8 Foundations of Storytelling Successful Writers Use to Create Great Stories

Great stories are built from the inside out. But what does this mean? First, it means a lot of prep work goes into creating a great story! It's not enough to have exciting plot points or fascinating characters. You'll also need to consider the premise and story world, symbols and theme, character and opposition, and even the hero's moral choice. These are the guts of the story! And knowing the techniques of how to create and manipulate these story elements will make you a better creative writer.

Many hidden parts thread together to become a story that audiences love. This 8-week course will take you through the key techniques and craft of story development. You'll learn how to connect character motivation to plot points, how theme can tie to the premise without being preachy or obvious, how to create a cause-and-effect pathway that will be a strong spine for your story (and the roadmap for a fantastic plot), as well as life-long skills to build your writer toolbox.

Each week builds on the last, so learners need to commit to the full eight weeks in order to get the most out of the experience. Classes are recorded, so you're still covered if something comes up and you have to miss a class. 

Week One: The Premise, the Logline, and the Tag
We'll start at the beginning - the premise. You'll learn why you should resist writing a single word until you've sorted out the premise. This advice is true whether you are a plotter or a pantser (fly by the seat of your pants in writing). Then we'll shape that premise into a logline that jumps off the page into the audience's imagination. Finally, there is the tagline, a little marketing statement that will have people eager to hear your story. 

Week Two: Theme and Designing Principle
Is your story 'AI meets the Wild West' (Season 1 of West World) or 'Fantasy meets a Coming-of-Age' tale (Harry Potter)? Figuring out the designing principle and the theme will help you create a vast and rich story world that the audience will want to explore endlessly. It also keeps you, the writer, on track to a great ending!

Week Three: The Story World
Star Wars, MCU, and Avatar are three good examples of engaging story worlds. These have gripped and enthralled audiences across multiple generations and, in some cases, spawned endless spinoffs as characters explore deeper into the outer and inner realms. Learn how to combine the elements of land, people, and technology to design a story world so authentic and vivid people will never want to leave.

Week Four: The Spine of the Story
By this point in the course, you'll have a good grasp of the elements that make up a great story and understand these are much bigger than plot, yet it is still this spine upon which we hang the skeleton of 'all the things' (theme, character, opposition, design, etc.). You will build a strong plot spine that supports all of these elements by creating a cause-and-effect pathway that grows on the premise and central conflict. 

Week Five: Character Webs and Opposition Blocks
Conflict creates change, and your hero needs an unforgettable opponent plus a web of friends and other foes to push him to this transformation. Not every hero has a character arc - just the great ones! This week you'll learn how to put the values of the other characters in conflict (opposition block) with the hero and sometimes each other so they all tumble toward a nail-biting story climax.

Week Six: The Hero's Character Change and Moral Choice
The moral choice of the hero will help the audience realize the theme or the message of the story. The character change that makes the right moral choice will happen because your hero went through all the struggles you sorted out during Weeks 4 and 5. How will you show these changes within your story world? And what happens at the end of the character arc? Will the hero see a positive or negative change? Will there be a self-revelation that inspires the reader or audience to their own revelation? You can build this in any direction you choose, using the character-designing skills taught this week.

Week Seven: Story Events
Now we're almost ready to start writing! This week I'll take you through an exercise that helps sort ideas and get them into the logical order of story events. By the end of this lesson, you'll have a solid idea of how to create and use an outline to navigate the fun part - WRITING! 

Week 8: Your Writer Toolbox
In this last week of the course, we'll reflect on the skills you've learned and how to hone and sharpen them throughout your writing life. So where do you go now? What happens next? I'll also give you some final writing tips to take away with you. 

There is flexibility built into this week in that the last class will focus on student needs. For example, if students want to write a screenplay, we will spend this last week studying screenplay format. 

I aim to foster an engaging, inclusive, and educational experience within a positive social environment. My teaching style is best "coaching for mastery," wherein I help the learner gain skills to master their own writing.

There is no pre-requisite for this class. However, it is recommended that students come to class with some ideas about what they want to write about. It will be helpful if they've dabbled in creating their own stories already, still all skill and experience levels are welcome!

CLASS FORMAT:
1. Greeting and review of lesson objective and class guidelines. (2 minutes)
2. Icebreaker Game. (5 minutes)
3. Lesson - see weekly description above. (35 minutes) This block will include instructional time as well as break-out sessions where students will have opportunity to workshop their ideas and progress. 
4. Closing of the Class (2 minutes)