The Writer’s Guide to Authentic Stories

About this course:

Research always pays off (and not just when it comes to historical works of fiction). This is especially true when it comes to things that we think we know, things we’ve seen depicted before, like the inner workings of a law firm or the emergency room in a hospital. The most important step in writing a screenplay (or novel) is gaining the breadth of knowledge and mastery of the material that’s necessary to write with authority. The facts you find are almost always better than the stuff that you make up, and the creative decisions and choices you make based on research lead to improvements that won’t happen in any other way. The goal of the course is to learn how to gain mastery and become an authority on the subject of a script you are currently developing. Students must bring either an outline or a completed script to be ready to workshop at the start of class.