What You Learn

• Story Craft and Technique: Plot, character, dramatic momentum. The source of all drama. The few dramatic forces that will turn any idea into a compelling story.
• The Creative Process: Overcoming doubt, fear, and panic. Techniques to overcome resistance, stop fighting yourself, and get the flow going the moment you sit down.
• Self-Coaching and Self-Editing: Learn to stop torturing yourself when it doesn't come out the way you wanted. Learn to trust your own emotional radar to find that dramatic potential that's always in your work and learn how to use it to bring your story to life on the page every time.
• Rewriting Techniques: Turning drudgery into excitement and inspiration. Rewriting is the best part. Once you know how, rewriting becomes re-exciting.
• The Essence of Character: What's needed to bring characters to life in all their depth and complexity. How to make the deepest, most personal connection to your characters.
• Short Story to Novel, Screenplay, or Stage Play: How to turn any short story or story idea into the longer form without stressing, straining, or padding. Plus the easiest (and hardest) kind of novel to write and the easiest (and hardest) kind of novel to sell. What makes literature literature (exactly what it takes to write literary fiction.) How to write a bestseller. And how to write down-and-dirty, commercial fiction with the least pain and most pleasure in the least amount of time if that's your goal.
• Universal Plot Forms: Aristotle, quoted in nearly every writing book and by every writing teacher, said there were six fundamental plots. Learn what even Aristotle didn't know — but Shakespeare did and so did Tolstoy, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald and many, many others. Learn how simple and easy it is to create compelling plots.
• Originality: What is it? Do you have it? (In a word: Yes. It's already there inside you. All you need are the tools to uncover it.) You're full of original ideas. You'll see how originality, this often intimidating concern, is easily achieved when you learn how to unlock your imagination and turn it loose on the page.
• Work Methods: How to approach your story idea. (Should you outline, know the end first, write straight through before revising, have a plan, just jump in and go, write from a premise, have a theme in mind, etc). What you need to know before you start and what you don't.
• Managing Time: Where to find it (yes, it's there) and how to use it. Learn how you can write the first draft of a novel in just minutes a day in one year, regardless of your busy schedule and have fun doing it.
• Point of View: The ins and outs of this often confused and poorly explained story dimension made simple.
• Dead Weight: Learn the things that sound good but only serve to confuse, impede, or even disable you. Advice and misconceptions that many writers hold dear and struggle against that you need to be aware of and ignore.