Write What You Don't Know

1. What's it all about?
- How movies work, only without the complicated bits
- "Write what you know": why this idea sucks and what to do about it

2. Screenwriting: the hardest easy thing you will ever do
- Kind of a pep talk: you should write a movie
- Bad reasons to write a screenplay
- Good reasons to write a screenplay
- Ideas and where the pesky things hide
- Learning something new: the joys of research. Yes, really.

3. Screenwriting is For the Birds: A simple model for cinematic storytelling
- Story worlds: their creation and destruction
- The 'V': Build a world, break it and then fix it again
- Plots and stories: why everything comes from character

4. It's all about the concept
- The theme
- The premise
- The pitch statement
- What is a screenplay and how do I get there?
- The treatment
- The screenplay

5. "Taming wild words": It's all about the structure
- What structure is for and where it comes from
- Narration: positioning your audience
- Exposition
- Acting it all out
- The 'W' model of screenplay structure: acts and angles
- Beating it up
- The 'W' Beat Sheets
- Making a scene
- Case study: scene beats in Juno

6. Case Study: Brick in the 'W'

7. It's all about the characters: this time I really mean it
- Character development, or why writing a character bio is often a waste of ink
- The 'C Team'

8. Dialogue is not just people talking
- Movie dialogue is dynamic - except when it isn't

9. OK, what now?