I love to write. Being able to create interesting situations, new dimensions, dynamic characters, and all that gay stuff. I remember writing my first “novel” (guess it was more a “novelette”) when I was about seven/eight. “The World is Not Always Good,” about a girl and her best friend, and their weird adventures. (Do not debate me on the awful title. I was eight years old at best, dude.) I also wrote three rather-short sequels, which were even sillier than the original.

I’ve always had an imaginative mind, and have expressed it mostly through writing. Two years ago I begun writing screenplays, finally being able to write extensive dialogue (as novels are mostly made-up of descriptions of situations and characters, while screenplays are, of course, mostly dialogue).

This year I will, for the third time, enroll into a different university. After Law & Management School¹ and a (stuck-up) Culture and Arts program², I’ll (probably) enroll in the “English language and culture” program of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. I’m not interested in the culture part of the program, because I want to focus on writing. I’ll major in English literature, learning about text structures, historical masterpieces and such.

Why aren’t I enrolling into a film oriented screenplay program, you ask? First of all, here in the Netherlands only the Dutch Film and Television Academy has a full screenwriting program. And you already know what I think about those losers. Dialogue and the story structure — two main things substantially wrong with Dutch films. Hell no that I’m going to let my mind be fried by the Dutch Film Academy!

Secondly, I believe many of the lame-ass movies of todays industry (like Fool’s Gold and such) suffer from Formulaic Screenwriting 101 Disease — the need of screenwriters to write films according to “the book.” Including all the obligatory scenes into the script, having characters acting out Idiot Plots³, and generally not being creative enough by not introducing new ways of developing a story, not daring to take risks, and not standing up enough to producers and directors who want mediocre stories.

Why is all this? In part because of all the screenwriting programs at (art) schools. Where students are taught what needs to be in a screenplay, how the characters should act, and that a story has to have three acts. Creativity is crushed in many ways through (career) education, in my opinion. I would love to watch a movie that has only two acts, no beginning, and that dares to be different through a great and inspiring story. What I don’t need to watch is a basic according-to-formula movie, like Raise Your Voice.

Thirdly, I’m a big fan of the more theatrical-styled films. Joseph L. Mankiewicz’ All About Eve, one of the best films ever, has a very literature-minded and theatrical-styled screenplay, the dialogue meaning more than just the basic words. More reality/dialogue-based screenplays — almost all major productions nowadays have those — are less magical, less inspiring. How do you get literature-minded dialogue? By having a literature-minded background, stupid! So I’ll rather follow a literature program, than a screenwriting one.

Plus that English literature is a lot broader than a screenwriting program. Not only can I become a screenwriter, I can head into an editors job in publication (not that I want to, but I can), and I will have a better background to write short stories and novels. I’m not sure if I can write complete novels, but at least I’ll have a full educational background into it.