The Screenwriter’s Path
From Idea to Script to Sale
The Screenwriter’s Path
From Idea to Script to Sale
Look Inside "the Screenwriter's Path"Free Evaluation Copy for instructors & lecturers
Diane Lake

Back to School 10—School’s Out!

I can hardly believe that it’s been 10 weeks since we started talking about how to write that film set in high school or college. And though that seems like a long time to devote to this genre, there are SO many films we didn’t get a chance to talk about in more detail that are worth a look:

  • Animal House [1978]
  • Fast Times at Ridgemont High [1982]
  • Sixteen Candles [1984]
  • The Breakfast Club [1985]
  • Hoosiers [1986]
  • Ferris Bueller’s Day Off [1986]
  • Stand and Deliver [1988]
  • Say Anything [1989]
  • Kindergarten Cop [1990]
  • Dazed and Confused [1993]
  • Rushmore [1998]
  • Election [1999]
  • Napoleon Dynamite [2004]
  • The Perks of Being a Wallflower [2012]
  • Me and Earl and the Dying Girl [2015]
  • The Edge of Seventeen [2016]
  • Middle School [2016]
  • The Kissing Booth [2018]

When writing any story, I always thing about how I can push the boundaries, how I can do something that hasn’t been done before. Because if you’re out there trying to get your scripts seen, you can’t just do what everybody else is doing, or what has been done before. You really need to think about doing something fresh.

This is why we study films that came before in a genre we want to write. It’s only when you know your genre that you can hope to do something new. If I had the idea for a cop to have to go into a class as a kindergarten teacher and hadn’t seen Kindergarten Cop, I’d be totally spinning my wheels. Anyone reading my script would read a couple of pages and realize that had already been done and…woosh! My script’s toast.

I also like to think about what a genre hasn’t even tried yet. For example, the back-to-school movie hasn’t been done as a thriller, or if it has, such a film doesn’t come to mind. So there’s an area worth exploring. Could you set a thriller inside a high school, or inside a university? Can you combine genres to tell a fresh, new kind of story.

If looking at films in the genre has inspired you to take a crack at your own back-to-school movie, I’d encourage you to come up with not one, but THREE ideas for such a film—three completely different ideas. Write the premise [a paragraph or so] of each film’s storyline and then go a step further and write a one-page outline of each of the three. Make sure these are three stories you really like, three stories you’d just love to write. And then—and only then—sit down and choose the one you’re most excited about and begin.

FADE IN:

Ext. School – Day ….

Copyright © Diane Lake

11Nov18


Email IconEmail Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com

Blog, Screenwriting, screenwriter, screenplay, writer, writing, original screenplay, how to write a screenplay, adapted screenplay, log line, premise, character, character development, film, film structure, story, storytelling, storyteller, story structure, main character, supporting character, story arc, subplot, character journey, writing the adaptation, nonlinear structure, anti-narrative film, dialogue, writing dialogue, conversational dialogue, writing action scenes, scene structure, option agreement, shopping agreement, narration, voiceover, montage, flashback, public domain stories, pitching, rewriting, rewrite, pitch, film business, writers group, agent, finding an agent, Diane Lake