Fine Arts Work Center In Provincetown

2024 Summer Workshops

The Power of Story The Power of Story July 2 to July 7, 2017 Tuition: $600 Workshop: 9am-12pm Discipline: Fiction OPEN TO ALL On-site Housing Available

Whether you are working on a screenplay, a TV pilot, a play, a one-person show or a novel, storytelling, is hard work; it requires honesty, courage, craft and above all determination. But it can also be a mysterious and mystical experience, a means to enlarge and enlighten not only the audience, but the storyteller as well. For each of us, it happens differently, the idea might come in the form of a hunch, a worry, an inkling, a fear, an inspiration or sometimes fully formed. But however it happens, stories always arise out of something we deeply believe. We might not be able to articulate what it is exactly, but something in us knows, and a story is our effort to prove what we know beyond a shadow of a doubt; it is the part of us that can stand in the light.

This workshop is a highly interactive process of instruction and exercises that allow participants to engage with the story they want to tell and enhance the effect they hope to achieve. I pass along to them the means to not only identify the various aspects of any good story, but I also how to map out their own stories using a method that I’ve developed over the years. The work we do is less about writing, and more about learning to structure your story, puzzling out your underlying conflict, illuminating your characters, uncovering your deeply held beliefs. I like to think of it as a process of creating a vivid map of your story so you can’t get lost. By the end of the five days you will be familiar with the landscape of your own story and you will possess skills to navigate any story you wish to tell.

I’ve found that people always have a much easier time seeing and understanding the principles of story-making when applied to another participant’s story, thus making the workshop environment an important aspect of the learning process.

Requirements: 1.) Bring a good story, one you’re dying to tell. 2.) Watch or read Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams so we all have a common story.

Biography

Whether you are working on a screenplay, a TV pilot, a play, a one-person show or a novel, storytelling, is hard work; it requires honesty, courage, craft and above all determination. But it can also be a mysterious and mystical experience, a means to enlarge and enlighten not only the audience, but the storyteller as well. For each of us, it happens differently, the idea might come in the form of a hunch, a worry, an inkling, a fear, an inspiration or sometimes fully formed. But however it happens, stories always arise out of something we deeply believe. We might not be able to articulate what it is exactly, but something in us knows, and a story is our effort to prove what we know beyond a shadow of a doubt; it is the part of us that can stand in the light.

This workshop is a highly interactive process of instruction and exercises that allow participants to engage with the story they want to tell and enhance the effect they hope to achieve. I pass along to them the means to not only identify the various aspects of any good story, but I also how to map out their own stories using a method that I've developed over the years. The work we do is less about writing, and more about learning to structure your story, puzzling out your underlying conflict, illuminating your characters, uncovering your deeply held beliefs. I like to think of it as a process of creating a vivid map of your story so you can't get lost. By the end of the five days you will be familiar with the landscape of your own story and you will possess skills to navigate any story you wish to tell.

I've found that people always have a much easier time seeing and understanding the principles of story-making when applied to another participant's story, thus making the workshop environment an important aspect of the learning process.

Requirements: 1.) Bring a good story, one you're dying to tell. 2.) Watch or read Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams so we all have a common story.