I don't have any experience with film schools. I suspect that they're useless, because I've had experience with drama schools, and have found them to be useless.

It's only words... unless they're true.

It is the objective of the protagonist that keeps us in our seats.

I know very well what it is to be out of work and to be cheated by employers and I know what it is to be an employer.

Make the audience wonder what's going on by putting them in the same position as the protagonist.

The subject of drama is The Lie. At the end of the drama THE TRUTH -- which has been overlooked, disregarded, scorned, and denied -- prevails. And that is how we know the Drama is done.

Writing a novel is an incredibly free experience. One puts one's self in a narrative mode. You can go off in any direction - the past, the future, or go laterally, or include one's own beliefs. It's total freedom.