Follows, into a screenplay. Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Ron Powers wrote, "Vengeance Follows is mesmerizing and masterful, with a Richard Russo-like respect for the human soul."