Writing 101

Seth Worley

Writing 101

Seth Worley
4.55
11 modules (view curriculum)

$349
$55
Or buy just this course and own it forever.
Buy Now
  • Total Time:

    0h 34m

Description

Join writer and director Seth Worley as he gives a succinct break-down of the fundamentals of screenwriting, using established storytelling paradigms and well-known cinematic examples. This course is ideal for anyone new to screenwriting as well as established writers looking for refreshing ideas to help them organically flesh out a story.


Subtitles available: English

Modules

02m

In the opening module to the course Seth introduces himself and talks about how he’d like you to approach this course.


Subtitles available: English

02m

One of the easiest aspects of writing is coming up with an idea. Or maybe a bunch of ideas, but they aren’t a complete structured story. In this lesson Seth gives an introduction to his strategies to extract your story organically.


Subtitles available: English

04m

Seth gives us an overview of the classic three-act-structure, distilling sources such as Joseph Campbell and Blake Schneider, before explaining how you can use this as a guideline to further massage your ideas into a story outline.


Subtitles available: English

02m

Character archetypes are another established writing convention and in this module Seth runs through Joseph Campbell’s "Hero’s Journey” model for defining your story’s characters.


Subtitles available: English

03m

Every story has a theme - it may be subtle or pronounced but without it there’s no thread tying the events together. Here Seth defines theme as it applies to screenwriting and discussed why you might choose to write from the theme rather than writing from the characters.


Subtitles available: English

03m

In this lesson Seth introduces us to the story clock, an idea attributed to filmmaker JJ Abrams which gives you a 10,000 foot view of your story.


Subtitles available: English

03m

Continuing to explore the story clock tool, Seth walks through an example of his creative process writing the short film “Old/New"


Subtitles available: English

04m

Here Seth shares with us perhaps his most important strategy in writing, combine the concepts of micro and macro clocking to give you a manageable strategy to be productive in your screenwriting.


Subtitles available: English

02m

Screenplays have a very standardised format and presentation. In this lesson Seth gives you a complete rundown of everything you need to know to ensure your script is to a professional standard and gives you the best chance of it being read.


Subtitles available: English

04m

In the closing lesson to the course Seth discusses the inevitable limitations that come with writing, and how you can harness them to make your story better.


Subtitles available: English

01m

In this bonus module Seth walks through all the resources available with the course.


Subtitles available: English

About the Educator

Seth Worley

Writer, Director

3 Courses

Seth Worley is the writer/director of short films and branded content for clients like JJ Abrams’s Bad Robot, Red Giant, Film Riot, Sandwich Video, and Steve Taylor. His work has been featured in Forbes, USA Today, The Hollywood Reporter, Fast Company, Slate, io9, SlashFilm, HULU, The Tonight Show, and more.

