BACKSTORY: How Much Baggage to Give Your Heroes and Villains
Every writer knows that an audience wants to love their favorite heroes and hate their favorite villains. But few beginning screenwriters take the time to really flesh out their characters with compelling backstories. This live webinar will enlighten the process of creating an all-encompassing character history that took place before the cameras started rolling. Equally important, this live webinar will share the tricks of the screen trade in how much to share with the audience over the course of a character-arc, in order to retain the mystery and relevance that can make fictional characters so iconic and timeless.
Borrowing from other mediums, the instructor will show how character archetypes are the “good bones” to fleshing-out a unique character for contemporary audiences. Likewise, how to introduce a character’s internal motivation based on their upbringing and life experiences they bring with them into a specific cinematic universe will also be discussed. By the end of this webinar, writers will have a firm understanding of what it takes to build-out compelling characters that are 3-dimensional, and keep the reader’s attention up to and including the very last page of their screenplay.
Join Jon James Miller, award-winning screenwriter, novelist, and professional story editor, to learn how to write a story rich with fully-realized characters that come alive through narrative techniques intended to engage readers and keep them reading. Jon will also show how to remove unnecessary backstory that can slow down or stop a reader, no matter what the genre. Writers will come away from this webinar with a “character cheat-sheet” that consists of critical questions to building out well-rounded characters-arcs, whether they are heroes or villains.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:
- The narrative techniques to creating compelling and cinematic characters
- How to find your character’s unique voice and internal motivation
- Create a character that captures the imagination of your audience
- How to engage and keep a reader guessing the true nature of a character
- How to structure the cinematic universe all your characters will inhabit
- How to build reader empathy for even the worst fictional villain
WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
- Writers who want to craft compelling characterizations using backstory
- Writers who are having trouble utilizing flashbacks in their script
- Writers who want to engage the reader with fully-realized characters
- Screenwriters who want to create original characters to attract A-List actors
- Writers who want to create a script with franchise potential using great characters
- Novelists who want to successfully adapt their characters into the screenplay format
- Writers who want to develop their storytelling voice by building 3-dimensional characters
- Screenwriters who want to increase their chances of selling a screenplay by creating compelling main characters based on true stories
The Writers Store does not offer any refunds for the OnDemand webinar. All sales are final.
Instructors
Jon James Miller started his Hollywood career as a script reader for producers at 20th Century Fox Studios, Paramount Pictures, and MGM Studios. Jon co-wrote Adapting Sideways: How To Turn Your Screenplay Into A Publishable Novel (Komenar Publishing), which chronicled the process of adapting his award-winning screenplay into a novel. Jon’s debut novel, Looking For Garbo, was published by Amphorae Publishing Group in 2019. Jon has been featured in Creative Screenwriting Magazine, and is a frequent contributor to SCRIPT Magazine. He is represented by Agent Jill Marr at Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. Follow Jon on Twitter @JonJimMiller.