The Quest Writing Workshop — Oct. 17–20 in Santa Monica

Amazing things can happen at a writing workshop. I have learned this from first-hand experience leading dozens of them both online and in-person. Gathering a group of writers, each passionate about the craft and bringing their own unique world view to discussions, the process of brainstorming stories and batting around ideas as potential answers for plot and characters questions can lead to remarkable insights.

As effective as a six-week Prep workshop or ten-week Pages workshop can be, there is something special about an intensive experience like the one I am offering in Santa Monica in October.

12 people.
12 stories.
4 days.
An immersion in screenwriting theory and practice.
A goal of wrangling each writer’s story from concept to outline.

When there is that type of energy exhibited in that compressed time frame… well, as I say, amazing things can happen.

I’m reminded of 4-day workshop I did several years ago. One of the participants was a writer-director from Canada, someone who had numerous credits in TV, but she had been completely stymied by a story she was attempting to write as a feature length script. The roots of the story were quite personal to her and that was one of the issues, as she felt she was too close to the source material to get a proper perspective on it. She had read all sorts of screenwriting books and attended various seminars, and put all that to work in writing two drafts of her screenplay, but neither version worked. She had traveled all the way to L.A. for this workshop, basically a last ditch effort to figure out her story.

I began the workshop by walking everyone through one take on Story I have called Narrative Throughline, which as I always say is not the way to write a screenplay (there is not one right way), but an approach I’ve found can work rather well, combining ideas from Aristotle, Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung and something called the Whammo Theory.

Then we dug into each writer’s story including this writer from Canada. Lots of great ideas, suggestions and possibilities. After a full, rich day of brainstorming and story-crafting, we all went our respective ways.

On the morning of Day 2, this writer raised her hand and said, “I think I found my story.” She proceeded to talk us through it Plotline point to Plotline point per what we had discussed the previous day. And you know what? She had found her story!

Much to her delight, she wrote that script and it got her much attention including as I recall a new agent plus more writing gigs back home.

All of that due to one day of thinking about screenwriting theory and workshopping her story.

Honestly in my experience, this type of thing is more typical than atypical at writing workshops, at least the ones I run. And there is nothing quite like sharing those moments with writers when they make connections with their stories and their characters, where the thing takes shape before their eyes… all in a matter of a few days.

The upcoming Quest Writing Workshop I will be hosting in Santa Monica from Thursday, October 17 through Sunday, October 20 is my attempt to bring a condensed version of what I teach in the 24-week Quest into an intensive workshop experience. Obviously it’s not everything in that curriculum, the focus on the some key Core theory and the Prep component. Having done 3-day and 4-day workshops before, I believe it’s going to work.

The response has been excellent and I am happy to report we have the makings of a great group signed up for the workshop already, but we have two slots left. This is a unique opportunity for two folks to join with a group of fellow writers to immerse themselves in screenwriting theory and practice, content based on years of working in the business as a writer with multiple produced credits and over a decade teaching in my spare time.

This is not pablum or voodoo or some simplistic formulaic system. Rather this is getting hands dirty — yours and mine — with the real work of a writer, digging into the guts of a story and discovering how it works.

Is this perhaps a Call To Adventure, the next chapter in your creative journey?

For more information, you can go here to my original announcement, here to a follow-up post, and here to see how you can enroll in the workshop.

I am happy to report that we are scheduled to have a special guest at the workshop: Franklin Leonard will attend one session to discuss the movie business and answers questions you may have.

And because this is very first time I’m offering this workshop, I will be offering participants a whole host of bonus content from a variety of classes I teach through Screenwriting Master Class.

The Quest 4-Day Writing Workshop. I look forward to the opportunity to go into your story with you!

Sign up here.