One Day* Core Screenwriting Skills Workshop

Suitable for: emerging writers, directors, creative producers, script assessors

Core screenwriting skills are the tools a screenwriter uses every day in writing every scene. This workshop was developed by Linda Aronson at the request of the WIFTI New York Chapter as the basis of the inaugural online screenwriting masterclass run by WIFTI for its international membership. The workshop is about empowering participants in their daily writing.

Participants are introduced to a range of craft skills and analytical techniques to boost their confidence, maximise their creativity under stress, and control and enhance the writing of the individual scene. When the day is over participants will have encountered tools they can use and develop for the rest of their writing life.

During the day participants will study:

• using techniques to stay highly creative under stress
• devising good ideas for short films and feature films quickly
• time management skills for writing
• creating the right scenario to carry the content of the scene
• characterising through action and deep characterisation
• mapping the emotional progression of each scene
• creating and understanding subtext
• tips and traps in backstory and exposition in the individual scene
• writing tight dialogue
• the limits of dialogue (how to write with visuals)
• writing good action directions (stage directions) and treatments
• being their own script doctor

*shorter over-view versions available