Watching good movies can make you a better fiction writer.

That’s the entire premise of this workshop. The power of visual storytelling can allow writing teachers to demonstrate fiction-writing techniques in a more effective and entertaining way. 

In this class, we will watch the movie Thelma & Louise in its entirety, stopping frequently to desconstruct and discuss techniques that Callie Khouri (the screenwriter) uses to create a wonderful work of art—the same techniques used by the best fiction writers. Virtually every frame of this movie offers a valuable teaching moment for writers, and on top of that it provides an entirely pleasurable way to learn.

Class take-aways will include:

– How actions both inform characterization and provide a dynamic means to create character arc, creating believable, exciting people and not “characters.”

– How to write riveting scenes and set up future scenes up by foreshadowing.

– How to handle exposition and backstory.

– Giving your characters physical actions to define them and show character arc.

– How to utilize setting to define character.

– Surface-problem and story-worthy problem–How each is related and resolved.

– How to write resolutions that satisfy emotionally.

– How to create “watercooler moments”

– A bonus takeaway is learning how to create a novel that is cinematic in nature which could help sell it as… you guessed it…a movie!

This workshop would be valuable to every skill level of writer—from the raw beginner to the polished writer who has been published several times. And, even though it’s an event geared to novel writers, the same principles we’ll cover apply also to screenwriters. So… everybody is welcome!