Reviews

5
Seth presents his ideas and material in a fun and enjoyable manner that is easy to apply. Great!
Jui Hsiang Tan
5
Fun and informative. I haven't written for a loooong time. This was a great reintroduction to the discipline.
Wayne Rice
5
Awesome! Learned more about writing in the half an hour the course takes to watch than in the past few months of YouTube tutorials. Just awesome!
Constantin Teleptean
5
Incredibly short and digestible and jam packed with useful information. Inspires writing!
George Moore
5
Awesome, Concise, Sexy! Thanks Seth!
Robert Lambert
5
Short sweet and to the point.
Ray Bengston
5
Awesome - Love Seth
Nathan Musson
5
Really a great course!
Philippe Schultz
5
Excellent course - very thought provoking
Martin Bailey
5
Useful, short and humorous. Easy to understand and practice.
my nguyen
5
Great reminder.
Harri Raisa
5
He makes the process look easy and backs it up.
Aruho Manzi
5
Pretty awesome.
Christoph Janetzko
5
To the point. No Nonsense.
Siddhartha Mukherjee
5
Another great course!
Richard Baetens
5
I don't want to sound like a Seth Worley clone, but I really found this series helpful. If you think that a series like this will take you from a complete meltdown to the limelight you will be foiled. But don't give up hope. I predict this series will be seen (if you squint) as an early inspiration for a Goliath of a film. I think this series is nicely complemented by the Dan Harmon Story Circle you can find on Wikipedia.
Mark Vaughan
5
Short with loads of tiny gems of information! Also very entertaining to watch!
Peter Mankowski
5
Short and full of knowledge.
Łukasz Kucharski
5
Great Course! Makes me want to write a short story right now!
Ed Cyr
5
Very informative and to the point. Going from basics to some things like "the clock", for example being a complete eye opening experience.
Dmitry Kazantsev
5
More...
Krzysztof Szczepanski
5
Great course and great pointers.
Oskar Hald
5
Great! Enjoyed the pacing and practical direction. Levity was good and information was great for a new filmmaker.
Christopher Eustace
5
I really enjoyed this class. Seth's style, rhythm, flow, humor and brevity made this very interesting and watchable. I can’t wait to pass this information and resources on to my high school film students this year.
brent morton
5
Good for aspirant film makers.
chandrashekar thooti
5
Masterful by Seth putting a unique take on the script process - especially finding the parallels from Act 1 to Act 3.
Robert Brown
5
Awesome. perfect length for my attention span
Wesley Smith
5
A great introduction to screenwriting that focuses more on actually getting you to start writing than technicalities.
Daniel Grindrod
4.5
Short but really good and easy to understand.
Jose Eduardo Barrios Sotillo
4.5
A lot of great ideas presented in an interesting manner. Well worth watching, regardless of the short amount of time taken to teach the material. Seth is very engaging and hits just the right note in conveying his excitement with the craft of screenwriting and filmmaking.
Kimberly Palmer
4.5
Well presented and easy to digest!
Michele Manila
4.5
Cool
Jose Santos
4.5
Love Worley's approach to teaching. Quick and digestible. So good!
Caleb Kilian
4
Really enjoyed his approach and learned some awesome skills to apply to my workflow.
Simon Thompson
4
As Seth said in the beginning of the series, this is one of those series that if you know Script writing it might be just a jewel here and there you pick up that make you think differently. That is what happened with me. I just loved the way he explained the clocking method. I've studied the Hero's Journey and went through Chris Vogler's books front and back, but I like Seth's explanation. It just resonated with me so much easier.
Mohammed Al-Shubaiki
4
If you've never read anything on screenwriting, this might be perfect for you. If you have already learned the basics of the craft, this might be a bit too introductory. Still, Seth is very funny and the course is very easy to watch and digest. I found his approach to structure somewhat similar to Chris Vogler's.
Leonardo Dias
4
Pretty well presented. Short and sweet, but gives useful ideas. The downloads are useful too.
Kevin Billington
4
Simple and concise, good for beginners and the concept of story clock is great...
Ravi Kaiwart
4
I enjoyed it. It was short and to the point.
Kevin Zak
4
Good solid info but more geared towards beginners. The story clock stuff was interesting. Definitely worth a look.
Alex Kuzelicki
4
Got to know about some new ideas on how to write a screenplay. Information are worth- but too fast.
C.S. Dilip Kumar
4
Quick and easy to digest with valuable exercises.
Bryan Boyd
4
Really enjoyable course. Some of the material could have done with a little more time, but a solid and concise course.
Ben Stewart
4
I just wish there was more, but for a short course it covered some cool stuff.
James Ray
4
Simple and resourceful course.
Utsab Bandopadhyay
3.5
I wanted this to be so much longer Seth because I love your work.
Braden Bickle
3
Provided some useful tips on how to approach the monumental task of writing. Not up to the standard of a lot of the other MZed courses related to filmmaking in terms of breadth of content. Overall, it's a quick watch and worth the time.
Jacob Moore

Join MZed Pro Now

Make a commitment to becoming a better filmmaker, today.
Seven-day money-back guarantee (view full terms here).

Join now for $30/month (billed annually)