Growing Your Idea from Thought to Script with Paul Duane
Info
Date: January 13, 2026
Time: 6.30 pm - 8.30 pm
Duration: 10 weeks
Level: Advanced | Intermediate | Beginner |
Cost: €300 (€270 members)
Location: Irish Writers Centre
This course will take place in the Irish Writers Centre on Tuesdays for 10 weeks (10 sessions total). There will be no class on Tuesday, 17th March, meaning the course will finish on Tuesday, 24th March.
Course Summary
The course is aimed at people who have some basic creative writing skills and are ready to try to turn an idea for a film into a detailed outline or script.
We will cover such things as exploring and interrogating your idea to make sure it has the right potential, creating your characters and conflicts, structuring the story so that it won’t run out of steam, figuring out the ending and making sure it coheres organically with the story.
My experience is with TV drama, feature drama and the horror genre, these areas are of particular interest.
It will be an in-person course. Participants will be expected to progress their idea week by week but there are no set rules as to what work has to be submitted at each session, though participants who commit to write material each week will get more out of the course. Workshopping will happen in class week to week, with individual written feedback at course end.
I would like participants to read John Yorke’s book Into The Woods, if possible, before beginning the course.
Course Outline
This is a 10-week, in-person screenwriting course where participants will develop their idea into a detailed outline or draft script.
Course Outcomes
We will focus on the discipline of taking an idea for a film, however vague or unformed it might be, and how it can be turned into a detailed and compelling piece of scriptwriting, and also how to tell if your idea might not be suitable for film before you waste too much time on it. Perhaps an idea which doesn’t work for film might suit the novel or theatre formats better – we will discuss all options.
Paul Duane has been making films for thirty years. In 2014 he was on Variety’s annual 10 Directors to Watch list. His films, which include Barbaric Genius, Best Before Death, Natan & Welcome To The Dark Ages, have received Grierson & IFTA nominations and have screened at festivals such as Edinburgh, Telluride, Lumiére & Pordenone. He also co-created the award-winning drama series Amber & Secret Diary of a Call Girl. His most recent film is the folk-horror feature All You Need Is Death, and he is currently developing his self-penned Irish horror film Para with Finepoint Films (Kneecap) and XYZ Films (Mandy/The Raid).
Booked out? To be added to the waiting list for this course, please email info@irishwriterscentre.ie.
