In a previous blog (PMBMD: Pre-MacBook-MeltDown!) I answered this question as a screenwriting teacher. Now let me respond as a screenwriter myself.

So, Bill the writer, can screenwriting be taught?

Well, yeah -- sure.

But does that mean screenwriting classes are the only way?

Oh, definitely not.

Different writers learn differently. Everyone should find the path that works best for them. Here's a short history of my path:

I attended the New York University Graduate Film & TV program in a decade that is not the current one. Three years of intense classes, training and filmmaking. So you would think that I had an excellent screenwriting education, right?

Uh, think again.

Remember, this was years ago, so the current program is probably different, but back then the real focus was on the technical side of filmmaking, not so much screenwriting. We had some classes, but I can't say I really learned much more than the broad basics.

But a little while after graduation I was lucky enough to get a job writing my first movie. It was -- get this!  A parody of JAWS starring a possessed lawn mower instead of a great white shark. BLADES. (Not BLADE.) Check it out some day. It's the best possessed lawn mower movie of all time!

<http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0096936/>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HUk5rz6-Qo>

So my co-writer and I studied JAWS frontwards and backwards. Bought the movie and watched it dozens of times. Got the script and tore it apart and rebuilt it to see how it worked. And let me tell you-- that was the best screenwriting education I ever had up to that point! Learning from the best is definitely a great way to go.

So if you don't want to go to film school or take screenwriting classes, fine.  There were a lot of great screenwriters before there was ever a class that taught it. Study scripts of films you admired to see how they went right and study the scripts of films you hate to see how they went wrong. (In truth, it's sometimes easier to learn what NOT to do than it is to learn what to do.)

But don't just watch movies! Speaking again as a teacher, this is the main thing that drives me crazy: people coming who have never read a script. They have seen hundreds of movies, but have not read the scripts that brought those characters and images to the screen. That would be like wanting to become an architect without ever having looked at a blueprint! How are you going to convey your vision if you do not know the tools and forms of the medium!?

Ultimately, learning screenwriting is an individual path and some choose to go it alone and some choose to attend classes. Neither side is wrong nor should either side throw stones.

Better they just get writing!