Character 1: Creation is an Intensive, meaning it happens in a short time span (1 day in NYC, or 2 days on Zoom, or 3 weeks Online). The course includes a mixture of lectures and exercises. It’s open to writers of any level. Farther down, you can view a syllabus for this course.
If you feel you’re solid with conceiving characters, you may go straight to Character 2. If you’re in doubt about this, start with Character 1; it will be valuable even if some of it is review.
Characters are the beating heart of every story. When we’re made to feel their presence, the entire story awakens, and we follow those folks wherever they go—likable or not, young or old, familiar or foreign.
Whether you’re working on fiction, nonfiction, or a script, we’ll show you how to breathe life into characters that we see and believe and care about.
Character 1 teaches how to conceive characters—where they come from, who they are inside and out, what their contradictions are, where their desire lies, and what makes them fascinating.
Character 2 teaches how to bring characters to palpable life on the page, making them real enough so we feel like we could live next door to them or bump into them on the street.
Notes
This is a cross-genre course, applicable to any kind of writing that contains characters, including nonfiction.
This course gives an overview of how to realize great characters, in any genre. Course components:
- Lectures
- Writing exercises
Online classes
- Week 1
- All of Humanity: The role of character. Likeable or not. Round and flat characters. Origins of characters.
- Week 2
- Getting to Know Them: Background. Physicality. Personality. Magic keys. Contrasts and consistency.
- Week 3
- The Character Thickens: Desire. Change. Names.
Note: Content may vary among individual classes.
Important:
- Schedule posted is the Start and End date of the class. You may access the class at any time, day or night, within the schedule provided. Please see Online Class Delivery for more details.
- Registrants will receive email instructions and information on how to access the online classroom.
About
- The Online classes bring students from all over the globe to Gotham—New York City’s most famous writing school.
- The Online classes happen asynchronously—not in “real time.” You can participate in class any time, day or night, but the classes advance week-by-week, and certain things should be accomplished within that week-long session.
- You can take an Online writing class from anywhere, as long as you have an internet connection. The majority of our Online students are located in the U.S. but we also draw students from practically every country in the world.
- Tech support will be available.
- Aside from the convenience of time and location, you have a record of everything that transpires in class, which you can print out and keep for future reference. (The material is text and image, not video.)
