Dedicated to the classic books on fiction writing. Learn to write short stories, novels, and plays by studying the classic how-to books. I believe fiction writing is a Craft. In the hands of a writer who has mastered the Craft, it can become more than that. It can become Art. Art = Talent + Craft But the bedrock is Craft. There are fundamental techniques to be studied, unfamiliar tools to be mastered, tricks of the trade to be learned. And it all takes time. (Writing Mastery) (Writing Craft)
In the first two weeks of the Fall semester, California State University, Northridge screenwriting professor Eric Edson presents PowerPoint lessons to the entering first year grad MFA class. In the second class he covers 6 of the 14 character types. Here is the full inside look at the lecture.
In the first two weeks of the Fall semester, California State University, Northridge screenwriting professor Eric Edson presents PowerPoint lessons to the entering first year grad MFA class. He begins with the Hero Goal Sequences story structure paradigm. Here is an inside look at the full first class of the lecture.
0:00 - Great Movies Have These 3 Essential Story Elements
13:53 - Writing Can't Be Taught
26:29 - If I Don't Write I Don't Feel Good
34:28 - How To Find The Emotional Spine In A Screenplay
45:05 - Theme Comes Last In The Writing Process
55:20 - 11 Step Story Structure Made Easy
1:09:27 - Story Structure Is A Form Not A Formula
1:21:00 - A Writer's Job Is To Create Questions, Not Give Answers
1:29:58 - How To Figure Out What A Character Wants
Writing Coach, Teacher, Mentor and Screenwriter Pat Verducci teaches two Advanced Screenwriting courses at UCLA TFT. She has written scripts for Touchstone Pictures, Witt-Thomas Productions, and Walt Disney Animation Studios. She has also worked as a story consultant for Disney/Pixar. She wrote and directed the feature film True Crime, starring Alicia Silverstone, and her writing credits also include documentary shorts for HBO and Showtime. She co-produced Somewhere Between, a feature documentary about four teenaged girls transracially adopted from China, and served as a story consultant on the Tinkerbell franchise for Disney. She is currently the script editor on several feature film projects for Film Victoria and Screen Australia, and is writing Citizen Bella, a documentary on the life of modern dancer Bella Lewitzky. Verducci serves as a mentor at Cinestory and the Meryl Streep funded IRIS/New York Women in Film and Television’s Writer’s Lab for Women. She’s a member of the Writers Guild of America.
Stephen King On Writing interview collection of Screenwriting Lessons with George Rr Martin and others. Many of his short stories and books were adapted into movies like The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, It, The Stand, The Shining, Carrie, Misery, Stand by Me, Pet Sematary,...
0:00 - Intro
0:40 - If you don’t succeed get a bigger nail
1:28 - Write 6 pages a day
3:12 - Go where the story leads you
5:08 - The good ideas will stay with you
6:17 - First you read and copy other writers, then little by little you develop your own style
7:02 - Writing is self hypnosis, you need to have a routine
7:25 - Start with short stories and let them develop into novels or screenplays
8:27 - Learn to write for different mediums
10:27 - Look for ideas that you would really enjoy writing for longer periods
11:11 - Get immersed in your writing process until the outside world is gone
12:35 - Outro
