Building from the Ground Up: Character Development & Story Structure
This
course will save you at least five years of struggling in your writing
career. Whether you’re a fan thinking about taking up the pen for the
first time, or a pro looking to take things to the next level, this
course is for you.
In Building from the Ground Up: Character Development & Story Structure, B. Dave Walters will teach you:
Why now is the absolute best time in history to be a storyteller.
How to know when you’re ready to become a writer.
How to know if you’re actually bad and no one is telling you.
How to get an emotional reaction out of the audience, which is the only thing that truly matters.
How to know which ideas are great, and which to skip.
How to decide if a novel, screenplay, TV or comic is the best for you.
Three, Four, Five, and even Seven Act Structure and which one to use.
What Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker, and Arthas Menethil have in common, and what it means to your story.
How
to actually apply The Hero’s Journey, Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling,
Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Rules for Writing Fiction, the Blake Snyder Beat
Sheet and several other tools to make your story MATTER.
And much, much more!
It’s
a noisy world out there, this course will teach you how to craft a
story that people will slow down to listen to with characters they’ll
give a damn about!
Lesson Plan
Day 1 - 5: Overview of concepts
Day 1: Welcome to the big leagues!
Day 2: The map is not the territory
Day 3: Setting yourself up for success
Day 4: Why George RR Martin is dead to me
Day 5: Understand the rules before you break them
Days 6-10: Story Structure Deep Dive
Day 6: Building the perfect beast
Day 7: Feel the beat
Day 8: Gut check.
Day 9: 500+ words.
Day 10: Revisiting the Logline and Elevator Pitch.
Days 11-15: Character Creation Deep Dive
Day 11: Assembling your fellowship.
Day 12: For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic.
Day 13: Your Hero’s Journey
Day 14: Kill Your Darlings.
Day 15: Putting it all together.
Teacher
B. Dave Walters is a motivator, storyteller, and structure fiend. He is best known as the writer of Dungeons & Dragons: A Darkened Wish for IDW comics, and the Long Beach by Night streaming series. He’s co-writer of the Salvage Marines TV series and Electropunk Transmedia series. He has written films, novels, a non-fiction book and over 500 nationally syndicated articles. He operates a full scale 24/7 World of Darkness Discord roleplay server along with over 20 hours a week of actual play game streams.
